S24 Ep12: Someone Who Believes Me

Speaker 3 Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

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Speaker 11 Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses upsetting topics. Season 24 survivors discuss violence that they endured as children, which may be triggering for some listeners.

Speaker 11 As always, please consume with care. For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each episode, please visit the episode notes.

Speaker 11 Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of broken psycho media. All persons are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Speaker 11 Responses to allegations from individual institutions are included within the season.

Speaker 11 Something was wrong, and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice.

Speaker 11 We reached out to Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wellness to request a response for comment in regards to multiple stories from survivors involving their past and current programs.

Speaker 11 Their current executive director, Danielle Hava, LCSW, requested a phone call, which took place Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, to better understand the allegations before writing a written response.

Speaker 11 Danielle Hava is Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness's executive director and is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Georgia.

Speaker 11 As a reminder, an LCSW or licensed clinical social worker is a a type of therapist and counselor who provides mental health services, but their practice is typically distinguished by a unique focus on a client's social and environmental factors within a broader holistic approach.

Speaker 11 However, in regards to this discussion, Hava is operating as the executive director under founder and owner Dan McDougall.

Speaker 11 While we agreed we would not publicly air our phone call conversation, I think it's extremely important for context for you to hear what questions I submitted to them and what they came back with.

Speaker 11 Here's a summarized list of questions that I posed to Danielle Hava, executive director, Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness.

Speaker 11 As a therapist, how do you justify putting your name and license behind these programs given their history of allegations?

Speaker 11 How is it acceptable for your company to allow children to be transported to your facilities, often without their consent, when transport services are considered harmful and not backed by medical evidence.

Speaker 11 Do you perform strip searches? What are the minimum qualifications of day-to-day staff who spend most of their time with students?

Speaker 11 What background checks and hiring processes are in place for these staff members? Are children allowed to speak with their parents or authorities without a staff member present?

Speaker 11 Do you use impact letters and require students to read them aloud in front of their peers? Do you use corporal punishment or physical restraints? Do you use food deprivation as a consequence?

Speaker 11 How often are students allowed to shower and can the showers be withheld as punishment? What clothing and underwear provisions are made? Are students allowed to use menstrual products like tampons?

Speaker 11 How often do students meet with therapists? Do students earn actual school credit recognized by the state? Is isolation used as punishment?

Speaker 11 Are students forced to carry excessively heavy backpacks on long hikes? Do you ensure proper fitting shoes and clothing to prevent physical harm?

Speaker 11 Are students forbidden from looking at, speaking to, or sharing personal information like last names and emails with peers? And are they punished for attempting to do so?

Speaker 11 How do you respond to parents' claims that your marketing is deceptive, presenting the program as a therapeutic summer camp while their children returned abused or worse off?

Speaker 11 Why was the program name changed if nothing except branding and business restructuring changed, with McDougal still owning it?

Speaker 11 How do you reconcile your role as a therapist with the lack of individualized care, especially for disabled and autistic children who survivors say were targeted and abused?

Speaker 11 Do you believe survivors' consistent reports of abuse or do you think they're lying?

Speaker 11 How do you justify profiting from what experts and data shows to be a harmful, trauma-inducing system with high rates of long-term negative consequences such as suicidality, addiction, trauma, and disappearance.

Speaker 11 The following day, Wednesday, september third, 2025, we received the following email from Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness Executive Director Ms. Hava.
Quote, Hi, Tiffany.

Speaker 11 Please use our statement below in regard to any mention of Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness. We ask that you use the statement in its entirety.

Speaker 11 It may be attributed to the executive leadership at Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness.

Speaker 11 Over the past 24 years of operating, Blue Ridge has continually evolved, just as all fields of practice like medical, therapeutic, and educational practices must.

Speaker 11 When we learn something new or when feedback shows us that an approach is not having the impact we intend, we make changes. We take seriously the need to look for truth in what has been shared.

Speaker 11 That commitment to improvement is why we remain single owner operated, operated so we can adapt quickly and responsibly. At the same time, this isn't an all-or-nothing conversation.

Speaker 11 Wilderness therapy has saved countless lives.

Speaker 11 I know this because of the strong alumni network at Blue Ridge and the hundreds and hundreds of letters, phone calls, DMs, and visits we receive expressing gratitude.

Speaker 11 If you take the opportunity to connect with these alumni, their stories could add further perspective to the conversation.

Speaker 11 You asked about daily life at Blue Ridge, suggesting that this was the abuse, in quotes, that the program itself was harmful.

Speaker 11 However, many of the items you listed are inaccurate and I can state with certainty that they are not true. We believe that anyone who commits child abuse must be held fully accountable.

Speaker 11 At the same time, we are dedicated to ensuring our program upholds the highest standards of dignity, safety, and care.

Speaker 11 Deprivation, oppression, or any form of mistreatment has no place in our work and is not tolerated under any circumstances.

Speaker 11 Our team, including licensed therapists, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and highly trained outdoor guides with wilderness first responder certification, pours their hearts and expertise into supporting the well-being of our students and the families who entrust them to us.

Speaker 11 We categorically do not use corporal punishment.

Speaker 11 In addition to rigorous third-party accreditation through the Association for Experiential Education and State Regulations, through the Department of Human Services, we seek ongoing feedback from alumni and families both during and after their time with us.

Speaker 11 Many alumni share stories of growth while others have brought forward challenges or concerns. Both perspectives are essential to our progress and we take them seriously.

Speaker 11 Each year, alumni choose to return as staff members, reflecting their belief in the value of the program and their desire to support future students.

Speaker 11 Over the many years Blue Ridge has been operating, we have witnessed countless stories of healing, hope, and positive change from our alumni and their families.

Speaker 11 I really encourage you and your team to reach out to former students who have had positive, impactful experiences and whose lives may have been at serious risk without wilderness therapy.

Speaker 11 I know that our Blue Ridge alumni families have already reached out to you about your podcast series, and they would love the opportunity to speak with you directly about their positive experience.

Speaker 11 The voices of alumni whose lives were profoundly transformed and in some cases, saved by wilderness therapy are essential to provide context and balance.

Speaker 11 and to ensure your audience understands the full impact of these programs.

Speaker 11 They can provide perspective on how wilderness therapy instills hope, fosters healing, and offers opportunities for a healthier life.

Speaker 11 Blue Ridge remains fully committed to providing a safe, supportive environment for all students in alignment with state regulations, AEE accreditation standards, and best practices in outdoor therapeutic care.

Speaker 11 Thank you so much for giving us a chance to respond. Danielle Hava, LCSW, Executive Director, Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness, Emerald Arrow, A Bold Path for Young Adults, end quote.

Speaker 11 An important note in response to Blue Ridge Wilderness Therapy's statements claim that alumni reached out to our team to provide statements to us in support of Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness.

Speaker 11 We searched high and low in our public email inbox. and our website submissions, and we did not find a single message claiming to be an alumni who wanted to share their perspective with us.

Speaker 11 I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong.

Speaker 11 Today, a survivor whom we're calling Danielle shares about her harrowing experiences at two programs, Second Nature Blue Ridge and Carlbrook School.

Speaker 11 Danielle was enrolled at Second Nature Blue Ridge for eight weeks, December 2004 to February 2005.

Speaker 11 She then spent 18 months at Carlbrook School, which was self-described as a private, coeducational, college preparatory boarding school.

Speaker 11 Today, Second Nature Blue Ridge goes by Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness. Opened in 2002 in Clayton, Georgia, Second Nature Blue Ridge was founded and still owned and operated today by Dan McDougal.

Speaker 11 Blue Ridge operated under collaboration originally with Second Nature programs, which had multiple wilderness therapy programs until about 2016-2017.

Speaker 11 It's reportedly around this time that Dan McDougal separated Blue Ridge from the Second Nature umbrella and rebranded the program as Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness.

Speaker 10 Hi, my name is Danielle. I am in my late 30s and I attended Second Nature Blue Ridge and Carlbrook School between the years of 2004 and 2006.

Speaker 10 I just wanted to come forward to share the truth about what happens in these facilities.

Speaker 10 It's only after years of processing what I went through and hearing other people say, that's really messed up, has it come to my attention that a lot of the things I went through at these programs were traumatic and have shaped who I am today?

Speaker 10 As an

Speaker 10 almost 40-year-old looking back, I now see that my childhood was really traumatic.

Speaker 10 My parents definitely have issues of their own, like untreated alcoholism, eating disorder issues, trauma from their parents, and they've never wanted to receive help for their issues.

Speaker 10 So they put it on my siblings and myself. My parents were young.
They had me when they were like 21, 22. My mom said she had me because she was lonely.

Speaker 10 When I was born and I didn't satisfy all her needs, she still felt the loneliness, if not more. I think it was just resentment from the get-go.

Speaker 10 I think the only reason they had kids was just kind of what everyone was doing. And I come from a very wealthy, successful family.
And having a lot of kids was a status symbol.

Speaker 10 My mom says that I was a really colicky, unhappy, loud, crying baby. I look back at pictures and I was a really scrawny baby, whereas my toddler was the chunkiest baby.

Speaker 10 If she was hungry, I would feed her. But my parents, not knowing anything about kids, babies, and also having maybe the boomer quality of fat phobia, I think they were accidentally underfeeding me.

Speaker 10 I think my parents love me because they have to love me, but I never felt wanted. For me, as the oldest of three kids, I definitely took my hurt and pain out on my younger siblings.

Speaker 10 I have a lot of regret and had had to do a lot of healing in the last couple years and making amends to my siblings and forgiving myself for not knowing better.

Speaker 10 I'm three years older than my next sibling, and then they are like 18 months apart. Growing up as kids, they were kind of the babies.

Speaker 10 The quote, but you're old enough to know better, like replays in my head. And I remember even saying to my mom, I'm nine, my sister's six.

Speaker 10 When I was her age, you told me I was old enough to know better, but now she's that same age and she's not.

Speaker 10 I feel like I was the scapegoat, but also the forgotten child. My dad loved and doted on my sister to this day.
She'll be like, dad and I were best buddies growing up. I was his favorite.

Speaker 10 And my mom was obsessed with my younger brother. I grew up moving a lot.
I moved eight or nine different times before I was eight years old. That was.

Speaker 10 a jarring thing to go through having to change schools, states, countries every couple months or so. I went to very good private schools.
I didn't really care that much.

Speaker 10 So I've never been like a straight A student or a bad student. Somewhere in the middle, for me, changing schools was definitely one source of trauma, having to start a new school over and over again.

Speaker 10 Naturally, I had some strong big emotions and my parents never knew how to handle that. It got that label of dramatic, crazy, just wanting attention.
In a way, they're right. I did want attention.

Speaker 10 I had needs that weren't being met. I was going through things I couldn't process, but my parents use that as a way to just write me off.

Speaker 11 Everyone needs attention. And oftentimes when kids are, quote, acting out or attention seeking, they're signaling to us that they need attention, love, and care and affirmation.

Speaker 11 What they don't need is to feel further isolated.

Speaker 10 Exactly.

Speaker 10 These are a couple stories I have that show the dynamic between my parents and myself. Growing up, I remember in first grade, my dad took me to go see the movie Fly Away Home.

Speaker 10 In the movie, a big part of the storyline is that the young girl's mother passes away unexpectedly.

Speaker 10 When I was leaving the theater with my dad, he looked at me and said, I hope watching this movie makes you think before the next time you're mean to your mom.

Speaker 10 And I remember thinking, I've not once in my life thus far meant to hurt my mom or be mean to her.

Speaker 10 In seventh grade, we went to a skate park and my brother, sister, and I were just rollerblading around.

Speaker 10 I ended up at the very end of it tripping and landed right on my elbow i instantly knew my elbow was broken i never felt so much pain my mom came up to me and was like what's wrong with you i told her that i think i broke my elbow she didn't believe me so we got in the car and she took us out to lunch and it was only then which was an hour later when i could not eat mcdonald's that she realized oh maybe she is telling the truth Then she took me to the hospital and it was broken.

Speaker 10 Things like that that I never believed, never heard or listened to.

Speaker 10 To this day, the biggest compliment you could get from my parents is that you're skinny or that you look thin. Not that you look healthy, not that you're a good person, but that you're skinny.

Speaker 10 My mom has never not been on a diet. I was always on a diet starting from second grade.
I definitely have binge eating disorder.

Speaker 10 I would try to not eat, but that would result in me binging and I'd get disappointed in myself. So I'd eat more.

Speaker 10 Looking at pictures, you would never know any of this, but it was the thing that was 100% on my mind all of the time. One of my first memories was when I was in second grade.

Speaker 10 One of the semesters was dedicated to swimming for our PE class. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, swimming PE starts next week.
I need to start running.

Speaker 10 One time I tried to stay up all night doing laps in my room. When I was 12, I knew that the place where we were moving was going to be where we would live for a long time.

Speaker 10 And I wanted to make a good impression. And I even remember telling my mom, I just learned a way to like shave extra 50 calories off this turkey sandwich I'm about to make.

Speaker 10 Being so proud of that, I just got a lot of compliments on how good I looked. And that was hard to maintain though, the not eating and playing sports.
One day I made myself throw up after I ate.

Speaker 10 That really scared me because I didn't know I was capable of hurting myself in such a way. So I told my mom, I think I need to go see a therapist.
She said, don't worry about it. I'm sure it's fine.

Speaker 10 It was ignored. So I continued making myself throw up all throughout ninth and tenth grade.
One night I got up and walked to the kitchen and I just passed out and my parents heard me fall and came in.

Speaker 10 Some signs were giving them cause for concern. So they did have me go see a therapist.

Speaker 10 But when I was talking to the therapist, my dad was like, I don't get how you could be depressed or have these issues. Just like join a club at school or something.

Speaker 10 The bulimia stopped because I was seeing a therapist. But over the years, I really did flip-flop between binge eating disorder, anorexia, and bulimia until I finally, in my 20s, got proper help

Speaker 10 for those issues. Last year, I ran a marathon.
And a week later, my dad commented on how much I'd put on my plate at dinner when I had dinner with them.

Speaker 10 So it's really hard to have a healthy body and mind around my parents.

Speaker 11 Did you have any community groups that you were a part of where you were able to like feel celebrated?

Speaker 10 Yeah, performing music made me feel loved and I had talent. My parents, again, it was just, that's another thing I did for attention and they never came to see me perform.

Speaker 10 When I was at 11, my dad said, I know you like singing you think you're going to be a famous singer one day everyone wants to be a famous something

Speaker 10 trying to squash my dreams as a young child

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Speaker 10 When I had my big move during my high school years, when I was anorexic, I was really at a horrible low point.

Speaker 10 I was living overseas, moved back to the States in a really, really small town where everyone had grown up together.

Speaker 10 I was just a hodgepodge of all the places I had lived and all the people I had known. So my interests did not align with my sense of humor, didn't align with the people.

Speaker 10 I was so resentful that I had lived in these cool countries because I was so different. I was just so alone, full of self-hatred.

Speaker 10 I never felt like my parents wanted me, so I just always wished I wasn't born. I thought I was a burden and I was a pain to the world.
One night I decided I was going to kill myself.

Speaker 10 I called my friend on the phone and I mentioned it to her. It was a literal cry for help.
I wanted somebody to reach out and try to stop me.

Speaker 10 Next thing you know, the phone hangs up and my dad comes bounding down the hall into my room saying, Your friend's parents just called us saying you called her, saying you wanted to kill yourself.

Speaker 10 Do you know how crazy that makes you sound? Do you know how embarrassing that is? You need to call her back right now and say that you didn't mean it. So I did.

Speaker 10 Right after they left my room, I swallowed a bottle of Tylenol PMs and I tried to kill myself. I woke up.
I was disappointed in that. But that was like a really scary moment.

Speaker 10 And I tried to kill myself again a few months months later with the same thing. And then about a year or two later, because of a fight I had with my parents, they both left the house.

Speaker 10 I went straight to my room and I had a box of caffeine pills. I took the entire box of caffeine pills and I felt my heart racing and speeding up really fast like I'd never felt before.

Speaker 10 The reality of what was happening set in. I was scared.
So I called my mom and I said, mom, you need to come home now. I just swallowed a bottle of pills.
I'm really scared.

Speaker 10 I can feel the effects and I think I'm going to die. She said, I don't know about that.
We live in a really small town. What if we run into somebody we know at the hospital? Is it really that bad?

Speaker 10 I said, yes, it is. Please come get me now.
She was not going to come home. I remember finding my sister shaking her and saying, help me.
Please call mom. Please tell her that I'm serious.

Speaker 10 So my sister called my mom and convinced her to come home. I just remember laying on the sidewalk and my mom got there.
We got in the cart.

Speaker 10 She goes to Walmart, gets a bottle of Ipecac and makes me drink it to try to throw everything up. I threw up on the way to the hospital.
I had to get my stomach pumped.

Speaker 10 I remember being in and out of it, asking the nurse, am I going to die? And she said, I don't think so, but do you want to? And I shook my head. No, that I didn't.

Speaker 10 The next thing I remember after the doctors and nurses leaving, as I'm making a sense of my surroundings in this hospital room, I looked over to my right, saw my mom sitting there next to me.

Speaker 10 And the first and only thing she says is, I was looking through your room the other day and I found a vibrator. I started busting out laughing at the ridiculousness.

Speaker 10 And that's always really been a shocking memory for me. Seeing movies of parents who love their kids.
Oh, the kid is missing for an hour and they're so happy they're found. They're not mad.

Speaker 10 My mom, the first thing I came to and it was like, you fucked up again. Let me shame you.
Let me embarrass you.

Speaker 10 Not, oh my gosh, I was so scared. I'm so glad you're okay.

Speaker 10 I was really looking for anything and everything to numb the pain.

Speaker 10 So like boyfriends who were bad news, friends who were into substances and doing questionable things, cheating, shoplifting, anything sketchy to give me the thrill of excitement. I was looking for

Speaker 10 after that suicide attempt, I was very lost. I didn't have childhood friends because social media wasn't a thing and I had moved so many times.
I felt like I did not have my siblings.

Speaker 10 I did not have my parents. I was alone in the world.
My parents wanted to send me to a really prestigious boarding school because that looked really good for them.

Speaker 10 But I ended up finding a boarding school and presenting it to them. We thought that was like a great compromise.
I went to this music boarding school.

Speaker 10 I didn't have my parents as authority figures over me all the time. So I really just like went crazy.
Things got bad fast. I had problems with friends.
Like people hated me at that school.

Speaker 10 I was just doing all kinds of reckless stuff that I knew I was. I just didn't care.
I would drink. I would smoke weave, pills, Adderall, smoking cigarettes.

Speaker 10 I only got in trouble one time for drinking when I was at my boarding school and we went off campus to a party, I got really, really drunk, came back and was throwing up all over my dorm room.

Speaker 10 They kicked me out for that. I made it through one semester of the music boarding school in December of 2004.
They took me to an educational consultant.

Speaker 10 I just remember spending a whole day there taking tests on the computer. I assumed this was one of the prerequisites to get into one of those more prestigious boarding schools.

Speaker 10 So I didn't think that much of it. But then a couple of days later, it was when my mom told me, you just got in big trouble at your school.
You got kicked out. We feel a big distance from you.

Speaker 10 We think you have some emotional issues you need help with. There's this camp you can go to for three weeks and you'll be with other girls you can relate to who have emotional issues as well.

Speaker 10 You'll make some great friends. At the end of the three weeks, you get to come back home.
It's in the winter, but it's basically like a summer camp. Like it'll be really fun.

Speaker 10 There's all kinds of activities you can do and it's just three weeks to like have you set for the rest of your life. I kicked and screamed, no, that's awful.

Speaker 10 But after a couple more conversations about this and the reassurance that it was three weeks, come back home, everything like back to normal, except I'll just be a little happier.

Speaker 10 I reluctantly agreed. I needed help and love a long time prior to when my parents sent me away.
We drove there, pulled up. Once I realized how desolate it was, the reality hit me.

Speaker 10 My parents got out of the car to greet the people and I just locked the car doors.

Speaker 10 Some big burly guy came up to the window and was like, if you don't get out of the car willingly, I'm going to have to force you out. And I was like, holy shit, where am I? So that terrified me.

Speaker 10 My parents said, bye. I love you.
I remember not even looking at them, could not make eye contact. I was so mad and so scared.
I remember getting my first strip search. That was shocking.

Speaker 10 And after, I I guess, the intake process, I had to go get a physical at the doctor's office. I think I tried to open the door and it was child locked.

Speaker 10 All I could think about is like, how do I get out of the situation?

Speaker 10 So I get to the doctor and there was a teenage boy wearing the exact same outfit sitting in between two people in the waiting room, too.

Speaker 10 He just wore like baggy khaki pants and like a bright orange t-shirt, like an inmate and hiking boots. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I bet he's going wherever I'm going.

Speaker 10 And then got back in the car. And I just remember driving for what seemed like forever through the woods, up mountains.
And the escorts asked me, do you want something for your last meal?

Speaker 10 I was just angry and spiteful. So I said, no.
Wish I had taken them up on that last meal. We get to the woods.

Speaker 10 the absolute middle of nowhere, just this small cluster of people wearing the same outfit as me. They told me I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody.

Speaker 10 All I remember about that first night is sleeping in between two counselors who I'd never met before under a tarp. I said to the counselor, I think I'm in the wrong place.

Speaker 10 I think my parents didn't know what this was because this is not what I was told I was walking into.

Speaker 10 And she said, yeah, your parents absolutely know what this is and you're sent here for a reason.

Speaker 10 And I just was filabric acid and just felt like an out-of-body experience for the first two days as the reality set in.

Speaker 10 I think there are a lot of similarities between the wilderness programs, the day-to-day, having small groups and therapy throughout the day, having to yell your name as you go to the bathroom behind a tree so they know you didn't run away, hanging the bear bags.

Speaker 10 graduating through different phases of the programs. It all sound pretty similar.
You have to get through like water phase, earth phase, fire phase, something like that.

Speaker 10 The first phase, you're not allowed to talk to anybody. You can't make eye contact.
No one else exists. You just have to do your little journals and your assignments and your work.

Speaker 10 Then you graduate and there's this little ceremony.

Speaker 10 This is when you get to the second phase. We're about a week in at this point.
You receive impact letters from your family. Each family member, mom, dad, brother, sister.

Speaker 10 My eight and 10 year old siblings had to write how I hurt them and how mad they were at me, all the things I did wrong. They were led to believe by my parents that I was the problem in the family.

Speaker 10 They were totally manipulated into thinking I was this evil person. I had to read these impact letters out to the entire group.

Speaker 10 When I read my mom's, she had mentioned how disappointed she was that she had found this really provocative photograph that my boyfriend and I had taken.

Speaker 10 She didn't like explicitly say what we were doing in the photo. At the end of the impact letters, the group is allowed to to ask you questions and somebody asked, what was in that photograph?

Speaker 10 What was so bad? And I was mortified. I said, oh, it was just like a picture of my boyfriend and I kissing.
The counselor pulled me aside after the group and was like, we know that was a lie.

Speaker 10 We know what was in the photograph. You're starting over.
So I had to start all the way back to phase one. I might have had to sleep in between the counselors again.

Speaker 10 Couldn't talk to anybody the whole charade over again until I was ready to tell the truth. We got our bear bags refilled once a week, so it's on us to ration it out.

Speaker 10 We'd have perishable vegetables and things like that. If we finished all the vegetables, we got a little pack of Gatorade to put in our Nalgene, and that was really special.

Speaker 10 So it was our mission to finish all our vegetables. We still had a bunch of onions to eat in this one night.
We were in trouble for something, so we didn't get to make a fire.

Speaker 10 And we were already eating cold, hard, uncooked rice and beans. We had these onions.
We're like, oh, we want to get our Gatorade the next day.

Speaker 10 We have to eat them, but we don't have a way to cook them. So a bunch of us just ate raw onions like an apple out of desperation to get this little pack of Gatorade.

Speaker 10 One girl tried to hide her, like, dug a little hole and buried it. I think she might have had to start the program over.
She got in big trouble for that.

Speaker 10 The whole time you're in the woods, we weren't allowed to shower, but we would get a can full of water to go out in the woods and used soap as our shampoo, body wash once a week.

Speaker 10 But there was a time where we went two weeks without. We got laundry change out once a week.
So the same clothes, except for underwear. I think we had multiple pairs of underwear.

Speaker 10 It was smelled so bad, but you get used to the smell. We didn't have mirrors, so I had no idea.
I had this big open wound on my face that wasn't healing.

Speaker 10 So one of the staff actually brought it to my attention that I needed to get it looked at. I think they gave me some like neosporin.
For the most part, I have neutral feelings about the staff.

Speaker 10 I do remember thinking that they were very young,

Speaker 10 straight out of college, like just a few years older than us. I always thought that was strange.
The really young ones felt more like kind of friends than anything.

Speaker 10 There were a couple of really strict ones. They did a staff change out every week.

Speaker 11 What about your therapist? How often did you see them?

Speaker 10 We saw him once a week. He was the main person you essentially wanted to impress.
So I just remember always being super calculated before I went into our sessions.

Speaker 10 Had to like say the right thing, show that I was changing a little bit. Every week there would be a big group with him and the counselors who were leaving or switching out.

Speaker 10 And one time we were given the quote-unquote opportunity to listen in on this change out. It's where they like talk about our progress.

Speaker 10 I just remember thinking that was really fucked up because we would hear the counselors basically saying which of the kids they thought needed to stay longer.

Speaker 10 That was a crazy experience to hear that change out with the therapist and the counselors who lived with us.

Speaker 10 I don't know if this is promised to parents that we would be continuing whatever high school courses we had been taking at home, but I just remember the school aspect of it being such a joke.

Speaker 10 I think we would have 30 minutes to an hour of a class a week and it would be like, identify these bodies of water. How does fire make heat?

Speaker 10 I think we actually had to do a couple word searches for like things we would see on a hike, like bird, tree. We would get a full science credit from that.

Speaker 10 The day of my three weeks, there was no sign that I was leaving. We were actually on something called a solo and it's where the whole group is separated.
You are absolutely by yourself.

Speaker 10 And we either had our food or they came around different times of the day to give us food. But totally remote by myself for, I think, two or three nights.

Speaker 10 Absolutely nothing to do but like read the Bible and journal. I was like, well, my parents said three weeks.
I'm out of here. So while I was on my solo, I tried to break my arm.

Speaker 10 I made myself fall a couple times and then I couldn't do it. So I eventually just started like hitting my elbow with a log.
I went through the whole charade, like screamed out for the counselors.

Speaker 10 They were nearby and they ran over. I told them I broke my arm.
So they took me to the hospital and I was like, score, I'm going to get out of here. But no, they bandaged up my arm.
I had to go back.

Speaker 10 And then it made me feel worse because when we hiked for the next week or so, I wasn't allowed to carry my backpack. So the other girls had to.
So I felt really bad about that.

Speaker 10 In the woods, the trauma for me was

Speaker 10 the physical parts of it that became so normal. We would hike eight, ten miles a day uphill with these 80-pound packs, then have to sleep in the snow under a tarp.

Speaker 10 What was hardest was figuring out how to get out of there. That was just the goal.
How do I get out of here like as soon as possible?

Speaker 10 And essentially that meant using the right amount and type of manipulation. The first few weeks I played like I had no problems and I was fine.
And then I got feedback that that wasn't believable.

Speaker 10 So I learned I need to turn it up a little bit.

Speaker 10 We had to like call a group if we felt a big emotion. So I would start calling groups that I felt quote unquote negative emotions so that they would feel like I was learning and growing.

Speaker 10 I got feedback that the boyfriend that I had before I went in there was bad news. So about halfway through my stay, I told them, them, I think you guys are right.

Speaker 10 It's going to be hard, but I think I need to break up with them with absolutely no intention of that. Everything that I did became so calculated.
I did have a lot of issues.

Speaker 10 It wasn't even scratching the surface of getting real help or doing real work. When you're out there, you form very close bonds.

Speaker 10 I knew we were not allowed to tell each other our last name, our email address, anything like that. We were not allowed to keep in touch with anybody.

Speaker 10 I had written written my email address and last name down on a piece of paper for a girl who was about to leave.

Speaker 10 I was like off in the distance and I saw that piece of paper in one of the counselors hands.

Speaker 10 So I thought, this is going to set me back. I'm going to have to like stay here longer now.
So I remember I called a group and said, I have to admit something. I gave whatever her name is my address.

Speaker 10 I feel really bad about it. So I just wanted to confess to like beat the counselors to it.
So it would look like I was doing something noble.

Speaker 10 I left without knowing any of the girls' information or anything. And that was kind of sad.

Speaker 11 And were you ever able to find them?

Speaker 10 I did. I guess MySpace had come out when I was there.
So I found a handful of them on MySpace, but some of them to this day, I don't know what happened to them. I know one girl had to stay.

Speaker 10 I think she set the record. It was like 24 or 26 weeks.
I was there for eight weeks exactly. When I left, I was not changed at all.

Speaker 10 If anything, I was just more manipulative and prepared for the next phase, which was Carlbrook.

Speaker 11 Carlbrook was founded in 2002 by former graduates of several, quote, emotional growth programs.

Speaker 11 Various sources state that Carlbrook was modeled after intensive emotional growth workshops and promised a rigorous academic program.

Speaker 11 It's important to note that a prerequisite to Carlbrook School was attendance at a wilderness therapy program.

Speaker 11 In December 2010, a 16-year-old student at Carlbrook School, Forrest Ferguson, was reported missing in South Boston, Virginia.

Speaker 11 He was last seen after leaving the campus on the evening of December 4th, 2010. Devastatingly, he remains missing to this day.

Speaker 11 Carlbrook closed its doors permanently in December 2015 after over a decade of operation.

Speaker 11 The decision decision to close was allegedly attributed to, quote, continued declining enrollments, end quote, according to a statement from the Board of Regions.

Speaker 11 The school had allegedly experienced a sharp decline in enrollment in the previous years, following the introduction of new management by investors and the implementation of cost-cutting initiatives.

Speaker 11 Following the closure, in February 2016, Carlbrook filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection alongside a second entity, Carl Brook Properties LLC.

Speaker 10 I found out I would not be going home, not even for a second. I was going straight into another program.
I was told that I had made some good progress there and they wanted to see it continue.

Speaker 10 And if I'm not mistaken, I believe I was told no other schools would accept me.

Speaker 10 It was always told to me from the first time I remember hearing the name Carlbrook that I was going to one of the best luxurious dream school that everyone wishes they could go in. and I was so lucky.

Speaker 10 I should be so grateful for this and I better not screw up again or I'll go somewhere worse. I found out an hour before the car came to get me that I was leaving.

Speaker 10 I think we had like a goodbye group and you were allowed to run it.

Speaker 10 I might have asked all the girls to say one funny memory they had about us together and then what their favorite food was out in the woods. My parents picked me up in the woods.

Speaker 10 The big thing everyone looks forward to is your first shower.

Speaker 10 You're promised you get this amazing shower at the home base. It's just gonna change your life since you haven't had a real shower in eight weeks.

Speaker 10 At the home base, the hot water wasn't working and they didn't have any soap. So, this glamorous shower I was promised was awful.
Borderline worse than in the woods. That was a huge letdown.

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Speaker 10 The big part of my story was that I had this toxic boyfriend. My parents hated him.
In order to get through the woods, I promised my counselor that I would never talk to that boyfriend again.

Speaker 10 We stopped at a restaurant to use the bathroom. I grabbed my dad's cell phone, ran into the bathroom stall and called my boyfriend and told him that I was okay.

Speaker 10 And then we drove straight to Carlbrook.

Speaker 10 I was feeling hopeless and lost and that this process would be endless. There was absolutely no end in sight.
You speak up that you don't want to go.

Speaker 10 You're seen as defiant and potentially you could be put somewhere worse or for longer. I just, for survival, accepted that I would be going somewhere else, but it was devastating news.

Speaker 11 Were you ever able to like make your case to your parents?

Speaker 10 Absolutely not. They would believe these therapists and counselors over anything I had to say.
Carl Brooks campus was on a very beautiful piece of land in Virginia.

Speaker 10 Two students were there to greet me. As soon as you get out of the car, you say just a quick goodbye to your parents and instantly strip search.

Speaker 10 They went through all my suitcases and not only were they looking for contraband, but they were looking for clothing that was out of standard.

Speaker 10 I just remember initially being told the rules, which was a lot. It was really overwhelming.
I was not allowed to acknowledge any students except for ones that were further along in the program.

Speaker 10 The owners of the school, if you saw them on campus, you knew somebody was in trouble or something was going to go down.

Speaker 10 Every time you got in trouble, you had to stand in front of the entire school and say why you were in trouble. I felt like they put a lot of shame on you for making mistakes.

Speaker 10 The owner, Grant Price, whose mother was the education consultant who sent me to that school, he would stalk around the school, scowling at everyone.

Speaker 10 He and a couple of their owners met at a therapeutic boarding school and started their own.

Speaker 10 He threw around all the time, you guys have it so easy. Like, y'all don't know how great it is here compared to the school where I went to.

Speaker 10 When you first arrived at the school, you're on bands with all of lower school. That means other lower school students do not exist.

Speaker 10 If you get in trouble, you might be put on bands with a particular group. So towards the end of when I was there, I was on bands with all guys.

Speaker 10 I had gained weight in the woods, and my mom had bought me this new wardrobe of clothes. None of them fit me.

Speaker 10 So I had to wear other girls' clothes for the first few weeks until my mom got some in my size. And that just added to the feeling of I didn't have anything of my own in this new strange school.

Speaker 10 The dress code was very strict. Pants, for example, couldn't touch your butt.
They had to go straight down the back.

Speaker 10 If you washed your clothes and your pants were a little tight, we would have to put stuffed animals in the butt of our pants to kind of stretch them out a little bit. Skirts, dresses below the knees.

Speaker 10 No tank tops, spaghetti straps, anything like showing arms. A lot of our go-to attire was J.
Cruz business wear. Boys had to wear ties, no tennis shoes or sneakers.

Speaker 10 A lot of girls just wore like plain flats. No makeup, no hair products.
Even for undergarments, no thongs, no underwear that had lace. You could never see like your underwear line through your pants.

Speaker 10 No bras that had lace, had to be very plain, preferably like sports bras.

Speaker 10 We were not allowed any jewelry towards the end of your stay. You're allowed one pair of stud earrings.
We had to iron our clothes every morning.

Speaker 10 I remember this one boy did have wrinkles in his pants and he got yelled at for being sloppy, not taking care of himself.

Speaker 11 What was the sleeping arrangement? arrangement?

Speaker 10 They were called mods. They were basically like mobile homes.
There were probably 12 to 15 girls, a mod.

Speaker 10 In each room, there were four girls.

Speaker 10 One of the girls was, I think it was called Dormhead, and they were in charge of like enforcing the dress code for their room, making sure that cleaning was finished and up to par because we had to clean our rooms every morning.

Speaker 10 When I first got there, we didn't have a cafeteria. We just had another mobile home that was the dining hall.
And it was all frozen, fake processed food.

Speaker 10 There were a lot of rules on the food. Like you couldn't eat too little because there were students there who had eating disorder past.

Speaker 10 They wanted to make sure they weren't starving themselves, but you also couldn't eat too much. The upper school students, I think, could have tea.

Speaker 10 Lower school students couldn't have any sort of caffeine, anything like that. The school is divided to the academic side with like 20 teachers.

Speaker 10 And then the counseling therapy side, and there's probably like 10 staff. Each staff member has like 10 students at their caseload.

Speaker 10 A lot of them were pretty cool, younger, but to my knowledge, none of them had any like true psychology degrees.

Speaker 10 Something that stood out to me, my counselor, I was crying to him and upset that I had gained a lot of weight and that I was ashamed of how I looked.

Speaker 10 And he said, weight is actually something that you have full control over. So if you feel fat, just lose weight, go on a diet.
That was his advice.

Speaker 10 And that was advice that I shared with another student in a group. And that's awful advice to tell a 14, 15-year-old girl who's probably already had eating disorder issues.

Speaker 10 That just shows the mindset of our counselors. I hurt myself really badly one time and did require medical care.
So I was allowed to go off campus and like get that looked at.

Speaker 10 But most things were treated by the school nurses. Some of the staff were really scary.
A lot of them were cool. Looking back, they were probably all in their like 20s, maybe 30s.

Speaker 10 The teachers were the coolest though, because a lot of them had the rules be a little bit looser in their classes.

Speaker 11 Did you feel like you got an education while you were there?

Speaker 10 No, amongst the students, the school part was kind of a joke. I was 18 years old and having to take the same math class as a 14 year old.

Speaker 10 I'm not a good student and like I was on the dean's list one time because I got all A's. but I do think that the college counselor who was there did a really good job.

Speaker 10 Like she worked her ass off because myself and a lot of my friends got into some amazing schools.

Speaker 10 The reason they probably tried to get so many students into really good schools is because Ivy Leagues were on the list of where the alumni had gone.

Speaker 10 We had group three times a week, two hours long after school. He would have a group with like 50 kids in it.

Speaker 10 It's It's called railing when you, a staff member or another student yells at another student. Grant was known for having these big groups and just yelling.
I was subject once. It was horrible.

Speaker 10 It's embarrassing. I got called out for basically not giving a disgusting enough confession.

Speaker 10 If you didn't have something awful to confess, you truly had to make it up or else you'd be called out for it and yelled at. After a two-hour group, you go to dinner.

Speaker 10 After After dinner, you have a one-on-one, deep, hour-long conversation with another student. After that was Last Light.

Speaker 10 That's when everyone got on the ground, laid on the couches, cuddling, giving massages.

Speaker 10 They were pretty strict about no boys with girls, but it would be piles of boys, piles of girls, cuddling.

Speaker 10 The staff would participate, staff and students cuddling in piles on the floor, on the couches. If you don't participate, you stand out or you get in trouble.

Speaker 10 And then they would either like read a poem or good night message. And then everyone would go to their dorms, go to bed.
The two girls that were my welcome guides gave me a heads up.

Speaker 10 They were like, it's going to seem a little weird the first couple days, especially like seeing all the boys cuddling on the couch. And then truly you get used to it.

Speaker 10 When you first get there, they're still forming your peer group, the group of students that you're going to graduate with.

Speaker 10 When I first got there, I was on bands with everyone in my peer group until we went through the first of the five workshops called Integritas. That's sort of your initiation into the school.

Speaker 10 Each peer group is open for like three or four months. I was one of the last people in my peer group before they closed it.
There were kids who had been there since before I even went to the woods.

Speaker 10 There were girls, I feel like they were resentful towards me because I got there, the peer group closed, we went through the first workshop. I only had like a week of no human rights.

Speaker 10 Whereas there were some girls who were there for like upwards of four months who were just waiting. Your peer group are typically the people you're closest with.

Speaker 10 Also, the girls in your room you get to know pretty well.

Speaker 10 You get used to hearing very deep, shocking things all the time.

Speaker 10 One of my assignments from my student supports was to go up to every student in the school and be told what the worst thing they thought about me was.

Speaker 10 These god-awful, like things casually said to you on a daily basis is normalized. The students that give you the harshest feedback, you're supposed to essentially thank them for that afterwards.

Speaker 10 It's like, oh my gosh, you were brave enough to tell me this. Thank you so much.

Speaker 10 Nowadays, I have resentments towards some of the kids that I probably at the time looked up to because they said some really fucked up things.

Speaker 10 I had an injury and I needed a little bit of help. So during one of my classes, the teacher asked us to all get up, get textbooks, come back to our seats.

Speaker 10 I asked the boy if he could grab one for me while he was over there. He brought me to group the next week and told me I was so selfish and lazy for asking.

Speaker 10 I was clearly physically impaired, but I still got brought to group and railed for that. I had had to like sit a different way because of my injury.

Speaker 10 I got called an exhibitionist for that and that I was like trying to flash everybody.

Speaker 10 The weekends, we deep clean for two hours, then your morning block, you could either do like arts or crafts or play basketball, then lunch, then your afternoon block, then dinner.

Speaker 10 I think we were allowed pizza and then we watched a movie. It had to be G-rated.
And then the cuddle session and then to your dorm.

Speaker 10 We were allowed to wear jeans on the weekends. They had to be baggy.
Health and fitness and sports were a passion of mine there too, but I didn't look like a super athletic person.

Speaker 10 I had attempted like six times to join this athletic committee that they had.

Speaker 10 And the athletic committee will get to go off campus to sports games once in a while or stay up late one night and watch a basketball game.

Speaker 10 perks that people that were interested in sports would enjoy. I was rejected from it.
One of the times, I remember we were standing in front of our dorms.

Speaker 10 One of the girls who was the head of the athletic committee came up to me and was like, why would somebody like you want to join our committee?

Speaker 10 And looked me up and down, insinuating that I was overweight. So that was like a huge gut punch.

Speaker 10 One of the modular homes was reserved for the workshops. A couple of times a year, students would go in here and come out crying.
So the maintenance staff called them the cry sessions.

Speaker 10 My counselor and another one would run the first workshop, the second workshop, two other random counselors and two student supports. And then the owners would duck in and out during some sessions.

Speaker 10 It's like every three months you go through another workshop. The length of these workshops got longer.
Integritas was, I think, two days. And then the last workshop was like a whole week.

Speaker 10 This is an analogy that was explained to me when I was a new student about the workshops.

Speaker 10 The first workshop is basically like a kid going to a zoo and the mom saying, okay, let's go see the monkey exhibit. The second workshop is, you have a little bit more freedom.

Speaker 10 It's up to you and like your peer group to do the therapy. So it's like, we're just going to go to this area of the zoo.
And then by this last workshop, it's like, what do you want to do today?

Speaker 10 It's really like all us therapizing ourselves and each other.

Speaker 10 And one of the workshops, I think the third one, Animus, the first day was dedicated to people just confessing if they had broken any rules in the school.

Speaker 10 I felt like they got mostly everything out of everyone, but so much anxiety and a sinking feeling in your stomach, knowing you had to like confess everything.

Speaker 10 Also, some of the workshops had questions. They would make you go around in a circle and envision that you're on a lifeboat out in the middle of the ocean.

Speaker 10 The lifeboat only has room for two other people. Who would you save? And you had to go around in a circle and say, like, I want you to die.
I want you to live.

Speaker 10 I got told that I would one day be the worst mom. People just telling you disgusting things.
It's rewarded if you say shocking things to other students.

Speaker 10 Another thing about the third workshop, people would always come out with literal blood on their hands. We had to hit the back of a pillow, pound it with the back of our hands.

Speaker 10 We had to do these writing prompts. This is towards the end of my stay.
I had to write about Integritas, the first workshop. What would I do differently?

Speaker 10 I put, I was so full of shit during Integritas. If I could go back, I would have said real actual disclosures.
I got in trouble for not saying some that were like deep enough.

Speaker 10 So I wouldn't have been so selfish in my head when I was giving feedback to other students.

Speaker 10 In most of the workshops, I would believe the positive feedback and not get so spiteful about the negative feedback. I would use this feedback as a valuable tool, not as ammo against myself.

Speaker 10 The fifth final workshop was about a week long. They told us we had to be like very pure as we participated in this last workshop.

Speaker 10 So to not take our medications, I felt so weird about it and I physically felt sick. So the second day I did, and I basically had to confess to the group that I had taken my medication that morning.

Speaker 10 My assignments for the last workshop were, what do I tell myself is wrong with me? What will it take for me to finally hit rock bottom? How do I trick others into liking me?

Speaker 10 What things get in the way for me being who I really am?

Speaker 10 These are prompts. During the last workshop, they have you, everyone go outside.

Speaker 10 The staff sets up this like real-world haunted house of what life's going to be like after we graduate to kind of scare us into wanting to stay on a good path.

Speaker 10 So we walk in to this heavy metal music blaring, like empty liquor bottles laying around, a little pile of fake drugs. Then they sat us down and made us watch the ending to Requiem for a Dream.

Speaker 10 The ending is a prostitution ring, and then another guy overdoses on drugs and dies. So they made us watch that to like scare us.
Like, if you steer off the wrong path, this will be you.

Speaker 10 I do remember us just like sitting there, paralyzed in fear and crying about what would happen if we messed up. This would be our lives.

Speaker 10 Amongst all this stuff, they had put a picture of me as a little kid. That was such a mind fuck.

Speaker 10 In the fourth workshop, there's a whole day dedicated to looking at your baby picture and crying over it and like wishing you could be that innocent child again.

Speaker 10 Somehow my baby picture got mixed up in the props for the scary stuff day in the fifth workshop.

Speaker 10 And so to see this wall of scary things and then me in the middle of it, it was like so weird and twisted and really messed with me. The staff said it was an accident.

Speaker 10 My picture got mixed up with that stuff. But in the moment, it was really like, what the fuck?

Speaker 11 You had mentioned that you were punished at one point for six weeks. You had isolation.
Can you talk a bit about that and what that was like to experience?

Speaker 10 In retrospect, my punishment was more lenient than some. I just was on straight out of school suspension.
When you're in that kind of trouble, it's called a program.

Speaker 10 I i was on an out-of-school program all day every day i sat in this tiny room in the main building with the red notebook that i actually have sitting beside me with assignments that my student supports gave me to do there are two students in the whole school i was allowed to talk to they're my student supports they would give me assignments i had to do them all day every day unless i was helping out in the dining hall you have to eat at this little desk no eye contact nothing and then every group three times a a week, I would just get yelled at.

Speaker 10 The person fresh out of Carlbrook would tell you that it was a pivotal moment and it changed me. It helped me get on the right path.
And it was hard, but it was worth it.

Speaker 10 Now, looking back, it was really fucked up. There were 15-year-old students responsible for me this entire punishment, giving me assignments, no training, no background.

Speaker 10 When I was an older student, I had the opportunity to be another student's support. I just cringe at the assignments I gave him.

Speaker 10 There were some physical punishments. So when you're on a program, you have to run crews every night.
So instead of having detention, they would give you a crew.

Speaker 10 That meant that for an hour after dinner, you had to put on your workout clothes, physically run and clean the school while you're on bands with the whole school.

Speaker 10 I had to do that every night for six weeks. If you stop running or if you like take a breather, you get yelled at and you have to keep going or you'll be given another crew.

Speaker 10 That would include taking those huge office water jugs, running those across the school.

Speaker 10 Once in a while, they would cut down a tree and you would know that someone was in trouble and they would be responsible for that stump. There are two students in my peer group who were on stumps.

Speaker 10 It must have taken them months. One of the boys sat in the corner of our program room and just the soul was sucked out of his eyes.
After he dug the stump, he got sent somewhere worse.

Speaker 10 And to this day, I don't know where he is.

Speaker 10 Another girl had to carry pebbles all day, every day. She lost like 20 pounds.
Carlbrook was for like wealthier kids. It was a lot of money for us to dig stumps out of the ground.

Speaker 11 Was it common for people to try and run away? Did you ever try to run away?

Speaker 10 I did not try to run away. At Carlbrook, I only knew two, three kids who actually tried to run away and they got in big trouble, had to stay longer.
It was not worth it.

Speaker 11 What was the communication like with your parents while you were at Carlbrook?

Speaker 10 I think you have bi-weekly calls with your parents. I want to say they're 20 minutes long.

Speaker 10 There was a phone room and this one man, his singular job at the school was to pass out mail and to dial the phone.

Speaker 10 He basically was an ear to all of our phone calls, monitoring the content of our phone calls. Phone calls were a thing that could be taken away.

Speaker 10 In an upper school, you're allowed to call, I believe, once a week for 20 minutes. I think when I got closer to graduating, I was allowed like a weekly phone call with my sister.
Letters are allowed.

Speaker 10 Staff reads all the letters and monitors all packages.

Speaker 10 At Carlbrook, I gained a good bit of weight because I had an unhealthy relationship with food. My only real coping mechanism was overeating in the cafeteria.

Speaker 10 I hadn't seen my parents for about 18 months. They were allowed to come to the school, take me off campus for a visit, go out to eat.
I hadn't been to a restaurant in over 18 months.

Speaker 10 So I was excited when the waiter brought bread to the table and I grabbed a fresh roll.

Speaker 10 And my dad said, if you and a skinny person apply to the exact same job and she had the same resume as you, she would get it, not you.

Speaker 10 Like that was the most important thing about me, me, that I was overweight and I just could not get back to campus fast enough.

Speaker 10 I just remember running back into my dorm like sobbing that my parents didn't love me and that that's all they saw was just some fat girl. It was horrifying to experience that.

Speaker 10 Towards the end of the stay, you're allowed to go home for like a weekend. I remember going to American Eagle, the clothing store.
I was so overwhelmed.

Speaker 10 It was just like a regular slow day at the mall and I had to leave. Being around normal people gave me so much anxiety.
You're still supposed to follow all the school rules.

Speaker 10 One of the rules is you're not allowed to drive. But my mom needed me to drive my car down the street for whatever reason.
I was so conflicted.

Speaker 10 Like, do I follow the school rules or do I follow my parents? My mom made me drive my car down the street. Once I got back to school, like, I had to confess to like the rules I had broken.

Speaker 10 I got in really big trouble for that.

Speaker 11 Were you ever able to express to your parents that you didn't want to be there?

Speaker 10 I stopped saying I didn't want to be there because that would only prolong my stay or make it more painful. So I just accepted it.

Speaker 10 We weren't allowed the internet, but we had laptops on our cell spreadsheets. You can make a countdown to when you graduate.
We would watch the milliseconds go by.

Speaker 10 We had our countdowns on our computers, so I knew when I was graduating, there were three graduations a year based on your peer group. There was one in May, one in August, and one in December.

Speaker 10 The last couple months and weeks are sort of a blur. You feel so elite.
You accomplished all the stuff at the school and the new students that are coming in just look to you like heroes.

Speaker 10 Before you graduate, you have to have a portion of your head shaved for the drug test. If you fail that, you have to stay longer.
I was there for a year and a half.

Speaker 10 In our graduation, we wore white dresses. Students hold a rose and walk down the aisle with another student.

Speaker 10 Most of the graduations take place outdoors, and you are allowed to invite immediate family. Each student has a chance to speak in front of all the family and all the students about their time there.

Speaker 10 I think they give out a couple awards,

Speaker 10 and that's it. Right after the ceremony, you just get in the car and you leave.
You go home. Not every student graduates high school there.
It's essentially like a graduation of the program.

Speaker 10 Some kids get their high school graduation. So some kids like had to go back to normal high schools after they graduated the program.

Speaker 10 I knew a girl who graduated high school but had to stay like a year longer to finish the Carlberg program. She was there for like two and a half years.

Speaker 10 I think the hardest part was the helplessness that you feel because

Speaker 10 you have no choice but to conform.

Speaker 10 If you are defiant in any way,

Speaker 10 you stay there longer or go somewhere worse. If you're too compliant, though, same thing.
Facebook came out when we were at Carlbrook. So I found a handful of them when I got out.

Speaker 10 So that was actually kind of cool to reconnect with them.

Speaker 10 But a lot of them, I still to this day wonder like what happened to them, especially the ones that went to quote unquote worse lockdown schools.

Speaker 10 And I do recall seeing like some kids who went one extreme.

Speaker 10 There were groups of kids who lived near each other and they, it was just partying, beers, cigarettes, all the things we weren't allowed to have. I was there in 2004 or 2005.

Speaker 10 The staff was so proud of the fact that no alumni has died. The year after I graduated, I think the first person died.

Speaker 10 And every year since then, it's been like a couple people, like drug overdoses, suicides. So that thing they used to brag about when the school was new is the opposite now.

Speaker 10 Once I left these programs, trying to simulate back in the real world, a lot of my friends had kind of moved on. Like the boyfriend that I had, that was part of the reason I got sent away.

Speaker 10 He had started dating someone else. You get back into the real world and it's constant loneliness and change.

Speaker 11 What was it like for you reuniting with your parents in those initial days and weeks?

Speaker 10 Initially, it was a lot of, now I'm the kid that you guys always wanted, but still my parents expected me to be completely good and moral. A month or two after I graduated, I just turned 18.

Speaker 10 I bought some cigarettes and my mom found them and was devastated sobbing about it. She felt like, all this was for nothing.
Like, what a letdown. You're still bad.

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Speaker 10 I graduated and then went to college a few months later. In college, I was such a robot of the person that Carlbrook made me.

Speaker 10 I remember some random boy down the hall for me having a conversation and my first question was, but how did that make you feel? In Carlbrook, they train you.

Speaker 10 You cannot have superficial, surface-y conversations. I remember my mom set up an appointment for me to get highlights and I felt this internal struggle.

Speaker 10 I almost didn't get a couple of highlights in my hair because I thought it went against everything that Carlbrook taught us.

Speaker 10 The first few years in college, it's normal to talk about high school memories. I couldn't relate to any of that.
So I felt very weird, not ever being able to contribute.

Speaker 10 And then when I would want to tell a story of high school, I would just get met with these looks like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 10 Kids could not comprehend what I was saying I had been through from my high school experience.

Speaker 10 It just became known as a joke, like, oh, Danielle went to this really crazy school with these crazy rules. Oh my gosh, that's so funny.

Speaker 10 In very recent years, my friends were like, wait, that's the kind of place you went. And it hit them how crazy and abnormal it was.

Speaker 10 My closest friends in quote-unquote high school were in this institution with me. So it was normal.
It was all I knew.

Speaker 10 So it wasn't until being separated from it for years and having a celebrity come forward saying that it was wrong when I realized, wow, some of the stuff was really messed up in my late 30s.

Speaker 10 It's like just now dawning on me how not okay and not normal these experiences were.

Speaker 10 And then with Elizabeth Gilpin's book coming out, she did an amazing job, but I had another layer of struggle in that I was not one of the cool kids. And so I was held to a different standard.

Speaker 10 I've seen former students post on Reddit and other social media platforms, especially when Elizabeth's book came out. It's offending the school.
It wasn't that bad.

Speaker 10 Yeah, there's some hard parts, but like, it really changed my life. A lot of those kids were some of the ones that, in my opinion, were bullies.

Speaker 10 Nowadays, I don't really tell people unless I know them really well.

Speaker 10 And I'll drop little snippets here and there of what my high school experience was like, but it's definitely a very awkward subject approach.

Speaker 10 I don't know if survivors can relate to this, but especially when I was in my early 20s and trying to date people, I would for sure

Speaker 10 let them know about these experiences way too soon because I almost wanted to warn them. I've made a lot of mistakes in talking about it too soon.

Speaker 10 It's really taken a while to kind of figure out like what I'm most comfortable with sharing. I'm lucky that I have a really great husband.

Speaker 10 He allows me without judgment to check myself and my intentions. Let's just say I said something to somebody and I'm dwelling on it.
Like, did I hurt their feelings? Did it come across the right way?

Speaker 10 Nine times out of 10, he's like, you're overthinking this. I've been programmed to not trust myself.

Speaker 10 Now in my late 30s, I'm finally the most true me that I've ever been.

Speaker 10 I didn't want kids because if we were just such disappointments to my parents, I didn't want to produce something that was going to be a disappointment to me.

Speaker 10 Up until my mid-30s, I looked at my parents as being the perfect parents. And it's only when I had a child that I realized, no, the feelings they had towards us aren't normal.

Speaker 10 I can't imagine having anything but unconditional love.

Speaker 10 Today, it impacts me in the way I parent my daughter because

Speaker 10 there are so many times in my life and childhood, my parents could have intervened sooner before it got to a point where I would need to be sent away.

Speaker 10 So I'm trying to set a good foundation as a mom with my daughter so that she doesn't grow up with the need for so much therapy. Like I did.

Speaker 10 I don't want her to feel like a bad daughter and all the things I felt growing up. I know my parents will never acknowledge what I went through during these times.

Speaker 10 I've had to, like, as an adult, I just accept my parents for who they are and accept that I'm better than the messages they gave me when I was little.

Speaker 10 That the reason I ended up at the school wasn't entirely my fault. My parents, before they had kids, they needed to do some work on themselves.
I think it really stems so far back.

Speaker 10 What should have been done differently? I should have been heard when I was asking for help at a younger age instead of waiting for me to scream for help.

Speaker 11 What is your relationship like with your siblings today?

Speaker 10 We really could not be closer. My parents also

Speaker 10 sent my siblings away to different programs and they have been to rehabs. We all have similar timelines in our lives and for some reason my parents can't see that they are the common denominator.

Speaker 10 I would say we have bonded over some of our experiences and we really understand each other now.

Speaker 10 I can't really see a scenario where you can justify sending your child to one of these programs. I'm the first to admit I did have a lot of problems growing up and I was acting out.

Speaker 10 I have been through substance abuse. I've been through sexual assault.
I've been through relocation across the world several times and none of those things have been as traumatic for me as surviving.

Speaker 10 the woods and surviving Carlbrook.

Speaker 10 Trying to assimilate back into the real world after surviving the programs. It has had such an impact on my life.

Speaker 10 I'm hyper-aware of not being selfish to a fault where I put other people first before myself. So that's something I've had to work on in therapy.

Speaker 10 As a result of going through these programs, I have the mindset where I can survive anything.

Speaker 10 Even something as simple as my husband and I tried to go camping a few weekends ago and everything we had broke down.

Speaker 10 I just let it roll off my back because I've survived in the woods for eight weeks with nothing but a tarp and a jar of peanut butter, basically.

Speaker 10 I'm really easygoing and resilient because I had to be strong.

Speaker 11 What do you hope that listeners will keep in mind as they're listening to stories like yours this season?

Speaker 10 Something I want my peers to keep in mind is that We were brainwashed. The person I was there is not who I really am.

Speaker 10 I just have a lot of love and empathy with other students I went to school with because I know that, like, if I wasn't my real self, they weren't their real selves either.

Speaker 10 So that's allowed me to let go of a lot of resentments.

Speaker 10 If there's any other fellow students that I attended these programs with, I'm sorry for anything I said that hurt or impacted or traumatized someone else.

Speaker 10 I was in pure survival mode, trying to conform to be the best student there I could be.

Speaker 10 I don't have any grudges or resentment to anyone that hurt me there.

Speaker 10 I want my peers to know that my heart goes out to all of them. I feel like we're a sort of a family in that we have so many shared experiences.

Speaker 10 There's no like hard feelings or anything towards the other students I went to school with. To friends of survivors, be honest and open and a shoulder to cry on if they need it.

Speaker 10 Listeners that haven't experienced this, it starts with your own home. Be the best parent you can be and show your child love.

Speaker 10 And there are other ways to get them help rather than having them locked away in an institution like this. Everything I've spoken about is just my experience and my opinions.

Speaker 10 I can acknowledge that there are students who look back in a positive way on our time there, but for me, it was a very, very hard, traumatizing thing to go through.

Speaker 10 I can pick out a handful of positives I gained from it, but overall,

Speaker 10 very negative and painful. Personally, I don't have this agenda to take down the industry or make a bunch of reforms.

Speaker 10 A lot of me coming forward is honestly to get stuff off my chest because these experiences I had in these institutions bring a lot of trauma in my life.

Speaker 10 And up until this point, I have not had somebody either willing to listen, wanting to understand, to empathize, to believe me.

Speaker 10 So it's nice just having someone listen and hear me.

Speaker 10 Being able to tell these stories to someone who believes me, someone who wants to hear what you've been doing say that it's not okay and that you hear me.

Speaker 10 And just the acknowledgement has truly been healing for me.

Speaker 11 Thank you for sharing that with me. You deserved so much better.
It costs so much to revisit and can be really draining and physically difficult. It's no small thing to speak out.

Speaker 11 I just appreciate so much your willingness.

Speaker 11 Next time on something was wrong.

Speaker 16 Justice and Healing, Lies and Greed, The Trauma of a Shared Nightmare.

Speaker 16 Just a sample of the signs on display at Ogdensburg City Hall during a demonstration put together by Academy at Ivy Ridge survivors.

Speaker 10 We were taught so much about parenting differently. We ate it up.
We were then surrounded by parents whose children were further up in levels.

Speaker 10 The parents who staffed each seminar would come up to the front of the room and tell great stories about how far they had come, about how desperate they were before they got their kid into it program.

Speaker 11 And it wasn't just Ivy Ridge.

Speaker 10 We found out later there were lots of different schools all over the country, which for us validated this is the key to saving teenagers.

Speaker 11 We believed it all.

Speaker 11 Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Rees, associate producers Amy B.

Speaker 11 Chesler and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High.

Speaker 11 Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist, and Marissen Travis from WME.

Speaker 11 Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership.

Speaker 11 In the episode notes, you'll always find episode-specific content warnings, sources, and resources. Thank you so much for your support.
Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Speaker 16 You want your master's degree. You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.
The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of it.

Speaker 16 With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Speaker 16 Get started today at apu.apus.edu.

Speaker 16 You're juggling a lot. Full-time job, side hustle, maybe a family.
And now you're thinking about grad school? That's not crazy. That's ambitious.

Speaker 16 At American Public University, we respect the hustle and we're built for it. Our flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

Speaker 16 Learn more about APU's 40 plus career relevant master's degrees and certificates at apu.apus.edu. APU built for the hustle.

Speaker 16 You want your master's degree. You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.
The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of it.

Speaker 16 With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Speaker 16 Get started today at apu.apus.edu.