Fairy joins Elizabeth to talk about their experience in the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI).
Content Warning: Mentions of suicide, self harm, child sexual abuse, sexual assault
In crisis and need to talk? Call or text 988
- Survivors Unrestrained: Mission: "to provide healing, empowerment and stability to survivors of the troubled teen industry through education, advocacy, awareness and support"
- Kids Over Profits: Collaborative of TTI survivors whose mission is to "educate the public about the current and historical dangers of the TTI, in pursuit of the ultimate goal of keeping all children safe from abuse"
Hello and welcome to episode 42 of Talking Shit About. I'm your host Elizabeth, and each month I bring on a guest to talk about something they love, something they hate, and hopefully by the end we've all learned something. This month we're talking about the troubled teen industry, so it's definitely not a fun topic. We don't go into a lot of details because we're not trying to re-traumatize folks, but there will be mention of suicide and self-harm, child sex abuse, and sexual assault. So if those topics are triggering for you, just keep yourself safe and take care of yourself. Without further ado, let's go ahead and talk some shit. I was like, "What the fuck does that mean?" I have friends that are firefighters and I know that they use self. And she was screaming at me over stupid fuckers I am not ever talking to a psychologist to get these people I call it, saying, "I'm putting my bricks in the dumpster's motherfuckers. Do you see me bitches and throw in my bricks and he's just like, shucking shit." Hello everyone. I'm sitting here today with Fairey and they are going to tell us about the troubled teen industry. Fairey, how are you doing? I am doing as best as any of us can be in the current state of things in the world, you know? Yep. We're recording this shortly after the election, November 11th, so yeah, everything's still fresh in our brains. Fairey, so let's go ahead and just jump right into it. For someone who's never heard the term, could you kind of define the troubled teen industry and what it is? You know, it's really funny that today I was going to put this deposit down on an apartment and my landlord was like, "Oh, what kind of podcast are you going on?" I was like, "Do you know what the troubled teen industry is?" And he was like, you know, he tried to logic it through the words, right? You know, some sort of industry that takes advantage of troubled teens and I was like, "That is a really good place to start with just the words, right? Troubled teen industry." But really, it's a lot more sinister than that. The troubled teen industry has been around so much longer than I thought. I entered a program on my half birthday when I turned 13 and a half in the year 2004. That's 20 years ago, but long before I was a survivor or even entering a program, there were other people entering programs. The troubled teen industry is essentially a bunch of places like wilderness therapy, residential treatment centers, many of which operate under religious contexts. It includes conversion therapy as well. And these are unregulated and unwatched programs where parents or sometimes the court will send a kid with behavioral health issues to complete strangers who usually don't have qualification. And people die. People have been abused and dying in places like this, as long as they've been around. There's a lot of great, great resources that can probably explain the history and stuff better, but a big thing to note about the troubled teen industry in comparison to other places like psych wards is you're there for a long amount of time. You don't know when you're going home. And the way that they change your behavior is through brainwashing. So you were 13 when you first got sent to, I was going to say, was it a camp or what kind of program was it? I've been to four programs, I would say, although there's a debate on one of the boarding schools that I went to briefly being lumped in there. So it started with I had attempted suicide when I was 13 and I went to a psych ward. From there, my parents reached out to an educational consultant, which is something that's not a lot. It's not always part of your journey into the troubled teen industry, but they suggest a placement to your parents these days they usually start with wilderness programs. And with my parents, I ended up at a place called Falconridge Ranch that's located in Virgin Utah. They are the only program that I've been to that is still open and they are one of the worst in Utah now as a result. I was in that program for a year and I was not making enough progress because I was very defiant and stubborn and honestly a scared little kid. So they decided to make an example out of me, Falconridge Ranch had opened up in 2003. So they had maybe been open a year by the time I showed up. And the example they made was to send me to a wilderness program where I made a backpack out of sticks. I wasn't allowed to interact with other people in the group until I learned how to make a fire with sticks and stones, we hiked seven miles every day, rain or snow. And that was supposed to break me and it kind of did. So I went back to the first program and then more programs, a total I was gone for about two and a half years and in between programs the way that my parents would transport me if they couldn't be there were through what you have heard referred to as goons, paid kidnappers for other people that functions as you know they come to your own house and a pre-arranged time with your parents and kidnap you. But for me I was already in these programs going in between them, my parents would sign me over custody wise to these transporters to take me to the next program. So two and a half years, 13 and a half to almost 16, my last program was actually the first ever weight loss troubled teen program in California. So what was the selling point for these programs like why, what is the promise that they're giving people? So when I've watched these documentaries I think part of what made me wake up after you know 20 years of just not really talking about it or thinking about it. I was watching a documentary called Hell Camp on Netflix, it's about wilderness programs and this older woman is holding a little dog in her lap and talking about how she sent her son to a wilderness program probably in the 90s, now I was born in 1990s so that's you know the first sign is oh my gosh this has been happening longer than I've existed. But then hearing her say this specific line that a lot of people who have been through programs have had their parents say over the years which is if I didn't do this you were going to die. There's this aspect of brainwashing with your parents too because the industry braves on their desperation, they manipulate that back in my time. If you think about it like they were passing out glossy brochures that made it look like I was going to horse camp for two years or you know this cushy rehab that you'd expect you know celebrities to be at but that was the brochure, the reality was very very different you know our communication was monitored so we couldn't tell our parents what was really going on and plenty of parents probably would not have done that if they knew the reality but they were desperate. My parents well my mother still to this day says if I didn't do that you were going to die and over the last few months we've been talking about things and I've gotten her to accept and agree that the likelihood of a child dying in a program is also very strong. My mom says that she felt that it was more likely that I would die if I didn't go to one. So to answer the question essentially why do parents send their kids there it's because they're desperate and these people act like they are the experts when they're not. Me of them I know in one of my programs specifically there was a guy who became faculty at many other programs beyond just mine and I looked him up recently and he failed to qualify for social work licensing and I got I was before the pandemic I was actually about to go for my master's in social work so it's just absolutely mind boggling that my parents my mom would probably still sing his praises but this man couldn't even pass a social work licensing and he was and still is in charge of people's problem kids you know. Yeah that is I can't believe how unregulated it is it drives me up the wall. So I'd like to kind of go back to your personal story so you mentioned before you got sent into the program you were dealing with some suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts. This is kind of an abstract question but what is the difference between a troubled teen and a regular teen like are there any teens that aren't trouble all right I mean let's be for real every teenager is going through a hormone brain soup for like a while and everything feels so sudden and immediate and like oh my god if he doesn't like to be back the world is going to be over right so you know by nature teenagers are moody hormonal impulsive and grumpy at best right it's interesting you know I've been through four programs and looking back on the variety of situations that you encounter so I'm going to bookmark that thought the variety of situations you can encounter because that's going to be the end message for me so I go in there my particular problems were a little unique my parents had fought most of my life you know I had developed a unique problem during potty training where my parents had moved to different states and weren't living together and I didn't see my dad and as a three year old to me this is all stuff that they hammered out with me in the troubled teen industry but it was me trying to exercise control so I just stopped going to the bathroom and that problem you know persisted on top of that I was sexually assaulted and blackmailed as a child by a friend who's only a year older than me and also I was born female she's also born female so that happened for like five years obviously my parents fighting the other stuff I was getting depressed I was cutting and I was getting severely bullied at my new school and that faculty weren't really listening so I felt there was nothing else to be done and I tried to kill myself and when I get to the troubled teen industry you know I was very sheltered a virgin I was actually straight edge and just very different from who I am now other girls there had severe drug problems I remember watching a girl come down off heroin before I'd ever tried any kind of drugs I'd seen what they did to people she couldn't walk for like a week they had to carry her around so my problems where I was very sad and depressed and other people were addicted to heroin at my age or there were even just sad situations where it's like a girl's dad had remarried and the stepmother felt that she couldn't bond with a teenager the same way that she could with the girl's younger siblings so it was just a convenient place to stash her it really you'd have people from all walks of life one of the things that I've noticed still persists is adopted kids and I don't mean there's like there's this sinister aspect of different cultures and different races like Matt the former governor of Kentucky met something oh my gosh oh my forgetting his name Bevin Matt Bevin he had an adopted son from Africa that he put in a program because you know adoption is hard especially when you're coming from another country and once you get a teenage years you know you're already dealing with the hormone brain scoop of course you know the adoption and where you belong is going to be part of that but the kid gets sent to this program in Jamaica which the same year it gets rated and Matt Bevin just leaves his kid to become a ward of the state in Jamaica when I was in a program 20 years ago there was another girl from another country who was of a different race than her parents and you know it felt weird then like why are you sending your kid so far away from you when what you need is to be integrated into the family instead of feeling like an outsider ultimately you look at all the kids throughout the troubled teen industry you look at the documentaries and sometimes of the artsy kids sometimes they're the weird kids and really it just boils down to the family kind of just needed to integrate them more they call them troubled teens and tell you not to take the reviews seriously because they're just troubled teens they tell you that you know these kids are doing whatever they're doing to manipulate you but they never say the reality which is a kid doesn't know how to communicate things so what you think is manipulative manipulation whatever is really just a kid trying to get their needs met trying to communicate in the only way that they know how I was self harming because I felt unheard and unseen I was being sexually assaulted I was being bullied and nobody had my back of course I felt that way so to just narrowly you know call them all troubled teens really there's such a variety of situations of home lives of problems and the thing that I saw in all that time that was a common theme was just dysfunctional families and adults not willing to own up to their part in that yeah it sounds like what you needed was support and like he said somebody to have your back but instead they just kind of shipped you off which is the opposite of what you need I'm sure so how did being in the programs affect you compared to how it was quote unquote supposed to help you you know this is something I've reflected on a lot lately back then I there are different kinds of programs you know the program that I was in Falcon Ridge Ranch that's the one I spent the most time and so I call that you know the program for me but they had a sister program called Red Rock Canyon School which was closed down for riots they were different kinds of programs and Red Rock was a threat they hold over you as well Falcon Ridge Ranch was what's called positive peer culture where essentially they try to use peer pressure to make you change your behavior you have your friends narc on you you have your these girls that you live with the congregate care you know they're supposed to be keeping you honest and I can see why that sounds good on paper but in reality it ends up being just bullying and mini staff and just perpetuating all the problems so with Red Rock though they were behavior modification which is we are going to modify your behavior by any means necessary they were very cruel I have a friend who had been at Red Rock for a couple months before coming to Falcon Ridge Ranch and Falcon Ridge Ranch I believe also sent her to a wilderness program too and it's wild to look at our experiences and our overlap in time there I'm bisexual my friend is gay and we had the same therapist who treated us very differently my friend was encouraged to be more straight and I was encouraged to avoid boys I'm sorry I think I lost I lost what was the initial question so how did the experience affect you and change you like as a person right so like I mentioned you know I was straight edge going in I was gonna save my virginity and never do drugs or drink or anything like that and it wasn't even for religious reasons or it was straight up mental illness on my part but then I get to the programs and I remember this girl once telling me like I was nervous and I was like after I had fixed my little bathroom problems you know I was still in the program past that for a long long time and I remember at a different program I had asked this girl like what do you do if you like are spending the night at a guy's house and you have to go to the bathroom like how do you cover up the smell if you didn't bring perfume with you and like getting those kind of tips so like if I'm getting those kind of tips about sex I'm getting those kind of tips about everything and by the time I got out I had already determined like after watching that girl come down off heroin I am never doing heroin but I'm curious about hot a little bit maybe I might want to try alcohol and I am definitely curious about sex so in going to all these programs I was exposed to other people's problems and I got to hear their stories and they made me more curious than I had ever been before I think that it had that opposite effect from my parents that they were not expecting and after I got out there was actually actually a period in time that I like within the first year disappeared for a weekend to go with the guy that I was dating he was in a metal band and get drunk at his show and does not answer my phone for a weekend at 16 so you know wasn't a thing that I did at 13 and a half that's for sure but at 13 and a half I was trying to meet grown men on the internet so in general I kind of had some problem behaviors that looking back it's like I really just wanted someone to listen I think the so you have this aspect of your learning the behaviors that other people have but on top of that the troubled teen industry they know that it's kind of a band-aid because they don't want to piss off the parents that are their cash cows so they don't really make the parents' sake responsibility for the dysfunctional family stuff more often than not and when I was in the right when I was at the ranch if you had a problem at home you'd just call the ranch so I did that for like two years after I got out and it never really occurred to me back then that by 2008 and I got out in 2006 there were only like three staff left that remembered who I was but there were more girls than ever and you know they'd done more expansion and all of this stuff so they're putting a band-aid on a problem and telling you to come back to call back whatever because they know that eventually they'll end up back in their program but they're only going to take you while you're a minor so it's kind of the worst band-aid because they don't really fix your problems they tell you to rely on them and to rely on other people with problems and on top of that there's the brainwashing what they do is they take away your fight-or-flight response because you know you have grown men screaming in your face you have adults who are straining you and sometimes your friends were straining you and fighting you yeah what they really do is traumatize you into submission for the rest of your life and I imagine it's taken a lot of work and a lot of processing to undo a lot of that if you can even undo it right well I recently luckily have found a another survivor who became a therapist who specializes in you know cults and brainwashing and troubled routine stuff and I'll be starting with her next month but I think about you know when I first got out of programs and I was seeing therapists and I was seeing psychiatrists and at some point I was like 20 and I wanted to talk about it it only happened four years ago but the therapist at the time had no idea what I was talking about and really wanted me to lead it and I will say with the advent of social media of Reddit TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, all of that people's stories are getting out you can connect with other survivors and and that's an amazing thing because you know back then there were no reviews and sorry I keep losing my trying to thought oh man yeah no we I was so intent on listening I forgot what we were going to I got kind of another question for you but have you ever been in a mental health institution like after you got out of the programs oh definitely gosh actually my my my industry is what I would say because you know I wasn't a troubled teen forever my industry experience did not stop at being a minor in fact when I was 18 you know I tried to kill myself again ended up in a psych ward and at that point I think my parents got me involved with some like community mental health agency where I had a case manager and with the case manager's help my parents essentially got a conservatorship sort of thing where I was ordered to take medication if I didn't take that medication I would be put in this more severe psych ward where the minimums stay is six months and you can't even contact your family and I was threatened with that for like two and a half years even when you know I was seeing these psychiatrists that I didn't even remember my name half the time I was taking these medications that kept making me gain weight you know much like in the troubled teen industry they had me on crazy high doses of things like Sarah Quill and Depico I gained 60 pounds in two months and they blamed it on me so I wasn't in control of my own reproductive freedom I had mentioned you know I was I was I was engaged to somebody when I was 20 and we wanted to have kids and the case manager and my mother said that if I got pregnant they immediately started CPS case together I didn't get free of that stuff until I think when I was 21 and even then it had become kind of routine for me that if I went into a mental health crisis I always had a go bag ready to go spend some time in a psych ward and get my meds in order but it turns out after all this time and all the things that they diagnosed me with in the troubled teen industry well a lot of them have been removed from my chart at 28 I got finally diagnosed with PTSD now when I was in the troubled teen industry you would assume that a kid saying hey I was sexually abused in blackmailed for five years so that the abuse would continue you think you'd want to work on that as a therapist but because it was another girl I had to beg for help for that to be acknowledged and you know more sexual assaults from then on I have had a lifetime of trauma and I had had a lifetime of trauma before I even turned 18 so not being diagnosed with PTSD absolutely impacted my ability to get help instead I had borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder specifically the one with mania not hypomania which impaired impaired it was a roadblock some doctors didn't want to see me because they thought those two things combined were too severe but the doctor that I see now is an amazing person he was mentored by Bessel Vandal Polk the guy who wrote the body keeps the score which is like the bible of trauma and you know with working with him I was already diagnosed with ADHD before the troubled teen industry and that has stuck but you know the borderline personality disorder is removed from my chart because it is a lot easier to explain my reaction to trauma in the moment as not a manic episode but it's like yeah I don't know I had gotten sexually assaulted and then did a bunch of crazy things that most people normally wouldn't do is it bipolar disorder or is it just that that was super traumatic and I didn't know how to handle it I think that's something a lot of survivors actually end up encountering is like you they diagnose you with so many things to number one sedate you without these medications but also to bill your insurance and and be able to get more and keep you there longer so in the long run you know it kind of just steered me back into psych words and what not because there were times I couldn't find a psychiatrist at all and wouldn't have access to medications but I've been considered mentally disabled due to all the trauma and and all this stuff since I was 18 it's it's absolutely mind boggling to look back I haven't been in a psychboarding quite some time and I've had time to really think about what those are like in comparison and now I'm also realizing that many there's a lot of there's like three big overall corporations in the trouble teen industry but there's many other ones and they sometimes will own like a child psyche unit Acadia owns one in my hometown for children experiencing behavioral problems but Acadia also owns so many trouble teen industry residential programs where the minimum say isn't two weeks it's who knows you know they own wilderness program so now a parent could just walk through the wrong side for trying to get help for their kid for the first time and end up you know accidentally well not accidentally but being misled into the industry and ways that you know my parents weren't misled supposedly and thinking about all the kids in programs right now I mean the numbers are anywhere from like at any given moment it's like a hundred 120,000 kids are in programs the 20 years that it's taken me to acknowledge all this trauma the the ways that I've tried to handle it you know trying constantly to improve myself to get better to work on my mental health without having this very important key that a lot of these problems aren't it's not that they're not real but they're mislabeled and having to go back and look at the 20 years that feels wasted when I really needed help and I spent my whole life needing help because the help I got was just that bad so it sounds like finding a therapist that understands your situation was pretty helpful what are some other things that have been healing for you well lately I have ever since you know like really trying to dig into this trauma and understand things the question that keeps coming up for me is how many of my thoughts and impulses are mine how many of them are part of this brainwashing and so lately I've been writing lyrics and poetry there's actually when I was when I was in the industry my parents and the program made me do a news interview not like a video but newspaper and it's full of inaccuracies from you know what my mom says the first day I cut is she says it was April 2004 but I entered the troubled teen industry in March of 2004 how's that possible but on top of that it says things like you know I have such a great way with words and you know I have these unique writing skills that never would have been refined if I hadn't entered a program before I entered a program I was on a competitive writing team in middle school so not not not really I read that and I got angry and I was like well you know what I was good at writing before you guys and I was good at writing after you guys and now I'm just gonna write about you guys and then you know obviously having the opportunity to really share my story after years of not knowing the words it's great to get that opportunity on top of that realizing that it's still going on that it's going on in my own backyard there's this sense of um I need to help these kids in ways that I couldn't get help and I was really incensed this year you know the documentary team torture ink came out on HBO Max and it's fantastic oh it's fantastic but after watching that you know I realized I live in Ohio and the area that I grew up in has our representative was JD Vance not my choice did not go for that man did not either yeah all right all right so even as an ally when I never would have voted for him gosh so you know I started digging into that and and I had all these feelings about it for me it feels like the troubled teen industry is serving up problem children to horrifically abusive men and women and people that are now in power met Romney profited off of my abuse so it pushed me to start getting involved up until this year we had had one career politician in Ohio that I could really say is good at his job and his name is Sherry Brown and he got voted out for this crypto bro named Bernie Moreno who took seventeen thousand dollars from Ohio troubled teen industry programs those same programs gave nineteen thousand dollars to the president and I got to say it feels like a kick in the nads because I had just been getting the fight started now it feels like it's even harder but you've also probably seen things like Paris Hilton was working on the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act so hers was actually more focused on research and accountability with these programs and making sure that their records are up to date but even though that's kind of like this is not an insult to Paris or anyone else but previous things that people tried to pass were more about protections you know restraint symbol blah blah and they always fizzle but even this one which is not about protections and restraints and is like kind of milk toast and comparison it's just research did not pass yet but it's probably not going to so on my end in my undergrad which was in a completely different field I did a web content analysis and I believe that all the data we need to do that kind of research it's already out there you look at the reviews of the programs that you listen to a podcast episode somebody talking about the program they were in you look at news articles you look at court cases that that is already there so I'm working to start a nonprofit based on funding research specifically I'd like undergrads to do this research it's a great thing to have on your resume when you apply for your masters and it's an area that desperately needs research so having something like that and providing that opportunity that's important to me I've been networking with other survivors you have you know their own nonprofits that do other things there's one called survivors unrestrained which all it helps the aim is to help all provider survivors get access to resources you know you think about an 18 year old coming out of a program that they've been in for two years doesn't know how to get their social security card doesn't know how to apply for any kind of benefits and sometimes the transcripts you have of your like academic time because it turns out the program wasn't in accredited school so now you have to go back and do those credits all over again so it's really you know they're so yeah it's crazy and so you have all these other issues that you have to navigate and if you're like just a regular social worker who has no concept of the troubled teen industry I'm sure you'd feel like your head's underwater so having even just you know someone to help coach you someone to provide the support you know another one that I like is kids over profits that has probably the best history of the troubled teen industry which fun fact started with a literal cult so and that's the other thing is like because these programs you know shut down but they really change names and open again with the same staff like it's keeping track of things like that that's been so hard over the years I mean even the program that I was in it still lists my therapist as the program director to this day in 2024 she died in 2016 oh wow yeah it's crazy it's crazy so and and the other therapist from when I was there I can't find any records of him anywhere and he's not a good guy so it's um it's disturbing it's it's troubling um and if you looked up Falcon Ridge Ranch right now on Google you'd see that 2020 a female staff was sent to prison for showing porn to minors at that program and it's still open why so you know it's like it's like anytime I see something that I can try to tie to the troubled teen industry to spread awareness I try to I know it's super annoying for a lot of other people but you know on TikTok when I read the reviews I say um I read these reviews so you don't have to and so that you don't send your kids there because that's ultimately the goal like you shouldn't have to read these reviews to know if a program's bad some of these reviews are just traumatic to read in general so um it's really to feel like I can do anything to say one kid is the way that I deal with a lifetime of regret it's not the regret of the life I've lived but that the life I lived wasn't really mine you know um I want other survivors to have more of a chance than I ever did and my best friend works in the mental health field so knowing that I have even just my own friends working in this field if a survivor tells him about stuff they know what it is which is not something I ever experienced until in my 30s so think about all the you know I first asked a therapist for help with this stuff at 20 and I'm 34 so 14 years I could have had an entirely different life I hope that you know my friend uh if someone ever comes to him you know I hope that they get to five years five years more than I did you know of really feeling authentically themselves of really feeling like this isn't just trauma that you ignore or pretend didn't happen or have no one to talk to about or just feel like an outsider or feel crazy I feel like you know when I try to talk to politicians about the protections that I want to see enacted here in my state if they don't know anything about it I sound insane like a conspiracy there is like there are Doritos in my vaccines and kids being kidnapped and tortured in camps in the middle of the woods yeah that that I get it those things do sound the same well I'm super impressed with all of the work that you do and your passion for helping others get through this it's really amazing so I have a couple questions for you the first one is and I think it's pretty obvious how we feel about the industry after talking but um if there are any parents out there listening who are feel like they're at the end of the ropes or maybe considering a program for their kids do you have any words of wisdom for them I do and I'm going to try to like I'm going to try to make them bullet points and then dig into them the first thing I'm going to say is that because I also went to that boarding school even if it's not a troubled teen industry program sending your kid away is not the option because if you're thinking about sending your problem kid there so is another parent and that parent I mean you have no idea what that other kids issue is going to be I was only in boarding school for two months and I got kicked out because I was sexually assaulted twice in two months so someone else's problem son that I had my own problems it didn't really work out that well on top of that congregate care which is what this is called you know this concept of sending kids away into a group situation has been proven to not be effective not for long term and really generally not at all so don't better options or community supports unfortunately that's not really something the government's putting a whole lot of money towards these days looking back now I think about the things that I found the the things that have guided me since then if I were to suggest something for teenagers that are having problems I start with thinking about how immediate and urgent and blah blah blah hormone brain soup like I said and when everything feels like the world's going so fast and you're lost you need something that at the end of the day you can see the progress so my fiance is a roofer I'll drop him off it at work one day and pick him up at the end of the day and there is the shell of a building and you know eight hours and it must feel so amazing I mean he's proud of himself and I'm proud of him because I can see all this work that he did as a as a kid if it doesn't feel worth it to put in the work for something that's not going to pay off right now so finding things that make your kid feel like they're accomplishing something right now to combat the feelings of depression or or or feeling worthless useless whatever those negative feelings are that drag them down and make them feel like crap about themselves find some way that they can see what they're capable of in a shorter amount of time that's the problem with these programs is that they tell parents it'll be like six months maybe and it never really is and you as a kid you have no idea how long it's gonna be and they want your money they don't really want to help your kid like know that above all it comes down to money they're gonna tell you whatever it takes to get your money so I would tell parents to first off not send your kid there second off really question the people you have telling you to do that because like I said educational consultants they can be working with your school which is why you know they already work with your kid why wouldn't you trust them and there's only a few states actually I think it's just Oregon that has any kind of transparency these people are not legally obligated to tell you the truth or a truth that you and I would want to see you know like yeah okay we've had we've had some restraint issues in the last six months yeah okay maybe a kid died here five years ago we we both would want to know that but you know the word in a way that this seems kind of confusing essentially if your kids having problems I know that there are some problems that is not safe to keep your kid home but sending them away is not the answer either especially not far away I I would say if you're gonna if you have no choice but to send your kids somewhere else make it somewhere close enough that you can visit because if you can't visit if you are if your kid is not able to talk to you if you have trouble re reaching a program that your kid is at to even talk to the staff those are big big big problems because think about what's going on behind the closed doors you know so when your kids closer you can pop in whenever you want whether they tell you you can or you can't you want to do things like that you want to make sure that your kids not being abused because they're gonna say you know your kid had these problems we're gonna blame these problems on why they needed this this restraint this sedation this blah blah blah blah blah and they're gonna do their damned is to convince you that your kid deserved it flat out and I think we can all agree that there's not a whole lot of problems out there that really deserve the kind of treatment that the industry provides so thank you for that and then anything you would like to say to fellow survivors of the industry I think it is I understand that it's really hard to get your story out not everybody wants to do that I think that even if you don't want to get on a podcast and tell your story even if you don't want to post your story anywhere I think it will be healing in the long run to have a record of it for yourself because you know I didn't want to deal with this sometimes other people didn't want to deal with this you got other stuff you got to deal with and at least for me why would I deal with the trauma of 2004 when you know there's the trauma of 2024 or the trauma of 2020 like there's always some new trauma and the stuff falls in the back burner but I think that there's power and even just to yourself owning the story and saying I didn't deserve that and I don't think any of us did I think I saw this quote the other day that has kind of been how I've been trying to navigate the feelings that I have you know and trying to remember and unpack this trauma because it I feel sad a lot of the time I feel a lot of grief for the life that I could have had and the person I could have been but it feels scary and like you know at the end of the day I don't know that I'll come out the same person but in the end it's going to be okay but it's going to be different that doesn't mean it's not going to be okay I think that there's power and acknowledging your trauma even if it's just a bullet points you know I entered on this day these are the people that I remember these are the staff that I remember these are the things that these are moments that I felt unsafe these are moments I felt uncomfortable you know these are the things that my therapist may need work on even just having some of that maybe one day you're going to want to deal with it maybe one day you're not going to but it helps for me I get naturally defensive when people try to tell me about their feelings and I never really understood why that was it's because of the attack therapy that they made me go through where you know your friends tell you a problem that they see with you and and you have to just accept it and I'm not very good at that and like that's a minor problem now but it is something that's caused issues in a lot of my relationships and if I never sat back and reflected on the issues group and and how those things went probably never would have realized why I get so defensive even when it's people that I care about that are telling me things that I need to hear in a way that's not hard to hear it always feels like a criticism it always feels like you're not doing enough you know you're not working your program and to be able to catch that thought when it happens and and try to lower my own defenses take me 20 years to even recognize it but it makes me feel hopeful that I can have my life and and my thoughts and be my own person the person that I was always supposed to be this kind of weird person I'm literally wearing mostly Hello Kitty stuff right now I'm 34 years old but like I showed up to the program wearing like the muppets so I still love them up it's I'm still the same person in a lot of ways and I'm different in some other ways but ultimately I just want to be me and I think most of us in general want to figure out who we are and accept that person and the program you know it's kind of a barrier to that so even just writing down your story for your own records whether you ever look at it again it's a relief to get it off you you know it it doesn't matter if you want to dig in and remember just having it out there and no longer in your head I think I think that's that's a great thing and it can be hard to do any kind of advocacy and I don't want people to feel guilty if that's not something you can do I think all I can ask of other survivors is advocate for the kids in your life if you can't advocate for strangers if you can't just make sure the kids around you are okay um that's all anybody can do if you see something say something you know well thank you so much fairy this has been your insight is amazing and I really appreciate the work that you're doing before we wrap up is there anything else you wanted to touch on any other thoughts actually the last message that I would like to leave everybody with is if you're in the United States this is pretty American you know um I know that there are programs abroad but a lot of the legislation issues are America and the way that we work so if you're an American I highly recommend that you go to kidsoverprofits.org because that will have all of the currently past legislation as well so like Oregon for example has legislation that was passed to limit transporters to the goons as well as the educational consultants and provide transparency so in terms of know your rights know how to protect your kids know what your state has and doesn't have know that if you're going to be seeking help for a troubled teen you should know what is illegal or strengths pretty much always um the only way that you can really protect yourself uh as a parent from this sort of stuff is to know what your state doesn't allow and it's not always the easiest but for me that's where I'm starting so that I can try to beef up the protections with you know sympathetic state legislators because as we've seen the federal isn't really working the way that we would like it to so trying to just do the stuff in your own backyard and know know your rights I guess that's always good always good advice yeah yeah I mean well and it's like I really don't know um like my parents are lawyers so I'm sure to some extent they looked up you know what their rights were and blah blah blah but transporter specifically you have to sign consent forms that say something along the lines of if my child is injured in their custody or after being in their custody you can't sue if your child is killed or injured in the process of transport or after you can't sue and if you read that and think that that's worth signing that's something to really question yeah just random folks that you don't know their background you don't know anything about them you don't know what kind of you don't even know if they have car insurance like yeah turn signals yeah well that's another thing actually that that brings up for me um so even when a program is responsive like a parent's trying to call and talk to the staff all the time you're likely just going to be interacting with the same staff you know the person who's always answering the emails and phones that is not going to be the person who is um supervising your kid when they have strip searches or the person who's making their lunch like the people that you as a parent talk to are not the same people that your child interacts with on a daily basis four out of four programs i can tell you that was the truth so they're not even giving you a as a parent the proper view of things and um at least here in ohio i think you only needed like six hours of training and maybe maybe not even a bachelor's like like you don't i doesn't have to be you don't have to have any kind of training and psych um that's why you see kids also dying of dehydration and wilderness camps because they don't teach the staff how to recognize dehydration so just because it looks really good in the brochure just because the staff that talks to you all the time are wonderful and know exactly what to say well that doesn't change but there's probably some guy that looks like a duck dynasty biker that's around your kid like five days a week and probably smuggling them cigarettes yeah and he's never he's never even read a psych book so great guy for your kid to be around yeah yeah listen he read he he read uh the autobiography of uh walker texas ranger or something like that yeah there we go yeah yeah yeehaw awesome well i will go ahead and let you go fairy thank you so much for coming on um would there any other things that you wanted to promote while we're here like i say kids over profits dot org absolutely wonderful website if you want to learn more about the troubled teen industry go there look at your legislation awesome yeehaw yeehaw that's a wrap for this month's episode big shout out to fairy for coming on and telling their story this is a topic i wanted to cover for a while so i'm really glad i got this opportunity there are a lot of documentaries out there right now about the trouble of teen industry personally i'm thinking about re-watching the program on netflix because it was so good and it made me so angry and yeah a lot of fucked up stuff happening out there so again thank you fairy for coming on and exposing what's going on um if you would like to be a guest on the show you can email me at kilisabeth.pod@gmail.com that's k-i-l-l-i c-a-b-e-t-h dot p-o-d at gmail.com and we'll be back again in january with a more lighthearted topic for you Until we meet again, stay safe.
