My name is Daphne, I am 19 years old and I was a victim of mental health abuse by the Troubled Teen Industry. From August 2017 to July 2018, I was sent to Maple Lake Academy in Spanish Fork, Utah. My time in treatment began when I was 16 and sent to Pacific Quest in Hawaii, which is now closed by the government. My main issue there were my therapists who lied and told me my parents did not want me home and I had to be somewhere else.
I was on-board with Maple Lake because I was told I would be doing equine therapy. That was a lie. There were red flags, like how every staff member was an undergraduate college student, with an average age of 23 years old. Every Wednesday, they had this thing called “Team” where my therapist would tell all my personal information to these college students.
I had a few issues here and there that grew into this monster of full-blown abuse. I noticed that one of the staff members made me move rooms to accommodate for someone else because I was “easy.” They talked down to me all the time because they knew I would not physically react and could take advantage. I was not allowed to tell my parents any of this because all my phone calls were supervised, and I would be punished for saying anything negative.
By October I could not take it and I ran away from Maple Lake. Sometimes I cannot help but wish I were never found and died, to avoid the abuse that followed. They found me, so I was put on this protocol called “Mattress,” which was a mix of isolation and public humiliation. I was afraid of being punished again, so I faked my whole personality and earned privileges because of it.
After I could not take faking my life anymore, everything became a mess. My memories from this time are warped in terms of timing but too clear in terms of details. I remember one of the therapists (not even mine) told me in group therapy that I would be raped and killed one day. Not once, on multiple occasions. My therapist gave me the assignment to write about a traumatic event which she read to my parents, without my consent. I walked into the room and found out she read to my parents about how I lost my virginity.
One time I slept in because I just got back from a 16-hour flight, so I was refused breakfast and punished for eating an orange. I once sat down in a van and because another girl wanted my seat, she punched me and kicked me, and the staff did nothing. The staff was not allowed to call 911 and only the “Sheriff” for some reason. During a recreational therapy task, they made me rub my breasts against someone’s mother for the sake of “trying everything.”
The worst thing I can remember happening there was being put on a hold. There is something called PCS training which is illegal. It started because I got into a fight with my therapist as usual because she was awful, and we did not get along. Girls would storm out all the time, so I tried to do that. A male staff member started grabbing me and out of fear, I tried to struggle out. Before I knew it, I was pinned to the floor and they would not let me out unless I calmed down. How do you calm down when multiple people are pinning you to the ground?
My last week there was bad but in retrospect, I am grateful it happened. During an argument with my therapist, I said something I knew would get me into trouble so that I would get my farewell canceled. It hurt my legs to be in bed all day and it sucked eating on the floor, but it beats the weird rituals they did whenever someone left – lots of invading personal space and cringy music.
Recovering from the trauma is not over but I have gotten better. It was hard for me to get into college considering the education was terrible people did not help me apply to schools. Luckily, I somehow got into an art school because I knew how to draw. I gained a lot of weight there and from stress eating after, but I lost thirty pounds and look like myself again.
I feel like I am still seventeen because it is like my age froze for the whole time I was in treatment. Sometimes it does not even feel real, it feels like it was a nightmare. The worst part is that children are living that nightmare right now and cannot reach out about it. These places need to be shut down and abusers need to be punished for what they do, it is horrendous.