Something Was Wrong - S24 Ep12 Someone Who Believes Me

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

*Content warning: body-image abuse, disordered eating, distressing topics, suicidal ideation, institutional child abuse, childhood trauma, therapeutic abuse, grooming, abduction, self-harm, emotional and physical violence, isolation, Substance Use Disorder, sexual assault.  *Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips:  somethingwaswrong.com/resources    *SWW S23 Theme Song & Artwork:  The S24 cover art is by the Amazing Sara Stewart Follow Something Was Wrong: Website: somethingwaswrong.com  IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast  Follow Tiffany Reese: Website: tiffanyreese.me  IG: instagram.com/lookieboo *Sources  Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness https://blueridgewilderness.com/  “Carlbrook: Unable to ‘pull out of nosedive.’” Sova Now, December 14, 2015 https://www.sovanow.com/articles/carlbrook_unable_to_pull_out_of_nosedive/  "The Carlbrook School”,  Struggling Teens.com, October 27, 2003 https://strugglingteens.com/archives/2003/11/carlbrook1103vr.html  “Carlbrook School files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.” Sova Now, February 18, 2016 https://www.sovanow.com/articles/carlbrook_school "Dan McDougal." Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness https://blueridgewilderness.com/who-we-are/our-team/dan-mcdougal Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness, Our Story https://blueridgewilderness.com/who-we-are/our-story  “Evoke Entrada.” Breaking Code Silence  https://www.breakingcodesilence.org/evoke-entrada/ Gilpin, Elizabeth. Stolen: A Memoir. July 20, 2021  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55898103-stolen  "Introducing Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness." Struggling Teens.com, July 27, 2016 https://strugglingteens.com/artman/publish/BlueRidgeTherapeuticWilderness “Missing Person / NamUs #MP13098.” National Missing and Unidentified Persons System https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP13098  "Our Story: From Vision to Transformational Community." Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness https://blueridgewilderness.com/who-we-are/our-story  Rensin, Emmet, “I went into the woods a teenage drug addict and came out sober. Was it worth it?” Vox, July 7, 2016 https://www.vox.com/2016/7/7/12081150/wilderness-therapy  “Second Nature Uintas.” Breaking Code Silence https://www.breakingcodesilence.org/second-nature-uintas/  “Seen N' Heard (October 2001).” Struggling Teens.com, October 1, 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20170502063301/http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/p Staff reports, "Carlbrook School closes; students asked to be out by Sunday." YourGV, October 28, 2020 https://www.yourgv.com/news/local_news/carlbrook-school-closes  "Wilderness Therapy Works: Why Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness is an Industry Leader in Student Care." Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness, February 8, 2024 https://blueridgewilderness.com/blog/wilderness-therapy-works-why-blue-ridge-therapeutic-wilderness-is-an-industry-leader-in-student-care "Woodbury Reports Visits Carlbrook School." Struggling Teens.com, May 29, 2014 https://strugglingteens.com/artman/publish/printer_CarlbrookSchoolBN_140529.shtml 

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. As always, please consume with care. For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each episode, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. All persons are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Responses to allegations from individual institutions are included within the season. Something was wrong and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical

advice. 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. Their current executive director, Danielle Hava, LCSW, requested a phone call, which took place Tuesday, September 2, 2025, to better understand the allegations before writing a written response. Danielle Hava is Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness's executive director and is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Georgia. As a reminder, an LCSW, or licensed clinical social worker, is a type of a type of local social worker, is a type of 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. However, in regards to this discussion, HAVA is operating as the executive director under founder and owner Dan McDougal. 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. Here's a summarized list of questions that I posed to Danielle Hava, Executive Director Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness. As a therapist, how do you justify putting your name and license behind these programs given their history of allegations?

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. Do you perform strip searches? What are the minimum qualifications of day-to-day staff who spend most of their time with students? 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. 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? 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? How often do students meet with therapists? Do students earn actual school credit recognized by the state? Is isolation used as punishment? Are students forced to carry excessively heavy backpacks on long hikes? Do you ensure proper fitting shoes and clothing to prevent physical harm? 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? 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.

Why was the program name changed if nothing except branding and business restructuring changed, with McDougal still owning it? 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? Do you believe survivors' consistent reports of abuse, or do you think they're lying? 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?

The following day, Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025, we received the following email from Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness Executive Director Ms. Hava. Quote, Hi, Tiffany. Please use our statement below in regard to any mention of Blue Ridge Therapy. Wilderness. We ask that you use the statement in its entirety. It may be attributed to the executive leadership at Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness. 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. 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. That commitment to improvement is why we remain single-owner-operated, so we can adapt quickly and responsibly. At the same time, this isn't an all-or-nothing conversation. Wilderness therapy has saved countless lives. 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. If you take the opportunity to connect with these alumni, their stories could add further perspective to the conversation. You asked about daily life at Blue Ridge, suggesting that this was the abuse, in quotes, that the program itself was harmful. 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. At the same time, we are dedicated to ensuring our program upholds the highest standards of dignity, safety, and care. Deprivation, oppression, or any form of mistreatment has no place in our work and is not tolerated under any circumstances. Our team, including licensed therapists, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a 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. We categorically do not use corporal punishment.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. The voices of alumni whose lives were profoundly transformed and in some cases saved by wilderness therapy are essential to provide context and balance and to ensure your audience understands the full impact of these programs. They can provide perspective on how wilderness therapy

instills hope, fosters healing, and offers opportunities for a healthier life. 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. 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. 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. 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. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is something was wrong. Today, a survivor whom we're calling Danielle shares about her harrowing experiences at two programs. Second Nature Blue Ridge and Carl Brook School. Danielle was enrolled at Second Nature Blue Ridge for eight weeks, December 2004 to February 2005. She then spent 18 months at Carlebrook School,

which was self-described as a private, co-educational, college preparatory boarding school. 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 McDougall. Blue Ridge operated under collaboration originally with Second Nature programs, which had multiple wilderness therapy programs until about 2016-2017. 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. 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. I just wanted to come forward to share the truth about what happens in these facilities. 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. As in almost 40-year-old looking back, I now see that my childhood is really traumatic.

My parents definitely have issues of their own, like untrue. treated alcoholism, eating disorder issues, trauma from their parents, and they've never wanted to receive help for their issues. 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. 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. 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. 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 trunkeyest baby. 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. 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.

I have a lot of regret and had to do a lot of healing in the last couple years in making amends to my siblings and forgiving myself for not knowing better. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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 a jarring thing to go through having to change schools, states, countries, every couple of months or so. I went to very good private schools. I didn't really care that much, 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. Naturally, I had some strong, big emotions, and my parents never knew how to handle that. And got that label of dramatic, crazy, just wanting attention. In a way, they're right. I did want attention. I had needs that weren't being met. I was going through things I couldn't process. But my parents used it as a way to just write me off.

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, what they don't need is to feel further isolated. Exactly. 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. In the movie, a big part of the storyline is that the young girl's mother passes away unexpectedly. 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.

And I remember thinking, I've not once in my life thus far meant to hurt my mom or be mean to her. In seventh grade, we went to a skate park and my brother and sister and I were just rollerblading around. I ended up at the very end of it tripping and landed right on my elbow. I instantly knew my elbow was broken. I'd 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. Things like that I never believed, never heard or listened to. 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. My mom has never not been on a diet.

I was always on a diet starting from the second grade. I definitely have binge eating disorder. I would try to not eat, then that would result in me binging, and I'd get disappointed in myself, so I'd eat more. 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, 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. 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 and I wanted to make a good impression. And I remember telling my mom, I just learned a way to like, shave extra 50 calories off this turkey sandwich I'm about to make. Being so proud of that, I just got a lot of compliments on how good I looked.

And that was hard to maintain, though, than not eating and playing sports. One day I made myself throw up after I ate. 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. It was ignored. So I continued making myself throw up all throughout ninth and tenth grade.

When I got up and walked to the kitchen and I just passed out and my parents heard me fall and came in. Some signs were giving them cause for concern. So they did have me go see a therapist. 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. The bulimia stopped because I was seeing a therapist. But over the years, I really did flip-flop between Benzscheing Disorder Anorexamblemia until I finally, in my 20s, got proper help 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. So it's really hard to have a healthy body in mind around my parents. Did you have any community groups that you were a part of where you were able to feel celebrated? 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 performed. When I was at 11, my dad said,

I know you like singing and you think you're going to be a famous singer one day. Everyone wants to be a famous something. Trying to squash my dreams as a young child. When I had my big move during my high school years, when I was inorexic, I was really at a horrible low point. I was living overseas, moved back to the States in a really, really small town where everyone had grown up together. 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 in my sense of humor, didn't align with the people. 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. 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. 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. Next thing you know, the phone hangs up and my dad comes bounding down the hole into my room saying,

your friend's parents just called us saying you called her saying you wanted to kill yourself. Do you know how crazy it 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. Right after they left my room, I swallowed a bottle of Tylenolp. I tried to kill myself. I woke up.

I was disappointed in that. But that was like a really scary moment. I tried to kill myself again a few months later with same thing. And then about a year or two later, because of a fight I had with my parents, They both left the house. 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.

The reality of what was happening said 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. I can feel the effects and I think I'm going to die. She said, I don't know. that we live in a really small town what if we run into somebody we know at the hospital is it really that bad I said yes it is please come get me now she was not gonna come

home I remember finding my sister shaking her and saying help me please call mom please tell her that I'm serious 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 car she goes to Walmart gets a bottle of Ipacac 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. 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 and know that I didn't. 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. 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 busing out laughing at the ridiculousness. 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. My mom, the first thing I came to and it was like, you fucked up again. Let me shame you, let me embarrass you, not, oh my gosh, I was so scared, I'm so glad you're okay. I was really looking for anything and everything to numb the pain. 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 it. After that suicide attempt, I was very lost. I didn't have childhood friends because social media wasn't a thing and I moved so many times. I felt like I did not have my siblings. 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.

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

I was throwing up all over my dorm room. 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. 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. So I didn't think that much of it. But then a couple 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. 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. You'll make some great friends. At the end of three weeks, you get to come back home. It's in the winter, but it's basically like a summer camp. It'll be really fun. 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. 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.

I reluctantly agreed. I needed help. I love a long time prior to one of my parents sent me away. We drove there, pulled up. Once I realized how desolate it was, the reality hit me. My parents got out of the car to greet the people and I just locked the car doors. 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. 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. And after, I guess, the intake process, I had to go get the physical at the doctor's office.

I think I tried to open the door and it was child locked. All I could think about is like, how do I get out of the situation? So I get to the doctor and there was a teenage boy. We're in the exact same outfit sitting in between two people in the waiting room too. you 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 where I'm going, 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?

I was just angry and spiteful. So I said no. wish I had taken them up on that last meal. We'd get to the woods, 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. All I remember about that first night is sleeping in between two counselors, who I never met before under a tarp.

I said to the counselor, I think I'm in the wrong place. I think my parents didn't know what this was, because this is not what I was told I was walking into. And she said, yeah, your parents absolutely know what this is. And you're sent here for a reason. I just was flabbergasted and just felt like an out-of-body experience for the first two days as the reality set in. 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, 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. The first phase, you're not allowed to talk to anybody, can't make eye contact, no one else exists. You just have to do your little journals and your assignments and your work. Then you graduate and there's this little ceremony. This is when you get to the second phase, for about a week, and at this point, you receive impact letters from your family.

Each family member, mom, dad, brother, sister. My eight and ten-year-old siblings had to write how I hurt them and how mad they were at me, all the things I had to wrong. They were led to believe by my parents that I was the problem in the family. They were totally manipulated into thinking I was this evil person. I had to read these impact letters out to the entire group. 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. 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 ask you questions. And somebody asked, what was in that photograph? 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 side after the group and was like, we know that was a lie. 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, couldn't talk to anybody the whole charade over again until I was ready to tell the truth. We got our bare bags refilled once a week. So it's on us to ration it out. 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 Naljean, and that was really special. 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, 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. 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. I had a little desperation to get this little pack of eight or aid. 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 big trouble for that. 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, but there was a time where we went to 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. 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. So one of the staff actually brought to my attention that I needed to get looked at. I think they gave me some neosporin. For the most part, I have neutral feelings about the staff. I do remember thinking that they were very young, straight out of call, 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. There were a couple of really strict ones. They did a staff change out every week. What about your therapist? How often did you see them? 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, had to 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. And one time we were given the quote unquote opportunity to listen in on this changeout.

It's where they like talk about our progress. 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. That was a crazy experience to hear that change out with the therapist and the counselors who lived with us. I don't know if this is promised to parents that we would be continuing whatever high school courses we had been taking that home. But I just remember the school aspect of it being such a joke.

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? 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. 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. 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. 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. I made myself fall a couple times and then I couldn't do it. So I eventually just started hitting my elbow with a log. I went through the whole charade, like, scree. screamed out for the counselors. 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. 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. In the woods, the trauma for me was the physical parts of it. That became so normal. We would hike eight, 10 miles a day, uphill with these 80 pound packs, then have to sleep in the snow under a tarp. What was hardest was figuring out how to get out of there. That was just a big goal. How do I get out of here like as soon as possible? 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. So I learned I need to turn it up a little bit.

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. 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, I think you guys are right. It's going to be hard. 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. 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. 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. I had written my email address and last name down on a piece of paper for a girl who was about to leave. I was like off in the distance and I saw that piece of paper in one of the counselor's hands. 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. 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. I left without knowing any of the girls' information or anything, and that was kind of sad. And were you ever able to find them? 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 him. I know one girl had to stay. 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, if anything, I was just more manipulative. and prepared for the next phase, which was Carl Brook.

Carl Brook was founded in 2002 by former graduates of several, quote, emotional growth programs. Various sources state that Carl Brook was modeled after intensive emotional growth workshops and promised a rigorous academic program. It's important to note that a prerequisite to Carlbrook school was attendance at a wilderness therapy program. In December 2010, a 16-year-old student at Carlbrook School, Forest Ferguson, was reported missing in South Boston, Virginia. He was last seen after leaving the campus on the evening of December 4th, 2010. Devastatingly, he remains missing to this day.

Carlbrook closed its doors permanently in December 2015 after over a decade of operation. The decision to close was allegedly attributed to, quote, continued declining enrollments, end quote, according to a statement from the Board of Regions. 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. Following the closure in February 2016, Carl Brook filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection alongside a second entity, Carl Brook Properties LLC. 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. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe I was told no other schools would accept me. It was always told to me from the first time I remember hearing the name Carl Brook that I was going to one of the best luxurious dream school that everyone wishes they could go in. And I was so lucky. 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. I think we had like a goodbye group and you were allowed to run it. 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. The big thing everyone looks forward to is your first shower. You're promised. You get this amazing shower at the home base. It's just going to change your life since you haven't had a real shower in eight weeks. At the home base, the hot water wasn't working and they didn't have any soap. So this glamorous show. hour I was promised was awful. Borderline worse than in the woods. That was a huge letdown. It kind of symbolizes the whole process. 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. We stopped at a rust shop to use the bathroom. I grabbed my dad's cell phone,

ran into the bathroom stall, and called my boyfriend and told him that, like, I was okay. And then we drove straight to Carl Brook. 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. 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. Were you ever able to like make your case to your parents? 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. 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. They went through all my suitcases. Not only were they looking for contraband, but they were looking for clothing that was out of standard. 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. The owners of the school, if you saw them on campus, you knew somebody was in trouble or something was going to go down. 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. 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. He and a couple of their owners met at a therapeutic boarding school and started their own. 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. When you first had arrived at the school, you're on bands. with all of lower school. That means other lower school students do not exist. 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. I had gained weight in the woods and my mom had bought me this new wardrobe of clothes. None of them fit me. 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, the dress code was very strict. Pants, for example, couldn't touch your butt. They had to go straight down the back. 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, blow the knees. No tank tops, spaghetti straps, anything like showing arms. A lot of our go-to attire was J. Cruz's business wear. Boys had to wear ties. No tennis shoes or sneakers. 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 can never see like your

underwear line through your pants. No bras that had lace. Had to be very plain, preferably like sports straws. 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. I remember this one boy did have wrinkles in his pants and he got yelled at for being sloppy, not taking care of himself. What was the sleeping arrangement? They were called mods. They were basically like mobile homes. There were probably 12 to 15 girls of mod. In each room, there were four girls. One of the girls, one of the girls, was I think it was called Dormhead, and they were in charge of 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. 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. 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 They wanted to make sure they weren't starving themselves, but also, I couldn't eat too much. The upper school students, I think, could have tea. 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, and then the counseling therapy side, and there's probably like 10 staff.

Each staff member has like 10 students in their caseload. A lot of them were pretty cool, younger, but to my knowledge, none of them, had any like true psychology degrees. 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. 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.

And that was advice that I shared with another student in a group. That's awful advice to tell a 14, 15 year old girl who, who's probably already had eating disorder issues. 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 get that looked at. 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. The teachers were the coolest, though, because a lot of them had the rules be a little bit looser in their classes. Did you feel like you got an education while you were there? 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.

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 good student. really good. Like, she worked her ass off because myself and a lot of my friends got into some amazing schools. 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. We had group three times a week, two hours long after school. He would have a group with like 50 kids in it. It's called railing when a staff member or another student yells at another student. Grant was known for having these big groups and just yelled.

I was subject once. It was horrible. It's embarrassing. I got called out for basically not giving a disgusting enough confession. 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. After dinner, you have a one-on-one, deep, hour-long conversation with another student.

after that was last light. That's when everyone got on the ground, laid on the couches, cuddling, giving massages. They were pretty strict about no boys with girls, but it would be piles of boys, piles of girls, cuddling. 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. 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. 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. When you first get there, they're still forming your peer group,

the group of students that you're going to graduate with. 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. 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. There were girls, I feel like they were resentful towards me because I got there, the peer group closed, who went through. the first workshop. I only had like a week of no human rights, 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. Also the girls in your room, you get to know pretty well. You get used to hearing very deep, shocking things all the time. 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 was. The worst thing they thought about me was. They have 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.

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

I was clearly physically impaired, but I still got brought to group and railed for that. I had to sit a different way because of my injury. I got called an exhibitionist for that and that I was trying to flash everybody. The weekends, we deep clean for two hours, then in your morning block, you could either do arts or crafts or play basketball, then lunch, then your afternoon block, then dinner. 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. 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. I had attempted like six times to join this athletic committee that they had. And the athletic committee will get to go off campus of sports games once in a while or stay up late one night and watch a basketball game. 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. 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 and looked me up and down, insinuating that I was overweight. So that was like a huge gut punch. One of the modular homes was reserved for the workshops. A couple times a year, students would go in here and come out crying. So the maintenance staff called them the cry sessions.

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. 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.

This is an analogy that was explained to me when I was a new student about the workshops. 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, you have a little bit more freedom. 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? It's really like all us therapyizing ourselves and each other.

And one of the workshops, I think the third one, Anamis, the first day was dedicated to people just confessing if they had broken any rules in the school. I felt like they got mostly everything out of everyone, but so much anxiety and the sinking feeling in your stomach, knowing you had to confess everything. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. So I wouldn't have been so selfish in my head when I was giving feedback to other students. 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. The fifth final workshop was about a week long. They told us we had to be very pure as we participated in this last workshop. So to not take our medications, I felt so weird about it.

And I physically felt sick for the second day I did. and I basically had to confess to the group that I had taken my medication that morning. 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? What things get in the way from me being who I really am? Those are prompts. During the last workshop, they have you, everyone go outside.

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

Amongst all this stuff, they had put a picture of me as a little kid. That was such a mind fuck. 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. And somehow my baby picture got mixed up in the props for the scary stuff day in the fifth workshop. 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. My picture got mixed up with that stuff. But in the moment, it was really like, what the fuck?

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? 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. 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.

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 a lot of 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 week, I would just get yelled at. The person fresh out of Carlbrook, I would tell you that it was a pivotal moment. and it changed me, it helped me, like, get on the right path, and it was hard, but it worth it. 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. 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. There were some physical punishment.

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. 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. 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. That would include taking those huge.

huge office water jugs running those across the school. 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. 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. And to this day, I don't I don't know where he is. Another girl had to carry pubbles all day, every day. She lost like 20 pounds. Karlbrook was for like wealthier kids. It was a lot of money for us to dig stumps out of the ground. Was it common for people to try and run away? Did you ever try to run away?

I did not try to run away. At Carlbrook, I only knew it like two or three kids who actually tried to run away and they got in big trouble, had to stay longer. It was not worth it. What was the communication like with your parents while you were at Carl Brook? I think you have biweekly calls with your parents. I want to say they're 20 minutes long. There was a phone room in this one man, his singular job at the school was to pass out mail and to dial the phone. 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.

In 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. Staff reads all the letters and monitors all packages. 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. I hadn't seen my parents for about 18 months. They were allowed to come to the, the school, take me off campus for a visit, go out to eat. I hadn't been to a restaurant in over 18 months. So I was excited when the waiter brought bread to the table and I grabbed a fresh roll. 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. That was the most important thing about me that I was overweight and I just could not get back to campus fast enough. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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.

I got in really big trouble for that. Were you ever able to express to your parents that you didn't want to be there. 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. We weren't allowed the internet, but we had laptops on our Excel spreadsheets. You can make a countdown to when you graduate. We would watch the milliseconds go by. We had our countdowns on our computer, 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. The last couple of 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 still coming in, just look to you like heroes. Before you graduate, you have to have a portion of your head shaved for a drug test. If you fail that, you have to stay longer. I was there for a year and a half. In our graduation, we wore white dresses. students hold a rose and walk down the aisle with another student. 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. I think they give out a couple awards 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. Some kids get their high school graduation. So some kids had to go back to normal high schools after they graduated the program. I knew a girl who graduated high school but had to stay like a year longer to finish the

Carlbrook program. She was there for like two and a half years. I think the hardest part was the helplessness that you feel because you have no choice, but to conform. If you are defiant in any way you stay there longer or go somewhere worse. If you're too compliant, though, same thing. Facebook came out when we were at Carlebrook. So I found a handful of them when I got out.

So that was actually kind of cool to reconnect with them. 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. And I do recall seeing like some. kids who went one extreme. 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 five. The staff was so proud of the fact that no alumni has died. The year after I graduated, I think the first person died. And every year since then, it's been a couple people, like drug overdoses,

suicides. So that thing they used to brag about when the school was new is the opposite now. Once I left these programs, trying to stimulate 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, he had started dating someone else. You'd get back into the real world and it's constant loneliness and change. What was it like for you reuniting with your parents in those initial days and weeks? Initially, it was a lot of, now I'm the kid that you guys always 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.

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. 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. me. I remember some random boy down the hall for me, you were having a conversation. And my first question was, but how did that make you feel? In Carl Buck, they train you. You cannot have

superficial, surfacey conversations. I remember my mom set up an appointment for me to get highlights, and I felt this internal struggle. I almost didn't get a couple of highlights in my hair because I thought it went against everything that Carlbrook taught us. 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. 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? Kids could not comprehend what I was saying I had been through from my high school experience. It just became known as a joke like, oh, Daniel, went to this really crazy school with these

crazy rules. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. 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. My closest friends in quote unquote high school were in this institution with me. So it was normal. It was all I knew. 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 this stuff was really messed up in my late 30s. is like just now dawning on me how not okay and not normal these experiences were.

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. 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. Yeah, there's some hard parts, but like, but really,

changed my life. A lot of those kids were some of the ones that, in my opinion, were bullies. Nowadays, I don't really tell people unless I know them really well. 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. I don't know if survivors can relate to this, but especially when I was in my early 20s and tried to date people, I would for sure 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. It's really taken a while to kind of figure out what I'm most comfortable with sharing. I'm lucky that I have a really great husband. 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? Nine times out of ten, he's like, you're overthinking this. I've been programmed to not trust. myself. Now, in my late 30s, I'm finally the most true me that I've ever been. 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. Up until my mid-30s, I looked as 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. I can't imagine having anything but unconditional love. Today, it impacts me in the way I parent my daughter because there are so many times in my life and childhood, my parents could have intervened sooner before I got to a point where I would need to be sent away. 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. I don't want her to feel like a bad daughter and things I felt growing up. I know my parents will never acknowledge what I went through during these times.

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. 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 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. What is your relationship like with your siblings today? We really could not be closer. My parents also 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. I would say we have bonded over some of our experiences and we really understand each other now. 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. 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 the woods and surviving Carl Brook.

Trying to assimilate back into the real world after surviving the programs. It has had such an impact on my life. 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. As a result of going through these programs, I have the mindset where I can survive anything. Even something as simple as my husband and I tried to go camping a few weekends ago

and everything we had broke down. I just let it roll off my back because I've survived in the woods for eight weeks with nothing but a tarp and jar peanut butter, basically. I'm really easygoing and resilient because I had to, be strong. What do you hope that listeners will keep in mind as they're listening to stories like yours this season? 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. 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. So that's

allowed me to let go of a lot of resentments. 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. I was in pure survival mode, trying to conform to be the best student there I could be. I don't have any grudges or resentment to anyone that hurt me there. I want my peers to know that my heart goes out to all of them. I feel like we're sort of a family in that we have so many, the same shared experiences. 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. Listeners that haven't experienced this, it starts with your own home. Be the best parent you can be and show your child love. 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. 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. I can pick out a handful of positives I gained from it, but overall, very negative and

painful. Personally, I don't have this agenda to take down the industry or make a bunch of reforms. 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. up until this point, I've not had somebody either willing to listen, wanting to understand, to empathize, to believe me. So it's nice. Just having someone listen and hear me. Being able to tell these stories as 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 and just the acknowledgement is truly been healing for me. 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. I just appreciate so much your willingness. Next time, on something was wrong. Justice and healing, lies in greed, the trauma of a shared nightmare. Just a sample of the signs on display at Ogdensburg City Hall during a demonstration put together by Academy at Eye. Ivy Ridge survivors. 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.

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. And it wasn't just Ivy Ridge. found out later there were lots of different schools all over the country, which for us validated, this is the key to saving teenagers.

We believed it all. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media Production. Created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese, Associate Producers, Amy B. Chessler and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High. Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing, manager, Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist, and Marissa and Travis from WME. 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. 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. Thank you.