By Kylie: 2022-2023 I was in Brattleboro Retreat and was put in an isolation unit in Tyler, there for swearing. It was labeled as abusive and violent language, and I was threatened that if I left, I would be physically restrained onto a metal chair with leather straps and I would be chemically sedated. The [...]

By Katie: 1999 One night in early 1999, I was feeling like I was having another sinus infection. I had already slept a bit that day and it was early at night for me, but I did remember having a headache and mentioning it to my mom. I remember my mother giving me a red [...]

By Joel: 2006-2008 I wasn’t sexually abused, or even physically abused. For the longest time I couldn’t accept that I was abused at all. They do a good job scrubbing those suggestible little minds and turning them on each other to both spread and reinforce their twisted ideology. “Don’t be a victim” was always so [...]

By Kim: 1998-2003 In the spring of 1998, at age 12, I was sent to be evaluated by a therapist with supposed expertise in substance use problems after my mom found something written in my diary about drug use and was understandably concerned. I was never told the reason for the evaluation or asked about [...]

By Alex: 2004-2006 I was kidnapped from my bed in the middle of the night with my moms consent. Two people came into my room and took me from my bed by my hands and feet while I was kicking and screaming and then locked me in the back of an SUV. I arrivied to [...]

By Kyra: 2014-2015 Four days after New Year 2014, winter of my freshman year of high school, my parents made decision to send me to a wilderness therapy program in Utah based on the recommendation of my psychiatrist and education consultants. I’d been struggling for years with trauma, behavioral and relationship difficulties – both internally [...]

By Melissa: 2017-2019 On September 26, 2017, I was admitted to Columbus Girls Academy, an all-girls Teen Challenge program located right on the Georgia border in Seale, Alabama. I stayed there until I completed on February 11, 2019. I was freshly 17 when I was admitted and nearly 19 when I left. The program was [...]

By Anonymous: 2015-2016 In the summer of 2015 my parents had hit a wall with me. They decided that I would be sent to a Therapeutic Boarding School in Montana. Turning Winds is located in Yaak, Montana and has a history of abuse allegations and issues with law enforcement specifically in 2006 after they beat [...]

By Bailey: 2018-2021 I was 13 when I emerged from the woods after a long and grueling 3 months at wilderness. I was 13 when they took me to Maple Lake Academy; I was a child. I still had hope at that point. When my parents wrote a letter to me during my stay at [...]

By Heather: 2010-2013 When I was 17 years old, I was dropped off at Teen challenge of San Antonio by my mother. I was an angry teen whose father abandoned her and had endured quite a bit of abuse growing up. None-the-less, an angry teen. We were forced to work in awful weather conditions for [...]