Anonymous’ Coastal Harbor Residential Treatment Testimony

When I arrived at Coastal Harbor, it was my second time around however this time, I stayed for roughly 5/6 months on the residential side, on the girls unit for ‘aggressive girls’ as they (the staff) called it. I think the easiest way to give this testimony by giving events in chronological order, as I remember them happening.

The first incident, I remember there was a younger girl on our unit of mainly teenage girls. She was constantly bullied by staff and patients alike, and, unfortunately this would lead to a later incident. When the day was being settled, they were snickering about her when I arrived, and I did not receive my socks or clothes for a day or two after admit. The male staff lead at night was very rude, aggressive, and openly expressed favortism and borderline flirtatious behavior with some girls, and when called out, he figured the best course of action was to take away the journals and other coping skills such as our books, and our personal hygiene products until one morning staff member had given it back to us the following day. I remember one time, he told me that he was the ring leader and all the girls will listen to what he says and that there’s a system in the facility and it should just ‘work that way.’ I was also told by my therapist who I was assigned to, that I had bpd and she specialized in ‘reality therapy,’ defending my mother’s emotional and mental abuse I endured since a child and even currently in my adult life still, blaming it all on me being an ungrateful child and that as long as I had ‘somewhere to sleep, a few things to eat, and a bath of some kind’ or something along those lines, that there was no reason for me to ‘waste resources’ when I had a family that ‘cared,’ however, they intentionally fought for me to be there again after expressing my fear of returning because of my first experience in their residential program. I remember being called many names by the staff, everything from ‘r*tarded’ to many other slurs including ‘cr*cker’. I was attacked by another girl when I was minding my own business, and the same rude, derogatory night staff forced me to apologize for ‘calling her a slur’ I never, and I mean NEVER, called her. I remember the two special needs girls who would get laughed at by the night staff almost constantly, and I remember they would get beat up and the staff wouldn’t intervene. The young girl mentioned before, would get locked in her room by the staff, where a 16 year old girl (the younger girl was 14) would fight her behind the door which was being shut by two female 2nd shift (night staff) members; they kept the door closed despite the younger girl trying to force it open. Many other girls witnessed this, and just cheered on. I pray for that little girl everyday, as well as the 16 year old who fought her, because I know it was not their actions themselves but a combination of factors that allowed her to do that to her. The next day, after the 14 year old girl was allowed to wear braids and had braids in her hair prior to the fight, they only put the older girl in the quiet room area where they would administer ‘booty juice’ but made the girl cut her hair in front of all of us. I remember her crying and I can just see the light from her eyes leaving. The staff were also homophobic and transphobic; and allowed a trans ftm patient get ruthlessly bullied by other patients; the male night staff would also never refer to him by he/him pronouns, and would say hes just doing it for attention and ‘he doesnt know what he wants.’ I also remember my roommate threatening to hurt me because I cried that my books got taken away when the male night staff took all of our stuff away. I also remember sometimes they would refer to us by patient number because they claimed to ‘own us’ because we were there. So many nights I have spent waking up abruptly, with nightmares that just never end because of the trauma from this place; all the things I experienced and witnessed, especially for the girls and boy whose voices were drowned out. I hope that any parent, friend, family member who may read this knows some of the horrors we experienced in their program, though this gives sole insight on Residential Long Term treatment on unit 2W (or so it was called the time I was there). I urge anyone reading this to reconsider sending your child to Coastal Harbor Long Term. After reading about the Elan and Provo schools, I can say this facility raises alot of red flags as being almost the same/similar to such programs.