“My name is Mary and I spent just short of two years of my life in the Troubled Teen Industry.
I was sexually abused as a young child. When I was 12, I started exhibiting outward displays of trauma— namely self-mutilation and other suicidal ideations. While I was in a local inpatient facility, a girl who was with me told me her story of being abused and I told her I was, too. She told me if I did not tell someone she would. She held up her end of the bargain. After a police investigation ensued, my parents sought a way to get rid of me. That is how I came to my first program (WWASP).
I was not taken during the night; I woke up in the morning to my mother urging me to lie in bed with her. We laughed and hugged, and the doorbell rang. A man and a woman entered. They were there for me. They had me change publicly and cuffed me and put into their car. They would then blindfold me for certain durations of the trip, so I could not see where I was headed—so I could not know my way out.
I arrived late. Intake cavity-searched me; as a young pubescent I felt violated by the cavity searches and having my scars and biological markers notated.
When I arrived at group, first thing in the morning, the leader asked me, “Why are you here?”
I said, “Well, I was sexually abused.”
He said, “Who thinks she is lying?”
Everyone raised their hand. I felt betrayed. Unearthed. My heart was stolen. Why was I here then? This was an example of how brainwashed we were expected to be.
I then learned my fate: Sedation, restraint, and isolation for hours or weeks on end. Who is to say how long I was in isolation? A day feels like a week. There were water and food restrictions. We could only listen to music on Sundays; a selection of 16 tracks. “Three Little Birds” was one of them. I did not know anyone’s name outside of my group. Besides sleep deprivation (forced fire alarms at 2 AM where we would sit on the cold concrete for hours), supervised showers, starvation, and isolation—among other specific atrocities—one notable thing stands out:
They forced water restrictions of 16oz of water a day, citing a “government-enforced drought restriction,” which caused me a severe urinary tract infection that infiltrated my kidneys; ultimately leading me to syncopal episodes and lack of urination for over 3 days. Upon examination from a “doctor” (who made inappropriate comments about my genitals), it was somehow determined that my hymen was the reason, which now leads me to believe that this person was not a doctor at all. They prescribed a Hymenectomy. My mother was invited to join, which is important in the context of my release.
They gave me no local anesthetic and merely 1/4 of a Valium as pain relief. I felt everything. I bled for the remainder of my time there and obviously still had the UTI. By the time my mother was able to hire a lawyer to break the contract, I had a staph infection in my entire abdomen. This is a surface story. I could go for pages on my strife there.
Inevitably, after “saving,” me, I was sent to another RTC associated with Aspen Education Group. While the physical and sexual abuse was not as upfront, the psychological aspect was severe. Isolation, restraint, and removal from human contact. Pitting the residents against each other, excessive medications, and gaslighting.
I have spent the time to heal from my early childhood abuse, assuming it would also heal my trauma from being institutionalized as a child. I thought I had healed, but I have not. Survivors speaking out have helped me to confront my many traumas from these facilities, in therapy.
Thank you #breakingcodesilence for giving so many of us the courage to acknowledge our truth and heal.”