“I grew up in North Potomac, MD. I am 12 to 14 years younger than all three of my half-siblings.
My parents had already gone through more rehabs than I can count on both hands, with my half-sister. They just did not want to deal with any more heartache and were told they were saving my life by sending me away.
They sought intervention for me when I turned 14. I was an angry teenager, hung out with people my family considered to be degenerates, skipped school a lot, drank here and there with friends, but never did any kind of drugs, at that age. I placed myself in questionable situations and was promiscuous.
My mom was sick a lot, and overbearing. She had a severe eating disorder and has her own story of childhood abuse. The dynamic turned into Munchausen by proxy, and I rebelled every chance I had. My dad was an alcoholic with a bad temper, but never physically hurt me. They believed anyone with a doctorate and had the money to send me to the moon if need be.
At 14 or 15, my parents had me escorted to a hospital for the old and insane until they could figure out what to do with me. They swore I was on drugs (hospital drug test told them differently) and had me stay there for two weeks until hiring two escorts with handcuffs who accompanied me to Cross Creek Manor in La Verkin, Utah.
Upon arrival, I was strip-searched and given a uniform. I do not even know where to start concerning this facility, because my memories are scattered. Instilling fear with mental, emotional, and physical abuse was their tactic in order to get us to conform. They literally created situations to sabotage me into many consequences, including solitary confinement. It was a structured-level system with consequences they called “Categories.”
Example: I forgot a hall pass to use the bathroom and it was considered a Category 3 consequence. I was humiliated by being singled out, screamed at, called a liar, and then sent to the “SH group”.
Someone with severe ADD, like myself, who has parents with a well-established bank account, was their most ideal client. My parents believed every word the school said and paid $100,000 in tuition per year.
Every letter was monitored and even if I tried telling my parents about the abuse I was enduring, they told them it was manipulation. I was forced to be silent for weeks at a time without any emotional support. I was not allowed a phone call with my parents until after I had been there for six months.
They had seminars we had to attend, and if someone was raped or molested at home, they were brainwashed into thinking it was all their fault or were just liars. The girls who “drank the Kool-Aid” and were in the Upper Levels were pushed to be bullies.
The sadness, fear, loneliness, and abandonment have remained a feeling I am constantly battling even now at 36 years old.
Ron Garret ran the facility. Robert Litchfield was known as an owner. Later on in life, through research, I learned Mitt Romney allegedly backed WWASP financially as well.
Ron G. and the staff threatened to send a lot of us to an outside compound in the mountains of Tecate, Mexico. The program was called High Impact. The girls who went were sometimes transferred back to CCM. We were all horribly terrified because those girls came back and were beaten up, dirtier than any poor homeless person you have ever seen, completely emaciated, with injuries, scarring under their chin, and just not the same person they were prior to attending High Impact.
Sometime in the Summer of 2000, my parents were sent a pamphlet and DVD of girls barebacking in the ocean of Mexico. They told my parents that for an extra $36K this place would turn my life around. Ron G. notified me during a facility meeting, in front of everyone, that I would be escorted to High Impact/Mexico in 24 hours. The feeling of terror I felt threw me into a mental and physical breakdown. I was restrained only because I could not stop crying and shaking, then put into isolation.
My escorts were actually cool and offered me coffee, candy, or whatever I wanted because they knew what I was in for. They suck as human beings for being escorts, but it was the first act of adult kindness I had experienced in a year and a half.
We pulled up to a dirt compound with barbwire fences covered in green tarp. Their consequence area was basically just dog cages. We slept on a strip of cement and were given a sleeping bag. We had to run or walk 1000 laps without consequences/categories. It was a small level system as well. Our chins had to be touching our chests or facing down, eyes down at all times. Look up and we were thrown in the cages with restraints. Speak English and it was considered running plans.
The ground was mostly desert, rocks, and a lot of red ants. During the daytime, the ground was hot enough to probably fry an egg. I could not complete an exercise and was forced, on my bare knees, to that ground with my wrists tied behind my back. The skin of my knees is still scarred. I kept screaming, crying, and begging them to stop. They finally threw me into the cages and three staff members restrained me until I passed out, because I was unable to breathe. “Poppa” Miguel (not sure if he was the owner, but he managed the compound) woke me up with a bucket of cold water. The woman sitting on my back was laughing and grinding my chin into the gravel while I was on my belly, tied. I remember being unable to speak or cry every time this happened because I did not have the ability to do so while in restraint.
They left a huge pot of beans, uncovered, outside for over 48 hours and gave it to us to eat. We all ended up inside the cages vomiting with diarrhea. I was made to sit in my feces in that cage for over 24 hours, multiple times.
My first time being restrained was because I vomited lunch. A woman named “Momma” Arminda scooped my vomit up with a spoon and made me eat it. I was forced to dig an eight-foot grave and sleep in it.
I think I witnessed a murder. A girl whose parents lived in Mexico sent her there for the third time. Miguel put her inside a sleeping bag, zipped it up, and wrapped it tightly with duct tape. This was after he restrained and choked her. He flung her in the sleeping bag far, and into a part of the barb-wired fence that was not covered with tarp. We never saw her again after that.
When I was finally transferred back to Cross Creek after two and a half months, I was covered in Impetigo and weighed 40 pounds less. There is so much more I could tell and dig up from my scarred memory…
Cross Creek Manor and High Impact took a huge part of me that I will never be able to get back. I do not remember most of my childhood prior to WWASP. I returned home after graduating from Cross Creek, less than a week before my 18th birthday.
I have lived the textbook life of CPTSD. The toxic relationships, drama creating more trauma, chaos, and then starting over at a different square one every time.
I am 10 months clean and sober and have a son who, just by being who he is, saved my life. I entered into recovery for my son, initially. Now my journey of recovery is for me, as a survivor and woman, with a voice that actually matters.
I was a part of this lawsuit led by the Turley Law Firm in Texas. It was the largest case they have ever taken on. Had they submitted it in Supreme Court as medical malpractice, they would not exist, and a lot of us would probably be financially set, instead of living paycheck to paycheck. Some of us without health insurance could get help instead of committing suicide.
As some know, High Impact was raided by Mexican officials, and the staff were incarcerated. Cross Creek Manor is now under a different name, in a new location. They turned themselves into a nonprofit organization in order to continue operating.
This was really hard to type. If this can bring awareness to the world and save at least one child’s life, I would write it a thousand times over. Thank you so much to Paris Hilton. You have started the healing process and are going to save lives with the #Breakingcodesilence movement.”