Savanna’s Testimony – Solstice West

The trauma was worse than anything I possibly could have imagined anything could do to a human being.

The worst part of looking back at what I went through is that two of my primary abusers are still employed there to this day. And what’s more, is that they delete any and all comments and reviews on Google, Facebook, and any other place where reviews can be left about them that expose their behavior. All other reviews are written by staff and parents who have, if they are like my friends’ parents, been cut off by their children.

This is why the call it Code SILENCE.

Kids would be restrained by four staff at a time. You’d hear people screaming from being pushed past their breaking point into total insanity. Then there’s basement protocol. Which unfortunately is exactly what it sounds like. You’re not allowed to talk to your parents at all for a certain time period- and when you are, under no circumstance is it to be unsupervised unless you are on an off-campus visit with them. Their reason is so that they know immediately if you are saying anything about the abuse to your parents. I almost had my level suspended because one staff observed me reporting one of my primary abusers to my mom.

Homophobia and trans-phobia were way out of hand. We were forced to clean up after the chefs. Workouts were not individualized and were unsafe to those of us who were not in shape/at a healthy weight. Safety phase was abused (people literally lost all the privileges and had their levels dropped for things so trivial as eating a skittle off the floor. I wish I was joking).

Years after I left, I was informed that a staff member, who scared me into hiding under a table over a scoop of french fries, was charged with arson at some point in her life.

I cannot express enough how much they do not care about the kids. Two days after I left, my mom woke me up because I started screaming in my sleep. What’s better is that I still have those nightmares. Despite now being in my twenties, I sometimes fear sleep as a result of the trauma I obtained as a child. It pains me to think about the very large number of children still suffering what I did to this day. That’s why, as hard as it is for me, I am sharing my entire story. At least the parts that weren’t blocked out in my mind by the trauma. I can’t remember everything as a result of the trauma blocking out those memories. This place operated entirely in legal grey area so that they could make us as miserable as was technically (key word technically) not ILLEGAL.

Another thing worth mentioning is the time I was put on safety phase. Our bedrooms are connected to the bathrooms- the bathrooms are literally inside our bedrooms. I had my pants on when I realized I forgot to bring a shirt into the bathroom with me. Luckily, or so I thought, I had worn my onesie into the bathroom with me (by the way I later had to get rid of the onesie because of the awful memories it kept. I securely and thoroughly wrapped my entire top half in it so I could walk to my dresser and retrieve a shirt. One of my other primary abusers was in the room, unbeknownst to me, and before I noticed she was there I heard her shouting, three times in a row, “SAFETY!!” Safety council is the only way to get off safety. This is where a good portion of attack therapy takes place (it takes place in other settings too) in combination with the other residents (not therapists, not even staff) determining the fate of the resident on safety. I prayed more on the night of my safety council than I ever had before in my life, despite having grown up in a Christian home.

But having said all this, I would still go through it all over again if it meant saving other young people from being in the position I was in. Screaming and crying and begging my mom to take me home on my home visit is one of my worst memories because I knew she had been manipulated and there was nothing I could do to prove what they were doing to me. The money that was used to pay for my treatment at Solstice RTC was the money my family received as life insurance after my Dad, who would likely have filed a lawsuit against them five times over now for what they did to his daughter, passed away following a long, difficult battle against cancer. I fear therapy. I got into drugs. I have serious trust issues. I have lasting damage in my relationship with my mom. I’m scared to sleep at night and have been for years. I don’t like to blame others for my problems, but I place every last bit of the blame for these things on Solstice West RTC.