Latest / Surviving-ISH Podcast / Breaking Free: Healing Life After The Troubled Teen Industry

Transcript

Breaking Free: Healing Life After The Troubled Teen Industry · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My story, while unique and seemingly rare to the masses, is all too familiar and relatable to the well over 100,000 troubled teen industry survivors.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I was the pinnacle youth group girl, soccer player and chorus nerd who did as she was shown and hit.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: All the traumas I had endured and would continue to experience Trauma and depression smiled and everything changed on june 3rd 2004 when I came home from dinner with my mom And my kidnappers were waiting for me.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: My experience with the tti started with the kidnapping and an 11-hour drive to the academy at ivy ridge In upstate new york and ended with a riot at bethel girls academy in mississippi and a night in dcs.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I am more than my story, my abuse and my survival.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: My hope in sharing my story is to stop the abuse and help dismantle a billion dollar industry of abusing children and manipulating parents.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I Don't understand why it was me.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I'll ever be The same.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Is the same what I want?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: anyway, you took what I thought I could never get back.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I can't hold on to the anger and roll down just to begin again.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Won't you be any longer?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm back.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The letter that you just heard was from the beautiful, wonderful Guest that we have with us today, named nicky, who has been on quite a journey, but luckily, it's one of those cases where, you know, it does have a happy ending, and now she's using her voice to make sure That awareness is brought.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Nicky, thank you so much for being with us today.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, i know that it's.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I know that we're gonna be talking about a hard topic, but I really admire you and and and all the girls that have Come and and contact me to share the story, because this is definitely something that needs to be heard And known, and I really admire you all for that.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It's definitely something that needs more awareness brought to it and, honestly, more understanding on how families even get in this situation.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So can we start there?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Can we start, you know, from the beginning and how all this kind of transpired.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So I would say you know everyone's like Okay, what'd you do to get in there?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right, like that's everyone's question when we're talking about the troubled teen industry.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And I will preface have been through a lot of therapy.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, i've worked on relationships throughout my life, um, but my mom was a single mom.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: My dad was in and out of my life.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: He has since past, um, but There was just a lot of, i would say, like, generational trauma.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of, you know, with the times, things that people just Didn't understand.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: My mom and I were avid churchgoers, i mean like Five times a week, all the youth group, all the chorus of the Saturday and Sunday services, and there were a couple instances throughout my childhood.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Um, traumas that really kind of.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: You know well, trauma changes your brain chemistry and it, when you don't really Have the tools to deal with stuff, um, you start turning to things.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I will say probably one of the biggest ones my dad was an addict.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: He Was in and out.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I called him like a binge addict because he would go on binders of like different things, um, alcoholism, cooking, all those things.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And there was a summer when I was 11 when he kind of.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I think he was now after therapy.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I think he was kind of trying to justify and explain His life and his choices.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: He was severely abused by his father and he thought by Not being there that he was doing better and In a way you know he was, but there's no trauma that endured.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And so he, kind of my mom, struggled with depression and, and you know, body dysmorphia, eating things, and that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: You know, when that's what's mirrored to you, you take on those things.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And in that conversation I vividly remember him telling me, you know that my Mom would have been better off without me, that, and I think he thought in his mind This is not justifying, but I truly try to understand people's trains of thought.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I think he was trying to say that the things that she struggled with, like being a single mom, not having money, he couldn't, he didn't provide for her, that he was like justifying the way that things were because he couldn't, he didn't know how to rationalize it otherwise.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And so I as an 11 year old took that as I was a mistake I shouldn't be there, life with my mom would be better off without me.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: And I really struggled in elementary school with being overweight, starting in fourth grade, kids would tell me to call jenny kreg and kids are so mean, they're so mean.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: They really are.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And so you know, it's kind of this thing where you just continuously Collect all this information that validates those kind of feelings, right, that you're inadequate, you're not enough, your life is not worth living, not, the other people around you won't miss you, and so I started smoking weed hanging out with older kids, and That was very.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of shit that happened.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I'm talking, i was in seventh grade hanging out with like juniors uh, so there were.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: There was some sexual trauma that had happened and My mom was very much.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: You know, everything was.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It was a very dramatic experience.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: In my depression, i would self mutilate and I was, and and my mom, my mom didn't know how to handle it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: My mom didn't have the tools and The, and I've actually since talked her about this.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: She literally just googled as barbaric as the internet was in 2004.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: She just googled how, like what to do, and all these places came up academy and ivy ridge was the first one, and I have since talked with her and she I think it was a matter of like three days that she called them and made the decision and I had been sneaking out and All those things.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I wasn't doing any crazy drugs?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I wasn't.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, i was literally just smoking weed.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: But I and I what I for sure wasn't having sex because I was petrified, um, and She just, in her very Christian, conservative way, was, she was petrified and the industry really, really praised on that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And They're like you have done all the things that you can do, your.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You know this is the last resort.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: We know how much you love your kids.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: We're going to take care of them, we're going to fix them.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And when you're in such a state of desperation, there are no flags, there are no red flags, because they're all red And they're great at painting this beautiful picture.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you look at the brochures, when you, you know, and when you put God's name with something you know and because we're all trained to, oh, you believe in God, oh, your church base.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: You have to be beautiful and amazing, just like this picture shows us.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Well, and they had, like, they had dorms, they had the cute outfits with the vest and the plaid skirts And then, you know, they had.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: They talk about all the activities that the upper levels get to do.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So when you quote work, the program, then you get to do all these things.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: You could go to prom, you could join a sports team, but the abuse doesn't happen, it's front loaded, it's literally.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: They break you down to rebuild you.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I used to call them program robots And they used to say, like I'm not going to be your program robot.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And they, you know even the transportation.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: They said, well, you know, my mom felt that the her driving me 11 hours was not going to be an option, because and I don't remember this, but she said I had already tried jumping out of a car in 66, which is a major highway in Northern Virginia.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that, i don't doubt it, but you know so she, you know they assured her that they were professionals and that I would be cared for as if I was their own child.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And it was very much.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: The whole thing is very cinematic in the way that it's presented one way And in an instant it's a lifetime movie The way that it just drastically changes.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: You watch the animation from someone's face just instantly drop and you know that you're fucked.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you mentioned kidnapping and some of the other episodes that I've, you know, released or recorded.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You know they.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I think they call it gooning, i haven't heard that one.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It seems like every place has a different type of name for it, but when you said kidnapping, it really struck me, because you're the first one that I've heard say kidnapping.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: It's legal kidnapping, kidnapping, that is exactly what it is.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And I you know my mom paid $10,000 per transport and I was transported twice And they make it seem like oh it's, you know, it's this couple, it's a man and a woman, they're just going to drive you.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes people have to fly depending on where you're coming from, and I will.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So the night that they came.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Now a lot of people have the experience of they come in the middle of the night because they want to take you by surprise.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You're sleeping, they wake you up.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: My mom was very adamant that she did not want to do that, so they set this was separate from the school.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: They gave her a company that they worked with closely And she she arranged with them.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: My mom, her best friend and I were going out to dinner that evening and they, you know, she said, you know, have it done at night.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: We're that way the neighbors, she won't cause a scene.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And then you can just drive through the night to upstate New York, because we were in Northern Virginia And I remember the whole way.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: She had originally told me that I was going to be sleeping over at her best friend's house, who lived in Maryland, and I had plans to sneak out that night.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So I was like crying the whole way home, like you can't make me go there, don't make me go there, please.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Like why can't I just come home?
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It was this whole on repeat, why can't I just come home?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And as soon as we pulled down the cul-de-sac we lived in townhouses there was a sedan parked in our second spot And there were two people standing outside.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: And I will never forget the feeling of my heart sinking to my stomach.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And I remember walking up the stairs, they asked me if I was Nicole.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I was backing up the stairs And my mom was like please, don't make this difficult.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And I just remember they put me.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: My mom had like a suitcase ready and I just started screaming at my mom I mean, profanities, fuck you, i hate you everything.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Where am I going?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: What are you doing to me?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: How could you do this?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: You don't love me.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I mean now, as a parent, i'm like, oh God.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But in the moment, the thing that I have realized the most about trauma is that two things can be true at the same time and reflect differently, right?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So my mom genuinely thought she was saving my life And I genuinely thought she was ruining it, and that did.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: She didn't ruin my life, but I could have done without the trauma.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Most parents don't know that the beautiful picture is also painted for them, right Like they have no idea what they're sending their child into.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Did your mom have to sign over her rights to you?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: My constitutional rights and they tell you that And whether or not the extent of what rights they sign over.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's temporary custodial rights or like the actual details of it I'm sure I could ask her.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: But they tell you that while you're there, like you don't have any rights.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I would try to say like cause you know the whole no talking, nonverbal communication I contact all that.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So I'd be like I have constitutional rights and they'd be like we own you.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: No, you don't So and I so.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: when I got in the car I remember like kicking and screaming the back windshield.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I watched it was very cinematic.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I watched my mom drop to her knees sobbing And I was just screaming profanities at her and they kept telling me in the car, like if you don't stop, we're gonna cuff you, if you don't stop, we're gonna cuff you.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And they got to the second stop sign out of our neighborhood and the dude got out and like wrestled me to get my hands cuffed to the.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: what is that?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I call it the oh shit bar.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what I know it as.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I know it as, too.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Okay so and we rode like that for a long time and then they even I she watched me go to the bathroom when she went in the stall with me in the handicap stall.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: When we stopped at the gas station on the way there, they would just tell me.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I would ask them where are we going?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: what's happening?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I was trying to remember signs and trying to figure out where we were going and what was happening.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And they were like, oh, don't worry about it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And they talk, they talk fit the whole way about it.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's not even like oh, we're gonna, you're gonna get help, you're gonna be better.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: They're like you have no idea, you have no idea where you're going, you have no idea what's about to happen.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: You better get it all out now, because it's not, this isn't gonna fly when you get there.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're already implanting that fear.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: It's very much like a jail intake process.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: When you get there, you are stripped, there's a cough search, cavity search And I was 15, this was June.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I turned 15 in February.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: This was.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it was petrifying.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I was like this is a joke, there's no way.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I'm staying here.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: There's no way.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And the first couple of days you get a buddy.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: they tell you how everything works.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: The other girl I mean they pick you against each other, so it's not like they can warn you that this is about to be hell.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: They're literally just like.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: these are the rules.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: you have to follow them.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: This is how the system works, and at Ivy Ridge it's a point system and a level system.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You get a certain amount of points each day and there are consequences.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So like forgetting your water bottle is I think it was a 208, category 208.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Forgetfulness or something like that And then you'd get 20 points taken off.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: You only get like 50 points a day or something ridiculous like that.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: So just forgetting your water bottle.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Mind you, i also had severe ADHD and did not get diagnosed until I was 26.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So forgetting my water bottle was a literal everyday occurrence.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So what forms of punishment would happen when you lost your 50 points a day?
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Because that seems very, because it seems like they would deduct points for anything.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, anything and everything, and I actually have.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I have a copy that I will send you of, like, the categories and the consequences.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I mean they're absolutely ridiculous, like just riding from the bus from the school building to the dorms.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: if you looked out the window of the bus that was a cap for run plans And it went all the way up to category six.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I mean just literally anything.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: You couldn't look, there was no eye contact with other students, there was no nonverbal communication, no verbal communication and everything.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, it's probably worse than prison.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: at least in prison you get to speak.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: There is a gentleman that has written into us, that has done time in prison And he's heard some of these stories and he's like I was better, i had more freedom in prison, i had more rights in prison.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, and even you know they always put you.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you start out on Suicide Watch and I already came in because of the self harm things.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I already came in with that stigma.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: They Ivy Ridge I did it would be called.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't work the program at all.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I rebelled all the way through.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't get any schoolwork done.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: We did like computer schoolwork things And I think it turned out that a lot of it wasn't even accredited.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people had to go back and get their GEDs, which is not uncommon in the troubled teen industry.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: A lot of it I just refused And I wouldn't.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: There was.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: There was one time we were in upstate New York This was in Ogdensburg and you're probably only a couple of miles from the Canada border And I remember one time I thought that if I could injure myself enough that I could get to a hospital and tell someone that something was, that this was going on, because, keep in mind, they filter all your letters.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: They won't.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: They would just won't send them.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Or they tell your parents well, of course they're gonna tell you we're being mean to them.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: They're here because they're liars.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Of course they're gonna do anything to tell you that bad things are happening, so that you'll take them home because they're here, because they're manipulators, they're liars, and Of course your parents are like, oh yeah, that totally makes sense.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Of course they would say anything to get to go home and I didn't talk to my mom.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I never spoke to my mom until I got to the second facility, so I never got to see my mom.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: There were no phone calls, there were only letters, and even then I wasn't allowed to like write letters for the first couple weeks Because that was giving me time to acclimate.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and I have actually all the letters and all the emails that went back before Back and forth between my mom and I.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Did you try to talk in code to her in any way?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Did you try to let her?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: because obviously they were filtered.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: So did you try in any way at all?
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: No, mostly because, I mean, they're very good at Covering their bases.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You know they and my mom was unaware of this, because only in the last few years Have my mom and I really started diving into this and it's obviously as difficult as it is for me, it's difficult for my mom in the way that my mom genuinely Did not think that any of this was going to be happening.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So they would.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: They would sit there and they would tell me oh, your, your mom's already signed a contract.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: You will either graduate or you'll be here until you're 18 and then you'll have $20 on a bus ticket.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Your mom doesn't want you unless you're fixed.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: So they from the very beginning are like don't try any shit, we already know all the games, all the ploys, everything will know.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And when you're 15, you know your, your brain is a developed.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: You don't know how can I manipulate my way out of this, how can I send Morris code right?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: You know anything like that, like how you only have what you can reference.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And You know the the one time and I still, i still have the scars I bit the bottom of a plastic water bottle.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So fine, and I knew.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I knew that cutting upward was how The morning people die.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And so I cut across and I still have the scars From where I tried to dig my water bottle into my wrist and started bleeding and I Probably should have gotten stitches, but they just sent me to the verse I'd watch.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say because they were not very.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't ever hardly take people to the hospital or get medical care.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I mean that's why you hear even today about kids dying in facilities because they don't believe them, because they're Petrified of someone getting out into the real world and being able to tell an adult what's actually happening.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the second facility.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yes so how long did you stay in the first one before you're transported to the second one?
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: so I got there June of 2004 at Ivy Ridge and I Basically refused my whole program They had I only made it through, i think, the first seminar.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: They had all these seminars and they I mean the seminars were wild.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: There was one exercise I know I'm kind of deviating, but there's one exercise that they put hundreds and hundreds of pieces of masking tape on a wall and then a piece of masking tape on the floor and In a group of probably like 50 girls, you, they say things like have, if you've ever been raped, if you've ever been molested, if you've ever been made fun of, if you've ever been beaten I mean the most horrible, traumatic things and you sit there for almost an hour And everyone has to stand up and take a piece of tape and put it all over their body, so you're wearing those traumas.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And then You know there's also these things where I've talked about people, where people felt inadequate because they didn't have as many, so people would go up there and Put more on their body because they felt like that was what they were Supposed to do in those situations.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And then you balled up the piece of tape and you were given a towel wrapped in duct tape and the upper levels and the staff would come around and yell For you to beat the piece of tape, for you to beat your trauma.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, they didn't call it trauma.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And so after that I really stopped working the program.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I was always in intervention.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I was always in sheets, which is where intervention was an isolation room, and Sheets was where you just have to copy out of books.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And there were two incidences in The intervention room one where I was restrained So severe I have a dent in my head from Where they were slamming me around and And their restraints are it like hit up against a wall, like the corner of the door jam and The they restrain you by putting their it's usually like two to three of the mail staff And they put their knees and your shoulders and the small of your back and And your knees.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And so I, in intervention, had started singing a thousand bottles of beer on the wall and I did not stop for almost two days and I have my expulsion letter Where it literally says Nicole will not stop singing.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You have 24 hours to make arrangements.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: You know my mom spent close to 50,000 dollars, yeah, on that first school and that's for a year and that's non-refundable a couple of times you you've used the word fixed and Every, every other person that we've had on has also said that.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: You know we're going to quote, unquote fix your child and, and that, oh my god, that makes me so mad, but That the the main part of all of this is the money.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Like you had mentioned in your letter.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It's a multi-billion dollar scam, or polish, i don't know.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know what word to put with it, but it's awful and it's more money than we could ever imagine And you've got.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: You know, i don't.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know what job your mom had, or or education mom had in it, but it doesn't matter.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: 50,000 dollars to anybody is a lot of money and at some points, your mother And currently, if I'm wrong, but a lot of points your mother was also a single mom.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, my mom was a single mom from the time that I was two That did not contribute financially.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: My mom did not have, and still does not have, a college education.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: She has been with her company for pushing 40 years now.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: But my mom borrowed from family.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: My mom Cashed in her retirement her 401k her you know she has since.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: She is fortunate enough that she has since rebuilt All of that but I think in total is about a hundred thousand dollars For those 10 months total, like with you know the expulsion and And all of that.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: They you don't get your money back And everything is you know they break you down to rebuild you.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Which is where I was like I'm not going to be your program robot and I really thought that if I got kicked out of this one I would just go home like my mom would just see.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know why.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I was like I'll get out of here, I'll, I'll be around real people.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And That transport was probably Where it hit me the most that this was never going to end Unless I worked a program Or I turned 18 and I was 15 and that left me three years when you're enduring trauma 24 hours a day.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Those days feel like years in and of themselves.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I couldn't have told you What day of the week it was.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I couldn't like they would give us a date, sometimes when we were writing letters, or like some girls would do tick marks in their journals.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You know, i mean they weren't like, but you had no idea what's happening in the outside world.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: There was no.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: There's no pop culture, there's no news.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: There was nothing, and you had no access to that.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I know that if I was 15 and he and thinking I've either got to do what they tell me or I'm going to be here for three years, i feel like I would think I I'm not going to be able to survive this for three years.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: That's how they get kids to work the program.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: That's how that's how the machine works.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You know if they can break you down enough to think like god, what do I want to do this for three years, like I only had so much fight in me and I fought those first four months I fought tooth and nail every day.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: It's why I have a dent in my head.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: It's why I never, i never went anywhere as far as levels.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It's why you know I That they could not dampen that out of me until they I mean they put me on lithium, because I and you know we're, i am a medium today and I told them I have the paperwork where I told them that I was seeing things and how I was experiencing things.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And now, as an adult like I, have learned a lot of things about that building and the things.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: There were Girls who had committed suicide, attempted suicide there, girls who got injured and never came back, and I don't know the extent on the boy side by.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Imagine that was the same when I got transported to Bethel I had it was again another male and female and I will so Jason Finless and the director of Ivy Ridge at my trash.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: My, my stuff was in a trash bag, my trash, it was practically trash and He threw it in the street next to the car, in front of the building, the school, and he said just like you, you just where you belong.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And I remember looking at him and telling him that he would eat his words one day.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I have let go of a lot of revenge and You know all of those feelings, but that's one I don't really mind holding on to.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I Sometimes I think how I get so mad that we're good people.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, i've had people ask me well why.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: You know if you went on a plane.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I flew from New York to Mississippi to get to Bethel And Bethel had actually just been shut down.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: And my mom found Bethel the same way, she just Googled it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: And so Ivy Ridge was a WASP program owned by the Litchfield family, who are Mormons, which they did not advertise as Mormons, but that's a whole other conversation about the Mormon industry and a lot of the schools are run by Mormons.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: And then she sent me to Bethel, which was the Southern Baptist, the Southern Baptist convent or whatever.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: The acronym is Ivy, something or other, and they had been shut down just a couple months before I got there.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: But that seems to be pretty common.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And then they rebrand.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, that's the money They have the ability.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I mean Bethel didn't rebrand Basically what they did, bethel, because Bethel was in the middle of nowhere Mississippi and the Fountain family in general was massive.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: They just had enough people in the right places with throughout the police department, the city, the church, Brother Fountain, the he was the dad who ran the boy side and then Bubba Fountain who ran the girl side They just had enough people in their pockets And so they basically were able to just say and it's the South.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: So unfortunately, in the South you just all you gotta say is they're doing the Lord's work.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And people will be like, oh yes, let them reopen, they're saving the Lord's children.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And my mom didn't even know that Bethel had previously shut down.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And when I you know that flight to me, the transporters threatened me with everything in the book If I tried to run, if I tried to speak to anyone.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: They had all my papers.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: They would just say that I was on a really teenager, that I didn't know what I was talking about.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: They said you can try to tell anyone anything, we have all our paperwork.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Nothing, you say It'll just make it harder for you.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And when I realized that I was going to another facility and not going home.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I was just defeated And they make you feel like your parents don't love you.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: That this is.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: You know that.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: They know everything that's happening And that's what they signed up for.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: But what's so interesting is there was still brainwashing and you didn't even realize it was happening.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you think about it, like I was already prone to depression, I was already prone to self-loathing.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So them telling me that my mom didn't love me, that my mom, you know, it was easy for me to believe.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I soaked it right in.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, tell me something.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know And you know that obviously wasn't the reality.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: But when you're in that kind of mental state and now you're here in the school and they're abusing you, and between the physical and the emotional abuse, They were validating all of the negative self-hate that you already had for yourself.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and they were feeding those folders.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You know they would pit girls against one another.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: They would be like, oh well, so-and-so is working their program.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And look, their parents, they got a parent visit because their parents love them And they, you know, and they wanted to see them because they're working the program And I mean it's the time, even things in small group, in therapy sessions, you know there were all those things on a daily basis And they were still very much feeding that narrative of not being loved, of not being enough, and they would pit.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You know, everything was about taking accountability.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: At Ivy Ridge was taking accountability.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: If you were raped, you had to take accountability as to why you were raped.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: What were you wearing?
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: What did you say?
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: What did I mean?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: your parents' drug addiction, your parents' abuse?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: what did you do to irritate them?
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: What accountability can you take for the abuse that you had endured?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: As if and the number one thing that I want any parent or any teen to hear is that at 15, even at 16, and 17 and 18, you're still a child.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: It's not the child's job to know these things.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's the parent's job to teach them.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: It's the parent's job to have patients and listen, and that is the thing that I had to undo, because I was constantly even later in life, i was taking accountability for, and not even realizing it for the abusive relationships I was in, for the dynamics in the rest of my life I was like, okay, well, what did I do to deserve this?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: What did I do to them for them to treat me this way?
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: And it's ingrained like you don't think about until, obviously, you go therapy.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: How ingrained those thought patterns become.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And even things like showering was a big thing both at Ivy Ridge and at Bethel.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Hygiene was not important And you got at Ivy Ridge you got longer.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: It was like four minutes, maybe five minutes to shower, dry off and get dressed, all of that.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: At Bethel it was like we had 96, 90 seconds, sometimes we would get 120, we had stopwatches One of the up that ended up being one of my jobs because I worked the program there.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: You had to stopwatch And people had to turn off the water because there wasn't a lot of hot water.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You had to make sure everyone stopped the water at 20 seconds, washed their hair for 15 seconds And it was.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: That's how it was So like even me coming home and allowing myself to take a 10 minute shower.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I felt greedy, i felt selfish.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So, like these weird things that are ingrained in you and you're like, i can take a fucking 45 minute shower if I want.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: That's ridiculous.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: When you decided I've got in order for me to get out of here, i've got to start working the system.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us what that meant for you At?
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Bethel it was different.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So at Ivy Ridge there were a number levels.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: At Bethel it was like women in the Bible, so it was like a Ruth's level, a Mary level.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bethel was real deep in the Southern Baptist, like all of our we use I think they're called like ACE programs, where it's like Bible, math and all this stuff Like how many disciples, like word problems, using disciples.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So in that I remember the first night I got there I was surprised that I didn't have a strip shirt, sorry, i was like ready for that.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: But Bubba greeted me at the time him and his wife had already split up.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: So she, i don't, i don't think I ever met her.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, i know a lot of other survivors who talked about her.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: That was earlier.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I got there in October of 2004.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And Bubba greeted me.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: He and he basically was like this is not like your last place, i know all about you and that shit's not gonna fly here.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: And he basically was like all but threatened me, you know with and in their program, lingo and all of that.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And I remember laying in the orientation room the very first night And again I was now cause they had stopped giving me the lithium a couple of days before I left Ivory Ridge, and because Bethel was not going to be distributing medication, they just, i mean, you'd be lucky if you got an Advil.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And so there was this you know experience.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I remember laying there and I thought spiders were crawling all over my body And I just remember laying there, being like I have to keep my shit together here, and I just knew that this place was different.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: And he had all but said you know, we don't, you think restraining is bad there, we'll just beat the shit out of you here.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And they did, they very much did.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And I was still, we still got worn out every day.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like, you know, making that decision to work.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: The program was more of like a survival And I, you know, being a chorus and show choir nerd, i was like, all right, this is going to be my greatest performance yet.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: This, and that's how, that's how I'm rationalized it.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I was like you know what we this, and still, to this day, i will joke and say that was an Oscar worthy performance that I put on at Bethel.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: You know, you just you learn, the program you make, I mean there were still times where you'd get worn out and you, i mean getting worn out is excessive exercising, and there would be.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: It would almost be like a round, like a musical round of like people barfing And you couldn't barf too soon because then we got worn out more.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: If anyone refused to barf or anyone refused to work out, we just got worn out longer.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: So you know, if someone else was refusing or and there were plenty of girls who did everyone else got their ass handed to them because of it.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: We'd sit there.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they would wake us up at one o'clock in the morning just to do like mountain climbers.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: They're like the half ass version of burpees, where you just they called them up downs, i think down the hallway, and you do them for hours, hours and hours.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: There were girls who would pass out.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: You weren't allowed to have water.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: There were times where we used to do these things called tornado drills, where you would have to roll around in the field where there was like broken glass and all kinds of stuff And the upper levels would like throw the dirt on you.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: While you're rolling around, girls would get cut up.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, and that was just.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: You know, you have to go through that in order to get to upper level right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: So like it's not, like I just decided to work the program and it was fine for me, like I still had to do all of the grunt groundwork in order to even start moving up.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I will say you to get phone calls, but they were listening the whole time.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: You know I had to say, oh, mom, i love it here.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: The girls are so nice, they're such a good family, they're so loving.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: You know, people wonder how you don't just say, oh, my God, i'm dying here.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Like you, your life would have been made hell.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Well, i was gonna say that they had taken away all your credibility.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: You are in the process of being fixed, quote unquote.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: You know they're not gonna believe you because they've already started implanting.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: There's brainwashing that comes with the family too.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah well and my mom went to seminars.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: My mom did like everything.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Like you know, parents don't have to go through seminars.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Ivy Ridge had the seminars.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: But my mom was like no, i wanna do everything.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: She wanted to learn, she wanted to meet other parents and do everything she could so that when I got home or when I graduated, that like everything was gonna be better.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Right, they really sold this idea of fixing and being better and the transformation and all those things And she did all that.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: She was drinking every bit of cool age she could get to help me.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: This wasn't something that was happening in the 60s and 70s, and it's over.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: This is happening right now, while we're recording.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, i mean Agape just got shut down, which was a huge accomplishment Did they read that they're rebranding too.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they will.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they do right.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: That's the MO.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: They have the money, they have the capital between the Mormon church and their funding and the funding from the actual school and the money Cause you know, even when it gets shut down, you don't get money back.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: My mom spent close to $30,000 on Bethel and that got shut down by a riot.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I sat in DCS for that and my mom had 24 hours to come pick me up or I was awarded the state and she still didn't get money back.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: So the money is there and the money will continue to be there.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: they collected in the offering At Bethel.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: we went to church with locals and we were just.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: we were those troubled souls that the Lord was working through the fountains to heal us.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I will say the one thing I did, oddly enough, like about Bethel is that we I got to sing.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: That was the only place that I got to sing.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I think that was probably one of the only things that, like kept me sane was being in the choir As much as I am not religious.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Today.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: You got to give it to him's and like there is, they got some great songs.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us about when you is it graduating?
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: When you finished the program and you got to go home, how was that?
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I did not graduate.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Bethel got shut down.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: There was a riot in February of 2005.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: So when I thought that your mother had picked you up but then it was to put you into another program, but that was the end of it.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: That was the end of it.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: So we, the riot happened, i mean, and that was like I mean full on SWAT team, swat gear, the whole again very cinematic.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: About 11 girls ran that morning and then girls were like fighting, breaking windows, i mean it was, it was wild.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: There was a girl who tried to jump out of a window and like literally sliced her leg open with broken glass And I went with one of Bubba's daughters into the office so that I could call my mom and she watched the door.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: She let me in and watched the door for me from the other girl.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I mean cause when I say they were running around like trashing stuff, fighting each other, it was crazy.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I remember, hiding under the desk, i called my mom and I was like, just so you know, i didn't do it, it wasn't me, i didn't start it, i have been good, i have worked my program.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: It wasn't me because I knew that if my mom thought that I had any part in this riot, i was gonna be sent to another place And in my mind I was getting.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: The only the only worst place to go was Jamaica And they had stories about Jamaica where you had a bucket that you same bucket, you washed your face in, you pissed in, you showered in.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was true, i wouldn't doubt it, but that's what they told you.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: And so I was like you can't send me anywhere else, like I swear I didn't do it.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I'm here with Mr Pountain's daughter, bubba, and then me.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Mr Pountain's daughter and another girl ran and she took us to the back of the property and we sat in a duck blind until dark.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: When we came back, everyone was sitting in the orientation room, was zip ties behind their backs sitting.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: You had, like God, there was probably like maybe six to a dozen, because there were some outside and there were some inside and they're all staying there full riot gear, helmet, shields, the whole works.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: And we they then took us to DCS and my mom.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: My mom picked me up and we flew home and it was very, you know, i thought about telling my mom and then I got scared, obviously, because I didn't know what was gonna happen.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: My mom just kept saying she didn't know what we were gonna do And we actually the only reason I have, like I have my Bethel Bible, i have my box of stuff from Bethel because we went back there.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure Bubba had like a crush on my mom, but he let us in and I was told that I was going to do like a radio station or a TV interview, basically saying that like the fountains were good people and that the abuse allegations weren't real.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And you know I will say I hold a lot of guilt.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find that recording.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: It was me and another girl.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I am thankful that they never reopened and they couldn't use that to reopen to continue.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: But it was survival of the fittest.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: You know I was gonna say anything to keep myself from going to another place.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: And we got back home to Northern Virginia and we had toured the Joe Gibbs School for Troubled Teens.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: He's the, i think he used to be one of like the Washington coaches or something like that, or a football player or something like that, and he had a school up there in Northern Virginia for Troubled Teens and I was just like I can't start over.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I would have to start at the bottom.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I can't start over And it was.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: You know my mom was nervous but I think we got home on like a Thursday and I was signed up for public school that Monday.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: So like I went from literally being involved in a riot, going back to regular everyday life on Monday as if nothing happened.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: One of the last questions I have for you is how does this affect you?
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: today?
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: You seem like you're doing so so well and you found your voice, and you're using that for positive things.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Well, there's I mean there's countless things and I have been to therapy for a lot of them and I am still in therapy for a lot of them.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I will say EMDR has really been helpful in like desensitizing a lot of the things.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: I've done EMDR.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fantastic, 10 out of 10.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Recommend to every speaker.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I did the hand buzzers.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do the light bar.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I did the hand buzzers.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: They were fantastic.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't try those.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: We just did the tapping and the following of the fingers.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the hand buzzers.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, they were way better, but my ass could not focus on the freaking finger in.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So the hand buzzers were good for me.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: The irony of so much of it, my weight has been a big thing with you know, at Bethel everything was.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, brother Fountain would come and preach to us sermons about what a good wife was, that my sole purpose was to be useful to a man.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And then if I was fat and ugly and, you know, lazy and didn't cook, then I was useless to a man.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: So and then the caveat of, like I feel safer being heavier because it's harder to kidnap me.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: You know things like that, that you or you know the trauma of working out.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: People are like, why can't you go to the gym?
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: You have no idea what working out was for me.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I get nauseous And the moment I feel like if I associate working out and getting sick, you know, and I don't even know how much of the fitness industry one is pretty toxic in and of itself.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: But then you add on the trauma.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like how you know people can't, and when you're in isolation they starve you, they don't give you food, you know.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of like food issues, weight issues, body issues, mental hangups that like you don't even think about.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: When I had.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I ended up after I got home.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I ended up running away for a month and then moving in with my dad And I would keep my room super messy because it was harder for him for anyone to come in to my space if there was stuff everywhere.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: So like deconstructing all of that and under then I just thought I was a messy person And I had to realize that I was literally just booby trapping myself into all these places And some of those obviously with time have gotten better with therapy, have gotten better and understanding.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: But it's a constant evolution of like understanding these things about me where stereotypically, they're just cause you're lazy or because you know you have to fight that stigma and then you have to get to the root of it and then you gotta unpack the root of it And there are still times with relationships that I struggle and I'm a medium that takes that is a lot of second guessing in general.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: So I had this entire life.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: It's almost like I was waiting for me to be old enough for people to believe me And now that I'm old enough, people are still like how are you only 33 and that's your life?
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I still like I don't know that I will ever get to the age where I can say that this is my experience and people will be like, oh yeah, that checks out, because I say, you know, this is what happened to me.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, how long ago was that?
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm like 18 years And they're like wait what?
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: We don't want to believe that stuff like that is happening.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: No one wants to believe it, but the reality is is, if we cannot acknowledge and the whole essence of the industry is to second guess yourself Is I can't tell you how many times in the beginning of this process where I was like, did that actually happen?
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And then I'm validated by so many other people saying the same exact thing in these forums and these groups.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh my God, I was questioning whether or not the same thing happened.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: And then there are some people whose memories affect them differently and their trauma affected them differently.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Were there for shorter periods of time, longer periods of time, where you like, validate each other's experiences, Like the upper levels were told to break girls' legs if they ran And they would practice sprinting in gym so that they could be fast enough to catch girls and break their legs if they tried to run.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: So, nikki, i want to say to you that you know you're not ugly, you know you're not fat, you know all these great things now about yourself.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Now, right, absolutely, because I just sit and look at you and I'm like I just love you so much, you know, and like I'm so glad.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: What I would like to ask you is when you need to find that side relief, when you get done doing a podcast or something like this, where you just need to, you know, decompress and like what is your go-to thing, what do you go to to self-care and love yourself for just a few moments, to get you back into that linked place.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Well, as crunchy as this is gonna sound, i usually just go outside and put my toes in the dirt, hug a tree, just kind of take a deep breath of fresh air.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate that I live kind of out in the boonies So I just just really connecting with myself, even if it's just for a moment, and, you know, reminding myself that I'm still here.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: As always, thank you to the listeners.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I try not to ask too much, but please like share, download on all the podcasts and social media platforms.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Even leaving reviews helps people find us, so if you would do that for me, that would be great.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: People have been asking for merch, and now our merch store is open.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Of course, the link is provided on all the socials, but it's at Tspringcom.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Please check it out.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Help support the show.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: You all are the best.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: We love you, guys and we'll see you next week Making a good kiss in the back.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Goodbye, now I'm back And I'll pray for you.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: I'm done hurting.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I'll be open to you and I'll do the anger For a true win.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: I can't be longer And we'll begin again.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Now I'm back And I'll pray for you.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: I'm done hurting.