Anonymous’ Testimony – Happy Hill Farm

My parents were told that HHF could help me with my Bipolar and behavioral issues. There was a lawsuit a few years back regarding the school nurse. The school psychiatrist had left her a signed blank prescription pad, and the nurse would illegally prescribe medication to students. I was put on tranquilizers that knocked me out. Because I passed out all the time, I was given isolation, food deprivation and excessive exercise as a punishment. While on the medication that made me into a zombie, I was not allowed to eat nutritious food and I was forced to run, do up-downs and climb up and down stairs for about three hours a day until I barged up stomach acid.

There was a time cameras were coming in to film a documentary about how wonderful HHF was. The staff decided they didn’t like my big red hair, so I was taken along with a mixed race girl to a random salon and forced to get a hair cut. Because of my sleeping problems, I was given “time.” This was where I was forced to sit alone at my desk all day and either read, write or draw. I wasn’t allowed to do anything else, except homework. I could hear all my friends having fun, listening to music, watching G rated movies and playing games in just the other room while I was sitting alone. I spent the majority of my time at “the farm” alone at that desk.

Our letters were read by all staff members before they were sent out and we were only allowed to call home once a week for ten minutes. Every time I tried to tell my parents what was going on, the farm would lie and say it wasn’t true and it was just my Bipolar speaking. I was so medicated, I felt like a zombie. I’m still called a liar at times by people who weren’t at the farm at the same time as me and had a good experience, but I don’t care. I know what happened, and I’m not a liar. There are even pictures of me zonked out on the medication that was illegally given to me.

I kept threatening suicide in order to get their attention and get kicked out. Instead of kicking me out, my showers were monitored. Four years earlier, a girl had hanged herself in a closet, so I knew threatening to kill myself would get freak the staff out. They refused to let me go home and see my own psychiatrist and forced me to see their own doctor. A child overdosed on Adderall once that was given to him by another student. The staff told him if they told them who gave it to him, they’d let him play in the basketball game later that day. The child was hurt in the basketball game and was taken to the ER. His heart rate was too high and he confessed to what happened with the medication, and his grandparents took action against the school. A few years later, after I left, there was another lawsuit because the owners refused to pay the residential staff overtime. Countless children ran away because it was so awful, and I was one of them. I preferred a psychiatric hospital to Happy Hill Farm. I finally got better.

Some of my memories are a bit hazy, but some are clear as day.

This is all I can recall now, but if I remember more incidents, I will write again.