I went to Pacific Quest Wilderness program in 2019. I was 16 and a survivor of sexual assault/rape. The program was located on the Big Island of Hawaii. I went to Pacific Quest to receive treatment for trauma and PTSD. I had a lot of internal and external anger due to my assault. I had a lot of shame, guilt, depression, anxiety, and self-harming tendencies. Pacific Quest failed to give me the care, support, and guidance I needed to treat those mental health diagnoses. In fact, the disgusting staff and program managed to worsen my symptoms and create more trauma and PTSD for me. I was re-traumatized and a vast amount of new traumas formed.
During my time at Pacific Quest, I was often thrown to the ground and hit. I was forced to watch other kids get held down. I was touched by various male staff members sexually. I was thrown into a dark shed with only a tarp to sit on and cover myself with. I was forced to sleep outside on a tarp. I was intentionally drugged up on medications that I was allergic to and that my diagnosis did require, making me too weak to fight the abuse. I was so over-medicated that I could barely speak and walk, yet I was still forced to do all of this laborious work in their “garden.”
In their “garden,” the rest of the students and I were forced to do manual labor all day that they should have been hiring outside workers for. We did all of this manual labor in off-brand unsupportive Crocs. I moved heavy barrels of rocks, made water faucets, cut down trees and fields of cane grass, dug up banana tree roots, built rock walls, etc. All while the staff stood around and made fun of us.
I was forced to not talk to anyone besides my therapist, who only came every 10 days, for most of my time there. I was kept in complete isolation. I was starved and given only two trays a day that had half a cup of rice, half a cup of beans, and one cup of vegetables, on a good day. I was forced to chug gallons of water as a form of punishment.
I was told over and over that my family did not love me. That they were better off without me. They made us do this “death to self” ritual, where they blindfolded us and took us to an empty field with an empty grave. They made us lay in it one at a time. We had to write our own eulogies and then they would read them to us while we were in the grave. Next, they would come and stand over us saying weird things, pretending to be our parents and relatives. This is a very traumatic memory of mine.
They edited the letters I sent to my parents, read and ripped out pages of my journal that were not “acceptable,” lied to my parents about my physical and mental health, took thousands of dollars from my parents, even though insurance paid for some of it, but Pacific Quest never paid back the extra. They kept the reimbursement money from the insurance company plus my parents 65k-70k.
The abuse and neglect became so terrible and unbearable that I drank an entire bottle of sunscreen in the hope that they would take me to the Emergency Room, where I could report the abuse.
They never took me, even though I was throwing up everywhere and coming in and out of consciousness. They had the “nurse” look at me the next morning. That was all.
For my entire stay at Pacific Quest, all I was doing was trying to survive. Sometimes when I look back on my time there, all I have to thank is God for giving me the strength to survive an experience that I did not think I would live through. I genuinely thought I would never see my parents again, because I would die from the abuse, or kill myself due to the pain I was experiencing.
This horrifying program left me with memories and scars of abuse that I will never be able to forget. I am now 18. I am happily sober and receiving various forms of intensive trauma treatments (EMDR, Nero feedback, Brain Spotting, etc.) for the abuse I suffered at that disgusting program.
When I came home from Pacific Quest my world erupted. I desperately wanted to die, because the painful memories were so intrusive and terrorizing. I ended up turning to drugs to ease the traumatic memories of abuse. I struggled for a long time and continue to struggle every day. I needed help and support to overcome my traumas from Pacific Quest, but I was so terrified that I would be put inside another abusive treatment center, I did not look or reach out for help. I lost hope for a long time. It has taken me a very long time to gain the courage to come back into the therapy world, but I have!
I later found out that Pacific Quest was operating illegally without any proper licensing to be open. The OHCA had received many reports of abuse and ended up making Pacific Quest cease all of their operations. Pacific Quest did a good job of selling their program. I even had a “specialized” educational consultant that found Pacific Quest and researched the program. Clearly not well enough. Pacific Quest somehow opened back up, and is still operating today. I passionately hope to change that!
Pacific Quest robbed my family of thousands of dollars and they robbed me of sanity and hope. I wish I could erase all of the horrid memories I have from Pacific Quest. I wish I could stop having flashbacks and uncontrollable anger outbursts, but it seems so impossible at this point. My body will never forget the abuse I suffered at Pacific Quest. I will never be the same again.