My name is Becca and in 2008, when I was 16 years old, I was sent to Carolina Springs Academy, located in Donalds, South Carolina. I lived there for a year.
Breaking silence was a CAT-2, which meant you lost 25 points. We lived in a point-based system. We could earn around 25 points a day but they set us up to call one another out for rule violations, which resulted in a loss of points. A loss of 25 points was a day added to your stay. Points were needed to vote up to different levels and with each level came different privileges. There were 6 levels in total. Upper Levels had to “vote up,” so even if they earned the points the majority still had to be in favor of them. Once you landed level 4 (1600 points) you were an official Upper Level, which meant you were essentially staff.
Upper Levels on shift had to call out their peers for violations all day long and even walked outside the line to look for violations. If we were not accountable they “staffed it,” which meant we lost double the points of the category violation plus you landed yourself in worksheets.
Worksheets was hours of the same essay topics over and over again. And if you did not comply with Worksheets that was a 206NFD, not following directions, another CAT2, loss of 25 points. Breaking three of the same violations was a CAT4, insubordination, which means if you earned any levels you now lost those privileges.
Coming in as a level 1 you get nothing but a pleated skirt uniform and some knee-high socks. No looking, no touching, NO BREAKING SILENCE. Privileges included being able to shave, waking up at 4:45 am for first dibs on a 7 minute cold shower, and a 15 to 20 minute (monitored) phone call with your parents, and only your parents. If you said the “wrong” thing (for example “there’s no hot water” or “I’m being abused”) the phone call was cut short, your parents were told you were manipulating to come home, and you got a correction.
Some violations included breathing too loudly, not looking straight ahead, looking out of a window, writing, unsatisfactory uniform, sitting with your heels off the ground, a wrinkle in your bedding, and our bed rails were checked daily for dust. We had only a laundry basket to keep our uniform and shoes in, which was also checked daily. We washed our clothes once a week. We slept in yellow sweat outfits. We needed permission to spit, fix our hair, use the bathroom, to talk, to use somebody’s name while talking, to stand, to sit, to do anything. If you were a Lower Level you needed permission to “call someone out,” and a chaperone when speaking with other Lower Levels.
There was no physical touch, no hugs, no holding hands, not even a poke. Our every move was controlled. Prison inmates have more rights than we did. We had the same schedule every day. We walked in straight lines and counted through doors. We sat on the floors. We used the bathroom/shower with the door open. There was no privacy or hot water, so our 7-minute showers were exposed and freezing. We were force-fed every day until early 2009 when we were then starved. We ate in silence. Not finishing the food on your plate, which was expired food, was a meal violation. Walking in a straight line to and from the cafeteria was the only time we spent outside. Once some girls and I were walking back to the dorms late at night and we got to see something we had not seen in months/year—stars in the sky. We broke major violations when we decided to lay in the gravel holding hands to look at them.
We lived, grieved, loved, and broke rules in silence.
Looking at a boy was a major violation! When the boys were near we were to turn around with our backs facing them to let them pass—which felt degrading. They were allowed to look at me though when I was told to dress up and dance solo to the song “Lady In Red,” in a room full of boys and male staff, who were strangers to me. I had to start the song over three times because I was told the first two times “weren’t good enough.”
During my 3rd and final attempt, I closed my eyes, fell to my knees, and did some crazy stuff with my hands in my hair. I was desperate, scared, and mortified. When I opened my eyes I had a standing ovation, and thank goodness because my getting out of the program depended on it. “Lady in Red” was my last “process” in the Focus seminar and I needed to complete it to keep my level and points, so I could vote up and go home.
Seminars were days of consecutive brainwash techniques and emotional abuse that were mandatory every six weeks or so. If we did not complete the process well enough it was called “choosing out” of the seminar, which meant six more weeks were added on to your stay. Another six weeks until you got the opportunity to complete the seminar.
We were sleep and food deprived during these seminars, which took place in a garage. They made me beat the concrete floor with a towel that was duct-taped together and when that fell apart I was told to continue with my fist. I did, until it swelled up to three times its size, and I had to sit out for the rest of that process, and received no medical attention.
Sexual abuse victims were slut-shamed. We were told, “based on your results you got exactly what you intended.”
They told us we deserved it. After they had us scream why we deserve to live more than everyone else, we were forced to look our closest friends in the eye and tell them that they deserve to die. They put us in “fight for your life” and “every man for themselves” scenarios. After killing off all of my friends, I wound up having the most “live” votes in the room. Three people in the whole room got to live; I was one of them and I had to kill off my peers to get there. Then, they were forced to tell me one by one what their “last words” to their families were. Then, we had to lay in pretend coffins and imagine we were at our funerals. It was horrific. The things that happened in that garage still haunt me.
The biggest scam is the “school” part itself. There is NO school or teachers. It was a trailer filled with outdated textbooks, where we self-taught ourselves in silence. We had to memorize the textbooks and pass three tests a week or it was academic probation and you were stripped of your privileges. On top of it all, Carolina Springs Academy was not even accredited and I had to get my G.E.D. after returning home.
At any time, for any reason, staff could physically restrain you and throw you in something we called OP, “observational placement.” OP was solitary confinement, where you were alone in a small square shed-like thing, where staff could watch you, or beat you, or do whatever they wanted until whenever they wanted. You could hear the screams coming from OP when walking in our straight line to the cafeteria.
The staff gave me CAT5s for my trichotillomania, which was an automatic loss of level, straight back to level 1, in worksheets. I was shamed and outcasted for my disorder and was denied any real professional treatment. The staff made us strip off our clothes and stand outside in the cold as punishment. Staff turned off the heat in the dead of winter because “we didn’t deserve heat.”
I was sexually harassed by a male staff member constantly, and when I came home he sexually harassed me in my inbox. Me and two other girls had to scrub semen off the walls and toilets and that was considered a “privilege.” As embarrassing as it is, at the time it felt like a privilege to scrub semen off walls to get away from our everyday torture routine.
Narvin himself brought me and other Upper Levels out to dinner at a hibachi as some publicity stunt, and then back to his house where we were scared to death. He also stopped paying Sysco, our expired food supplier, and we were then starved along with the horses and cows, who died. There were dead horses and cows all over the property. Staff forced us to lie to desperate parents about how much the program is helping us and how they should send their kids here. If we did not, it was a CAT3 BRV, which costs you 50 points.
No one knew when they were going home. We were not allowed to say or wave goodbye. You wake up one morning and your best friend’s bed is empty. They would pull you out in the middle of the night. We were not allowed to share personal information like phone numbers. We were to have no contact with each other in the real world. My mom eventually found out Carolina Springs was under investigation with DSS and she came and got me while my “family rep” tried to talk her out of it.
I was pulled out of the program as a level 5 voting up to 6. Coming home I experienced a ginormous culture shock. We did not have TVs, newspapers, current events, music, or the outdoors in the program. We were completely disconnected from the world. I missed the Phillies win the World Series, I had no idea who our President Obama was, what Facebook was, who I was. I cried when I heard music again. The feeling of finally being able to walk out the door and up the street freely is one I cannot put into words. I used to walk aimlessly for miles when I got home. Things like speaking without needing permission, taking a warm shower, sitting in a chair, closing a door, looking outside of a window, it all felt so different and weird and I had no one to talk to about it. I was silenced.
Today I am sharing my experience with the hope it will stop another child from being sent away to another unregulated, unaccredited, abusive facility.
Carolina Springs Academy has changed its name more times than I can keep up with. Owner Narvin has also changed his name to Marvin. He would advertise his daughters as students by posting their photos on his “Specialty Boarding School for Troubled Teens” webpages. Programs just like Carolina Springs Academy are still open all over the world and operating off of lies and deceit to this day. This needs to stop and these programs need to be shut down! Our trauma is valid.