A picture's worth a thousand words...

I know it has been a while since I posted. Things have been a bit busy with me and it has hard to find the inspiration to write (I know, excuses excuses....)

Lucky for all you faithful readers, someone gave me some very real inspiration this week....

I have done my best to pull from my memory the images of my stay there. It is hard for anyone to understand just what I saw though without actually seeing it though.

Another student made a trip into the middle of nowhere Thompson Falls, Montana and snooped to get these pictures.

When I first saw these pictures, I was absolutely stunned. Actually speechless. I'm not entirely sure why but my heart dropped. I think because I have spent the last eight years simply remembering what it looked like, when I saw actual pictures, recent pictures, it was a completely foreign experience. My heart started racing as I flipped through the photos. My hands were shaking and I actually started crying. I didn't really understand why I was crying, but I was.

It is hard for me to explain what I felt like. I definitely had a bit of an anxiety attack. Memories began flooding my head. Good, bad, everything. I felt paralyzed.

The phrase "a picture's worth a thousand words" has never rang so true to me before. I was thinking everything and nothing all at once. I just wanted to talk to someone but I had no idea what to talk about. I texted the first person I could think of who would be able to relate which was my best friend that came from the program. He helped me to work through the initial shock of it all and managed to make me feel a little better.

This may sound cliche or whatever but these photos honestly are the closest thing to a picture of how I see the part of me that is tormented by "the program." The place has been ripped to shreds. The grounds are unkept, there are things thrown everywhere, it is unclean and unloved.

As much as I am reminded that it is untrue, it feels like it is a reflection of myself.



So here are some of the pictures:

This is "The Court" where we spent our PE time in the mostly none freezing months.
We also had an indoor gym that had a weight machine that we as girls were hardly allowed to use...
My classroom was just off to the left of this picture. The building on the right was a boys classroom.
I got to see inside that classroom once...when I managed to pass out during PE because I pushed myself to hard.
At the very very right of this picture you can see another building, that was the only bathroom I can think of we were allowed to use if we were outside our cabin. We were never allowed to go alone and not allowed to use the bathroom for an hour I believe after any meals. 

This is what the cabins looked like. This one in particular is a boys cabin. If you remember me trying to explain what the cabins looked like in a previous post this will probably help. Buildings were split into four cabins. Each building was lettered A-D and cabins were numbered 1-4. So if this was my building, our cabin would have been the bottom left or "D3"
Between the two bottom cabins there was an adjoining door in the main cabin and in the bathroom.  

These two photos (top and bottom) are the bathrooms inside the cabins. They obviously didn't look like this back then. Each bathroom had 3 stalls, 4 showers, and 3 sinks. I never really understood that...we had "hygiene shifts" of 4 people each... we had 5 minutes to shower and 5 minutes to dry, change, brush teeth, etc. If you took more than 5 minutes in the shower you lost points for the day, if you took more than 10 minutes in the bathroom you lost points for the day. If your "buddy" stepped out of the bathroom without you, you lost points for the day. 

This is our seminar building. The smaller door on the left is the entrance to the cafeteria section. This is where the "lifeboat" process took place, this is where I graduated high school, this is where my "prom" took place...

This is the inside of the seminar building. During seminars chairs would be lined up with the backs to the left wall. Seeing this picture gave me so many chills. There are so many horrible memories associated with the seminars and this room. 

This picture isn't super important. Actually I never went here but I am pretty sure this is where our "confo bins" were. Basically it was a storage bin for things you came with you couldn't have until upper levels or out of season items you couldn't fit in your four baskets you were allowed to have. 

The building is our admin office. In the back of this building was the upper level classroom. Once you reached upper levels you had three days of class per week, the other three to four days were spent working. We had various jobs that ranged from simply working a family, which meant you followed them around all day making sure the students were following the rules, all the way up to "Shift Lead". Shift lead was the highest in rank you could be while in the program. I was shift lead for my shift for the last couple months before I graduated. I wrote the schedules, mediated, helped staff members. I was very trusted. It was a huge honor for me to be able to be the shift lead as that role was generally only given to a specific group of girls that were basically your typical "popular" girls.

The barn on the right was our store. Once a week we got to go to the "store" for items such as shampoo, deodorant, a new toothbrush, and if you were a really good student, you got a candy bar!

I believe this is one of the intervention rooms. I am not 100% sure as I don't remember this specific room but its the only room I can think of that would only have one desk in it. I'm not sure if I have explained what intervention is yet... Basically it was reserved for the worst of the worst students. Ones that couldn't be controlled by staff members. They put the student into a room with anywhere from one to three staff members as well as two junior staff (upper level students).  We were forced to sit silent for at least 30 min. Any talking and our time would be extended. I spent a good amount of time in intervention as a lower level. I was so angry at the world, I was mad at myself, I just wanted everything to end. 

This is am pretty sure really is an intervention room. I think this is the boys intervention room though. This is the boys intervention room though. The girls intervention room with this horrid lavender color that just made you angrier the more you had to stare at those walls. Because of the time I spent in intervention as a lower level student, I became very good at calming students down as a junior staff member. Working intervention became a regular thing for me because for a few months I was the only one who could handle it. There were a couple nights I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to help out with a student they couldn't control. 

Again I am fairly sure this is another intervention room. Sometimes students had to sleep in there overnight because they couldn't be trusted to go back to their families. This is what our mattresses looked like. Disgusting flowery things. Not even a little comfortable. They were reused over and over and over. 

Sundays we got to watch two movies. It was our "day off". We got to sleep in maybe an hour...and then we went to breakfast, cleaned until lunch, watched one movie after lunch, went to dinner, watched one movie after dinner, went to bed. We got to play games on Sundays and for the most part act like normal kids for once. 

Incident Report for staff members. Anytime something happened with a student, they were supposed to write up an incident report. I may or may not have caused a few incidents....

If memory serves me correctly....I believe this was the classroom for D1 and D2 (we shared a classroom with the cabin attached to us and alternated school sessions). The left side of this building is that bathroom I mentioned earlier. To the right of this photo is where that admin office and the "store" is. 

This is worksheets. If you got in trouble, often you came here.. not the kind of trouble that landed you in intervention though. This is boys worksheets. The girls one I'm pretty sure was that ugly purple.... Supposedly before I went there students actually had to do "worksheets" but eventually they just started making you do homework or listen to these horrible tapes about self improvement over and over and over...

That generator you saw before is on the left here so this would be if your back was facing the classroom with the bathroom attached to it. This was the beginning of the four cabins, The first two were the boys cabins, the last two were the girls cabins. There was a fire pit somewhere in that grassy area too..,

A part of me is deeply curious about this place now and wants to go back there and try to get some pictures for myself. Or at least see it. Someone is paying a security guard to watch the place but the guy who got these pictures managed to sneak around him to do some snooping. I think it would be an interesting adventure.

O captain, my captain!

I know it has been a while. 

I have been lacking the inspiration or creativity to write. 

The past few days have been particularly interesting in my head so I thought I might try to get the words out.

So here it goes.....

There has been a common theme around the internet this week. Four days ago the world learned that the person who inspired us to live our lives to the fullest and taught us how to make the best of a terrible situation, was taken by his own illness he helped so many fight off. Depression is an illness, just like any other life threatening illness. It is an invisible killer, so easy for others to dismiss as "attention seeking behavior." It is terrible that even today, with all the knowledge we have about how humans work, some still think depression is a choice. 

I may not have ever met Robin Williams but he was still so dear to me. As a child he always made me smile. I remember seeing Flubber when it came out in theaters and it was the most amazing experience to me as I rarely was allowed to go to movies. Patch Adams is still one of my favorite movies, it inspired me to work in the medical field. We watched Dead Poets Society in my Modern Poetry class in high school....

Robin Williams is the first hollywood death I have actually cried about. 

July 21st was my 10 year anniversary of being sent to Spring Creek. It was a particularly rough day for me because nearly the entire day I couldn't stop myself from reliving the events that happened that day a decade previously. 

This week, however, my thoughts have been with a girl I only knew in passing while I was there. October 7th will be 10 years since this girl lost her battle with the monsters she'd been fighting for years.

Here are some basic mechanics of how things worked to help things make a little more sense...

Our cabins were split into four dorms, two upper and two lower. Same floor dorms had adjoining doors between them in the main cabin and in the bathroom. This made it so only one night staff was necessary for two families. My family, serenity, was on the left lower cabin in D3 while the adjoining cabin belonged to integrity family in D4. There were six female families and eight male families. Our six families were split into two shifts and the adjoining cabins always had opposite shifts. We shared everything with integrity except our physical cabin. Our classroom was the same and our table for meals was the same. We just did everything opposite of each other. Days were broken up into different activities; group sessions, 1-2 hour independent study sessions (I believe it totaled six hours a day of school), meals, 30 minute fitness session, more group sessions, free time (which was most often spent in our cabins), quiet time, and bed. During hygiene and sleep was the only time both families were in the cabin at the same time.

When entering and exiting any building students had to count off to make sure all students were accounted for. If your bunk buddy was missing you needed to know where they were. Most importantly, family parents needed to know where their students were at all times.

Anyway......

On October 7th my family was coming back to our cabin from either class or a meal. Integrity was gone so the cabin was quiet. It must have been our quiet time because I believe we were all on our bunks reading or journaling. Often, during school hours, family parents would come back to the cabins to get some time to themselves. Typically each family would have only two family parents and they would work in shifts. Two days on, two days off, three days on. Often families became too difficult for some staff to control so sometimes they would change staff members around. I don't believe, at this time, the staff member that Integrity had was a regular.

While we were sitting in our bunks we heard the Integrity cabin door open and close. A few moments later we heard screams coming from the bathroom on the other side. Naturally we all panicked. The woman came over to our side and screamed for our family parent to call medical staff. It was an emergency. We didn't know what was going on. We could see out our windows people running to the other cabin. Through the door we could hear "Come on Karlye! Come on! Don't do this!" There was so much yelling. No one knew what to do. Karlye had hung herself.

Somehow a proper count wasn't taken when the family left the cabin. Somehow this girl slipped through the cracks. She had been on "high risk" which basically meant that she was on suicide watch for quite some time prior. She convinced her family she was no longer a risk, that she was better. She was taken off high risk and placed on "observation". Still supposed to be watched but not as intently as high risk.

I could not believe what happened. I had only been there for two and a half months when the incident occurred. I was appalled at the lack of care that had been given to this family, to this girl. People were so angry, not only at the staff member but at her as well. We were told she was weak. She took the "easy" way out. I do not believe this is the case.

This is a quote from David Foster Wallace that I believe does a great job painting a picture for those who have never suffered from depression:

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

So here I am today remembering those who could not fight this invisible terror. 

I will remember the lost in my silence, in my words.

I will pray for the families and friends who lost a soul so dear.

But most of all, I will hold close the memories and stories I have because those will be with me the rest of my days. Those are what will keep me always moving forward.

I will fight for them. 

O captain! My captain! 

I will stand for you!

May angels lead you in...

Growing up in the church there is one lesson taught over and over: 

Put others before yourself.

The most commonly recognized biblical reference to this is Christ giving his life to save the souls of his followers. 

This is how I was raised to think.

 I always put my friends and my family before myself.

 I still do.

Often this does cause issues because in the long run I usually get hurt

 but as long as I made someone happy in the process it was worth it to me. 

This lesson was not taught in the program.

The third and final full seminar we had to complete was called Focus. You had to complete this seminar to go into upper levels. 

Some background:

The program consisted of lower levels and upper levels. Levels 1-3 were lower and 4-6 were upper. There was a weird half level called level 3 all-stars which was pretty much preparing you for upper levels. You couldn't be level 3 without completing Discovery and you couldn't be level 4 without completing Focus. There were also three parent child seminar's. The first was held at your facility and the second and third were held off campus. You had to be in upper levels to go to PC2 and PC3. PC3 was also the "graduation" seminar. 

In order to do PC seminars, the parents had to do the regular seminars as well (discovery and focus). 

Back to Focus.

Focus was meant to challenge our "self-limiting beliefs" and force us to face the things we feared most. It was quite a bit different than Discovery. 

There were three major processes in Focus. The release process, the dance, and the lifeboat. I honestly don't remember which order they came in so you get to read them in the order they most impacted me. 

The release process for Focus was a bit different than in Discovery. This time they had us think about all of the negative things we felt about ourselves. Mine included things like "I'm ugly. My family hates me. I will never amount to anything. I can't do anything right. I will always fail." Again, the people staffing the seminar used these things to stir up as much emotion and pain as they could. This process was different though. They had us imagine we were putting all the pain, all the horrible things, into a ball. This ball grew bigger and bigger and bigger. Eventually it grew bigger than me. We imagined we were standing on a cliff, an abyss at the bottom. We had to push this ball off the cliff. It wasn't easy. 

Just for your reference, we were pushing on a wall....

which doesn't move...

We pushed and pushed and punched and cried. So much screaming and crying. Everyone around me was struggling so much. My arms were so sore, my knuckles were bleeding, my head was throbbing. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted the pain to roll away. I wanted to be happy. 

Eventually they felt we had worked hard enough and they had us imagine the ball rolling off the cliff. Falling into nothing. It was over. We no longer had to worry about these things holding us back. 

In the dance process we were assigned a song or a category based on the biggest self-limiting belief holding us back. I don't recall many of them. I remember there was a butterfly, lady in red, and I honestly don't remember what mine was called but it was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." It was reserved for girls who felt so lowly of themselves they could barely live with the idea of being the person they were. There were a few people to each group. I had two other girls in my group. We were given boxes and boxes of stage wardrobe to choose from. I chose a red dress. When it was our turn, they played "I will always love you" and myself and the two other girls danced around for everyone to see. I cried. Everyone cried. Toward the end of the song they paused the music and had us stand still in the middle of the room. Three boys came and stood in front of us holding a mirror. The boy who chose me was an upper level boy named Kyle who I had admired the whole seminar. He was not my small group leader but I had seen him around the seminar with so much compassion and love for what he was doing. He had given me feedback throughout the seminar and I felt a strange connection with him. When I opened my eyes there he was with a smile on his face holding my mirror. The final part of the process was the most difficult. The song continued with the chorus and we had to sing it into the mirror to ourselves. I know it sounds silly but it was quite a bit more difficult than you would think given the circumstances of the moment. 

The third major process we were given was called the "Lifeboat" process. We came into the seminar room with the lights dimmed and they asked us to lay down on the floor. We imagined we were on a cruise ship. All our classmates were there. We were having fun. Suddenly there is a loud bang. The staff start banging on tables and walls. Our ship is crashing. Something has happened and there is only one lifeboat available. We have to decide who lives. Who dies. We are asked to think about who has inspired us most in the seminar. Who would have the most fulfilling life. Who deserves to live. We were circled up and individually had to go around the circle and look each individual in the eye and say either "you live" or "you die." We were given four votes. 

I walked around the room devastated. These were my peers. My friends. I wanted them all to live. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing them die. I decided right away I would give up my spot. I wanted them to live. I walked around the circle to each person and gave them my judgement. "You die" resounded in the room. When a "you live" was given the person had to yell their name and "lives!" so the vote could be recorded.

When I had completed my circle and came back to my spot I was asked "Did you reserve a spot for yourself?" 

"No." I responded. 

"Tell everyone the fate you have decided on yourself. Tell them that you don't care enough for yourself to even try to make it onto the lifeboat. Tell them you would rather die."

"Laura dies." I said with tears streaming down my face.

"Not good enough. Make sure they know just how much you have given up on yourself!" 

"LAURA DIES!" I screamed. 

"Good..."

My heart was broken. I didn't understand why they were so upset with me. This was how I was taught to treat others. I put them first. I helped save the others.... Why was this so bad for me to do? I didn't understand how my beliefs I had my entire life could be tossed aside like they meant nothing. 

After all this, we were told to create an "I am" statement. We took the top three or four self limiting beliefs we had and used them to create this statement. It took me a while to decide on what mine should be. After quite some time I had decided on "I am a beautiful, lovable, worthy, and powerful young woman."

This statement would follow me the rest of my time in the program. After each time I shared I had to say my statement. It became a part of me. Engraved in me. Eventually I got a stone with this engraved in it. On the back were the handwritten words "Laura Lives!"

I still have the stone somewhere. 

I found this story from a student at a different school located in Utah. I know this is already a lot to read but this story explains the lifeboat process so much better than I could ever do.

Thanks again for reading. 

Much Love

-LR

Fragile, do not shake.

I don't see myself as a generally angry or overly happy person. I think my emotions are, for the most part, pretty level. I have anxiety which comes up occasionally but I have treatment in place for that.

Back pre-program I was never one to push people though. I would just go with the flow. I was never a leader, always a follower. I had a difficult time saying no to anyone. I let people walk over me all the time. The only people I really fought with were my parents and my sister. As long as I had my music and my friends to talk to I was a decently content person. When things started going south I noticed a fire building in me but I didn't know what to do with it. So I let it sit there. Mostly contained. Protecting me. 

These protections were not okay in the program....They were there to break you.

A little background information:

The reason we (by "we" I am referring to those of us who were in such schools) called it "the program" was because there was a certain set of things you had to do before you could "graduate." Graduating from the school was not the same as graduation from high school. Although I did graduate high school while I was there, this actually didn't factor into the steps I had to take to complete the program. 

There were a set of seminars we had to complete. The facilitators came around every two months to run the seminars. The first of these was Orientation. Everyone graduated orientation. It was a short seminar (I think two days) that really wasn't difficult. The only reason I could think of that a student would have to redo orientation is if they just got admitted to the school and not emotionally stable enough to be off the main campus. I really couldn't tell you what went on in Orientation because I honestly don't remember. It was so insignificant, mostly just preparing you for how seminars work. 

The second seminar was called "Discovery." This was a three day seminar. I can't remember how many months since my arrival it had been but I do believe I "chose out" of the seminar once. In other words, the staff didn't feel I was putting my all into the seminar and they told me I could not return. So maybe five months had passed. I was doing well at this point. I was told I would most likely make it through this second time around. I just needed to open up more. Let people see me for who I am. 

Day one was meant to get to know everyone. The staff, most of which was upper level students, learned your weaknesses and how to push your buttons. We had small groups of maybe 6 or 8 students and we had to share why we were there, what life changing events messed us up so bad we had to go to this school. Then lunch. Then more talking. The facilitator would tell us how we should live our lives. How we disrespected our families. How she knows what we're going through. On and on and on. 

Day two was where things got interesting. We were told to wear our gym clothes as opposed to our seminar clothes. The day started with the usual talk...accountability, tools for success, integrity blah blah blah. Then the good stuff happened. 

We were asked to bring a towel which they rolled and taped (sort of like a crappy bat). Then they asked us to think about all the things that make us angry. Your parents for sending you there, your friends for getting you into this mess, your parents for leaving you there, abandoning you with these strangers. Your inability to communicate with them. The absolute sinking feeling constantly on your chest. For me, this was when I broke. 

I have always loved glass. 

It is a beautiful, strong, and fragile.

It is what I have compared myself to most of my conscious life.

When I say I broke, I mean this persona I created for myself, it shattered.

This is what I have spent the last 10 years trying to fix.

So they spread us all out in the seminar room. Turned the lights down. Put on some depressing music. We sat there for a while and listened to our facilitator bring up all the things we had been holding onto for so long. All the reasons we resorted to booze or drugs or self mutilation or sex. She told us to figuratively lay these images, these stories, these boxes out in front of us. She told us to grab our towels and smash the shit out of them. We screamed. So much screaming. So much crying. We beat the ground with our rolled up towels over and over and over. 

My knuckles bled.

I could not control the vile things I was saying.

It wasn't enough.

They came around and called me a whore.

Told me I wasn't good enough for my parents.

I no longer wanted to smash the floor, I wanted to smash them.

I was angry. So angry.

My glass protection around my soul was cracking.

I desperately tried to repair the cracks.

It was too late.

No one could save it.

This went on for what felt like hours but I imagine it lasted maybe 45 minutes. Toward the end they asked us to quiet down. They played some calming sweet music while I laid on my back nursing the wounds on my hands. I had two emotions running through me at this point. I was relieved that it was over. I got it out. I survived the hard part. Placing all your emotions out in the open for the world to see is an exhausting and terrifying process.

The second emotion would not come to me until later.

Rage.

The following months I continued to work hard. I would get to see my parents at the first PC1 (parent-child numero uno). That went well I believe. My mom had lost a LOT of weight and my dad shaved off the mustache he had had my whole life. It was very difficult believing it was really them. We talked. Did seminar things, I don't remember much of that seminar except my mom realizing that I was bigger than her at this point and I think she even said I could break her if I tried hard enough. That was strange. 

After they left it was back to this reality I was living in. There was always a temporary high after completion of a seminar. And then slowly you come down and realize just how crappy life really is. 

I tried to keep what happened to myself.

They couldn't know that my protection was gone.

I needed to time to repair it.

For the first time since my parents had removed my sense of privacy by reading my journals, I felt the urge to write again. There were rules in place that staff members had to have probable cause to look in a private journal. I thought this was a safety net. I was wrong. Apparently while flipping through my journal (they were allowed to do that) they saw something worth probable cause. I came home from class one day to see half the pages in my journal had been torn out and I was placed on what they called "observation." This meant they felt I may try to injure myself but they didn't have any concrete proof that I would. So I had staff members watching me just a little closer every day. 

I was furious. All I wanted to do was write. All I wanted was privacy. And I couldn't get that. Not anywhere. It was at this point that I realized no matter how well I did, it would come back to this. My wishes not being allowed. So I gave up. 

My already shattered soul caught fire.

The rage I didn't realize was manifesting broke through.

I broke into a million little pieces.

There was so much fury that had been slowly seeping into every inch of me.

I no longer resented my parents.

I was over that.

I resented everything.

Everyone that could not give me what I needed.

Observation turned to "high risk". I got a little plastic bright green band I had to wear on my wrist so everyone knew to watch out for me. I spent days in a room we called "intervention." The rules were simple. Sit quietly for 30 minutes in this disgustingly purple room and you can go back. I couldn't do that. I hated silence. I hated the purple room. I hated my jail keepers. I hated my life. For all I cared I could die right there and nothing would change. My parents didn't want me. I was inconveniencing these people with my "temper tantrum". I wanted an end so badly. I could no longer feel love or compassion. I was convinced I was a monster. 

Eventually I started to calm down. Releasing this fire inside me seemed to sate my demons for the time. I kept my head down and started picking up the pieces of glass I let get destroyed. I spent time in a place called "worksheets" where bad kids went to reflect on what they did. Worksheets was a step up from Intervention though. Intervention was a last resort for the crazy ones. 

In worksheets I was free to write and draw but I had to throw it away before I left. It was here I started to mend the pieces of glass. Gluing them together in an effort to keep this from happening again. I hated it but I loved it at the same time. I loved the feeling of power I now had but the desperation that came with it was not as great. It was only out of absolute misery that this fire consumed me. To be powerful I had to be miserable. 

I have spent these last 10 years repairing my glass box. I suffer from anxiety issues that keep me from doing some thing that most people would find enjoyable. Anxiety from the fear of breaking again. I never want to be that person again. So I keep myself in check. And sometimes that means not doing some of the more pleasurable things my friends would like for me to do. So I keep myself here. Suspended in what I have managed to piece back together. In hopes that I can keep it safe in the future. 

Much Love-

L

PS

Sorry for such a long and slightly scattered read.

 This is sort of a filler into the next entry. 

Which will hopefully be a little more organized...

Life is a bitch...

I spent the last two years of my high school life in a boarding school. Well it was technically a "behavior modification" school for troubled teens. I learned many important lessons during my time there, the most important of which was this:

Life is a bitch, grow up.

I lived a very sheltered life pre boarding school. My parents were very involved in their church and so, by default, I was too. Most of my friends were people from church. I technically was not allowed to have "non-christian" friends, although going to a public school makes that nearly impossible. The friends I did have that were not from my church were "bad" friends as my family would put it. I, being a very loving and accepting person, did not understand what made them so "bad." They introduced me things like good music that talked about things I felt rather than just worshiping God. They showed me books that sparked a love and desire to read about magical things I never knew about. They inspired me to write poetry and draw. They helped me to shape a personality outside of worship practice and bible study. This was too much for my family. It was unacceptable and had to be stopped. 

I began building a wall between myself and my parents. Brick by brick I separated my life from theirs. I became anxious and depressed. My drawings became engravings in my arms and legs. My poetry became dark and angry. I began questioning this religion I grew up so closely intertwined with. My heart was broken, my soul was in pain. 

I became very angry as slowly my privacy was taken away. I could no longer journal for fear of someone reading it and using my words against me. My cd's were stolen and shattered and burned. My beautiful books were torn to pieces. My world was shattering around me.

The fights got worse. Tears fell every day. Hurtful things were said.

Then came something I never ever expected.

It was the day before my sisters 21st birthday. Being that I was only 15 I knew I would not be able to celebrate with her how I knew she would be celebrating. I never expected that I would not even be able to wish her a happy birthday though.

In the wee hours of the morning two strangers came into my room and told me they were taking me to Montana. My parents told them it was okay and I needed to go with them right away. I could not take anything with me.

Just like that everything was ripped away from me.

The students at this school were there for things like drugs and alcohol, gang involvement, lots and lots of sex, physical abuse. Some were court ordered, some were there because their parents sent them. They were all the exact people I was forbidden from befriending...So why was I there?

Now, I'm not saying I was perfect. I did my share of experimenting. I smoked weed a couple times, I tried a couple of my sisters bitch beers, I smoked cigarettes occasionally, and the biggest sin? I had a girlfriend.

Anyway.

The kids in this school were much further past experimentation than I was. Meth, heroin, pregnancies, stealing, gang affiliations. I was swimming in a pool of everything my parents didn't want me around.

These kids were also ruthless. I was innocent compared to most of them and they knew that. It was as though I were thrown into a den of lions. I learned quickly that I couldn't be a child. I had to grow up or be eaten alive.

It wasn't until I returned home that I realized just how much I really did grow up though. I tried hanging out with people my age and they all seemed so childish. I was almost 15 when I left and 17 when I returned.

I am almost 26 now and my two years there have shaped who I grew into as an adult. These last 10 years have been quite the ride and every once in a while I am reminded of just how much I have grown. More specifically, often I am reminded of how far ahead of people my age I am, and how little patience I have for immaturity.

Sometimes I wish it were socially acceptable to be as brutally honest with people as we had to be in school. I think everyone should be faced with some honesty and a reality check at some point in their life.

I would not wish what I went through upon anyone. I just wish everyone had to go through a moment in their life where they were pushed into growing up.

-lcr




p.s.

This is hopefully the first of many posts in an effort to put into words my experiences and how they have changed my life. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will answer to the best of my ability.