I had a very privileged childhood growing up in NYC. I witnessed the events of 9/11 from less than a mile away at age 6. I developed anorexia at age 11, I was put in rehab at age 13, and I was in and out of there until I was 17.
During those years I went through a sexual assault and had to repeat my Freshman year. When I was 16/17 I did all of the typical NYC teenager stuff: fake IDs, clubbing, drinking, smoking weed, late for curfew, etc. I was not a “bad” kid, I was a hurt kid, and my parents were scared.
In the summer of 2012, I was depressed and angry, feuding with my parents, not sleeping, eating, or taking my meds.
What people do not talk about are the “Education Consultants” who profit off of desperate parents willing to pay to find a place to send their kids.
In August I woke up from a nightmare (I have PTSD) to find two huge people in my bedroom, a man and a woman. They told me to get dressed and I refused. I was screaming and crying for my parents. They had zip-ties and the man told me he was a former cop and asked if I wanted to do this the hard way or the easy way. Then the male grabbed my arms and the woman grabbed my legs, and they dragged me downstairs, where my parents were crying and refusing to look at me.
They tied my wrists with zip-ties and put the child-lock on and explained rudely we could either take a plane or we can drive ten hours. They were so condescending calling me a spoiled brat and snickering.
When I got to Wilderness, it was the usual: strip, squat, give up your belongings. When I first arrived I was not allowed to speak to anyone other than my “big buddy,” and I had to finish a packet, including writing your life story, before l could join the group. There I was forced to read it to complete strangers. I also had to read the impact statement from my parents about why they sent me there.
We were put on “solos,” where they blindfolded and separated us from each other–we did not know how long it would last. Because I could not produce a fire, I had to eat raw sweet potato. Despite all that, I still think Wilderness was ultimately beneficial for me. What was not beneficial was not knowing how long I would be there, where I would be next, etc.
I begged my parents to let me come home but the Education Consultant manipulated my parents by telling them I was manipulating them, and that I was not ready to come home. So I was sent to Greenbrier Academy, marketed as a fancy boarding school with an equine program, great academics, and wonderful therapists. That was anything but the case.
A girl kissed me during truth or dare and ten girls told on me, so I was not allowed to go home for Christmas. I was only allowed a monitored 15-minute phone call, once a week, where I was allowed to speak to my parents. The only other time would be over Skype, with your parents and therapist. They did weird therapy rituals, including something called “brain spotting” where my therapist tried to intimidate me into hypnosis to relive my rape.
In one specific family session, my therapist said, “Don’t you think it was really your fault for drinking, therefore you got raped because you put yourself in that situation? Do you really think people believe your story?”
She manipulated me constantly.
Community meetings were used to shame girls under the facade of concern. A group of girls on higher levels were selected to be on the Council, where they spy on girls and decide when they can move up or be moved down in the levels.
“Academics” included maybe four teachers, and we were all lumped together, it was a joke.
One time I took a pepper from the fridge in the kitchen and I was written-up by staff, so my therapist called my parents with me, who had already bought me plane tickets home for Spring Break, and told them that I clearly could not follow rules and thus could not go home.
Every time I struggled, I would get privileges taken away. There was always the threat I would be taken back to the wilderness program, or worse if I did not behave. I was put on meds I had never heard of.
The staff who were with us at night and on weekends were wonderful and caring. I could tell they felt bad for us.
We started to hear rumors about the founder of the school, Lionel J. Mitchell, and his previous program, Aldredge Academy, which was shut down after a student killed himself. When he would visit he acted like a celebrity. He would put his arms on girls’ backs and shoulders, and even teased he wanted to take the “good girls” on a trip in his jet to his ranch in Washington.
In researching now during the Breaking Code Silence movement, I found out even scarier things. Including lack of licenses and even more abuse and death. Mitchell has been getting away with this for decades. He was the founder of several places like this in Utah and was even the creator of something called “The Death March” in Idaho, with his SUWS program in the ’80s, that resulted in multiple deaths.
We found out Greenbrier is not even listed in his name, due to the number of times he has been sued. It is under his son’s name.
Everything there was bizarre, amongst teachers and therapists and heads of school all being married or related, all part of a specific Mormon sect, and all from Utah. My therapist would overshare with me about her husband, her children, her childhood. She even came up to the “Village,” where we slept in a yurt and used a sweat lodge, and told the group that we do not know what bad is because her dad hit her as a child. It was beyond inappropriate, invalidating, and weird. She would give my parents advice and shame them for giving me an allowance and paying for my phone bill because her children paid for themselves.
This is a quote from an article I found that perfectly sums this up:
“L.J. Mitchell believes that society doesn’t care what happens to them because they are troubled and throwaways and that their parents are wealthy and are willing to pay thousands of dollars to send them to him for help. Over the years he has tried many versions of his programs, from calling them survival schools to what is now his latest approach to troubled teens called “Therapeutic Boarding School for Girls” in WV” -An article in WV news from 2011.
After all of these years, he is still profiting off of this abusive industry. He is still in charge of the school and featured on the website. Several other girls have similar stories to mine and luckily my parents finally got me out of there. So many other girls were not as lucky, some not as fortunate, some whose parents had to take out second mortgages on their homes to send them there. All with the promise they will make your child into a happy and healthy “normal” person.
I think because we did not have it as bad as other places, and especially because I did not want my parents to feel bad, I made myself believe it was not so bad. That program is designed to tell you that if you do not “get better” there it is your fault alone.
It was a struggle, and sometimes still is, to enter back into society and be independent after all of this, and I was so embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Restraining a minor with PTSD should be a crime.