“How do I even begin? To be honest, I have blocked out most of my experience. It has been hard for me to write a testimonial. I threw out everything down to the clothes when I got home after my 23-month experience (January 2000-December 2001).
It is still difficult to try to put my memories together in a coherent way. Sometimes, I have to take a break and stop writing. It is difficult to organize my thoughts. It is hard to think about an experience that hurt you when you have blocked it out for 20 years. A family member asked me questions today about my experience and it helped. It brought back memories—uncomfortable as it was. Here is what I can muster to share at this time:
Unlike other survivors, I consider myself lucky that I was brought to this institution by my parents and not kidnapped by strangers in the night, like some of my peers. I was 14 years old, exactly one month away from my 15th birthday. I remember it vividly. I was listening to music on the drive using the Sony CD Walkman that I had just gotten that Christmas. Music was and still is, something that helped me escape. The Walkman was immediately taken away from me and given to my parents since it was against the rules. It was unsettling.
I was sent away for being an underachiever academically. I never went out, drank, drugged, or behaved erratically, I just shut down academically because I could not keep giving my parents what they wanted. I guess I rebelled in the only way I knew how. I went to classes and just stared out the window, instead of getting As like I used to. I was lost and I felt I did not belong. Being gay was not easily accepted in my sheltered, private Catholic school upbringing. I needed help understanding who I was. I was hurting. I felt less-than because of what I knew was something I could never change. But the help my parents looked to was not helpful.
My first 35 days at HLA was spent on “restrictions,” (bad kids club) because I was not opening up enough during the three hours, three times a week group attack-therapy sessions. To get out of sitting in the rain, menial manual labor, and round the clock “PT,” (physical training) I remember making up some fake issues with my parents to earn the “privilege” of again eating hot food.
During my time at HLA, I was also placed on “bans” with my first boyfriend, where we were forbidden to have any contact with each other. Even being too close to each other was a punishable offense. We were punished with manual labor and cold cheese sandwiches when we violated these bans, and I was transferred to the gay male dorm so they could try to fix the issue or just watch us more closely. Isolate the problem, I guess. All it did was create more problems. They really put us in that dorm—Dorm 1—to ridicule us, in a way, and make it a point that we were not normal. As I wrote this, I had to edit the quotation marks out of “bf.” It is weird that I still see that relationship as wrong.
At one point, I remember befriending one of the kitchen staff (where I would hide out most days) and giving her my home number to call my parents and tell them the truth about the abuse and what was going on. She did. My parents reported it and were manipulated to believe it was just a disgruntled employee. I was, of course, punished, but I never revealed the name of the staff member who helped me, which only prolonged the punishment.
Although it did not get me out early or “pulled,” I still stayed for the duration of my program, which ended up being 23 months, and it was worth it.
I am still so thankful that this kitchen staffer did that for me and later I found out did the same for a few others. She eventually quit because the abuse she was witnessing was too much for her to bear.
I had a calendar in my room where my roommates and I would cross out every day until graduation. Kind of like a prison sentence. I now also think that it is strange how I was using words like “gen pop” (general population) and “iso” (isolation) at 15 years old in “school.”
I remember hearing horror stories from programs like Ridge Creek, Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, Cascade in California, etc. I hoped and prayed I would not go there next. So, I tried to behave and stay out of trouble.
I remember going to youth group and church every week to avoid being on campus when I was in “gen pop.” They gave us pizza and we got to socialize with regular people outside of our institution. The strip-searches when we got back were worth it, I thought at the time.
I did what I was told, for the most part, and I wish I could say I was left unscathed; but the trauma I went through and the abuse I witnessed others go through was and is still hard to think about. Telling people about my experience now as an adult seems to surprise many when I thought I had it easy compared to others.
When I finally got home from HLA, I threw everything away. Everything. All I kept were some pictures from a disposable camera they “allowed” me to keep. I wanted to forget. But the Breaking Code Silence movement has brought all this stuff up. It has been emotional, to say the least.
I have cried thinking about my experience. I have been angry at others who are speaking out and writing about their experiences, forcing me to think about that time again. I have been mad at myself for not dealing with what I went through, sometimes. Old resentments I have held towards my parents were brought back to haunt me. I have had to confront a lot of things I had chosen to hide and ignore. But I am grateful. I am grateful to still be standing and alive to tell my story. Some of my fellow peers will never get the chance to. May they rest in peace.
In 2011, HLA (or Hitler’s Last Achievement, as we called it) was shut down due to multiple lawsuits regarding physical and sexual abuses to minors, they settled out of court and probably just moved and rebranded. As many of those “schools” do.
To fellow survivors: Be kind to yourselves. It was not your fault.”