How getting sent to a "Troubled Teen" program affected me

[washingtonbound]

I've posted about this before but wanted to see if anyone can relate to this or has experienced it themselves. When I was 16, I was sent to a wilderness program for troubled teens and then a boarding school after that. The process lasted a year and I returned just in time to graduate high school at home. I'm realizing as I get older, how much my worldview has been shaped through this experience. My parents were always pretty old school and strict but I never thought that they would take things that far. It started when I was kicked out of boarding school for smoking weed on campus, and shortly afterwards started ordering Xanax online. I was forced to see different therapists who didn't help and made me a lot more resentful, as it would as an adolescent I suppose. Anyway, right before new years a couple big guys showed up in my room early in the morning and said you're coming with us, no question about it. It really just seemed like a bad dream and I was convinced it was at first. Then I ended up in the Utah mountains and was taught for the first time how to backpack and live with a tarp and sleeping bag. Now I think it would have been a fun experience but at the time I was disgusted by it beyond belief.

I spent three months in wilderness and was then sent to a "therapeutic boarding school," that I would've been stuck in until graduation if I didn't convince my parents to let me graduate at home at the very least. Where I went wasn't as bad as some where there are genuinely scary abuse stories, it was more like a teenage daycare. Still traumatic but it was more boring than anything. When I returned home I wasn't the same, much more introverted and less trusting of people in general. I did some research and found out that Mitt Romney, who was a presidential candidate at the time, had invested in a bunch of these programs under Bain Capital. Learning this fucked up information led me to look into things a lot more deeply, and I learned about other horrifying things like the role of government in child trafficking. I read a few books like "The Pedophocracy" and "The Franklin Cover Up," that genuinely made me sick.

Anyway, what I'm getting it is that I became a lot more aware of the very dark side of humanity after the boarding school experience and to this day I don't really trust anybody. I am constantly seeing the negative and have a hard time assimilating anywhere. I don't know if this will ever go away but the feeling seems to be getting stronger with age. There is this sort of darkness that follows me around no matter where I go.

 

[Jeanpauldash]

Did they put golf balls in yr mouth

 

[Quasimoto]

I spent my 17th birthday in a psych ward/detox. I was abducted at 4am and sent to a wilderness program, and then a troubled teen boarding school after that. The ones in Utah run by Mormons. Aspen Achievement Group. I forgot the name of the wilderness program, but the boarding school was called Sunhawk Academy in St. George, Utah. That place was shut down a few years after I left from too many child abuse lawsuits.

I actually really liked the wilderness program, almost didn't want to leave after 3 months. But I fucking hated the boarding school. It felt more like juvenile hall without the bars. In a way, it institutionalized me at a young age, and I feel like it did more damage in the end than it was supposed to help me with. Overall the experience was traumatic. It did not straighten me out, it made me worse.

I can relate more stories about it if you're interested, but not tonight. I'm tired.

In the end it just fucked my life up even worse, stunted my development, and led to me not graduating highschool.

 

[washingtonbound]

I spent my 17th birthday in a psych ward/detox. I was abducted at 4am and sent to a wilderness program, and then a troubled teen boarding school after that. The ones in Utah run by Mormons. Aspen Achievement Group. I forgot the name of the wilderness program, but the boarding school was called Sunhawk Academy in St. George, Utah. That place was shut down a few years after I left from too many child abuse lawsuits.

I actually really liked the wilderness program, almost didn't want to leave after 3 months. But I fucking hated the boarding school. It felt more like juvenile hall without the bars. In a way, it institutionalized me at a young age, and I feel like it did more damage in the end than it was supposed to help me with. Overall the experience was traumatic. It did not straighten me out, it made me worse.

I can relate more stories about it if you're interested, but not tonight. I'm tired.

In the end it just fucked my life up even worse, stunted my development, and led to me not graduating highschool.

I knew of some people that went to Aspen Achievement group. The worst boarding school I knew of personally was called Montana Academy, where the length of stay on average was two years! One guy in my wilderness program (I was at Aspiro), got sent there, who was originally sent away when pounds of weed were found on him at school. I guess since he was 15 his parents wanted to "set him straight" early. Another notoriously bad place was called Tilos, where a kid who self harmed a lot and was suicidal was sent to. It's messed up how people sent to those programs have no rights at all because they're minors. One place called Coral Reef Academy in Samoa, you can't leave until 21 because its the age of adulthood there.

 

[SpeedballSteve]

I've browsed Bluelight since before I was sent to Wilderness 15+ years ago. This made me finally create an account. I don't want to dox myself too badly but I got sent to Wilderness in Utah for... smoking weed! I got caught with a pipe and residue and when I was caught smoking by my parents (I was beating the lab tests the entire time) they flipped out. Kidnapped at 4 am (Seems to be the time they strike lmao). I'm not gonna lie, I was fucking pissed for 3 weeks, but the sheer beauty of being out in nature and all the exercise I got made me start to really enjoy it. I left after 10 weeks, and I was ready to go by then. Went to a boarding school in Utah often considered the pinnacle of those programs. It cost more than my parents made to be there. I'm grateful because I could've been sent to an abusive fucked up place. People often tell me wow your parents just got rid of you because you were difficult that's fucked up. I never felt like that was the case, but I've had abandonment issues my whole life and this is the only event I can tie it to. Apparently it doesn't matter if it feels traumatic, it's still trauma.

I was 17 when I graduated the program. I was told if I came home I would just fuck up the same way. So I stayed in Utah. I don't think my parents had any idea the drug problem there is in that state. I went on to sell drugs and that introduced me to a harder and harder drug scene. I sold club drugs, but used everything that came my way. First coke, then crack, then meth, then heroin, then IV heroin/coke, and recently IV heroin/coke/meth. I quit heroin just a few weeks ago after more than a decade of controlling my life and a handful of years in prison.

I'd like to say I regret nothing, but I'm about to IV coke/meth and I found a heroin cotton to rinse. I'm clearly still fucked up in many ways and don't have a fulfilling life. I recently started seeing a therapist that doesn't fucking suck and am going to begin EMDR soon. I don't know if those youth programs work for some people. I don't know if it was because I have issues with authority, or if it's because the therapists in most of the programs I've been in (And there were many, many more after the youth programs) were absolute garbage. Recovery is a booming industry in Utah, and it's got some dark shit that goes on in it's underbelly. Odyssey house gave me more trauma than it healed, however nothing is a pretty low bar so.

But I quit heroin of my own accord, and despite still struggling, I'm making progress. Finally, now that the government isn't involved in my recovery at all.