098 Inside the Troubled Teen Industry: Kidnapped to Be ‘Fixed’

We trace Danielle’s story from a 4 a.m. transport to months of wilderness deprivation and a residential system built on points, punishments, and public shaming. She explains how marketing misleads parents, how oversight fails, and what real help should look like.

• early trauma, mental health struggles, and family strain
• the transport experience and intake violations
• isolation tactics, survival rules, and “solo” in wilderness
• engineered conflict and letters used for group shaming
• point systems, “subsystem,” and the hot seat
• staff cruelty, restraints, and lack of regulation
• rebrands, shutdowns, and ongoing operations
• long-term aftermath, trust issues, and recovery
• practical advice for parents and website red flags
• survivor advocacy, evidence gathering, and accountability

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe
You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description

Transcript

Panic, Betrayal, And Abduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is evil. How can I trust my mom again after that? I was so scared it was gonna happen again. I would have I would wake up from like night terrors of thinking I was getting taken again and it was happening every single night. I had some really bad sexual abuse situations when I was a teenager that she did know about. Struggled a lot with my mental health starting at a really young age. I remember they forcefully took out my nose piercing. Don't touch me. Like this is such a stressful and terrifying situation. I don't know you. I've heard of stories about kids, you know, dying in these places.

Welcome And Setting The Stage

SPEAKER_02 0:33

What I also don't understand is how these kind of companies are being like funded and supported by government. Why is this not being shut down? Danielle, welcome to Multispective. I'm really, really excited to have you on air with us today and share your very unique journey.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Early Trauma And Family Strain

SPEAKER_02 0:50

No, it's one of those things, it's one of those conversations that I think like maybe is more talked about in the US more than anywhere else. You don't really hear it so much anywhere else. So I find like I found it really fascinating when, you know, it started to get get around out there the conversation of, you know, the teenage, the troubled teen industry or the the you know, how however you'd like to call it. But can you can you maybe like just begin from the very beginning and kind of tell us a little bit about what what it what your journey is kind of all about?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, so before I was sent away, like long before I was sent away, I had a very, I guess, rough childhood. I struggled a lot with my mental health starting at a really young age. And I don't think my parents really knew how to deal with that. They kind of just pushed it aside, and you know, it was like, oh, she's just a moody child. Like it's probably nothing. And I had a lot of internal struggles. I had like early-on abuse that my parents didn't know about until I was older, and they tried pushing therapists on me constantly, and it just like none of it worked because I just I didn't open up. I didn't think it was normal to talk about. So I really struggled with that. And then when I hit like teenage years, it was it became difficult for me to deal with all these past emotions, and then on top of that, deal with adolescence and high school struggles and the drama, and it just it was it was too much for me. And I went into a very deep depression at a very young age. And my parents just, I wasn't very close with my dad, and my mom and I had a very strained relationship, so I didn't have that family support that I think would have really helped me from getting sent away and just helping me deal with it in a more productive way, I guess. So I and I know my mom, she feared for my life. She thought that I was really going to take my own life because I had tried to a couple different times, and she she didn't know how to help me with that. She, so she just thought that, well, I've heard these things about all these programs. And it wasn't, I feel like it wasn't as talked about back then. I mean, I was sent away in 2014, and I think I don't think it was really on social media, at least not that I remember. And the kids that had gotten sent away, they didn't talk about it. So my mom, she had no idea all of these like negative things that surrounded it. And she just thought, oh, this is gonna be like a magical fix-all for my kid, and she's gonna come back and be this like super happy teenager, and it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Right. So this is this is sort of like interesting because you know, I I have done an episode before about this, and you know, a lot of parents have been, you know, sent their kids off to these kind of institutions based on a really rebellious kind of nature of a child, you know. It's like, I can't handle my kid, you know. Like like that Dr. Phil episode, right? Where they actually just send off that girl. Um, and often it's kind of as a result of like, I cannot handle the rebellious nature of my teen, and so I need that kind of support. Whereas in your situation, it's a little bit different that they were seeking, they were concerned about you, they were seeking help for you and for your mental health. So the intention behind it was maybe a little bit different. Um I wonder like how how you took it at that point when you know you were being sent away. Did they really keep you in the loop and tell you about what this this thing's about, or was it sprung on you?

The 4 A.M. Transport

SPEAKER_00 4:14

No, it was it was definitely a surprise. I didn't know it was coming, like at all. And I know that my mom was looking for help, and I know she was getting really frustrated with me because even though I was dealing with all these mental health issues, I was having that normal like teenage attitude, just like the defiance and you know, not wanting to listen or take advice from them, which I feel like is pretty normal as a teenager, but I feel like in my parents' eyes, it was just it was too much for them. Like I shouldn't be acting this way. And I yeah, I mean, my mom had threatened, like, oh, I'm gonna send you to military school, or we're just gonna put you in a new like therapy group, but I'd never thought that she would go to the extreme of sending me away. So I mean, I knew something was off to the day before it happened. I didn't think that that's what it was gonna be, but she was my mom was she had flown in her friend from another state. She said it was just because she missed her, and then she got me my favorite food delivered to the house, and I was like, She never does this, like this is a little bit strange. And I just remember her saying, like, I had asked to go do something the next day after school, and she was like, Yeah, sure, you can do whatever you want tomorrow. And I was like, that's really strange because it was on a Wednesday. The day that it happened was on a Wednesday, so it was like this weird, she never lets me go out. And it happened at four o'clock in the morning. They just woke me up. It was two strangers who woke me up, and my mom was crying, and she was like, They're gonna take you and you're gonna get some help. And they kept telling her these strangers that she wasn't allowed to say anything else. So, like, don't tell her anything else. Like, they were just like, You need to get dressed and we need to go now. And I was so confused. I was like, Am I dreaming? I was like, This is not, this is not happening. And I was screaming at my mom and I was screaming at these strangers, like, what? I don't understand what's going on. Like, am I gonna be back later today? Can I call my friends? And I guess my mom had taken my phone in the middle of the night to prepare for this so that I couldn't. And she was my mom was hysterical. So in my mind, I'm like, this is bad. Like, I'm I'm actually getting kidnapped. Like, they talked my mom into this because they wouldn't give me any details. So how was I supposed to know? And I fought back pretty hard, and they were like, Well, we can either take you out the easy way or we're gonna cuff you and we're gonna drag you out. And I was angry. I mean, I was 16 when this happened, and I was just like cussing them out and I was yelling, and they was they were laughing at me. They're like, Oh, we've dealt with way worse than you. Like, this is nothing.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

And this was not a red flag to your mom at this point, like not only the manner by which right, not only the manner by which they take you, but the fact that they're laughing at you and basically restraining you. And she's crying, obviously, she doesn't want this to sort of happen in a way.

Intake Violations And Dehumanization

SPEAKER_00 6:59

So Right. And that's what made it more confusing to me, is like it's it seemed like it was hard for her. So then I'm like, why are you doing this to me if this is clearly difficult? And I just I felt so like helpless because I was crying as they were dragging me out of the house. And I was like, surely, like she's at this last minute, she's gonna be like, you know what, never mind. Like, never mind, this is not good. And then my mind, I was thinking that, like, but I'm not even gonna make it to the car, she's gonna change her mind and it's gonna be fine. And I just kept saying, like, mom, please, like, I'm I'm gonna get better. Like, I don't understand why you're doing this. Like, how could you let them take me? And she just stood in the doorway. They literally dragged me down the stairs and pulled me into the car. My mom didn't even like come to the car or anything. And they didn't say anything to me. They still wouldn't tell me anything. So I was terrified. And I remember trying to get out of the car on the freeway because I realized it was unlocked. And so I pulled door and they realized it and they started laughing again. And they were just like, they thought it was just comical the fact that I was trying to escape. But like, why wouldn't I? I didn't know who they were. They were scary, they were really big, like tall people. They looked like military people almost just in like all black. And then the whole way there was someone driving in the front, and then the other person was in the back with me, like linked arms with me. And it was like, I don't even know, like a three-hour drive, maybe a little bit more. And they didn't tell me what was going on until we got to the home beat, like the home base. And like when they told me, I was just like, What in the world? I've never heard of this. I've never I was still under the impression that I was like, okay, I'm gonna wake up, and it's it's this is not gonna be real.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

And also there'd be like no compassion whatsoever from them. They never told you anything. You're kind of being kidnapped, but with the permission of your mom in a sense, and you're going to a place where you have no idea where you're going or what you did to get to get yourself to that point. I mean, maybe you knew to an extent that you'd been like a bit rebellious and your parents were struggling with you, but not to that extent that it was gonna warrant something like this.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Right. Yeah, exactly. Like I knew that I had troubles, and I knew that I was struggling, and I knew that I needed some kind of help, but I was like, I couldn't have been so bad that it meant that my mom had to pay somebody to take me away in this kind of like fashion. Like it sh it couldn't have been anything else. Like, I felt like this was so extreme, and no matter what a child does, I feel like this is never the right way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Did your mom at this point know about the abuse that you faced as a young child?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Um, no, I think she knew about some of it. Uh, she I had a couple instances, like when I was really, really young, six or seven. She didn't know about that. I had some really bad sexual abuse situations when I was a teenager that she did know about. And the scary thing is that one of those experiences was someone breaking into my house and it doing that. And so, and it was someone that I knew who broke into my house and assaulted me. And in my mind, I was thinking, how could she have people kidnap me when she knows I've been through this, you know, where someone else has broken in and abused me. It just made it so much worse in my mind. And so she did know about some of it, she didn't know about all of it until actually I got out because I didn't talk about certain things and treatment because I didn't trust people. I was like, you guys can do this to teenagers, like, I'm not gonna trust you. It was, yeah, it's even in my mind still today. I'm like, I can't believe that that actually happened to me and that it's still happening. It just makes no sense how they think that this is something that can help.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess the only I don't I wouldn't even say justification, but our explanation for something like this is like back then they did not understand mental health. You know, they didn't understand that, you know, it's one of those things that takes time, effort, patience. It takes a lot of like there's it's a long process, especially when it comes to, you know, sexual abuse or any kind of form of abuse as a at a young age. So at that point, you know, they're fixated on the idea of fixing someone, which is, you know, in whatever means necessary. And let's just add on to the fact that this these organizations have a wonderful way of promoting themselves and making it seem like we're gonna we're gonna heal the person and we're gonna make sure that you know be fixed. And so, you know, again, the advertising is false and there's no reviews or you know, testimonies about you know the reality of the situation, and so it's just this whole culmination of like everything that could potentially go wrong, going wrong at once.

Isolation Tree And Survival Rules

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, these programs they they manipulate the parents 100% because the reviews that they have, they delete all of the negative reviews to and then they keep the very few good reviews that they have from these parents that are completely oblivious to what their child went through. And I think that that's what my mom saw is she saw those couple of good reviews, and I think she knew somebody whose son went into wilderness or something, and the parents said that it was amazing. Clearly, I mean, they didn't know what they were talking about. And my mom was like, Oh, this sounds great. Like, she can be in nature. And I've looked at these wilderness websites, like as soon as I got out, I was like, I need to, I want to know what my mom saw in this place that made it seem so amazing. And the whole website literally just makes it seem like this, I don't know, like a retreat, like a beautiful retreat where you know you are away from society and you're in a small group of people and they're trying to help you with like all these like range of problems. Like there was kids there that were all completely different, like for drug use, for suicide, for um literally there was a girl there that was just because she talked back to her parents, she got sent there. And it so it was just it was literally from like one end of the scale to the extreme. And they on online it says, you know, oh, we we've had all these ex successful situations and all these people we've helped. And my mom was like, this is perfect. Like I think she's resolution, yeah. I think she ignored the red flags because even when I looked at the website, there were so many red flags. The way that they worded certain things, like they used, yeah, definitely the word like I can fix your kid, or like, and that it just made it seem off, but I think in her mind, she was just ignoring that and trying to pick out like all the good things to make it seem like it would have really helped.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Can you walk me through so you get out of this truck, you know, in this place? What is this place called? What did you see when you when you arrived at the place? Yeah.

Frost, Fire, And Manufactured Scarcity

Divide And Control Among Girls

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So they took me to base camp, which actually was in a town before they took me out into the wilderness. And it was just a small building, it looked normal. And I remember they just kept saying, like, if you scream, we're going to put you right back into the van. We're gonna circle around, we're gonna come back. And they just like linked me arm in arm, and they were looking at me, waiting for me to scream. But I think I was in so much shock at that point, I didn't even want to try. And I just remember I was like, I'm I don't even know what to say right now. I was just, I couldn't get any words out of my mouth, so I was just being quiet. And I remember they walked me in the front doors, and there was someone sitting at a desk, and everyone was just like smiling at me when I was walking in, and I was like, this is making me so uncomfortable. Like, why are all these people smiling at me? I just got dragged out of my home. I'm like barely even awake. And they take me to the back of this where it like opens up into this huge warehouse, and I see all of this wilderness equipment like sectioned off. And I was like, What is happening? I like I still don't understand. They take me around this corner and there is this disgusting brown couch, and I can still remember it, like this huge brown couch, and then there was a couple more chairs, and there was all these adults sitting there. And then there was like a small little back corner that was kind of blocked off, and one of the staff told me I had to go back there and unchange, like completely, take off all my clothes in front of her while she was watching. And I was 16 and I was like, I'm not doing that. Like, why would I do that? I don't know you. And all these people were like on the other side of the wall. There was no door, it was just like right there. They could see from like here up on the other side of the wall. So it was like kind of like one of those walls that has like a cutout at the top. So they could see my head up and they could see me changing, and they were all staring at me. And then this one lady was on the other side of the wall with me, and she was like, I just need to make sure that you don't have like you're not hiding anything. Like, and I was like, I don't do drugs, like I'm not hiding anything. And she was like, Yeah, well, we never know. Like, your mom could have, you know, not mentioned that you could be lying. So they made me like do like squat and cough, but naked in front of a stranger while I'm going through all of these like emotions. And then she was like, All right, here's your clothes, which was just like, oh, I think it was, I don't even know what color it was, just like a plain t-shirt, pants, like rain pants, and these boots. And I was like, I don't, I don't, I'm not putting that on. And I kept fighting it. And they were like, Well, we can just we're just gonna sit down then and wait, because you have to get dressed. And they took all of my stuff, like all of my, I had like a necklace on, I had rings on, they took all of it, and they were like, You need to take all your piercings out, and I said, I'm not taking out my my piercings, and I remember they forcefully took out my nose piercing. I had like a stud at the time, and I refused to take it out, and they're like, Well, we're gonna take it out for you then. And so they pulled it out of my nose. And then at this point, they still hadn't explained to me what was going on. So this I feel like was making it so much worse. And then I just kind of like stood there in the corner once I got the clothes on, and they pulled me onto the couch, and I had two adults on either side of me, and then a couple more, like kind of in a half circle in front of me. And then there was someone standing up, and they were like, Okay, we're gonna explain to you why you're here. And they said, Your mom has enrolled you in a wilderness therapy program, and it seems like you've been a real menace to your mom. So they were basically telling me, like, I've been a really bad kid, and that's why I've been sent here. And they were saying that I was troubled and that my parents couldn't like deal with me anymore. Yeah, and that I was just too much to be at home. So they're like, This is this is where you're gonna be for a while. And I said, Well, how long does this program last? Like, how long am I gonna be here? And they said, Well, the minimum stay time is six weeks. That's the minimum. And they were like, But we think you're gonna be here for a lot longer. And I was just like, I just remember immediately sobbing and crying, and I was like hyperventilating, and these people kept trying to like, I don't know, like if they were trying to make me feel better, but they just kept like touching my shoulders and like rubbing my back and being like, it's okay. And I'm like, don't touch me. Like, this is such a stressful and terrifying situation. I don't know you. Like, please stop trying to comfort me. This is making it worse. And they just they just kept smiling, which made it so creepy, like they were so happy that I was in this situation. And then they took a picture of me in that moment when I was sobbing and I was angry. And I actually have the picture. My mom saved it. They sent it to my mom, which is really strange that they like were proud of this picture. Like, here's your daughter on day one. And it's just like every time I look at that picture, I can just feel it. Like you can see, my eyes are swollen and I'm angry. And I just like I'm in my mind, I'm like, why are they taking a picture of me right now? Like, this is I'm like, does my mom know that this is what this place is? And I don't even remember how long I was in this warehouse, if it felt like forever, but I don't think it was that long. And after that, they took me to a doctor's office, which was right around the corner, because apparently you have to get checked, I guess, before you go out into the wilderness. And so they were just like checking my vital signs and making sure I didn't have any health issues. And I had another piercing up here that I didn't tell them about, and he was like, Oh, well, that has to come out. I guess he checks like all the wilderness kids. And I kept trying to say no, and they held me down and tried to get it out. They couldn't figure out how to get it out because it was new, so it was like one of those like twist backs, and he couldn't figure out how to get it out, so I got to keep that in. But it when I got to the field, they forcefully took it out. But they after that, they gave me this backpack and a couple of snacks, and they said, Well, like, here's your backpack, you gotta carry it, we're gonna go into this truck now. And I was just frozen, and I was like, I don't, I don't wanna go. I I still was so confused and I was so confused at how happy all these like why these people were so happy right now, and I was so miserable. And they the drive from the warehouse to the middle of the desert was probably three and a half hours, I think, to the middle of nowhere. And I just was like, oh my god, if I run, I'm like, I was trying to think in my head, like, how am I gonna get out of here? How am I going to get away? Like, where I was trying to memorize the route that we went on when we were driving out, but I was like, there were so many turns and it was a dirt road, so it wasn't like regular traffic couldn't get on there. I was like, oh my god, I'm so screwed, like I'm never gonna get out.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, yeah. Damn, that's so scary. And at this point, you hadn't seen any other students yet. So you you're you're you're like the only kid basically there surrounded by adults.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yes, exactly. And that's what freaked me out even more. I was like, why don't I see anyone else going through this too? Yeah and I mean, and later on I realized that they only do the intakes usually one at a time, unless for some reason they have two kids getting kidnapped at the same time, but most of the time they don't. And I remember when we showed up at the campsite that I was in, they called it G4. They, which was the group I was in, they got me out of the car. The two transporters like walked me up to the camp, and then there was two staff there, and I think when I got there, there was four girls there, and they didn't say anything to me. The girls didn't say a single word to me, and I was like in shock, and I think they knew. I mean, every girl had been through what I had just been through, but in my mind, I was just like so angry, I wasn't thinking about that. And they just pulled me over to a tree which was far away from camp, and they said, You're gonna sit here. Um, no one's allowed to talk to you, you're not allowed to talk to anybody, don't look at anybody. You're gonna sit here until you really think about why you're here, and then you can join everybody else. And I was like, What in the world? I was so confused. It was wild. And I was, I mean, besides sleeping, I was at that tree for three days, and I wasn't even allowed to have my own spot to sleep. They thought I was a running risk. So at night I was in with the staff, I was in between the staff members, they wrapped me in a tarp. So they laid out a tarp, they put me down on the tarp and literally wrapped me up like a burrito so that I couldn't move with my arms in there all the way up to my neck. And then the staff laid on either side of the tarp in the tent at night so that I couldn't move. And I was like, Well, how am I supposed to go to the bathroom? And they said, Well, it's a tarp, just pee in the tarp. And I was like, What? What is this place? This is not normal. And I just remember I kept saying to them, I was like, I shouldn't be here.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Can imagine, like, for for a lot of kids as well that would be going into it to be thinking, like, what Well, the reality is that no one ever Deserves right this kind of treatment. So of course it makes sense that in that moment you're thinking, like, what did I even do to deserve this this level of like abuse, right? Right. And and the fact that you were there under the tree for three days, what were they hoping from you for them to be able to let you like? Were they looking for you to just sort of resign to it and be like, okay?

From Wilderness To Locked Home

Points, Punishments, And Subsystems

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Is that what they think I think so? Cause I realized um after I think it was like a little over 24 hours, that's when they assigned one of the other girls in the group to like come over and she was allowed to talk to me a little bit, like certain parts of the day and kind of explain what was happening more. And they were hoping that having another girl that was following the program talk to me would make me kind of like give in and be like, okay, like I need they thought it was gonna be some magical, like, oh, she now realizes she needs to be here. And I still fought back with this other girl. I'm like, why, like, why are you listening to them and why? I don't understand. And she just kept saying, like, you just have to listen to them. Like, you you just you would just have to listen. And she was like, believe me, I fought back for a really long time. She was like, Don't do it. It's gonna make things so much worse. They're gonna pick you out, like they will target you if you fight back and it's going to and you're gonna be here for twice as long. And I was like, How long have I just remember being like, How long have you been in wilderness? Like, how like how long have these other girls been here? And she was like, I've been here for four months. And I immediately was like, Oh my god, that's so long to be out here in the middle of nowhere. I mean, we weren't allowed to know what time it was, so there was no clocks, watches, nothing. I mean, the staff knew what time it was, but we didn't. There was, we weren't never allowed to look at ourselves, like they had no reflection, like reflective devices, nothing. And the food we had to cook ourselves on a fire. And if we couldn't start a fire, they were like, Well, that's too bad, then you're gonna freeze. So we had to learn how to make a fire on our own. The staff would not help us. And if we wanted to eat the food, we had to make our own spoon out of tree bark. Otherwise, we'd be eating with like a piece of chunk of wood from the ground. And this was just like a total reality switch, just going through all this, because it was obvious, I mean it's totally different than anything I've ever experienced in my whole life. And I remember within my first week, I saw a girl go home. And she had been there for a very long time. And it was really hard for me to watch people go home and me still having to be there. And I just I did fight back pretty hard in the wilderness program, and the staff they kind of like put up with it for a while. I mean, I just didn't care. I was like, I was more angry, I feel like than anything. I had so much anger towards my parents, I didn't want to talk to them. I mean, we couldn't talk to them anyways on the phone. We were allowed to write one letter a week, but if we didn't participate in the program, we weren't allowed to write letters, we weren't allowed to see letters from our parents, they would confiscate them. And honestly, the the worst thing in the beginning was everybody gets an impact letter, is what they're called from members of your family. I got one from my mom, my dad, my stepmom, and my older brother. And it basically tells you the ways you impacted them. Yes, like in a negative way. It literally is them saying like how I screwed up their lives. Yeah. And like just like everything wrong that I've ever done in a letter, and I had to read it out loud for the first time to the whole group with a staff member standing over my shoulder, making sure I was reading every single word. And if I skipped over something, they would make me reread it. And I remember they were so fed up with me that they had me do what they called a ghost day, which is where for a whole day they make everyone pretend like you don't exist. And so I had to sit, like not even very far from the group, it was like maybe 20 feet from like the fire where everyone else was. And I just had to watch them for an entire day. So they completely ignored me, they didn't even look at me, and I just had to sit there in silence and then like write down in like a little notebook about certain things I would have liked to say, and then they made it go on a little bit longer because they're like, Oh, we feel like you need a little bit more of this. So then the next day it was the same thing, and it was just and they didn't even say anything verbally to me. They left a note by where I slept so that the next day I knew it was gonna be another ghost day. It was, I mean, and also our sleeping conditions, oh my goodness, it wasn't even a tent, it was a tarp and some rope. And they said, figure it out. So I had to figure out how to tie a tarp to between two trees, which I mean I didn't know how to do a knot that wouldn't come apart. And I mean, eventually after I'd been there for like over a month, they were like, we're gonna teach you guys how to do knots. And I was like, well, this would have been nice a month ago when I first got here. And I I mean, they gave you a very thin mat to sleep on, like probably like that thin, and then your sleeping bag. And that's it. And I didn't know how to like form my tarp so that nothing could like get in. And after a couple weeks, it was snowing where I was. I mean, the snow was like up to our knees, and I didn't know how to tie the knot. So my tarp would come down in the middle of the night and I'd wake up and I'd be buried in snow, and I'd have to wake up, like it would be in the middle of the night where I'd have to retie my tarp when it was snowing like crazy, and they just they didn't care. They thought, like, oh, this is you know, the extreme wilderness is going to heal these kids. It's just like crazy that someone even came up with this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

How did I mean how did you got how did the kids even survive this? I mean, there's you know, you've got extreme weathers, you're not even at some point not even able to eat food if you're not able to like make a fire. I mean, like that these are things that are conditions for literal like not surviving.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Exactly. I know I'm shocked that nothing happened when I was there. I mean, I've heard of stories about kids, you know, dying in these places and the extreme conditions that I was in. I mean, some wilderness programs it's where it's extremely hot and people can get heat stroke. I mean, the hikes that we had to go on were all day hikes in these conditions, and I mean, girls were getting frostbite on their toes, and because when we had thick boots and thick socks, but when you're knee deep hiking in snow all day, I mean, the snow is going to get in your boots. And I mean, the no showers, which made it worse. I mean, I had per, but I could not wash out the dirt out of my skin for months after I had left. It was so bad and just gross. And I was just like, I don't, I don't understand like how this is a thing. And I they they believed that if we figured it out ourselves, it would make us stronger, is what they always said. Like, oh, you're you guys are gonna be wilderness experts after this and it's gonna be fine. And we just we all learned how to build a fire. So if one person, you know, couldn't get a fire started, then the next person would try and we'd kind of switch off because we were like, we're we're gonna freeze, like we need to eat. I mean, we had snacks. They would, someone would drop off food at the like edge of our campsite once every, I think it was once a week or once every two weeks, something like that. And they we had to figure it out ourselves. So it was a very small amount of food for the week, and we had to figure out how we were going to divvy it out between all of us. And if we ate all of it too fast, well, that's too bad. You wouldn't have any food for the rest of the week. And I was like, that's a lot to put on teenagers.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Like, really, I mean, some girls that were there were like 13 or 12.

unknown 30:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

So it was like I'm like, they they don't even like this is not this is not okay. So and yeah, I was.

The Hot Seat And Breaking Point

SPEAKER_02 30:16

I mean, this must have also like uh and uh correct me if I'm wrong, but did you did you feel like they were a part of this was to kind of pit you guys against each other, or do they have other things that activities that made you guys kind of fight with each other, like you know, be isolated and alone?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Oh yeah, we can't they I think that they loved to see us like tattletale on each other, like they would talk to us individually and be like, we noticed that this girl was doing this. I think that you should confront her in front of everybody so that she can own up to what she did. And I like, I mean, they talk to me a lot about doing that. I've had girls do it to me, and it would cause arguments, and the staff would sit back and watch. They wouldn't even intervene if it got bad. And I got in so many arguments at the start with these girls, eventually I became really close with them and were like, we're not gonna give them what they want. Like, this is not happening. But for a while, it was like arguments multiple times a day, and we'd have different jobs, like who was gonna cook and who was gonna clean and stuff. I mean, not really cleaning. We cleaned our cookware with dirt, like that's how we cleaned. Yeah, you scrubbed our like our pots were scrubbed with dirt and then dumped out into a hole we had to dig ourselves, like if we had any extra food. So not really cleaning, but that's I mean it was yeah, definitely a lot of fights, definitely a lot of like calling each other out on stuff that really didn't matter. I mean, it was little things like oh, this person took food when they weren't supposed to, or this person like, you know, forgot to ask that like to go to the bathroom or something. Just like little things that like really didn't matter in the big scheme of things, so it was just pointless, but they just wanted to see the fighting and us not being they didn't want us to be friends. Right. They didn't think that that was the point of being there.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

And did you get like some kind of reward for you know, tattletailing? Did you get some kind of brownie points for this? Like, is this uh their way of making people tell them?

Release, Denial, And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 32:53

So in Will when I was in wilderness, there wasn't really any rewards you would get. It was just kind of like a pat on the back and like, good job, and you'll probably, you know, get to go home sooner. I mean, empty promises. I mean, when I was I mean, I was only there for 71 days, but it felt like I was there for like a year. It's it's yeah, like yeah, I mean it is pretty long, but like I was just I felt like I'd I'd been there for so much longer, and it feels like you're never gonna get out. So it was that you would want to do it because they kept telling you, like, oh, like that's amazing that you did that. Like you you're growing, and we can see that you're changing because you're doing this. So we're gonna put in a good word with your therapist so that you can leave. And so that is what made us want to do that because we're like, oh my god, we get to go home. Like maybe we should be listening to them because then we can leave. And but the reality is that most of these girls don't go home afterwards, they get sent somewhere else, which is what happened to me. I went directly somewhere else. And I didn't know that until about a week before I left that I was well not going home. And I mean, also going back, like I the only reward, I guess, which wasn't a reward, it was terrifying, they called a solo. So they blindfold you and they take you, they'd walk you away from camp, like very far to where you can't hear anyone from camp, and then they take off the blindfold and they're like, We're gonna leave you here for a few days, and we want you to try and survive on your own. And what they did is they took a rope like around a big circle of trees, and they said, You can't leave this circle. We're gonna let you figure, like, do this on your own. If you want to leave, that's on you, but we're telling you you can't, so you have to survive for the next few days alone, like a few days alone. Here's your food, and you have to make your own fires, figure it out. So they dropped me off, they left, and I was out there for a few days alone. And I did not, I mean, they blindfolded me, so I didn't know my way back, and that was their way of like, this is an amazing opportunity, and like girls are so like should feel lucky that they get to do a solo. And I was like, This is scary. Like, yeah, like how is this a good thing? And they made it into this like whole ceremonial thing, and it was just honestly creepy, like the way that they made it into a ceremony afterwards, like they carved these like little wooden pieces, and they did this like weird, like chanty song type thing right beforehand. And I was like, This is so weird. Like, why I don't like why are you celebrating such a negative thing? And I I hated being on that solo, and there was another girl doing it at the same time as me in the opposite direction. And I remember trying to scream as loud as I could so that we could hear each other, and we could. If we screamed like at the top of our lungs, we would like yell and be like, Are you okay? Like, are you are you doing okay? But you could like it was like a very faint, like you could we you could tell that she was like really far away. But it kind of helped us like get through the solo, was knowing like, okay, like she's good, I'm like good. We were checking in every day, but it was just it was horrible.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

At what point and and was it during the wilderness or was it after the wilderness when you went to the next spot that you either felt defeated or you understood that this is the game, like this is the only way through the program is that I have to seem defeated.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Right. I think I honestly didn't realize it until a couple months into the next place. So I it took me a while to really realize like, okay, I need to play the game. I need to show them that I have given in. But it yeah, it took me a while because I thought I could still get out early and that my parents would pull me out. I was still in denial that I was gonna be here for a long time. And when I found out that I was going from wilderness to Utah, I was like, I was just I was more angry than anything, and I think my attitude changed because I was just really sad at first until I found out I wasn't going home, and I was like, I've been told for like months that I'm gonna be going home, and now you're telling me I have to go somewhere else. And I was just so angry and I took it out on everybody. And I got to this new place, and they were so welcoming, and there was so many girls there. There was like, I think there was 15 and then 16 including me, and it was in like a house in a normal neighborhood, so you would never know that it was a residential treatment center, and they did that on purpose, except for all the locks on the doors and the windows and everything, but they seemed really nice, and then my mom left, and because my mom was able to fly me, fly with me from there from wilderness to the next place, and then she dropped me off and she left. And then I re and then I started to realize like, oh no, it's not over.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah. During that journey from wilderness to Utah, were you able to tell her what had actually happened and the abuse that had gone down?

Physical Restraints And Staff Cruelty

Funding, Regulation, And Loopholes

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Or yeah, I did tell her a little bit of it. I think I was so worried that I was gonna get in trouble because I mean, even in wilderness, they would tell you, you know, if you tell your parents anything, we're just gonna tell you, tell them that you're being manipulative and that you need to stay in these programs for longer. And I remember telling her a little bit of just being like, you know, it was it was brutal out there and they didn't care about our well-being. And I had health issues while I was out there that were completely ignored. And my mom was like, Well, they were doing the best. Like, she was still like in this positive mindset of like, oh no, but it was really good for you, and like, don't you feel so much better now? It was like, oh yeah, this happened to you, but don't you feel good now? Like, it was never acknowledgement of what I had been through. And the next place was so much worse. And for me, it was. It was just as soon as my mom left, the whole vibe of the house changed. It was like, okay, let's we're gonna turn off this happiness now, and now it's in treatment mode. And I just remember the girls, they were all really happy when my mom was there, and then as soon as she left, I could see in their faces like, oh my god, I'm in, I'm in hell right now. Like, this is bad. And we had these point cards at the second place. So it's like this little white card, and you have target skills on there that the they call them family teachers, which is the staff, and they would teach to us, I guess is the way that they phrased it. So if we did something good or we, you know, like helped someone or you know, just said okay without arguing, they would give us points, like physical points, and be like, all right, you get 250 points because you didn't argue with us, and then we'd have to write it down on the point card, and then if we did something bad, like if I talked back or something, I'd get a minimum of 2,000 negative points. So like it was near impossible to get because you had to be a lot of it. Yeah, exactly. And you had to get a certain amount of points at the end of the day to be able to do anything. So if you wanted to talk to people, if you wanted to have a snack, if you wanted to have any sort of free time, you had to get a certain amount of points by the end of the day. If not, you couldn't talk to anybody, everyone had to ignore you. You would just have to sit in the schoolroom, which we had, we had like this little school area in the house where they actually paid people to come in and teach us. For school, I don't think it was like, I think it really put me behind, honestly, for school, because I went there my junior and senior year. And I mean, the teachers were very understanding, and they I think the only reason they were there is because they wanted to be the positive like light for us. I mean, the math teacher I had there, like, he was probably like every girl's favorite person there because he would always like come up to us and be like, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. Like, I'm not gonna give you any negative points. Like, if you want to talk to me about something, like I'm not gonna give you negative points because we were all terrified to talk to any adult there. Because if we said one wrong thing, we'd get in huge trouble and we'd get, I mean, crazy amount of negative points. I mean, the most negative points I ever got from one interaction was like 150,000 negative points. How are you supposed to make that back up? Like, I didn't, I didn't. Once you get, I mean, once you get past like the 50,000 point of negatives, they call it taking you up. So they'll start at 2,000. If you're still not listening, they take you up to 5,000 negatives. If you're still not listening, it goes to like 10, 25. And then once you get past 50, they're like, okay, we're gonna put you on subsystem, which is you're off the point card and you're off, you're on this whole nother system where you have to work off the points. So you get no snack or extra food until you work off the points. You have to write essays constantly to work off all these points, and you get no free time, you can't talk to any of your friends. You have to do all these extra tours. And I was on that system for oh my gosh, I think I was on subsystem twice, and it took me months to work that like to work it off. And I think after that I was like, okay, like this is this is not getting any better. But I still was like, I still was pushing back a little bit, and I I could tell that the staff was fed up with me, and I had another surprise coming. They they do these hot seats, and they only do it for kids that are extra defiant, and it's they spring it on you, so you don't know what's coming. They sat me down in the basement, which is where they had all their therapy groups, and every girl in the house was there, all the therapists, all the staff from all the other places, because we had three houses, so um different age groups, but people from other houses were there. And I remember the owner of the program was like, Okay, Danielle, we're gonna have a hot seat, you're gonna sit here, you're not gonna talk, can't defend yourself, don't say anything. We're all gonna go around the room and we're gonna tell you the things that we think you need to change about yourself and the things and the reasons why we don't like you. And I had to sit there and I had a notebook and they made me write it down. So each girl, and I had a really close friend at this point, and she was crying because she was like, I'm not, I'm not gonna say anything mean about her. And they were looking at her and they're like, You will be on subsystem next if you don't insult her right now. And she was just like sobbing, and they forced her to say something mean about me. And then they wrote it down and made me write her name next to it, so I knew it was her who said it. And this went on for hours, like hours of everyone going around the room multiple times, and I was crying. And every time I tried to say something, there was a staff next to me that would like squeeze my shoulder to like tell me, like, don't you dare say anything. And then they locked me in a room afterwards and said, You're gonna sit here and read it over until it sinks in, until you realize like how bad of a person you are. And after that, that's what like really broke me down because I was like, This, if I keep fighting back, this is they're gonna keep doing this to me. This is not gonna be, I'm gonna be miserable. Like, I don't want to make my time here any worse. I don't want to be here for very long. Literally, right after that, I switched it off. I was like, I'm going to fake it until I make it. I'm going to pretend that I'm happy to be here. I'm going to pretend that this is some great experience. I'm going to listen. I'm not going to argue. And I would tell other girls who came in. If I mean, we barely ever got a time to be alone with anybody. I mean, there was always a staff there, but if I did, I was like, don't fight back. I was like, just do what they say. Like, work, yeah, like work, work the program. Like, you don't have to agree with them, just do it so you can leave. Because I was like, trust me, just trust me. Like, it it happened to me. I fought back and it was not good.

Evidence, Advocacy, And Shutdowns

SPEAKER_02 44:02

That's so messed up. I mean, this is like bullying and abuse on all levels. And though the purpose is to make you defiant. Well, not what to the opposite of defiant to actually make you passive, but um done in such a way that it's they surely should have understood that this is not going to permanently help you guys, you know, be more obedient. It's just gonna make you work the system. You're gonna come right out of that program and go, if anything, be more traumatized and be more rebellious and you know, or you know, it come out in some negative kind of form. But at that point, I guess they just they just that's not their that's not their concern. You know, that their goal is just to make you passive. Um Right. Can you can you tell me more like about this point system? So you mentioned that you get certain privileges when you are in the positive and negatives, but what do they have like a tiers? Do they have like, you know, you can work your way up to being a senior where you get certain benefits? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah, yeah. So there's four systems they have. Every girl that comes in, they start on daily, which is like level one. So you get four basic target skills, and they're all the same for everybody. It's follow instructions, um, all just say okay, um, disagree appropriately. And accept feedback. So those are the four target skills that they teach to. So they look out for like if you're accepting, if someone's trying to give you feedback and you're, you know, being receptive and everything, then they will give you points for accepting feedback. So they only teach to those four target skills and they only give you negatives and positive just surrounding those. And so it's daily, and then the second level is weekly one. And on that level, you get four new target skills that the staff pick for you. They think like target skills that they think you need to work on. And they pick it from this like huge book. And I I have been looking for this book for years, trying to figure out like where they got it, because I want to see it. But they pick from this book, and on weekly one, you get a little more privileges. You can't be alone without staff still, but you still can, you know, not get any privileges if you don't make this like a certain amount of points by the end of the day. But you're allowed a little more freedom, you get more free time if you can, like if you have extra points at the end of the day, besides like that main number, you can buy stuff with it. It's like you basically you can buy like an extra 30 minutes at the end of the night to stay up, but you can't really like talk to anybody. You can like stay up and read in your room and not say anything. And you can also buy, like, they have like a bucket of notebooks and stuff like that that you can buy, or like um, I don't remember what else was in there, like pens and squishies or whatever, but you'd have to like have a lot of points to get those, and staff would take them away when you're not using them and keep it in a locked closet. So it wasn't really like they were just going right back to where it was. But so it was daily, weekly one, weekly two, which is the third level, and then achievement is the last level. You can't leave the program until you get to achievement. But achievement is near impossible to get to. It is like it is so difficult to get to that level. Cause I mean, they can bring you back down so quick, and you have to get, I don't know, you have to like buy all these extra things with your points to get to achievement. Because when you get on weekly two, you get even more privileges and you have to buy what they call bonds, which is an invisible, I don't even know, invisible thing, an invisible thing that you have to buy with extra points, and then you have to get a certain amount of bonds to get onto achievement. It's so strange. I'm like, how does this have anything to do with therapy? Like nothing.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Or something like that.

Advice For Parents And Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Yes. I'm like, well, I don't this doesn't even make sense. Like I just didn't get it. And it was I mean, most of the time you wouldn't have extra points at the end of the night. I mean, you most girls would barely scrape by to get that. And on weekly two, you got a little more freedom if you earned your privileges at the end of the night, then you could hang out with people. You could in the basement, they had a TV, and we were allowed to watch, I think it was like 20, 25 minutes of TV that they allowed, which was like, you know, kid TV. And you could, but you had to buy it. So you could it wasn't only free time, you had to buy it with extra points in order to like you had to buy per episode on there, and the staff would be sitting right there with you. So in when you get to weekly two, you they I don't remember what they called it, but you were allowed to go out to an outing with other weekly two girls, and they would drop you off at like a dairy queen or something. But I think it was a test to see if you were going to run because they would be parked around the corner and be sitting there in the car watching you, and then they dropped the weekly two girls off, which was normally like four of us, and we'd be sitting in this dairy queen, not allowed to order anything. You just had to like sit there, and they that was like our free time, but you could totally tell it was a test. Like, oh, you're on this level now, we're gonna give you freedom, but we're also gonna watch you and make sure that you don't misuse this freedom. And I I only ever went on one weekly two outing, and it just made me feel weird. Like I w it wasn't really freedom, like it just felt very controlled, and I didn't like that. And I didn't even make it to achievement. I got pulled out early, like five months early. I was supposed to stay five months longer, even though I was there for over a year. And my mom pulled me out because it was just getting too expensive for her. And she's I think she also started to realize how bad it was. I didn't talk about it a whole lot because we weren't allowed to. We, oh my gosh, the I was so brainwashed for a very long time that I wouldn't talk about it out of fear. And my mom kind of noticed certain things and certain things I would say when I come when I came home. She realized something was a little off, but then also it was like ridiculously expensive, and she just like she did not have the money for that. And I remember the owner trying to convince her, like, no, like she needs to stay, she's doing so well. And I almost got to achievement, but I didn't. But yeah, in order, if unless you're getting pulled out, you have if you don't make to like make it to achievement, you will be there for a very long time. Like there was a girl at a different house that was there for like over three years because she didn't make it to achievement. I mean, she spent her whole adolescence there. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Yeah. You you are allowed to, once you turn 18, though, get out. So if you don't get achievement, then 18 becomes the the mark, basically. Technically, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Technically, yes. You're they're supposed to let you leave, but they do everything they can and they make the process longer so that you can stay longer. I mean, they so they have three houses, and one of the houses is for girls that are close to turning 18. And I remember there's one girl that was there that I actually talked to about all of this like after we had both left, and she turned 18 while she was there. They would not let her just walk out of the door and leave. Because I mean, technically that's what they're supposed to do. It's just you're allowed to leave, they're not supposed to fight you on it because you're an adult. They would not let her leave. They said, Oh, well, we have we still have to get an okay from your parents, like, we have all this paperwork we have to do. And they were making excuses of like why she couldn't leave, and they just kept saying, like, you're gonna we're going to have you arrested and brought back. And she for the longest time was just like believed them, and eventually she was like, No, like I'm 18, I can leave. And she ended up running away and she got out, and she, but her parents wouldn't come and get her, so she was literally like living on the streets, and eventually she got picked up and she got taken home and everything, but it was just like it was they make it such a long process to get out that you still feel like you're like even if you turn 18, yeah, you're still gonna be stuck.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Was there did you witness or experience physical violence? I mean, I know you mentioned restraining and and that kind of stuff, but actual physical violence at the hands of the staff.

Closing Gratitude And Listener Support

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah, um, the staff were pretty aggressive if you didn't listen or if you tried to run. There was one girl in my house who did try and run, and she was tackled to the ground by a staff that was three times her size and held down on the ground. She could not breathe. And she she tried to run and get over the railing, actually, because like as soon as you get out the front door, there was just like really big railing. But if you jumped over that, you I mean, it was a very fall, by far, fall. And she tried to run and forgot that the railing was there and tried to jump over, and they grabbed her and yanked her to the ground and were like on top of her on the ground, so she like couldn't move, she couldn't breathe, and she was screaming, and we could all hear her screaming. And when something's happening like that, they yell fives, which means you have five seconds to get down to the basement, and you have to lay face down on the ground, and you're not allowed to look around or anything. And it was I don't know, it just seemed really uncalled for, like the amount the like how physical they can get with girls, and they just aren't very understanding of the situation. Most of the staff we've I mean, me and a lot of other girls felt like they enjoyed having that control over us, and it was definitely besides that instance, it was more verbally abusive, I feel like, than anything, which I know a lot of places are very physically abusive to the girls. And the place I went to, they just they just treated you like dirt. I mean, they and you could tell that they enjoyed it. I mean, they would put you down constantly, they would make fun of you like for like little things. I mean, there was one girl there that had extreme OCD, and they would make fun of her and like mess things up in front of her and be like, no, you have to leave that. And then they would sit there and smile and watch her struggle because she wanted to fix it so badly because it helped her with her anxiety. And I mean, they just they really enjoyed making fun of the girls. I mean, I remember one time in group, I heard a staff whispering to another staff, I love to see the girls cry. And she was smiling, and I was like, This is this is evil. Yeah, like these staff are evil. I mean, there was one or two staff, you wouldn't see it very often, who were very kind and who would never give us a negative consequence, but they were fired very fast. If they couldn't like give us negative points, and if they couldn't like put on this like straight, emotionless face, they would be fired.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

What I also don't understand is how these kind of companies are being like funded and supported by government. Why is this not being shut down like fast? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

I know, yeah, I don't understand how like people are still able to keep these programs open, especially with all these like teenagers coming out and people coming out later as an adult, like talking about all these experiences, and people are still being sent into these programs. And I feel like I don't know, I've I tried to do some research once I got out in like the last couple of years because I truly didn't understand like how this is possible and how kids are just getting kidnapped and no one cares. And there's no regulations around these programs. The government is basically saying they have bigger problems, and this is not one of them. And they have no one overseeing anything that they're doing, especially these transport systems that are taking the kids. It's separate from these treatment centers. So technically the treatment centers don't have to take any liability for what the transporters do.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

Walk me through that time, the moment that your mom says, All right, you know, we're cutting this program short, you know, come back home. What's going through your mind at this point?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

I I honestly didn't believe her at first because she had told me over a phone call that I had with her. We're allowed to have we were allowed to have a phone call once a week with our parents. That was 15 minutes, monitored by staff. Staff were like sitting there, and I remember her saying, I think I'm gonna pull you out early. And she said, I don't think you're ready to come home, but I think it that you need to because it's it's a lot of money. And she was like, she didn't want to say it over the phone because the staff was right there, but she told me later that she just like got a weird vibe. But I just remember thinking, like, yeah, like this is really nice, but I was like, I don't, I doubt that's gonna happen. I'm I they're probably gonna talk her into having me stay, and they're gonna give her some discount or something so that I can stay. So I didn't believe her, and I also thought it was a trick. I thought that it was staff or the owner that told her to tell me that I was gonna be getting out to see how I would react and to see if I would spill about everything that they were doing. So I didn't say anything, I was just like, okay, well, that's cool. But I I remember telling my therapist when I was there, I was like, I don't think I'm ready to go because I was like, I thought I was being tested. So I was telling my therapist and the staff that I I didn't want to go home because I thought that's what they wanted to hear. And they kept saying, like, oh no, but you are going home, like your mom's picking you up early, remember? And it seemed like they were just like waiting for me to be like, Oh my god, yay, I'm going home, so that then they could be like, actually, no, you're staying. So I was confused. I was like, I want to be excited, but I also don't want to get my hopes up and then have to stay here. And when the day did come, when I was going home, I it still didn't feel real. I was just I think I was in denial. I was like, no, like they're gonna send me somewhere else. Like something else is going to happen. And I just I had really bad trust issues in adults at this point.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

So I was like, they're tricking me. They're this is a this is a trick. Like they're just gonna like take me to the airport and then turn right back around, or you know, I'm going somewhere else. So I and then even when I got home, I was like, This is a this is still a test. Like, this is not happening. And I mean, no one can prepare you for also going back into your old environment that you left from. They don't prepare you for that, they don't prepare you for what it's going to be like when you go back into the exact same environment where you were, you know, in a bad place. So I was already overwhelmed with leaving the program and so scared I was going to get sent somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

And I can imagine as well to an extent you're still trying to keep up the that kind of personality that like trying to be perfect and stuff because you don't want to be ratted out or you to be found out again. And so you're putting up all these appearances, but while at the same time you're kind of breaking down on your own. Right. Your mom, it's it's interesting, like probably she can see that there's something really severely wrong here, but at the same time to have to accept that she made a huge mistake and she ruined her kid's life. I can imagine that being really hard for a mom to have to come to terms with as well. So I'm gonna say that denial and I'm gonna keep reminding you that it was a good thing. It's just like everyone around you is just like, I don't want to, I can't, I can't. If I open that door, then yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Yeah, I think that she I think that you're absolutely right. I don't think that she wanted to admit that it was wrong because then it would make her feel horrible and she didn't want to feel all that guilt, especially when I started like coming out talking about it, which it wasn't-I mean, I started opening up about it like I don't know, when I was maybe 22, and I'm 27 now, but I didn't start like openly talking about it on social media until this past summer. And even now, my mom is, you know, she's still there's still been no apology. She says she's open and talk about it, but you know, there's no like active trying to talk to me about it or trying to like I don't know, open up about how she feels about the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 59:15

Did it actually I mean, do you feel like it actually helped you in term in terms of like not wanting to end your life like alive or hurt yourself and stuff? Like, did that actually start?

SPEAKER_00 59:25

I I don't think it did help me. I think while I was in the program, I didn't try to hurt myself because I mean I couldn't because they didn't have anything for me to do that with. And so when I left, I was still in this like trained mode that I would not have tried anything because I felt like I was being watched. And after a while of when it really started to sink in of how bad it was, I was depressed all over again. And but what I get I kept getting told by my parents was, oh, you're relapsing because you're depressed again. And like, you know, maybe you need more help again because you're depressed. And this, like, that's the exact reason why I didn't want to just like let it all go. But it was, it did leave me feeling worse than when I went back in. And like when the whole, you know, mask came down of treatment and how they told me to be, it was just very deep sadness and fear, and I was so afraid of everything. And my relationships with my friends weren't good, my like intimate relationships were not great, the people I chose to date were not very good, they were very toxic people. And I mean, the reason I picked those people was, I mean, the treatment programs I went through taught me to tolerate people and taught me how to just, you know, obey and accept abuse from people. And it was, I mean, I was in abusive relationships even after I left treatment, just like I was before. And these programs are, you know, telling parents that they're getting kids to not or to get away from those type of relationships or to not choose people that are wrong for them. And it was the complete opposite. I mean, I, you know, went towards those people when I got out, and it was not good. And all my parents saw was, oh, you're just that same kid, like nothing's changed. And they didn't realize that it was these treatment programs that made me this way and made me worse. They thought that it was just me being defiant again. So it was I I don't think it helped. I think it it made me a lot worse, and it caused me to have a lot more trauma. And it just, it honestly just added to the trauma that I already had, and it was super overwhelming when it all just like came back for me afterwards, but and I had to keep it inside for so long because I felt like no one would listen to me or that nobody would believe me. So I just yeah, I kept it in for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Did you do you have a relationship with your mom now? Like today?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

I do actually, yeah. I'm not super close with my parents, but I do have a relationship with her. I've I've just come to realize as an adult that my mom is the way she is, and she's not going to change, and I just either have to accept that or walk away. And I've realized that I'm only gonna have one mom and I might as well make the best out of it. And she has seen my videos, I know that, because she's told me she has. She hasn't said anything about them, but she's told me she's watched them, and I'm just I'm waiting for her to start the conversation about it. I'm, you know, I've just exhausted myself trying to get her to talk about it. So I'm like, you know what, you know, I'm just gonna not expect anything from her and not disappoint myself and just accept her as she is. And I've just become more focused on holding the programs accountable instead of her, because I feel like I'm not gonna get anywhere just holding this grudge against my mom because it's not gonna change anything. And I feel like really holding these programs responsible is the only thing, the only way that something's going to change. Because I mean, even though my mom sent me away, I don't think that she truly knew what was going on in these places before she sent me, because like I said, like nobody talked about it in a negative way back then. And she couldn't have possibly known. I mean, kids didn't talk about it. Of course, the staff isn't gonna tell her about everything that's about to happen to me. So I just I don't think that she could have known. And my dad, I mean, he was no part of it. I mean, he didn't even know that I was sent away until after I had left. And so, I mean, I have a relationship with him, but he he's a lot more understanding of what I went through, and he's more willing to talk about it. Um, I think for a long time he thought that it did help, and he was like, This is really good for you. He was really angry for a while at my mom for sending me away without his permission. I mean, they're not, they weren't together or anything, but he still should have known. I mean, that's a pretty big decision. And to have not tell him until I was gone is pretty crazy. No, so I could understand why he'd be angry, but after I was in there, I mean, he thought it was a like a retreat resort type of thing. I mean, I remember he used to joke about there being a Starbucks in the lobby of my house, and I'm like, you have no idea what's happening here, do you? Like, this is not this is not a luxury place that I'm in.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Can you tell me, like, what are the ways that you're holding these institutions accountable? And the one that you went to, is that still open? The ones yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

So the wilderness program I went to isn't anymore. They shut down because there was two, there were so many abuse allegations for this program that I went to. It's called, it was called Second Nature. Because of the abuse allegations, they changed their name to evoke, and then they got shut down because I think there was a couple kids that died in their care and they couldn't hide it, so it ended up getting shut down. But second nature is still open in other states. But just the program that I went to in Oregon, it shut down. But unfortunately, all the other branches of it is still open. But the second place we went to is still open. They're thinking about opening up a whole new house, actually. And I just, it's just crazy to me. The person that owns this program should not be running anything. I mean, she's trying to get younger kids to come in now. I'm trying to do research and trying to figure out more about these programs to try and figure out ways I can get in to, you know, try and shut these places down. They're just very tricky.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

It's really hard to infiltrate these kind of organizations because they just have so much backing from so many, and then it's like a huge organization that's getting money and probably giving donations and stuff as well to government to have like that support versus cases of kids that are coming out, you know, rebellious kids already to begin with. They already lack credibility in that sense. And then them coming out with these with these stories, um, it's it just becomes like their word versus their words, right? Exactly. Yeah. Have you ever tried to sort of take it with the with the police or with these investig? I think there are some investigators that specialize in these.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

There are. I haven't gone to the police about it because I feel like I don't have enough evidence for them to do anything. I feel like it's just they're just gonna be like, well, you know, I know that the program director is gonna be like, oh, she's lying. You know, that never happened. What proof does she have? So I'm trying to gather as much proof of as I have as I can first before I do anything like that. And I've been trying to talk to my friend who also does TikToks, and I'm trying to figure out like how I can even possibly get into like the system to try and figure out how to get these places shut down because it's a long process to even get that started. And I've been going through like my letters and stuff, and thankfully my dad's helping me with that. He saved all the letters that I sent him, and he is going to gather them all and try and find them, and then he's gonna give them to me. And I kept a bunch of stuff from both places stuff I wrote down. I have a bunch of pictures of myself and like of the programs I went to, and I'm just trying to gather as much stuff as possible, as much evidence, and I want to talk to like a lot of other people so that I just I have a good base, like back yeah, before I go in, because I don't want them to be like, oh well, like it's one one person against all of us, like you're not gonna get very far.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

It's so sad that it has to take so much so much to like they're innocent until proven guilty in a sense, right? And that you have to take gather so much stuff to just make a case. Well right and this this can take years and years before they even start to even just bat an eyelid towards you guys and that Time there's you know, and also the fact that like there are so many deaths that have happened. Why is it that they only close that one particular school or wilderness program and still allow like they don't they don't use that as like, hey, maybe we should and this has happened on many, many occasions, like over the years, there's been a lot of these institutions that have been shut down because of abuse and of of killings, and still they only question that one particular institute, they don't look at the whole the industry on the whole, so it's right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense either. Like, why are you closing down this one place and realizing that there's abuse happening, but then not realizing that this is happening at like every single residential treatment center and wilderness program? I mean, if it's happening at these individual ones, it's obviously happening everywhere else. And it's it just seems like, okay, well, you know, we're gonna take care of this one place and maybe they'll be quiet. And that's not the case. Like, it's honestly, I feel like, more aggravating that they're only shutting down one and not listening to the stories of all these girls and boys who came from all these other places. I mean, it's all over the United States. And I honestly didn't realize that because I know you said like this, I mean, a lot of other countries don't know about it. And I didn't realize that until I started posting online and seeing people from other countries commenting, like, I didn't even know this was a thing, like this doesn't happen in my country. And I was like, what? I was like, this is just something in the United States? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:43

Final question I wanted to ask you, Danielle, was like for for now. I mean, I know that the landscape is very different, different right now. There is so much access to information, but what advice can you give to a parent who might be struggling with their with their kid and might be considering something like this?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

I think some advice I would give a parent is to like instead of just automatically going to the option of a treatment center or wilderness, is to just like talk to their kids first and like really try and understand what they're going through. Cause I feel like that was the problem and the disconnect between me and my mom is that she didn't just like sit down and talk to me about things and I felt like I wasn't really listened to. And I think that could have solved a lot of problems is just like listening to your child and realizing that they're not a problem that you can just fix by sending them off to some random place.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

And what kind of uh what kind of words, wordings can these parents look out for when when they're like look when they're browsing all these websites or when they're reading these pamphlets about, you know, these programs, what what are those kind of red, I know you mentioned this earlier that there was, you know, fixing as a word. Um what what are some other red flags that you know parents should really look out for to really decide or determine whether this place is genuinely, you know, good or not? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

Right. I think, yeah, the fixing thing is definitely a big red flag. Another red flag is when these programs are talking about how the kid is the problem. And I have noticed that a lot. This like the second place I went to on their website, it blatantly states that the kid is the problem and that we are going to fix this problem so that they aren't like based. I mean, a lot of these program websites will they'll put it in like a nice way, like a nice little like sugar coating trying to shield the parents. But like if you really read it, they will talk about like you know, if like we are going to fix your child, we're going to make your child obedient. If there's any sort of like obedience word in there, that is a major red flag. And both of the program websites I went to had those words in it was we're going to make your child obey. Like our goal is to get rid of the defiance. Like our we are going to make them, you know, compliant. We're going to change them. And just like anything that takes away from the child getting better is a red flag.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Danielle, thank you so much for sharing your story, your journey in such detail, and the vulnerability that you've had to kind of, you know, share. Share something so dark and so so painful of yours. Um, I really do appreciate it. And I think a lot of people listening as well will be very enlightened by by today's conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Thank you so much. I really it was really nice talking about it. Honestly, I I love opening up and telling my story because I feel like it could possibly help someone else feel like, you know, that their situation is valid and their feelings are valid. So I appreciate you having me on and talking to me about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:53

Lucas Theory, Stefan Menzel.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:56

The show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.