64. Inside the Secret World of the Troubled Teen Industry: Breaking Code Silence
TRIGGER WARNING for physical and emotional abuse, substance usage, and suicidal ideation
DISCLAIMER: All statements in this episode are opinions. This purpose of this episode is not to target and attack certain organizations and individuals rather ask the question, "How can we insure ethical, evidence-based, compassionate mental health treatment for all teenagers?"
Today I am joined by Sydney Montana, a TTI survivor who attended Cross Creek (a Southern Utah Behavioral Modification Program) for over 15 months.
Sydney's Instagram: www.instagram.com/sydneymontana_/
Sydney And I Cover The Following Topics…
+ Her childhood experiences of feeling invalidated, misunderstood, and isolated in emotions before getting treatment
+ The traumatic intake process at Cross Creek and strict program regulations
+ The horrific experiences in the troubled teen industry from a teen’s perspective
+ The ‘tough love,’ ‘troubled teen,’ behavioral modification approach that results in emotional and physical abuse of thousands of teens
+ Why it’s SO important for teens to get ethical, evidence-based, compassionate treatment because they’re at such formative points in their lives
+ How Sydney transitioned back to life post-treatment and healed from the experience
+ The attachment and abandonment issues she still grapples with as a result of her 15 months at cross creek
Mentioned In The Episode…
+ ABC7 Bay Area News Interview
+ Ep. 56 OCD + Exposure Therapy
+ WWASP Information (quoted in ep)
+ Red Flags for Troubled Teen Programs
+ Ethical Treatment Guidelines for Teens
+ Advice for Parents Navigating Treatment
Episode Sponsors
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About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)
After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.
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Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey, teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you.
Whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness. This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persisting This week on she persisted.
Sydney: when your parents sign you over to this school, they sign over guardianship.
Sadie: It's 51% of custody.
They can make all decisions on your behalf. You're owned by a corporation for a year, .
Sydney: And then all you're thinking about when you're there is, I mean, I'm having fantasies about reuniting with my family and putting them on a pedestal and putting my life and my treatment and all of these things that I, you know, I just want to get better.
I just want to change. I just want to conform.
Sadie: This week's DBT skills, the accept skill when you're in crisis mode or your level of distress is above a seven or an eight out of 10, you're going to use crisis survival skills or distress tolerance skills. The accept skill falls into this category and is a super simple way to remember the different ways that you can distract yourself to lower your emotional distress and get through a crisis. So accepts is an acronym that stands for activities, contributing comparisons, emotions, pushing away, thoughts and sensations.
So activities engaging in activities, reading, writing, running, listening to music, literally any activity that's the EA contributing. This is doing something for someone else, whether you are doing a favor for them, community service, volunteering helping a friend through something going and helping someone move in their house.
These things take your mind off your current emotions. comparisons. This is comparing your current emotional state to a different point in your life. Whether this was yesterday an hour ago, last week, really just juxtaposing what you're currently feeling with a, another state of emotions to kind of put in perspective what's going on.
Emotions, cultivating different feelings in the you're currently experiencing. If you're feeling really sad, listening to songs that boost your mood, watching a TV show that makes you laugh, bringing out a different sensation in yourself, pushing away. This is a car company, heart mentalizing, but in a healthy way, because you'll revisit it.
If you're feeling a lot of stress about an upcoming event that isn't serving you to kind of ruminate about, you will push it away, put it in the back of your mind, distract yourself and move on. And at a later point, revisit the situation, thoughts. This one is really helpful if you are in an anxiety spiral. So this is changing your thoughts to the current pattern in your mind when you're in a crisis. So if you're having a panic attack and all you can think about is what's going on around you or an interaction, you had something that's coming up, whatever it is that you're stressing about.
Thinking about a song, you like a TV show, anything other than your current thoughts, switching up that dialogue really helpful. And the last one is sensations. Five senses, grounding herself in the situation. What, what do you see around you? What can you feel? What do you smell? What do you hear? What do you taste using those sensations to bring you back to the current moment in the present and calm down.
So that is the accept scale. Again, we use this in crisis mode. When your level of distress is really high. If we're constantly distracting, we will never be able to process through emotions. And when we avoid things, get bigger and more overwhelming. So in crisis mode, this is a great scale, but not for 24 seven.
Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of she persisted. This is a good one. You guys are not ready, such an amazing episode.
So before we dive into that, what's been going on. I was on TV this week. I did my first ever TV interview on my local ABC seven news channel. I will link it in today's show notes. If you want to watch it. It was like the most surreal, crazy experience. I talked about my podcast in my story for mental health awareness month, which is may and it was just crazy.
It was live. I was sweating so much. I was. So nervous, definitely use some skills in that moment, but it was just the most crazy, amazing, exciting experience. I also got my driver's license this week, which I know it's taken me so long to do, but I, I got it. And that was really exciting. And jumping right into Q and A's this week. My first question that I got was, can you please talk about how you deal with trich? So I'm going to link an episode for you in the description about exposure therapy and OCD. So trichotillomania is an anxiety disorder and below that it's kind of a, a branch of OCD.
It's an obsessive behavior. And it's a compulsion that's done. And so that episodes breaks down this philosophy and way more detailed, so to kind of wrap that up and give you a more succinct answer. The first thing is awareness because it's a compulsive behavior. It's not something that I always notice. I have observed that it's really linked to my stress levels and how my mental health is doing.
So if I'm more anxious, I'm more depressed. I noticed that I struggle with trich more. And if you don't know what trick is at sands fortrichtotillomania and it's compulsive, hair-pulling how to explain that. But Yeah. So when my, when my mental health is struggling I noticed that trick flares up.
And so the first thing is bringing awareness to the behavior. If you're doing it subconsciously, it's really hard to change behaviors if you don't even realize that they're going on. So I'm really just trying to be aware of when that's happening. That's the first thing. The next thing is to do a little bit of exposure therapy.
When you notice that you're engaging that behavior resisting in that compulsion for as long as possible, whether that's five seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, an hour, as long as possible. And as you build that muscle of coping, we'll be able to improve your ability to resist the urge to hair pole.
Another tip I want to give is recognizing hair polling as a compulsion from the OCD perspective oCD is a mental disorder and your, your brain is sending you faulty communications. It's telling you that there's a threat it's telling you that there's something going on.
You're, you're compulsively doing a behavior to satisfy some emotional need when that isn't necessarily factual or true. So if you can recognize when you're having an anxious thought or when you're having the compulsion and kind of. Saying to yourself, this is my OCD right now. This is my brain telling me that something is a threat one.
It's not actually happening. And this is emotionally distressing when I'm feeling is totally valid and these thoughts are not factual, kind of breaking up that, that loop in your head can be really helpful in breaking that cycle. And then the last tip I'll give is there are these little fidget balls.
I don't really know how to explain them, but they have lots of like strings on them that you can like pull. If you know the game OGO spore, it's like those balls. I'm going to link one in the description for you because I don't know what they're called, but they really do mimic these. Sensation of hair-pulling you could pull out every single string in the ball, if you wanted to, or you can just kind of like tug it them.
But having those on hand have been huge for me, that is a recommendation from my therapist. She turned me on to those and I love them. I think it's such a great tip and it's, it's a small fidget to keep in your bag, keep it home and kind of replace that behavior. So, yeah, that is my quick tips and trick my quick tips and, Oh my God, this is a tongue twister.
That is my quick tips and tip, Oh my God. This is so hard. This is my quick tips and tricks. For trich. So I hope that was helpful. The next question that I'm going to answer. This is going to be the last one, because there's already a long intro and I have so much more to say, and then the episode is long, but it's just so good.
So it's okay. Is what are your friends from treatment understand about you that your current friends don't, this is spot on for this week's episode, because I'm sending you as a guest this weekend. I completely connected and our experiences hers were. Way more physically and emotionally traumatic way more ethical, unethical in treatment, but the feelings of isolation and, and being in that experience for a year plus at a time is something that the average teen or friend wouldn't understand.
And so I think there are so many. Parts of that industry and having navigated that, that people don't get, unless you've been through it, unless you've been in treatment for months on end and isolated and all of these different things that are super unethical, not normal. And again, that the average teen doesn't experience, like I could never explain that fully to my friends.
I don't think they could ever fully understand it. And there's that huge. Yup. And I'm totally okay with that because my friends at home, my friends at school, my current friends, like you outlined the knee that they serve is not to help me process through my treatment or to understand my treatment or validate me in that they're there to.
Be a support system and make me laugh and I'm there to do the same for them and have healthy, strong relationships and people to hang out with and navigate high school with. And so I think there is that, that huge difference and understanding it's like I lived a different life that these other people get.
But I don't feel like it's a loss in my current relationships because the, the need there is different than the role that they're encompassing is completely different. If that makes any sense at all. I don't know if that, I hope that makes sense, but that is something from that. My friends from treatment get is just how bizarre that whole year was the emotions, the thoughts, the healing that is involved after that, my current friends don't get.
So with that being said this week episode is an amazing sit down discussion with a woman named Sydney Montana. We dive into a bunch of detail about her experience at cross Creek, which was a treatment facility in Utah.
So. I want to give some education before this episode, I want to give some disclaimers anything talking about the troubled teen industry does come with some legal red tape as I've learned. But guys, I talked to a lawyer. So disclaimers this discussion that Sydney and I have is all opinion based. The goal of this is to not come at anyone, whether it's cross Creek or certain individuals, these are opinions.
And the goal of this episode is really to raise the question of what can we do to shift this industry? How can we make treatment more ethical, effective, and evidence-based and compassionate for teens, and how can you heal and process after going through this experience? So with that being said, I want to give you a little bit of context that I feel it's helpful when understanding the troubled teen industry. And I've been having so many conversations in my personal life recently, whether it's with teachers or friends or other adults about the troubled teen industry, because it's something that I'm really passionate about, but it's really a secret world unless you've been in treatment or, you know, someone close to you.
That's been in treatment in the troubled teen industry. You wouldn't know it exists. So when I say troubled teen industry, I am referring to a set of products. Yeah.
And that is wilderness programs, boot camps, behavioral modification, programs, therapeutic boarding schools, rehab programs, and religious programs. And I am sure that within each of these realms, within each of these little subsets, there are ethical programs.
I'm sure there are amazing treatment providers and doctors and people have had great experiences. Broadly, that's the umbrella that is referred to as the troubled teen industry. And I will link up a bunch of information and resources about it below, so you can learn more. But those are the types of programs that I'm referring to.
And the troubled teen industry is a completely, again different industry than the normal treatment industry. I've talked so many times about my positive experience at three East McLean hospital, which I'll also link in the description which was a residential program. So there are lots of great options for treatment for teens.
I had an amazing individual Evan Haynes on the podcast. I think it was two weeks ago. They offer teen addiction treatment. I'll link that below. There are so many great resources for teen treatment V the realm where it becomes problematic and unethical is what's been deemed the troubled teen industry.
That is something that has developed completely separately from this other industry of apical programs. And you can hear about this in so much more detail in the episode with Evan, which I'll link below because it's just a crazy, interesting story. But there was a cult in the 1950s called Synanon and they use these super harsh behavioral modification techniques.
Lots of like verbal attacks and abuse. And from that came a bunch of different programs of people that really latched onto this idea, they found it effective. They wanted to create similar programs after it got shut down and And that turned into a program called Daytop another one called Phoenix house.
A third one called Cedu and then lastly, sit in on, directly opened a teen bootcamp. And so this was in the mid seventies. And then in the eighties and the nineties, there were almost a hundred bootcamps that were opened specifically for teens. So going back to these programs that I just mentioned Daytop was opened in 1963 and it was anti-drug programs for teens.
And the quote that they use tying it to send it on is that the founders saw possibilities incident on and directly from Daytop developed something called Ilan school. And that's from 1970 to the present. And that is a main program that uses the boxing ring and physical fighting for therapy.
So going back to Sinan on the second program that I mentioned was called Phoenix house that opened in 1967 and is still open today. According to the graphic that I'm using I'll link. So if it's not open, I at the time of this recording was not aware of that. And they have a hundred sites in nine States and they call them residential academics for teens.
And from that came a program called the seed, which was open from 1970 to 2001. And when it was investigated and shut down they described its methods as brainwashing. And that was in 1974 from the seed came a program called straight ache. And that was open from 1976 to 1993. And this was actually very publicly promoted by Nancy Reagan.
But it was closed due to abuse lawsuit. So from straight Inc, we had three different outputs. We had kids Inc. Which was open from 1994 to 1998, and they've paid over $10 million for child abuse, settlements pathway center, which was from 1993 to the present day. And that was founded by someone that worked at straight Inc.
And the third output of straight inquiry Christian programs. So these are tough love programs with religious influences. And so that's programs like new horizons, youth ministries, love and action which would use these straining model to quote unquote cure teens that identify as gay which is completely unethical and not.
Okay. So the other programs that we outlined in the troubled teen industry. Again, we have wilderness programs and those started in 1946. Since there, there are a couple of big ones, challengers, summit quest, Northstar expeditions. Those have all closed because if kids have died in these programs we also have behavioral modification programs and these were inspired by Skinner philosophies. If you're familiar with psychology behavioral modification, one Oh one, he did this experiment with rats to see how it behavior was changed and that's exactly how these programs were developed. And so two huge schools, there are Rodenburg and Provo Canyon, which you might recognize because Paris Hilton attended that school extremely abusive, unethical instill open and.
Lastly we have, which Sydney mentioned in this episode is a huge association that came out of this and the troubled teen industry, which is the worldwide association of specialty programs. And this was started by a Provo Canyon staff member but the worldwide association of specialty programs, they're also referred to as the youth foundation, Inc. And it's a, an umbrella of corporate organization teen behavioral modification programs. They also have boot camps and therapeutic boarding schools, and it was created by Robert Lindfield in the 1990s.
And it is one of the largest troubled teen industry corporations. And they have dozens of facilities, both in the U S and abroad. And they had over 20 of their programs shut down because of abuse and neglect. And the, the, the organization itself has been dissolved, but many of these programs are still open or have separate ties, but might still have the same staff members.
And are still operating with really similar program models staff members, practices and, and it's just a mess. I'm on their website as I'm recording this introduction, and there's at least 30 different programs that I'm reading on here that are still open that were associated with WW ASP.
And so that is what Sidney is referring to when she talked about wasp programs, which her school was a member of.
So. I'm sure that's very overwhelming. That's a lot of information, dates, names, and places just thrown at you. The point of this is just to communicate how widely the troubled teen industry has spread its roots. How many people it is impacting. And explain that this is not an isolated instance. This is not one program that Sidney attended. This is thousands of kids, hundreds of programs, billions of dollars and programs that are still open.
So.
Quick numbers to throw at you. There have been over 145 children that have died from preventable causes and residential treatment centers. At least 62 of them were from as fixation and injury caused by restraints. There is. Little, no oversight over these treatment programs for troubled teens in the United States.
And that's why this is something that is being advocated for so heavily right now. You've probably seen it in the news it's because States like Montana, Utah they have no legal. Oversight into these programs. There is no federal legislation protecting the physical, emotional rights of the kids in these programs.
Sydney and I talked about this in the episode, but your right to contact parents, contacting an attorney, have your own treatment provider can be kept physically safely. These are not rights that are federally protected and there are being big strides taken to, to. Create that legislation, Utah just passed a bill about a month ago.
Creating some, some regulations in the state. But there's a long way to go. There are hundreds of treatment programs still open and we're not there yet.
So before I wrap up this introduction with way too much information, way too many names, some numbers for you, the. Annual profit of the troubled teen industry is $1.2 billion.
Again, zero federal legislations exist on therapeutic boarding schools anywhere in the United States.
There are 50,000 children in these facilities every single year. And you need no clinical credentials to run a therapeutic troubled teen program. None, you can open one tomorrow if you want it to. I like so badly want John Oliver to do an episode on this, expose everything.
And then at the end open a troubled teen program for kids that are being abused in these actual programs, I think would be hilarious. But all of this to say it's a massive industry, 50,000 kids think about how many staff members are employed by this industry. $1.2 billion, hundreds of programs over a thousand. Sorry. Just explain to you the sheer reach of these, of this industry. Before we dive into this extremely powerful story from Sydney, because it's not an isolated situation, so with that being said, I will link resources on how to find red flags of these programs, ethical treatment options for teens. Again, I mentioned aloe three East. I'll give you a list of other ethical based treatments. Advice for parents all of that kind of stuff will be in today's description because this episode is not just to tell you about these crazy things, drop you within a move on the point of this is to raise the question of how can we bring change to this industry?
How can we create more regulations? So kids can get safe and ethical treatment that saves lives rather than ruining them. So again, All opinions. Amazing episode. Thank you, Sydney for coming on the podcast. Let's dive into it.
thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm so happy.
Of course. So can we start by you telling me a little bit about yourself, a little bit about who you are and kind of your, your mental health story pretreatment?
Sydney: Absolutely. So my name is Sydney. I grew up in downtown Chicago. I have, I lived my whole life in the city, so my whole life was really within a five mile radius in downtown.
I experienced treatment and interventions with my mental health very early on, I would say around. Like six to seven years old, I started seeing a therapist because my parents actually thought that I had issues here, but it actually turned out that I just had selective listening, which is kind of interesting.
And that kind of led me into having some other experiences with group therapy as a very young child as well. And so I really struggled from young age with getting along with my peers, with teachers, with authority figures, with the people in my life that I felt like I had to explain myself to and everything else in my life was seemingly fine.
I always had food on the table. I always had Like I had a, you know, a seemingly really good upbringing, especially compared to how my family grew up, which they grew up in a very, very different financial and economic circumstance. My parents were never to physically the abusive. I feel like as a young kid, they just, I noticed very early on that I experienced depression as well as just kind of feeling like I did not belong at a very, very young age.
And which now I'm starting to identify more in my journey as I'm older as kind of having an addictive personality very, very early on. So that's kind of how, I mean, how things started in Chicago had twin brothers that were two years younger than me. Oh, my gosh adopted. So I was adopted at birth and it's a very fascinating story.
I did not know much about my biological family until I was 21 years old. I always knew that I was adopted. It was something that my parents told me at a very young age, which I kind of commend them for that. I will say, just to start this off, that, you know, as much as I I'm very accountable for all of my experiences and behavior in a lot of ways, and I don't want to ever blame my parents or blame my situation on anyone else because their trauma and their experience and their way of living was what kind of formed their parenting.
And they did adopt me. And that's amazing. However, I do not ever feel that they had the. Emotional intelligence or the knowledge or the, like, they never sought out the education to understand what it would be like to adopt a child. And I was, you know, I was adopted at birth. I was never in an orphanage. I was never laying on the street.
Like I had had that trauma, you know, basically ripped from my mom. I don't remember that. And I'm starting in, I'd never really ever wanted to use that as an excuse of anything in my life, because I just, you can't remember those things. And as I look back and look at my experience growing up, I realized how much that, that impact me and impacted me and how my parents and their trauma impacted me as well.
So after they adopted me, I. My parents actually got pregnant with IVF. So they had my twin brothers shortly after me about a year and a half later. So I was less than two years old, or I guess I was two years old when they had my brothers. So it went from me being this only adopted child at a very, very young age to all of a sudden I have twin brothers and they actually said that very early on.
I keep saying that I had displayed behaviors that were very. That were very emotionally triggering for them such as I would bite my brother's fingers in which my mom said that I would try to get him to throw up because he had acid reflux. I mean, I doubt a three-year-old knew that we were able to throw up, throw up because of acid reflux because I bit his finger.
However, I think that that kind of thinking, and my parents not understanding the trauma from adoption nor understanding their own trauma impacted the way that I was able to perceive the world at such a young age. And they did not know how to explain that to me. So I always kind of felt like I was this misbehaved
Sadie: child.
Yeah. Yeah, no, I think there's so many parallels to kind of my experience as well with feeling like you didn't belong or loved in your home environment and then not having them reason to be depressed, which just adds a whole nother layer to accepting what you're going through, because you're looking for that one trauma or that one loss, whatever it is, all those questions they asked you to see if you've experienced a big change in your life or why you're depressed.
And you just don't know what it is. So you're like, there's so many people that are almost like more deserving of being depressed, because there's no reason I shouldn't be depressed. I'm so lucky in so many ways. And yet you feel that way and it's even more overwhelming, so totally relate to that. Kind of diving into, Oh, before I dive into the next thing I think I wanted to also mention whenever I talk about.
People's experiences and the troubled teen industry. I always like to mention how much compassion I have, and I'm sure you will feel the same way I have for parents. Who've navigated it because this is an industry that's speaking to your pain points. They're saying ICU, your worst fears come true, which is that your child's in pain and we can help you.
We can solve your problems. This is the facts and you many parents. First of all, aren't equipped to navigate that treatment industry and that emotional journey, but they've also not been in that situation to be critical of the different treatment providers and the different people they're interacting with and working with.
And so, unless you've been really in that industry, a lot of the times as an adolescent to have that critical eye and be like, that's a red flag, that's not great. This is not going to end up well for this kid. Parents just aren't don't know how to do that. They're, they're not equipped to navigate it. And they shouldn't feel like they should have to because it's something that takes years for people to really understand.
So before we get any further into that, just so much compassion for, for parents who are navigating that, because I think afterwards, when they hear about these experiences, there's so much guilt. And I think going into it, the intentions are a lot of time from a place of love and care, even though it, it doesn't always seem that way on the other side, but yeah.
Sydney: Absolutely. And that's why I also wanted to give that disclaimer at the beginning of this, because again, I, you know, I do not think that anyone, I mean, I can't say that for everyone, but I doubt that any parent intentionally wants to torture or traumatize their child in any way, shape or form. And I can explain some of the complexity and how interesting it was navigating this situation and maybe some of the insights as to why parents go in this direction that they do.
Because yeah, it's, it's a wild ride and it is changing so much here in the United States and changing so much state by state. And when I. I've gone through so many different experiences in high schools and obviously programs and troubled team groups. And I've met so many varieties of children and teenagers and adults older than me that have gone through these experiences.
And it is all, they're all so different and they're all equally troubling. And they're also there's many levels and layers that go into the parents' decision.
Sadie: Totally, totally. So with that being said, let's dive into your experience within the troubled teen industry kind of diving in first off to your, your journey to that point and kind of what that was like and getting there.
I And then diving into to that experience when you were actually there.
Sydney: Absolutely. So what a wild ride without giving a way my whole. Book of secrets before the program. I just feel like from the age of eight years old, until 12 and 13 years old, I would consider myself and I do not like to use this name.
I just want to say I was troubled and I hate labels. And I wouldn't want to say that about myself. I was such a young girl that didn't understand what was happening, but I need to describe it just first off, say what I, what I can even imagine that I was like living with me. I just had, again, so many issues with being bullied, bullying, other children, having it displays of things in classrooms where you know, before I reached high school, I was just constantly acting out.
For attention from my parents. And you know, at that time, I remember thinking about, you know, the whole idea of acting out for attention and being like, that's stupid. I'm not looking for attention, but obviously as a young kid, you cannot process those things. And I remember going home to my parents and explaining to them what was happening to me at school.
And they would say to me, well, what did you do to them? And again, they're getting the feedback from teachers saying that I'm acting crazy and I'm displaying these things. You know, calling kids names, doing behavioral things that are crazy acting promiscuous. I was involved in so many extra curricular activities.
I toured the world as a child with the Chicago children's choir and I was extremely talented. And from sixth grade to eighth grade, I was in Barry. Hi like Barry. Hi. Performance and high caliber training for this kind of choir that I was in. And my parents were extremely proud of me, but I started to display things that were, and I'm talking about myself in the way that I would hate talking about myself, but I'm trying to explain it.
Yeah. The best way possible. I just had so many issues getting along with people, so many issues with my relationships and when I would go home and explain to my parents what was going on. I think that, and this is me with my analysis. Now I did not know this then I didn't know this when I. Got out of the troubled teen industry that I was not able to find validation in my feelings from my authority figures and from the people that were supposed to love me does not mean they're bad.
Again, it's their own trauma. So I would go home and I would be extremely depressed to the point where when I was in eighth grade, I did try to commit suicide. So I tried to take pills. I tried to kill myself and then I started to. Smoke weed with my friends, drink alcohol act promiscuous. I was seeking out and finding a whole new group of friends outside of the circle that I grew up in a very confined Catholic school environment.
I had to find people that would get along with me. And those people just happen to be kids that were probably from situations where they were not being validated with their feelings or even the opposite where their parents were overly bonded to them. And they, you know, had displayed issues. So that was kind of pre, so that was, that was literally eighth grade before I had even gotten into high school.
By the time I went into high school, I was drinking every single day. I was hanging out with the wrong people, doing absolutely anything. I mean, feeling. Running around the neighborhood being destructive in so many ways that I do not even like to describe. And that was just so early on that I had felt like I lived 20 lifetimes by the time I was 14 years old.
And then I had gone to, I was in, so I had gone when I was 13. I was, I had tried to commit suicide and I was in a treatment facility for that for however long. And I was also on medication from a very young age as well.
And at, you know, when you're on them. So young, I mean, my thoughts about these things are so crazy now, and now I'm like very, very against all this stuff. But I will say that I think that my. Opinions about medication at such a young age have changed and their effectiveness like their, their, the ideas of them being effective are so different because I feel like when you're so young and you're put on them and I'm talking about third grade, third grade, when I was putting on them that you don't have a real experience and maybe your body gains a tolerance and maybe they're not as effective because you're, you're on them at such a young age.
I mean, I was, yes, I was, you know, a little bit behaviorly off, but I was not having extreme psycho disorders that would require me to literally be medicated in my opinion. And I was so young and like I said, I just did not find that validation at home. So around 14. Years old I'm in my freshman year of high school, I'm getting expelled every week.
I'm having extreme incidences to the point where I actually chose to go to a rehab facility. And in the rehab facility, I spent 30 days in there, spent my 15th birthday in there where I told myself, and I was introduced into the alcoholics anonymous program, which I definitely needed at the time. And I was convinced that that would be the start of whatever life.
So I get out of this 30 day treatment center. It was beautiful. It was in Southern Illinois. It was like dream pretty much. I mean, I had access to therapy. My parents would visit me on a regular basis. I could call them. I worked with a therapist and it was, you know, I was out probably 10 days and relapsed and I was in an outpatient treatment.
Group that I would go to almost every day after school, where I was supervised and, you know, try to enforce the ideas of alcoholics anonymous. So I probably lasted like, like I said, like 10 days actually sober from anything before, you know, I was literally there for 30 days shoved back into my normal environment.
Sadie: This week's episode is sponsored by teen counseling. I can not tell you guys how many DMS texts emails I get from teens, parents, even friends asking, how can I find a therapist? How can I enroll in therapy? How can I find a therapist for my team? How do I tell my parents? I want to go to therapy.
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Sydney: So about a month or two later after the school had, let me back in, I basically, and there's, we'll have to, to another thing with another story that happened. That's kind of crazy, but I do not want to glamorize any of those situations, but basically I'm expelled from the school. Eventually I was arrested I'm 14 years old, or I guess 15 years old.
And I basically had this idea in my mind that I don't know what I'm going to do in my life. And I basically failed my freshman year of high school after kind of growing up in this way that I was kind of had, I had the opportunities and the trajectory to be so successful. And I just knew in the back of my mind.
Yeah. You know, like things will change, I'll figure it out. Like I'll, maybe I'll go and look at programs or other schools to go to. Like, I kind of knew, I knew that something was off with myself and then I needed to find something. To change. But at that point I had no idea of anything. So I'm expelled from school.
I actually was planning this insane party. This was the thing that I don't want to glamorize, but it was like the beginning days of Facebook. I'm planning this party that I'm really excited for. I'm taking money from my mom's wallet, I'm orchestrating alcohol, drugs and everything else in my neighborhood.
So that way kids could actually attend a house party while my parents were out at work. And my plan was that I would actually clean this up before they got home. So one day it's like May 13th, 2008. And I am sitting at my computer. My, I didn't have a phone on the time at the time because it was stolen, but this was like the very beginning days of.
Facebook and Google, and maybe like I had a sidekick, so maybe I could have Googled something or whatever. My dad comes to my room and he goes, Hey, we're going to go look at a boarding school. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, are there cute boys there? Like, I'm like, you know, at that point I'm like, I kind of get it.
Like maybe I have to go somewhere. I get it. Like, it's cool. Whatever. And my mind, I remember asking him, I'm like, well, what's the name of the school? And he told me that he did not remember.
Sadie: Red flag number one.
Sydney: And what's weird is as smart as I was. I did not catch on at all.
Like I just was not catching on. So I remember contemplating in myself this I'll just say the story as we go, because it's funny. And not really, but if I was going to put as my Facebook status, like. Hey, I'm going to go and look at a school because my dad said we're going to fly into Vegas and then we're going to drive from Vegas to Utah.
And then I would be back by the next evening. And I thought to myself, well, if I do that, maybe then kids will think that the party is off. So I just decided that I would not update my Facebook status because I was like, well, I don't want people to think that my party is off. Yeah. So anyway, that was that night.
And then that next day, my dad and I get on a flight to Vegas in which we were both separated on the plane. And that did also not red flag me. I'm like, Oh, well being separate from him, whatever, you know, I'm a young girl. I think I had my iPod or something.
Sadie: And it makes so much sense though, because I think, especially with these situations, which this is what takes so much healing is your parents are the two, in many cases, two individuals that you look up to more than anyone else you have so much trust.
And a lot of cases love you would never expect them to lead you wrong. And they're not intending to do that again in these situations, but you're not looking for red flags. This isn't a stranger that's telling you about a school. It's your, it's your parents. And so that's why it's so hard to notice these things.
Sydney: Absolutely. So I'm like I get to the biggest airport, my dad and I drive from there to Utah about an hour and a half. And I remember thinking in my head like, it is really, you know, it's getting towards sunset. Like what type of school is this? I'm not even asking him details because I just thought we were looking at a random school.
And this is like, this is right in the cusp of this information era where I had access. Right? Like, like I said, I didn't have my cell phone on me. You know, I, I kind of, I remember Google earth was around. If I would've gotten an address, I would have looked at the whole thing. I just remember that the sun was setting and that seemed like a peculiar time for a score of a school.
And then we're pulling up to, we actually drove past it initially because it did not look like a treatment facility or I'm sorry, a boarding school. I looked like a motel with Gates around it. And I was like, what is that? So when we pulled back up to the school, I see a person standing on this side of the parking lot, that side of the parking lot.
And I walked through these doors into kind of like a, like a little house outside of the building. And this woman sits me down and it's literally like five seconds. And she's like, Hey, this is cross Creek. We have this many boys and this many girls and your fathers enrolling you tonight. And I remember like, the first thing that I said was like, I was like, Oh, you mean like stay the night?
Yeah. Like it was
Sadie: like visit, you know,
Sydney: I, I knew what she meant. Like I knew, I was like, Oh yeah, not sleep over visit. I knew that she was like about to like, Oh my gosh, I stay the night for a while. And she was like, yes. And at that point, like I stand up or something. And those two people from the parking lot, common restrain me and they grabbed my arms and they're like, you know, very quickly, they're like, you could say goodbye to your dad.
And I'm just looking at him. And he's like, got, you know, this face of horror. And he's like, there's nothing else I could do. You know? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, are you kidding me? Where the freak am I? Because again, I had already been in treatment. Situations. And I was like, there is no way that this is anything like whatever I had experienced previously.
So putting
Sadie: in perspective, how long were you given to say goodbye to your dad when he dropped you
Sydney: off four seconds? Like, I mean, literally that long and I didn't even, I refuse to hug him. I was like, I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about. This is
Sadie: crazy. You're like, it's, he'll be here in a second.
Like no idea what's going on.
Sydney: Absolutely. So they start taking me from the, you know, they're holding both of my arms and pulling me through the Gates in which I did not leave those Gates even to go to a dentist appointment for nine months. Oh my God. So I was literally brought through these Gates and I remember the questions that I asked them from the Gates to the room where I was brought to.
And I was like, how long am I? Like, how long am I going to be here? And they were like, Minimum six months, but that's like a trick, I guess, because actually minimum a year, and it's not actually minimum a year it's 15 months, minimum like average. So when you have to earn your way out, so they were like, just trying to like get you to calm down kind of thing.
And I just remember, like there was no one warm or welcoming. It was not like in the rehab I had been to, it was not like an outpatient where you're given attention and respect and your questions are answered in a calm way. Like I was being. Like detained. So
Sadie: I was another thing which I also think would be interesting to ask is at this point, do you see any other quote, unquote students or patients, whatever you want to call them at at this school?
So
Sydney: this was a time and I wonder if it was because the time that they brought me there, it was probably like later at night and they might have done that on purpose. And that was, I did not see the students until they brought me and you do not see the boys. That's just something they say when they enroll you to get you through.
So I just think that the boys are on a completely separate side. You do not see them. And I was brought into a room with five upper level girls. Okay. And so I'm brought into a room where basically they start to kind of wind you. The girls are kind of taught to wind you down. And, you know, as I reached higher levels, I would actually do this to women as other girls as well, young girls.
So we would take out our piercings, take out our hair tie, take out our shoelaces, anything that we could self-harm with because I was a suicidal kid. And I remember being like, you know, trying to like pull the suicide card because I mean, I probably was suicidal and they were just like, well, good thing that we're taking your shoelaces.
They do that. They train everyone in the same way. Everyone's program might be different because of the way that they treat themselves. But they treat everyone, but they treat everyone the same way. So basically I was brought into a room. These girls start to, you know, try to call me down and I'm like, where am I?
And I'm swearing and this and that. And they're telling me that I cannot swear. And then when I went to Mel, the word, like the F word, they told me I could not mouth the F-word. And I was like, where am I? I'm like, this is insane. I'm like, there cannot be a place that is telling me how I can talk about these things or, you know what to say and not say, but I guess that's where I am now.
And you know, I, so from, in that night, they, yeah, they take out your shoelaces, they put you in a bright yellow shirt and I was immediately taken into the bed. You know, the The bedroom that I was in with three other girls in which there were two bunk beds. And there was a girl that was given to me as a buddy that was on a higher level.
And she basically told me, you need to get in your bed and you're no longer allowed to talk after that. So once you're in your bed, you can not communicate verbally non-verbally. And the staff walks in every 15 minutes with a flashlight, pretty much your whole program to check on you. And so I was probably completely erratic for two weeks.
And I remember back to the questions that I was asking, the two staff members, I said, okay. So when do I get to see my parents? And they go in six months and I'm like six months. And then, and remember I'm an adolescent, like I'm a teenager in high school. Like, I'm like, are you kidding me? And then they were like, well, actually you know, and I said, well, what about, can I call them?
And they said, two months to call my parents. And then I was allowed to write to them. So, I mean, you can imagine that it took a while to adjust where I was kind of living this crazy adult life as a teenager, all of a sudden to being in a lockdown facility in Southern Utah and a place that I had never been before around girls that I had never met in my life.
And being completely guided, you know, we were so intensely drained with therapy on a daily basis. Every part of our day was structured from morning till evening. I mean, I had to like run 10 laps every single morning in the courtyard. I had to line up in a hallway and show them my bra strap the inside and outside of my socks, every time that we left our bedrooms, even on a higher level.
So it didn't matter if you proceeded in your program. Yes. You would get privileges like shaving your legs or whatever else. But that came like months and months and months later until you're completely conditioned to be able to do exactly as they say. And not, not only do you have to do, as they say, you have to think as they want you to think.
Because again, you can't express yourself, it's in a prison. You can express yourself and you could say, screw you. You cannot do that in this program, you have to literally conform. And at a certain point, I, and I would say that I am one of the, like actual victims of this program because I believed that I was constantly being watched at a certain point.
I, and I was young. Like there were girls there that were 17, 18. And like, I was not even, like, I just turned 15 years old. Like, I didn't know what was going on. And I just thought that they were watching me constantly. So even if I made the slightest little error, I would be accountable for it and I would go and write up what they would call a category.
And you're basically on a level system that has points and your staff and yourself are dependent on your program moving forward. And then your group has to vote on your like, respectability to be able to that category or may move you to the next level.
Sadie: Yeah, it's crazy.
Sydney: It was insane. It was insane to say the least like, even a comprehend and trying to explain this to the average person.
It does not like sound right, because as much as I am, like, I do not want to downplay this place at all because this facility, particularly in Southern Utah was one of the parts of the, the grander association of worldwide specialty programs that owned several programs in the country and around the world that would use the, the tough love troubled teen behavior modification methods that were basically like.
Very torturous and not normal because it was in the state of Utah. They were able to operate with licenses, being able to take out the ability to act as a psych ward, a school and a rehabilitation center, all in one. So they have the, so if you want to say, you want to kill yourself, doesn't matter. If you want to, you know, attempt to kill someone, they're not going to bring you anywhere because they're able to operate in the, the ability that these hospitals and other treatment centers would be able to operate.
And there is, I, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'm 98% sure that when your parents sign you over to this school, and I believe that this is. Very dependent on the state of Utah and a few other States that they sign over guardianship.
Sadie: Okay. Does this, what they did at my school the first day, it's 51% of custody.
They can make all decisions on your behalf. You're owned by a corporation for a year, and it's what that does to you. Especially if you're already feeling unloved or not. Good enough, your then your parents are selling. Over in signing over their ownership of you. It's just, it's crazy.
Sydney: And then all you're thinking about when you're there is, I mean, I'm having fantasies about reuniting with my family and putting them on a pedestal and putting my life and my treatment and all of these things that I, you know, I just want to get better.
I just want to change. I just want to conform. And luckily, I mean, luckily like I was like, I'm not trying to say lucky I was brainwashed, but there were some girls there that refuse to change and they lived a very crappy life there. I mean, I saw people taken out of school that were put on. I was put on a silence after 4:00 PM for over three months where I was not allowed to speak after 4:00 PM.
I did not say this on recovery from reality. And I really wanted to be able to. State this here, they actually, at one point had a mousetrap placed on my leg in a, in a therapy process, trying to explain to me the risk of having. Premarital sex or sex outside the context of marriage, not like a, like a little mouse trap.
I'm talking about like a rat trap, like loaded rap trap on my leg for an hour. These people use absolutely any tactic that they could to break you down, then build you back up, tell you that they love you. I mean, why is somebody outside of my parents telling me that they love me, but then also putting a mousetrap on my life.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense. And I'm in this world where I have absolutely no access to calling my parents calling. They won't, they for the whole time that you're there, they cut you off from anybody but immediate family. So you were only allowed to talk to your mom and dad. I don't think I've ever had a relationship with my brothers because it was such a prominent time in.
My teenage years to be in the school and probably the, you know, my brothers being so close in age that we basically never repaired or recovered our relationship because I was away for so long. And I wasn't allowed to have contact with them.
Sadie: It's no one, it makes so much sense. Like all these different.
Things that like why the relationship suffers, why it's so difficult, difficult to heal after with your parents and those relationships, because you're in these extremely formative years, when you need that validation, you need that love. You need to be able to create healthy belief systems and the healthy chosen family.
And you're not able to do any of these things that are crucial to growing up and becoming a teen and then an adult and building a healthy life for yourself. It's just all completely falsified in some small controlled environment that doesn't, it doesn't transfer it to the outside world. So it doesn't even logically make sense what's going on.
Sydney: Absolutely. And these people here, they had perfected this system. I mean, I, I stress this and. RFI or R F R I feel like I, like they had perfected the system so much because they had 20 years of doing this where you would hear stories. Like, for example, we weren't allowed to have stickers. We were not allowed to have, like, we only had a spoon for the whole time that we were there when we would, like, we could not use a fork or a knife, like things that like, even if you were on a higher level and you deserve those privileges, you were not really given that because someone else could have access to it.
And because they probably they're so remote in the middle of nowhere. And if someone were to harm themselves or something like that, like they're not able to facilitate help for that. So it's, I like, you know, a part of me understands that in a part of me is just like, it's still too crazy. Yeah.
Sadie: Yeah. So I wonder, were there any psychologists on staff at this program?
Sydney: So all of our, I believe all of the therapists that were there were licensed marriage and family therapists and they were all men. So I'm with all women, with all men that are therapists and they basically control your entire life. They control your program. I was dropped all of my levels after six months for picking out a pimple on my face because they told me, he told me that I was trying to self-harm.
Sadie: Oh my God. Crazy. Yes.
Sydney: Insane. And after that, I don't think that I was ever the same again in that program or probably in my life, because I was terrified. Like I was terrified. I felt so misunderstood. Like there was nowhere to go. No, no where to seek, you know, seek any help. Like I would, you can't go up to staff and vent to them if it's not in an open time.
And if you only get two hours a day, That are, you know, one hour here and one hour there to talk to people or talk to staff. You don't really have that outlet. And you're so controlled. And so many people are monitoring you, even our, even in our our meals were also like structured. So you would have to listen to tapes while you were,
Sadie: Oh my God.
Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. So is your program still open?
Sydney: It is not. It was shut down. Thank goodness. Thank you. Who went back like like maybe four to five months ago. I actually went back there to check it out because it's now a motel. Just like it looks,
Sadie: Oh my God. Crazy
Sydney: lights. And like the things I read online, like, I feel like I'm still brainwashed and I can't say what I even read online because there's allegations against the place saying that people were seriously tortured and that it was shut down for child abuse and neglect.
And, you know, I look at these things and this is on Wikipedia. And then there was a New York times article as well about cross Creek. And I'm like the fact that they were able to operate like this. And I have, like I said, hundreds and hundreds of kids from so many different programs. And I will say this, this program and pro RO Provo Canyon school, and a few other facilities that I've heard of heard of that are owned by the wasp associates association.
Those are the only schools that I've seen as torture as mine. Like I just, the way that they went about. Just treating students and Len like, again, making me also, I mean, at a certain point, you know, I'm so used to it that I didn't even want to leave. I have all of my journals from the place because they, I feel like that's really interesting that they even let us write, like, it's like they could trouble with being in like, you know, you, you had to monitor your letter's going out.
Yeah. And stuff like that because I'm like, well, what if they were reading these to my parents or something like that. So I remember just like, Ma painting a very cushy life to the outside world from these letters. And even in my journals, I could see myself kind of changing throughout the time that I was there, but I was living in this like ultra.
Like I literally, when I read these journals, I look psychotic because I'm just living in this fantasy world, pretending what the world is like outside. Like Michael Jackson died while I was there. Obama was elected while I was there. Lady Gaga became a person. Like I didn't even know who she was when I got out.
And I was like a freak for not knowing that. So it's so interesting to me. And I will say this, that the whole troubled teen like movement that's going on now with people raising awareness, it has really brought a lot of. Troublesome things that I like thought that I was going to shove down for a long time.
Sadie: Yeah, no, it brings up so many emotions and it's crazy. Like you were talking about how many kids you've met, like the stats right now are that there's 10,000 kids enrolled in these programs across the country, specifically within the troubled teen injury industry, which is wilderness, behavioral modification, some residentials and therapeutic boarding schools.
So it's just, it's insane. And just like we talked about there in many cases, So the rights of over the kid are signed over. You're not able to contact your parents and under individuals, which in many States like we're in California, that's a legal right. If you're put in the hospital is to have open access to a phone, to be able to light write letters, be able to talk to an attorney, your own treatment provider.
All of these things are right. That any human is supposed to have. And yet for kids in these situations that are completely stripped away and you, you lose your identity, you lose your trust for everyone around you. It's just, it's, it's very damaging. So kind of diving into after that, what was it like reentering back into, into your world and what, what did you have to heal from after what were the long lasting effects of being in a crazy, crazy, terrible program for, for so long?
Sydney: Absolutely. I mean, I remember just number one. Being, so it took me like, I was so confident and so excited to get out of there. I was like, my life is amazing. I'm so grateful because they build you up to feel that way. They actually build you a program that you have to type out on a computer with them watching you the whole time that like you have to build a program for yourself when you leave.
So I was not allowed to give myself a cell phone. Like I had to write out my own rules for myself for when I left,
Sadie: I did the same thing. They called it relapse prevention plan. What? I was like lapsing to feeling like depressed or alone. I don't know exactly what the connection was, but yeah. Or levels of rules and when I could drive and when I was allowed to hang out with friends and all that kind of stuff, it was, yeah.
Sydney: I had to list people in order of like a, B, C, D, and F like friends. And like, they had to write contracts. If they wanted to hang out with me, I wasn't allowed to have a relationship. And I remember like all these fantasies and things that I would think about, like, you know, so I remember getting out and just being like, Very confident that I was just going to stick to this program and that's what I wanted to do.
But then when you get back into the real world, and I'm different than a lot of the girls there, because a lot of the girls came from small towns where they did not have outlets. Like I did, I wasn't going back to a big city into a school that way it was very small, but we had access to things and you know, it was like, I was, I, I re I immediately started feeling like a freak.
I didn't look like myself. My clothes didn't fit me. I'm in a whole other place. My parents are breathing down my neck in a way that they never did before. It was extremely weird. And I remember just thinking to myself, Why don't people get along, if I'm such a good person and I do all of the right things, why are people still mean to me?
Why do people, because they build you in these programs to get along with everyone. And if you don't get along with anyone, you have to work them out with them. And in the real world that is not facilitated for, you know, even if you have those tools, when you, you know, and like you're in a structured environment, I'm in my high school and I'm getting in a disagreement with someone and I'm going in admitting my faults and saying all the things I did, accountability, taking accountability.
People just use that against you. And I realized that very quickly, but also I was so naive. I was spilling out my story to everyone confessing how horrible I was before that place. Bill also, I think it made me think that everyone should have gone through what I went through. I'm like if only they had gone through it, maybe they will understand.
Sadie: Yeah. If only they were like saved and had this amazing journey where they were able to find themselves and it just it's. So not the case.
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So at what point were you kind of able to take a step back and you realize like, Whoa, this was not the experience that I was tricked into thinking it was, this was very traumatic.
And what was that like? What was that realization like?
Sydney: So I don't really, I can't even pinpoint the exact like year or timeframe afterwards. I just know it was a few years later when Facebook groups started to pop up. Yeah. So we started to have like survivor Facebook groups and we would relive these experiences.
And this is even when the program was still running. And I remember that they started to like loosen the rules in the program because, Hmm. I mean, think about it. This was before social media, so these places were able to operate, but if you have MySpace and Facebook and all these things out, and you're like telling the world, Hey, I was in a place that told me that I couldn't go to the bathroom after I ate dinner.
Like you're, you're like, I mean, it's not going to get along very well with the rest of humanity. So I think what these programs started to do and Creek, they started to kind of like give more, you know, have more outings and do more things. And I remember seeing that online and being like, well, they should have done that when we were there.
But like, it was crazy because I thought to myself so long ago that I wanted to document and really write out these things. Even when I was in that school, I was like, this experience is so unique and I should be writing it down and yes, I have these journals, but remember, they're more like delusions.
Like I've had all of these things fresh in my mind, that therapy processes the way that they made me not talk after certain times and put me in certain places and tell me what to do, how to talk, how to act telling us that we had died and right, our eulogies, if they get picked out of a hat, we have to say are, you know, eulogy in front of people.
These traumatizing processes that through the years, you forget about them. And you, but, but there's some things that you do not forget. And I think that also, they tell you that like your therapist there will kind of like guide you afterwards. And that relationship also fell apart, which I thought he loved me.
I thought he was gonna spend, I thought he was going to come visit me. And these people are my best friends and you really have these insane attachments to the people that were there. And so I had a lot of really interesting experiences, but it was, it was probably like two to three years later, maybe three, four, because I became an adult.
And I realized, and only in the past few years was I like, I think that like I no longer can relate to people that have gone through high school, even people that were troubled that went through high school that were kicked out, that something about me doesn't relate with them.
Sadie: Not horror. Another level of an experience that was completely different and no, it totally makes sense.
It's just, it's crazy. I think if you asked anyone to call every moment of nine months of their lives, even if it's just a couple hours of every day, because a couple hours was something that was completely unethical and immoral and, and traumatic.
If you, no one can recall that much information and describe it to you in detail, especially when they were conditioned to believe it's normal. Our bodies naturally forget things that are normal. I don't remember what I ate for lunch yet. I, if I think about it really hard, maybe I could, but four weeks ago, I won't like you don't remember these details because you were told it was normal.
It was your day-to-day life. And you're completely in a bubble. It's not like you're talking to anyone else. You remember what your real life is like, because you are locked in this situation for months on end. And it's just, it's crazy. So. Did you kind of reconcile with your parents after this experience?
Or did you say, I need to take time for myself and process through that? What was that like kind of navigating those family relationships after you realized that the effects of this experience? Absolutely. So I
Sydney: was there for 15 months, by the way, I was there 15 months locked.
Sadie: That's not their nine months that they had originally said, no, God,
Sydney: no, I was there 15 months.
And I was lucky because that was considered a short period of time for this program. And I will say this, I have severe severe issues with forgiving my parents, but I have such severe attachment and abandonment even at this age that I'm at now that I won't mention that. Like I just, I love them so freaking much.
And I just don't know why they would put me through this. Yeah, and they remember, and I want to go back to this because we didn't get to touch on this. Why parents go through and pick these places because these places are looking for the parents that are their customer and their customer wants the tough love.
They might not know the torturous things that they put us through and whatever else. And by the time your parents put six months down cash in the program, they're probably going to start to believe it. And you're even given conditioned, like they're given things. That are doctrine about, Hey, you know, if your child complains of this, they're lying.
If they say this, you know, don't believe them, it's manipulation. So my parents don't know left from right. And my mom has gotten to the point where she can understand a little bit more, but it's, I mean, if these are people that, and I, God bless them, they are avoidant and dismissive people. They are not going to be able to, to handle the fact that they did anything that was harmful.
And I have in my group, seen people that's parents have completely one 80 and have said, Oh my gosh, this is awful. I cannot believe you experienced that. But if they, if these. Programs targeted who they wanted. They have a lifelong customer that believes in what they
Sadie: had. And among the first friends and family members and other teams, they
Sydney: recruited them strongly.
As they recruited me. I'm young. I have access to social media technology, all of these things, my parents do not utilize those resources clearly. I mean, these places have had allegations since the early two thousands, even by Googling them. And people had gone to rescue their kids out of these programs.
It, before I even got there, they had lawsuits, they had all these things, but if you did not have access to that information, and if you were the customer looking for this type of treatment for your child, and you were at a loss of what to do, these are the places. And it did get me to change. So, I mean, what can you say?
And they say they would tell us things like you'll never be as bad as you were before you got here. And I remember always thinking of that because there's some things that they absolutely taught me these things about accountability. Like whether or not people made fun of me. I knew I was doing the right thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I really felt adamant about that. Yes. I experienced a lot of backlash for it, but I did learn a lot of tools that you can not go back on. I was introduced to, you know, I was more thoroughly introduced it to alcoholics anonymous and programs and religion while I was within this program that have facilitate that, have that planted seeds for who I am now.
So I'm so, you know, I see people that are just beginning their recovery at an older age and I'm like, I go, maybe it's my brainwash. I'm like, I wish that you would experience this younger because these seeds were planted. So early on that I seek out so much assistance all the time. I did not just deny my parents.
I want to understand them. I want to ask questions, but that doesn't mean that the other, that does not mean that your audience and the people that want to hear this are going to be the same towards that.
Sadie: Totally. No, it's, it's, it's crazy. And kind of going back to the fact that these families are customers, like you mentioned your, this school that you attended owned tons of other facilities within the United States.
That's a very common thing because it's a corporation that, that is operating under using these kids as customers. And they're making crazy amounts of money. It's just insane. And I I've had similar experiences with being, feeling very lucky for all the skills that I learned from having navigated treatment at a young age.
And there are, there are so many things that you learn and that I'm, I'm glad to have experienced. And it's, you're also forced to grow up too early. These experiences aren't things that you're meant to navigate. It's such a young age. You're not supposed to learn how to be truly accountable for all of your past mistakes and actions at 15.
That's something you learned. Decades down the line. And so it's you learn these skills, but it's kind of at a loss of your childhood in these moments that you would have had had had you been at home and it's, it's a very sad thing to navigate. I think another thing recently that I've been thinking about is a lot of different girls that I've been in contact with who see a lot of the different experiences is very helpful or not as bad or okay.
It's not as bad as these other programs, like the one you're talking about. And I think it's interesting and I've kind of come to the realization that for a lot of these people being taken out of their home environments, they're not suffering as severely or behaviourally the presentation isn't as bad as it was at home.
So it's almost better. And when they get back out and they sometimes relapse a good book to those behaviors, this time in their life is a mortalized when they weren't engaging in those, when they weren't necessarily suffering as much. And I. I feel so I don't know if pity would be the right term, because that sounds terrible.
But the fact that that was the best, best timeframe when there that suffering wasn't there, those negative experiences weren't present and it just, it makes me so sad. And I'm sure a lot of the result of the aftermath and being out of treatment and still struggling is because of the, what you learned there and how you survive these programs by creating these relationships and, and checking the boxes and, and being literally brainwashed to what they're trying to tell you.
Yeah. I
Sydney: love the way that you just put that because. I was listening to a podcast that was talking about young children. When they out, when they outlast behavior, it's actually not the child hating you. It actually means that they feel comfortable enough to display that around you. So when I immediately, when you said that, I thought about, because when I got to the program, I did not really combat them.
I was like, I'm going to listen because I was not comfortable around the people that are supposed to care for you and emotionally give to you. Those are the people that you're going to display your biggest troubles with because they're supposed to be the ones to acknowledge those things. And I agree with you that in some circumstances, Maybe these places were a safe Haven for some people.
And there, you know, there are survivors that say so many different things about this, and I agree with you that it's, it's very interesting. And there are a lot of levels to this and how it affected people because I saw girls that were actually, you know, seriously abused. Yes, I, the mousetrap on my leg, but I also saw people that were eating bugs for attention that were getting trampled by staff to restrain them.
I mean, I did not experience that because like I said, I knew almost immediately when I was there. Maybe I was kind of, you know, I would gossip or I would talk about things in a certain way, but I never would really display a huge a huge fight because I was terrified.
Sadie: Yeah, no, I remember doing the exact same thing and that's how you survive it.
That's how, that's how you are in this situation. And you said that you were changed and I just want it coming out of the program. And I want to go back to that with what you just said, was it really worth it that you were changed because you lost that, that comfort and that trust for whether it was your parents or your environment or the staff members, like just, is it, is it really worth it to
Sydney: use that?
It's so interesting because I'm back in a recovery situation now I'm not in a, in a treatment facility. I just have facilitated a program for myself and I'm recovering as we speak. And I'm a realist and I just, I really struggle with accepting this. As much as I want to, I want to say to myself, you know what, like this is who I am.
I'm so proud of it. Oh my gosh, I've learned so much for this, but I just have such a hard time and I will be that person to just be realistic and say, I just wish I didn't go through that. Like, there were so many other layers and things. My parents are not that awful. Why did they choose to do that? I don't get it.
You know, I do, because like I said, the trauma, the complexities that they went through, they, they had facilitated. Their own experience as a child that was very independent from their families and their parents that they maybe thought that, Hey, well, we have to deal with this. Why don't we put this on our kid?
Or, you know, it won't be that bad. At least they hadn't. At that point
Sadie: as a society, mental health treatment was tough. Love, tough love, solve these problems. They were conditioned to believe that this would work. And so it's, it's a, it's a cultural issue. It's a generational problem. There's just so many different things that factor in here and, and contribute and make it not add up.
I think it's so what you were saying about still not understanding, I totally have the same experience because you, first of all, if anyone's conditioned to do anything for a year plus a year and a half plus of your life, and then years after when you still haven't recovered from that, and then completely doing a one 80 with the way you view your relationships and your interactions and your own belief systems that work takes decades.
And it, and it's. Extremely hard to undo. And I think something that I did learn in treatment from one of the, one of the most amazing programs that I went to is that if you're not progressing, you're digressing. And so I love that you're still continuing to work on yourself, which we all need to do. If we want to continue moving in, in a positive direction, regardless of what our current mental health is at.
And so I love that. Absolutely.
Sydney: And like I said, I recently in the past year had. Gone back into my spirituality, redeveloped my religious beliefs. And I'm also in a recovery program as well. And I'm completely sober now. And I'm so like, I can't say that I'm extremely happy and recovered. This is going to be a lifelong journey for me, but it's something that I have God planted so long ago and was so ready to facilitate for myself.
So I think that this came at a perfect time for us to have this discussion.
Sadie: So I love it. And I think what makes me so happy is that you're doing it for yourself. It's not like however long ago when it was being forced on you and this time it's, it's for you and it's for the right reasons. And it's in an effective way of not with all of these crazy different other ways of modifying behavior.
And so it's just, it again, the, the goal of this is not to say that treatment doesn't work and it's, and it's ineffective because that's so not the case. Treatment works in safe. So many lives, every single year. It's just finding programs that are using clinical studies and evidence based treatments and using psychologists and doctors and using compassion and their care and, and having staff members that, that are properly trained and using again, evidence-based ethical treatment, especially for kids because somehow in the United States, those rights are not protected at a basic level.
And it's something that's being worked towards, but we're not
Sydney: there yet. Absolutely. And I think because of the internet, because of the powers we have and knowledge, and these things are coming up now. There is no way that in 50 years, a hundred years, these things will persist. So don't believe that complies.
It's just not possible that people allow this to stay this way. It's not, yes. Some things will happen behind closed doors, always, but as far as States allowing these places to operate, selling
Sadie: these services and having a whole industry, no way it's and I'm, and I'm so, so glad about that. And I think if there's any takeaway beyond just these, so this super powerful story and being more critical about the way you view these programs, kind of just getting curious with those around you.
We've mentioned how many people have been impacted by this industry and these experiences. I can almost guarantee that there's someone within your larger community and circle of life that has known someone or navigated this experience themselves. And having that, that compassion and awareness and curiosity for that experience.
Because just like you mentioned, if it's not someone that's been through it. Having someone that really truly understands is so, so hard because it's like an alien experience. It's a complete parallel dimension, the secret society within our world. And it's just, it's, it's crazy. And it takes years to, to heal from after
Sydney: it does, it does, it is such a journey, but there's so much light being shed right now on this.
And like I said, the more that I live my life, the more that I meet people that have gone through these places and it is just crazy and it blows
Sadie: the mind every single time.
Sydney: It's crazy. And, but yeah, there's so many, there's so many levels to which people rationalize and accept these places. And it's, it's very interesting and beautiful to see, but I do have hope for the way that we, we take treatment centers and hopefully.
I think that some places will start to develop programs and places that really heal and help people. And there are some principles and practices from these places that absolutely works, but they do not need to be sustained for 20 months or a whole child years. I mean, these kids have
Sadie: contact with the outside world,
Sydney: need to be able to get, get what you need and take it and leave and go back to a life and have the tools in check.
And if you are able to facilitate that outside, great, if not, you have to learn just like everyone else in this world. And in a, in the way that you're able to choose and not be forced.
Sadie: Completely 100% agree. And thank you so much for joining me for this episode. So powerful, such an amazing story. And it's just, it's, it's very inspiring to hear how much adversity you've gone through and survived, and still been able to create a completely positive trajectory from it and build a life that, that you love.
And so thank you. Thank you, Sadie for having,
In case you skipped to the end to recap the interview, Sydney and I talked about her childhood experiences and feeling really invalidated, misunderstood, and isolated and her emotions before she went to treatment, we talked about the extremely traumatic intake process and her early days.
At cross Creek. And how strict program regulations were. We talked about how horrific these experiences and the troubled teen industry are from her perspective on having been 15 at the time of this experience, we talked about tough love T troubled teen and behavioral modification approaches that really does result in emotional, physical abuse of thousands of teens.
We talked about why it's so important for teens to get ethical evidence-based compassionate treatment because they're at such formative points in their lives. These these experiences really do have lasting impacts. We talk about how Sydney transitioned back to life. Post-treatment healed from this experience.
And lastly, the attachment and abandonment that she still grapples with. As a result of those 15 months that she, she spent at cross Creek.
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