A Troublesome Chronicle
Leaving
Around 4:30am on a morning in late September, 2003, I was awoken in the dark by my mother. She sounded scared, her voice hushed and trembling. “Can,” she said, “there are some people here and you’re going to go with them.” She retreated to the doorway where I saw her join my dad before closing the bedroom door behind them. I was still sitting in my bed and my eyes were still adjusting to the light when I noticed a larger man and woman standing next to the door. They told me to get out of bed, we needed to get going. I informed them that I didn’t have any clothes on and I needed to get dressed. The woman pulled a pair of sweat pants and a shirt from my closet and tossed it my way. She told me I could change in the bathroom attached to my room, but I had to leave the door open, which I did. When I came out of the room, the two towering adults stood on either side of me with their hands on the backs of my arms, guiding me towards and through the doorway into the hallway, down the stairs, past the kitchen where I saw my parents standing together. I could hear my mom choking back tears, the frozen shock in me began to wear off and I began to feel terrified. I heard my voice cry out, “Mom? Dad?” with nothing but echoes to respond to me. “We’re leaving now,” the woman said. “We have an Impala, and you get the whole back seat to yourself.” I’ll never, ever forget my first ride in an Impala.
Once we got into the car and out of sight from my home which contained my sobbing parents and my sleeping brother and what felt like my entire existence, I asked where we were going. The man and woman spoke gently and explained that they were called “Escorts,” and they were transporting me to a wilderness program in Idaho. They said it was a sort of camping experience for youth to get therapy in an outdoor setting. I’d had therapy for several years at that point — mostly to treat depression, anxiety, and family issues — and I also had been to a number of summer camps, and having grown up in Montana was more than comfortable in nature — so honestly, their description of the wilderness program they called SUWS (School of Urban Wilderness Survival) didn’t actually sound too bad to me. I was told the program minimum was 3 weeks. I thought, I’ll do my time, and probably have a little fun and make some friends, and I’ll be back home in no time.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. I kept thinking that this must be a dream and I would surely wake up soon. Once I realized this was not the case, I spent the trip thinking about my friends and my boyfriend and how long it would be before I could call them and what they would be told in the meantime. I thought about my parents and asked myself why this was happening. I was 15 and had started to experiment with alcohol, cigarettes, weed and other “soft” drugs, staying out past the curfew that had been set for me, and lying to my parents about the reasons I would be late and who I’d been spending time with. I had only just started to experience sex, which I think is probably the thing that scared my parents the most. They had not really had “the talk” with me about anything in that realm and the schools in rural Montana generally don’t teach sex education classes, so I found out about sex from my friends and the internet, which generally aren’t great sources for encouraging protection and monitoring sexual health. At the time, I had already lost my virginity to a guy I’d known from our family’s church, and although that adolescent milestone freaked my parents out, it was a relatively wholesome situation and he was a positive person for me to be around for the most part. However, when that relationship ended and I started dating an older guy (18 years old at the time — 3 years older than me), I think that’s when they started to get really worried for my future, and it was only a couple months into the relationship before that fateful morning in late September when I was awoken in the wee hours and taken away from all the things my parents were afraid would ruin my life. They had no idea how this decision would affect me years later.
Wilderness
We arrived in a small town near Shoshone, Idaho and stepped into a doctor’s office where they gave me a general wellness exam and a pregnancy test. Although I complied with everything the Escorts and the doctor told me to do, I was completely terrified under the surface. I remember almost hoping that the pregnancy test would be positive so that I could go home, and my heart sank when they continued with the examination, loaded me back into the Impala and kept driving.
We drove into what looked like the middle of nowhere — vast desert land blanketed in cold dirt with the smell of sage penetrating the air. I didn’t see any buildings, and we didn’t make many turns other than the curves of the road, and we soon met with a large van, parked by itself in the desert. The Escorts introduced me to the other adults there as my Instructors, then said goodbye and left. There were a couple of staff standing there, and I could see 2 kids around my age sitting in the van. Once the Escorts and the Impala were no longer in sight, the instructors told me to remove my clothes. They performed a strip-search on my whole body before giving me a set of their own clothing — brown work pants, a grey long-sleeve t-shirt, socks and brown hiking boots. The male instructor made some joke about that t-shirt not staying grey for very long, and I forced out a laugh to demonstrate my willingness to comply. I asked about tampons and was ignored. I asked if I could have my personal belongings back, and was told they would be shipped back home to my parents. I changed into my new program-issued clothes in front of the instructors and they ushered me into the van to join the others. One of the other kids, a teenage boy, seemed to know the instructors by first name and mentioned having been there for over 60 days, and the other — a girl — had just arrived within a day or two before me. They were being transferred to their new group, which would be my starting group as well.
When we arrived at the camp site, I was shown to a designated patch of ground which would be my personal area to lay my sleeping bag. We each had a small tarp and rope which would double as shelter and packing supplies. I sat down around a fire with the rest of my group where my instructors introduced me to the other teens. I was on something called “I-Phase,” which mostly meant that I couldn’t interact with the others yet unless adults were listening, and I had to focus on accepting the fact that I had been sent away. In that circle, I learned a little more about my situation through listening to others about theirs. Most of them had a variety of issues somewhat like mine and described their families as having hired an Educational Consultant who recommended that the parents keep their plans secret from their child and instead have an Escort/Transporter Service abduct them from their homes in the middle of the night when they least expect it and will likely be too scared to fight back or run away. Most of these kids were taken to wilderness programs first, and according to the others in my group, most of the kids who came to wilderness ended up going to boarding school afterwards, by recommendation of the aforementioned Educational Consultant. I remember thinking, Well, that won’t be me. There’s no way my parents would send me away for even longer, without even talking to me about it first. I kept thinking, they’ll realize they made a mistake and they’ll bring me home soon. They didn’t.
I spent the next 42 days at the School of Urban Wilderness Survival, and although I was unhappy with the situation, I was able to learn the survival skills being taught to us, got along with instructors and other kids in my group, and in general I considered it to be an interesting and fun experience that I looked forward to sharing with my family and friends when I got home (hopefully soon). I learned how to create and set traps, and how to build a bow drill to start a fire with only materials found in the desert. I hiked hundreds of miles in total and saw some amazing scenery. I heard other kids in my group talk about all the rules they’d been breaking — doing drugs with instructors, having sex with other teens at the program in their previous groups, and even heard a story about a kid in 1985 who had passed out from exhaustion and was abandoned by his instructor and group, which ultimately ended in the boy falling over a cliff to his death. The instructors tried really hard to shut down these conversations, labeling them as “war stories,” and although this scared me, I was just thankful that I wasn’t experiencing anything mentioned in those conversations. I hadn’t received as much therapy as I had been told I would, but I had mastered skills that I was truly proud of, and had started to look inward at the changes I wanted to make in my life and in my relationship with my parents. I was ready to get out of there.
The final phases of the SUWS program involve “Solos” followed by “Search & Rescue.” Solos involved 4 days alone in a tent. The instructors supervising Solos stayed in a large yurt in the middle of a circle composed of other tents containing other clients on Solo Phase. While on Solos, we had to be completely silent unless an instructor came by to speak with us. We were not allowed to leave the area immediately surrounding our tent, and if we needed to use the bathroom we had to do so right there in the open. Inside my Solo Tent, I had a sleeping bag, my bow-drill for starting fires, a wood stove, a toothbrush, and my journal. On my final evening of Solo Phase, my “therapist,” a woman named Mod whom I had met only a few times since my arrival, came to visit me. My sessions with Mod consisted of very little actual therapy, and were more focused towards making sure that I had accepted the fact that I’d been sent away. This final visit from Mod was one that I was excited for, as I was at the end of Solos which meant that I only had one more phase to go before completing the program. Mod came into my tent and sat down on the ground in front of me. “How you doin?” she asked me with large, cold eyes. I told her that I was feeling pretty good, proud of myself, and excited to be going home soon. Her expression showed no emotion or change when I said this, and her stoic face made my heart sink. “Well, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Candice, you’re not going home. Your parents have decided that after you graduate here, you’ll be heading to a boarding school in Arizona.” She explained to me that the boarding school was called Spring Ridge Academy, was centered around therapy and was “all girls”. She also informed me that my parents would not be attending my SUWS graduation and would not be accompanying me to my next destination. I was completely devastated. I felt abandoned, and totally alone…solo.
After I completed my Solo, I was transferred to my final group, where we would be trained and certified in Wilderness First Aid and Search & Rescue. This phase went by quickly, and I acquired the skills with ease, earning my certificate after one week. I found myself caring less about my impending graduation as sadness and feelings of abandonment settled into their new permanent home within my chest. The “graduation” ceremony felt more like a funeral of souls as I watched other kids leave — some with their reluctant families, and others with Escorts to take them to their next program. My heart crumbled further as reality set in that my parents were not coming, that I would not be going home any time soon. As much as I had dealt with depression and anxiety my entire adolescence, this was a whole new level. I was broken.
Spring Ridge
The Escorts arrived to pick me up from the desert and I was somewhat surprised to see that they were the very same two that had pulled me out of my bed in the dark and taken me from my home over a month earlier. The familiarity was eerie yet somehow comforting in a reality that was becoming less and less familiar by the minute. We drove to Boise where we boarded a plane to Phoenix. The trip from Boise to Phoenix to Spring Valley was a bit of a quiet, haunting blur.
We arrived after dark, where I was taken into an administrative building that looked like a house and was handed over to one of the line-staff before my escorts drove away into the Arizona landscape. The staff at my intake was a nice woman with natural red hair, a big lovely smile, and a kind and comforting voice. She stood there with a girl who appeared to be a few years older than me and was introduced to me as my “Big Sister.” It was explained that my Big Sis would be the one to show me around, introduce me to others, get me settled in, and make sure that I learned all of the rules and requirements that would be expected of me in the days to come. I remember asking my Big Sis and my roommates when I would be able to talk to my parents, and was told that would be decided by my therapist and the admin staff. I was told that when those phone calls did happen, that I needed to be careful about what I said, and if I said anything negative about the program, my family contact could be discontinued, or at the very least my letters would be censored or never sent at all. I was informed that my parents were likewise being told that if I said anything negative about this place, that I would just be trying to manipulate them into coming home, and that any disclosures or pleas I might make at any point should be ignored. I would learn almost 2 decades later that this was specifically stated in the Spring Ridge Academy Parent Handbook, “Do not acknowledge concern about any of the horrendous circumstances and events she will undoubtedly describe.” Although I would try to give hints in my letters, I never actually knew for sure if they were sent at all, and any implications I made over the phone were brushed off and ignored, or the call was disconnected. For the next two years I spent at SRA, I wouldn’t be able to tell my parents the truth about what was happening there, because I was told that they wouldn’t believe me anyways.
The next day, my Big Sis arrived at my door and went through the agenda of the day with me. I was told it was time for my first assignment as a Phase 1. This assignment was described to me as the first of many requirements that I would have to meet in order to complete the program. I was told to write down 100 Reasons Why I Am Here. My list, like many of the kids who were sent to Spring Ridge, started out with the obvious: “Smoking weed, breaking curfew, lying, sex.” When I had come up with as many obvious reasons as I could, this wasn’t enough and I was encouraged to expand my definition of “Reasons” that I may have been sent away. I was told that in addition to “sex,” that I should write “promiscuity” (even though I’d only actually had sex with one person), and in addition to “smoking weed,” that I should also write “addiction and alcoholism,” and in addition to “lying,” that I should also add, “manipulation.” When I couldn’t possibly think of anything else I needed to take accountability for, I was encouraged to write things down even if they weren’t true, such as “I hate my parents.” When I had finally reached the end of the assignment, my list contained 100 descriptions of mistakes I’d made, ways that I had screwed up my parents’ lives, and how ashamed of myself I ought to be for ruining my family. 100 items that confirmed and justified my placement at SRA. 100 pieces of information for Spring Ridge to use against me. 100 reasons why I deserved all of what was to come.
Identity Theft
On the morning of my first full day at Spring Ridge, the few belongings I’d had with me from Wilderness were taken away and I was given a school uniform — a pair of khaki Dickies, a plaid skirt, a red polo shirt, and a pair of loafers. Every student in the school had to wear some version of the uniform, depending on their phase in the program. Different colored shirts signified different phases and therefore different privileges. It wasn’t until the highest phases of the program that students were granted significantly more autonomy with their clothing and appearances, and even then, we had to be cautious and blend in with the others, so as not to individually stand out and risk being called out for attention-seeking behavior.
Aside from our school-issued clothing, we were allowed a small number of personal accessories as we progressed in the program. At some point, residents could wear certain types of jewelry, and then later could have makeup and personal shirts of their phase color. It was risky for us to get too excited about the various future privileges. It was risky in general to allow one’s true self, personality, and interests to show. Students had to dampen their expressions of interest in certain genres of music, hide strengths or preferences in various forms of dance or art, or even to speak in certain ways such as using natural accents, slang words, or language reflective of one’s personal culture, background or spiritual preferences. Although Spring Ridge outwardly labeled itself a secular school, students who subscribed to non-Christian religion generally had their beliefs silenced and were not given as many opportunities and resources to practice their faith openly. Expressing one’s interests, personality traits, talents and culture often resulted in accusations of being wrapped up in one’s “Image.”
Students of Color and LGBTQIA+ students were especially vulnerable to these accusations and were generally encouraged to white-wash and cis-wash their behavior and appearance in order to evade the inevitable feedback that would further strip them of their identity and autonomy. Marketed as an “all-girls college preparatory emotional growth boarding school,” students who didn’t identify or present with outward feminine expressions were often accused of hiding from their true selves or for rejecting their femininity and womanhood. Students who were gay, lesbian or bisexual would also have the potential for their safety and privacy to be jeopardized. One alumni disclosed to me that she had confided in her therapist that she was questioning her sexuality, and his response was to place an “emergency” phone call in the middle of the session to her father at his workplace to inform him of this without the client’s consent, robbing her of any personal choice she might have in sharing that information with her family on her own accord.
Upon first arriving at Spring Ridge, I was taken aback by the dichotomy that I witnessed in the way Spring Ridge residents and faculty interacted with each other. On one hand, there were times I saw large groups of students and staff cuddling in piles on the floor, giving massages and stroking each other’s hair in a very intimate and casual way which was normalized in the community. On the other hand, LGB students were often discouraged from participating in these intimate settings or from forming very close friendships with others, often being accused of having “inappropriate relationships,” some even labeled as predators. In many of these particular cases, students were given the assignment of Touch Restriction, which is exactly what it sounds like. No hugs, no high-fives, no shoulder-leaning. Absolutely no form of touch. Once a resident was given this “Predator” label by the administration, they generally were subject to this “assignment” for the duration of their stay whether in an official or unofficial capacity, inhibiting their ability to build genuine and trusting relationships with others at the program. Spring Ridge was where I first realized that I was attracted to other girls, but it would be another decade before I would dare share that information with anyone.
Another aspect of student identity that was essentially taken away and stifled by the program included individualized medical needs. Staff were generally instructed to ignore student complaints of physical pains, illnesses, or medical conditions, and many of the kids had conditions that required special medications and treatments that were withheld. I arrived at Spring Ridge with prior diagnoses including seizure disorder, depression, and panic disorder co-morbid with PTSD. I also witnessed many of my co-students with underlying medical conditions that went ignored by staff, including but not limited to: a girl with partial deafness accused of attention-seeking and faking her disability, kids with Autism who were labeled as simply having behavioral problems, kids with Asthma who were not given access to inhalers and were forced to participate in undue amounts of exercise, and many students who came in with medications that were immediately discontinued without having yet met with a psychiatrist. Most of us were then put on a different array of medications regardless of diagnosis, my regimen including a large cocktail of anxiety medications and anti-psychotics. I’d never had “psychotic” tendencies and was a bit confused about why the school wanted me on a high dose of Seroquel, until I learned that most of the other kids were also on this medicine which had a tendency to sedate us, make us sleepy and more likely to comply with orders and expectations. Even the most compliant of residents were heavily medicated to make us docile and maximize our malleability.
Compliance
It wasn’t long before I learned that most of the other students at Spring Ridge had arrived there through similar circumstances– being kidnapped in the night by Escorts, going to a wilderness program followed immediately by an expensive ($7–10k/month tuition) “emotional growth boarding school,” almost all by recommendation of an Educational Consultant that their parents had hired to help their family. There were also echoes of other programs in existence that were “way worse than here” and that if we couldn’t get with this program, it was possible that we could be sent to Tranquility Bay or to CEDU, facilities described to me as “lockdowns” more like prisons where kids were treated much more harshly and corporal punishment was used more freely — facilities that would be used to threaten Spring Ridge students into compliance in order to avoid being sent somewhere even worse. CEDU shut down in 2005, the same year I completed the program at Spring Ridge, and Tranquility Bay closed its doors a few years later in 2009 after continuous allegations of serious physical and psychological abuse. I would also find out years later that Spring Ridge uses an oddly similar version of the harmful “treatment models” implemented by CEDU and Tranquility Bay.
Terrified to step out of line, I immediately became compliant. I did everything and anything the facility staff asked of me. I did my chores perfectly so as to avoid the astronomical consequences given to students who left dirt on the sink or forgot to empty the lint trap. Other punishable offenses could include swearing, telling “war stories,” talking to someone who was on Silence from the community, or having a uniform that didn’t fit right. Such infractions would be punished with No Contact with family, being dropped a level, or being assigned an unreasonable amount of “work hours,” which generally involved digging holes, hauling rocks, breaking boulders, pulling weeds, and “campus beautification projects” in 100+degree temperatures without proper work equipment and insufficient availability of water or bathroom breaks. Students who complained of dehydration or overheating were usually accused of trying to get out of work or of trying to get attention, and such ailments were routinely ignored, often resulting in kids getting heat stroke and not receiving proper care.
One of the greater consequences given at Spring Ridge Academy that was used to control students was the use of Isolation. Isolation at SRA came in various forms, for example, Silence and Separation (S&S) from the community, and full Isolation. Some students could be placed on S&S but could still sleep in their dorm, attend classes normally and participate in activities but were not allowed to speak to or touch anyone. Full Isolation was generally reserved for the kids who were considered at-risk for running or self-harm, and consisted of being dropped all levels to Phase Orange, a level even lower than Phase 1. On Phase Orange, the child would be required to wear a bright orange shirt and had their shoes replaced with slippers or socks (depending on the level of intervention Admins decided was needed), which they had to wear at all times, even when outdoors and in unfavorable weather conditions. Some kids on Phase Orange were forced to stay in the Isolation Room, which during my time at Spring Ridge was a small walk-in closet-sized room near the “Nurse Station” where meds were given. The room had no mattress, no windows, and no bathroom, and an occupant of the Isolation Room was not allowed to have any writing or eating utensils, was not allowed to speak to anyone including the supervising staff. Some kids would be placed on isolation for months, and I’d heard a story of one past student who had been in Iso for an entire year.
In contrast, students who never broke any rules were often accused of “avoiding” treatment or “flying under the radar.” Compliance was a constant catch-22, designed to keep us on our toes at all times.
Accountability
Another mechanism of control used by Spring Ridge included the encouragement and rewarding of students to police each other, or in program language “hold each other accountable.” Upper Phases were given a certain amount of authority over other students and often participated in the creation and implementation of various “treatment” assignments for Lower Phases. Students were expected to report each other’s behaviors to staff, therapists, and administration, as well as call them out in the moment, preferably in front of others to witness the call-out and maximize humiliation/shame response in the person receiving the feedback. This call-out culture was also a way for students who gave feedback to demonstrate that they were “working the program” themselves.
In addition to being expected to adhere to this requirement in the general day-to-day, this “accountability” was most commonly practiced in an at-least weekly event called Feedback Group. Feedback Group has its’ roots in the “attack therapy” methods of The Game used by Synanon, in which group members were made to share personal information about themselves and then scream and berate each other for long periods of time. Although Spring Ridge’s version of the Game appears to be more tame at it’s face, students who did not participate in giving feedback were often punished with it in overwhelming droves.
The general structure of Feedback consisted of a statement that usually started with “My experience of you is….” followed by a statement or series of statements about the recipient’s behavior or lack of behavior. Some examples included, “My experience of you is fake,” “My experience of you is flying under the radar,” “My experience of you is hiding from your real self” or “my experience of you is resisting treatment and not working the program,” as well as more specific examples for specific infractions such as forgetting chores (“My experience of you is lazy”), wearing a skirt too high or too low (“My experience of you is attention-seeking”), for spending too much time with one friend (“my experience of you is that you’re having an inappropriate relationship”), writing too many letters to family (“not focusing on being in the moment,”) talking about one’s personal issues at all (“living in the past”) or not talking about one’s personal issues enough (“avoiding”).
Feedback Group at Spring Ridge consisted of all students, therapists, teachers, line staff, and administration gathering together in one room to sit in a large circle. During this time, anyone in the room could raise their hand and wait to be called upon to give Feedback to someone else in the room. Once a person in Feedback group is called on, they stand up and walk over to the person they would like to give feedback to. That person also stands, and the two face each other. Person 1 gives their criticisms, Person 2 is expected to thank them for their feedback, and both parties sit back down. Often times, this initial piece of feedback triggers a domino effect in which more hands will shoot into the air, each person being called on one-by-one to give the same feedback to the same person over and over again. When one person is targeted in Feedback Group, they might receive these personal criticisms up to or more than 50 times in one session, often causing them to become very small, break down, then shut down, and overly comply for fear of being further targeted and shamed. The intense flooding of feedback onto one person would continue until the staff member running the group would decide it was time to move on, followed by the same feedback cycle for other students. Feedback Group consisted mostly of students calling-out other students, although sometimes faculty members would participate as well, which greatly increased likelihood that other students would join in to reaffirm and show their own willingness to hold others accountable and avoid the humiliation of being scolded with negative feedback themselves. Although students were encouraged to give feedback outside of Feedback Group, this was the setting where we were most conditioned to accept and normalize it, as well as being shown what would happen to us if we didn’t.
When a child is told enough times that they are bad, fake, lazy, avoidant, inappropriate, stupid, wrong, promiscuous, unaccountable, dishonest, manipulative, incompetent or self-destructive, they will eventually believe it and internalize those characteristics as who they are — and many of us did. We were conditioned to believe that we were the problem, that anything bad that happened to us was our own doing, and that the ways in which we failed were just a mirror for our lives. As a result, many students, including myself, ended up struggling even more after completing the program, partly due to these internalized beliefs instilled within us.
Assignments
I am thankful to have been matched to a therapist who was a perfect fit for me. She was warm, kind, gentle, open, accepting and spiritual. She had a supportive way of conducting therapy that enabled me to have lots of control over the direction of my sessions. She guided me through using spirituality as a way to keep myself mentally safe, as well as supporting my quest to figure out who I am and why. She defended me when others objected to my moving up in the program. When I was in sessions with her, I almost felt like I was stepping through a portal from a bad dream and waking up into the positive mental health treatment I actually needed and deserved. Susan inspired me to later get my Bachelor’s in Psychology and go into the social work field.
Despite the fact that I had a legitimate counselor to work with, my heart would be heavy knowing that so many of my fellow students were not so lucky. Many of them were assigned to unlicensed individuals, and some to therapists who subscribed more to “Tough Love” ideologies. Those therapists often collaborated with the administrative staff and select Upper Phase students to create the more humiliating, brutal, and abusive “therapeutic assignments” that I witnessed.
Androgenous, non-binary and trans students were often assigned by the Academy administrative staff or by their therapists in which they were “given the opportunity” to get out of the usual school uniform and forced to wear dresses and skirts, heavy makeup and do their hair in glamorous feminine ways. They were often were made to dress in this way for a week or more (until they “took pride in their womanhood”), and in some settings forced to perform, dance and sing for others while dressed in this way despite their pleas of discomfort, in order to prove that they were embracing their femininity and therefore ready to continue their work in the program.
Many of the residents would often resort to humor as a healthy way to cope with the intense environment that we were in. Students who “overused” humor were accused of avoiding treatment, wearing a mask, being fake, and being stuck in their image of a “class clown”. In one particular instance, a girl across the hall from me was given the assignment to dress as a “Sad Clown” for a week — clown makeup, red nose, neon wig, etc. — in order to face her tendency to not take anything seriously (“do you still want to act like a clown?”)
Assignments were often arbitrary, vague, and almost always humiliating. They were primarily designed and assigned by administrative staff and the student’s therapist. When the faculty favored certain students, those residents were often given more leeway for infractions and more rule flexibility than others. Some of them even came back years later to work there. When the staff had decided that they really did not like a particular resident, it would become very obvious to the rest of the community, and nobody wanted to be that student.
I was particularly close to a resident named Betsy (who has given me permission to use her name and share this story). Betsy and I shared a strong, kindred connection, and I was there to see the line staff, administration, and Upper Phase students singling her out on a regular basis — consecutive, long assignments of Silence & Separation over 3 weeks, being denied medical treatment, dropping phases for small infractions, excessive work hours in dangerous heat temperatures, forced introspection, and repeated Feedback flooding. She was also subjected to damaging exposure therapy in which she was locked alone in a dark dorm room and forced to watch horror films to overcome her fears. One assignment in particular will never fade from my memory due to the sheer humiliating horror of it. One day, during Feedback Group after a particularly brutal flooding session, Betsy’s “treatment team” — consisting of her therapist, the founder of the school and her son — shared that they felt Betsy complained too much. In order to work on this, Betsy was going to be wearing a large box hanging from her neck. Within that box was a pile of rocks which resembled individual complaints. The Administrative staff informed the entire student body that they were going to be able to participate in this intervention as well, and for the foreseeable future anytime we had something we wanted to complain about, we could share our complaint with Betsy and add a rock to the box that hung from her neck. Students who added rocks to the box were Acknowledged (“positive” Feedback) for holding Betsy accountable, and students who refused to participate or offered encouraging words to Betsy were accused of enabling and discouraged from interacting with her. The amount of pain, degradation and humiliation in Betsy’s eyes grew as these assignments further dehumanized her. I saw the same pain on many others who were given assignments of a similar horrific flavor, and I will never forget those faces.
Trainings
All of what I’ve described here thus far has included aspects of various arbitrary requirements that must be fulfilled in order to move up through, and eventually graduate, from Spring Ridge Academy. The most notable requirement in this particular program is that every student must complete the “Trainings.” At the time that I attended Spring Ridge Academy in 2003–2005, there were 4 trainings that were mandatory for students to ascend through the level system to eventually achieve the graduation at the end of the tunnel. The trainings at the time were called Challenge, Action, Results, and Commitment.
The trainings were created by a man named David Gilcrease, founder of Resource Realizations and former husband to the founder of Spring Ridge Academy, Jeannie Courtney. Those trainings and variants of them have been conducted and taught at various Troubled Teen Industry facilities around the world, and are based on seminars from the historically problematic and abusive Lifespring and Synanon cults. Several of the programs in which these trainings are implemented have been shut down following allegations of abhorrent and rampant physical and psychological abuse.
For me personally, Challenge and Action blend together as an oddly dream-like melting pot of sleep deprivation (early mornings, long days, late nights), limits on water and bathroom use, and an array of strange activities, language, and rituals designed to break down, control, then build up the acquiescence of individuals into a cooperative “generation” (the term used to describe a group of students whose time of attendance at the program overlaps). During these trainings, we were assigned to a “buddy” — another resident who was also going through the training at the same time, and with whom we were expected to maintain accountability and ensure agreeableness with the seminar practices.
The trainings were facilitated by a mixture of administrative staff, the occasional therapist or line staff, current students who had already completed the seminars, and some student alumni who had continued contact or employment with Spring Ridge. During the training period (generally several days at least), students were not allowed to speak to those who were not also attending the trainings and could not interact with the student staffers unless directed by upper faculty during the training itself. In addition, students were forbidden from discussing any aspects of the trainings with individuals who had not yet attended the training (including family members, friends, future therapists, etc.). Participants were expected, and asked to agree to maintain ultimate secrecy, forever.
The trainings were largely effective in spreading the Spring Ridge “doctrine” by utilizing specific language, music, routines, imagery and group activities to completely envelop the residents into the trainings. Students often weren’t aware that they would be attending the seminar until they were woken up in the wee hours the morning-of. They were immediately shuffled into a silent line of other residents who would be attending the training. Residents in line would be reprimanded by student staffers if they spoke to anyone, and were stoically encouraged to shut up and walk. Students who had been my roommates and my friends were giving me orders and cold responses. It was confusing and disarming, and we complied because that is what felt the safest in this unpredictable environment.
Upon entering the training after traversing across the courtyard into the “main house”/administrative building and down a set of stairs into a basement, the room was dimly lit, revealing several rows of chairs set up with an aisle down the middle. In front stood an easel, and around the room hung posters with program clichés including “180 degrees of what is not working is still not working,” “you create your own reality,” “Honest, Open, Willing,” “Argue for your limitations and they are yours,” “get over it”, and other phrases commonly spoken within the program. As participants entered the room, the theme song from 2001 Space Odyssey would be playing and we were told that we all needed to be seated before the music stopped.
Almost every time we re-entered the training room, the music was stopped early, and whomever was left standing would be given feedback about how this situation is a mirror for their life, and they would generally be “asked to leave” (a diluted way of saying “kicked out of”) the training and would be required to start again when the training would be offered again months later. The student would not be allowed to move up to their next phase without completing the training.
There were various other faux-pas that could be committed by trainees that would risk being asked to leave, including asking for water or needing to use the bathroom, interrupting, laughing, having side conversations, or gazing off. Participants asking for water or bathroom access would instantly be reminded of the “mirror for their life,” and interrogated on their readiness to be here and questioning their willingness to be present in the training right now. No matter their response, if they were singled-out, they were inevitably asked to leave either in that moment or later on in the training.
The first exercise I remember is called the “9 Dots.” While a generally harmless activity on its’ own, the participants would be told to solve the puzzle without any direction, while training staffers paced around the room, looking over shoulders, shaking their heads, grunting with approval, disapproval, or flat affect. When our allotted time was up, some students had not completed the brain teaser. Those students were generally asked to stand up, accused of avoiding and not being willing to step outside their paradigm (their “9 dots”), and were generally asked to leave the training.
One of the consistently notable activities that has been described across generations includes the requirement to wear a name tag that denoted a negative belief about ourselves — either something others thought of us or something we thought of ourselves and were vulnerable to. My name tag said “Fake.” Other name tags said “Slut,” “Idiot,” “Weirdo” or “Fuck-up.” We had to wear those name tags for the duration of the training at which time we had been prepped for a huge, positive, self-actuating build-up where we exchanged our self-deprecating name tags for more positive attributes — and yet we were still unable to use our names and forced to forfeit our identities until we were told otherwise.
I remember activities that involved students in rotating pairs labeling each other as “Givers” and “Takers,” or telling each other “I trust you,” “I don’t trust you,” or “I don’t know if I trust you.” These activities felt naturally adversarial and created suspicion and distrust among the students to deter them from confiding in one another in ways that might risk dissent from program doctrine.
One of the group exercises that is clearest in my mind is called the Lifeboat Exercise. Staffers chose one or two participants to be “on the lifeboat” and the rest of the participants would be “in the water,” soon to drown. Participants who were stranded in the water were instructed to speak to the individuals on the lifeboat and try to convince them to let us aboard by listing attributes and characteristics of ourselves that proved us deserving of life. We were denied repeatedly until we were sobbing and begging. Some of us were granted boarding rights, some of us were denied and “drowned.” After the exercise was over, those of us who had been denied the right to live were encircled by the rest and asked to explain ourselves. When I was placed in this circle, I was told to take accountability for my lack of deservingness to live, and as my attempts to stand up for myself were repeatedly criticized, rejected and scoffed at I moved swiftly into a debilitating panic attack. As my vision darkened and my chest closed up, I was more closely encircled by staffers, their raised voices rumbling through my confused brain like a landslide as they accused me of “forcing tears” and “being fake.” I was told by the facilitator that I obviously wasn’t ready to do the work, and I was asked to leave that Challenge training, with another attempt several months later. I saw to it that I completed my second try. There was no other option.
Although the trainings carried along consistent themes and favored “synergy” activities, every now and then the administrative staff would experiment with something “new.” For example, one of my co-alumni described to me an exercise in the Results training that they were told was something different that had never been done before. It involved residents being placed into pairs, and then instructed to fasten their partner to a chair using tape and then the individual who was tied up was required to attempt to break free, creating the notion of being trapped, experimented on, and described to me as feeling like a “lab rat.” Similar stories of the trainings have emerged from other Spring Ridge Academy survivors, describing other similarly strange and embarrassing experimental therapies and interventions.
Another memorable exercise in the trainings involved our group being brought into the dark training room with a slightly different set-up. The lights were darker than usual, and metal folding chairs were scattered evenly around the room facing different directions, with a rolled-up beach towel held together with duct tape placed underneath each chair. As we knelt in front of our assigned chair, we were told to close our eyes and were guided through a visualization. The visualization began by encouraging us to relax and focus our minds on our work; the things we want to change, the things we want to leave behind, then the things we have buried. At one point, we are asked to reach under our chairs to find the rolled-up towel and take the cylindrical object into our hands. Suddenly, the administrator is bellowing into the microphone, staffers begin moving around the room and find their place in front of each student’s chair. The staffer in front of my chair is one of my roommates and I barely recognize her distorted face as she screams at me to picture all of the people that have hurt me and beat the chair while imagining them, this goes on for several minutes before the staffers and announcer then tells us to picture our parents and our siblings. My roommate is screaming, “beat that chair you piece of shit, beat that fucking chair, is that the best you can do? Beat that fucking chair! Think of all the people who hurt you, think of your parents, hit the chair harder, hit that fucking chair, are you thinking of your parents? Hit it fucking harder!” I can see others in my peripheral vision swinging violently and screaming with anger, tears and mucous spilling out of their orifices and staffers spitting in their faces while screaming at them to keep going. This goes on for what feels like an hour, and by the time the facilitator tells us to suddenly “STOP,” my face is hot, swollen, wet and salty from my tears, my head is filled with pain and feels like it may explode, my limbs weak and motionless when I collapse onto the floor in sync with my neighbors. As I lay on the floor, my roommate moves closer towards me and puts my head in her lap, stroking my hair and whispering comforting words that it will be okay, that I did so good. I did good? I peer around from under my sweat-soaked hair and see that the others are doing the same next to their chairs, lying limp in the arms of their assigned staffer, being whispered to about how good they’ve done. We are then led through a peaceful visualization taking place in the most beautiful scene we can imagine where we eventually find our magical child and comfort them and by-proxy comfort ourselves. This phase of the activity is a welcome relief from the violent psychosis that filled the room minutes before, and we are now exhausted and more malleable than ever.
Many similar activities would be implemented in the trainings as well as in the daily milieu– many of these interventions and activities disorienting, disarming and disturbed, involving public shaming and forced declaration of our insecurities, analyzing of past experiences and detailing traumas in front of people we barely knew or didn’t know at all. We were quizzed and interrogated about these experiences and pressed to share our deepest fears and darkest thoughts about ourselves, only to have the things we shared brought up publicly and used against us later in order to shape our behavior further. By the time we completed the first two trainings, the more we shared, the more we gave in, and as we succumbed to the programming, the more we adopted the language and recited catchphrases of the program with our every-day vocabulary, the more we enforced this programming on our co-students to hold them accountable and prove ourselves “working”, the sooner we were admitted into and completed the upper phase trainings and advanced through the levels nearing graduation– and so much closer “home” seemed.
Graduate
After almost 2 years of working the program, I was fully able to participate in the community as a leader who was an example of program success, using the language fluently, giving valuable feedback, and complying with rules and expectations. I was completing the program with honors and had achieved the highest phase, as well as being a “Big Sis” to three “Little Sisters.” One of them passed away a handful of years ago and not a day goes by that I don’t wish I’d been a better Big Sister to her and the others.
Graduation day was positive of course; my family attended the ceremony where I and my co-grads gave contrived, fabricated speeches about how far we’ve come and how basic and bright our futures look. I had finally reached the end. I was finally getting out.
After arriving home, I started and finished my senior year of high school and went on to college. I found it more difficult to integrate back into normal society than I realized. During my college years, I found myself struggling to maintain healthy relationships and friendships, often placating others, seeking approval, and generally allowing others to control my interactions with them. I depended on my partner to guide me into adulthood, and had very little sense of personal responsibility or autonomy. The outer world scared the shit out of me, as I knew nothing about how to live in it anymore. For some time, I struggled with depression and suicidal ideation, but was too afraid to share this for fear of being institutionalized once again.
It wasn’t until I was in my final semester of college, and I was taking a Sociology of Alternative Religions course at the University of Montana, that I began to read about Synanon, “the Game,” attack therapy, and other models within the cult that had an oddly familiar feel to them. I soon realized that the cult I was studying had strange similarities to the methods implemented at Spring Ridge Academy, which took me down a total rabbit hole where I learned about the corruption of WWASPS and its offshoots, its cult connections and links to the Utah Republican party. I began to find other stories of similar experiences in other programs, such as Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, and the CEDU programs that I had been threatened with while at SRA. Experiences of these other programs described the same language, “treatment” models, interventions, and seminar activities that Spring Ridge had implemented during my time there. I sent the information I could find to various friends from SRA that I had kept in touch with, as well as a handful of former and current staff members. Some of them responded with similar feelings and stories but didn’t continue the discussion, some of them denied remembering anything, many of them didn’t respond at all, and one (still current) staff member responded with feedback about how I was denying myself the benefits that I could have reaped from being in the program and that I wasn’t appreciating the gift I was given (eye roll). I searched desperately for someone to validate my experience. Was I reaching? Was I attention-seeking? Continuing my old patterns? Was I just making this all up? Was I imagining it all?
As I write this, it has been 18 years since the day I was taken from my bed and sent away. Over the years since I left the program, I have kept in touch with several of my fellow alumni who recall similar experiences and have feelings in common regarding what we went through together, and my healing has truly just begun. I continue to struggle with self-efficacy, confidence, night terrors, PTSD, trust issues, abandonment fears, extreme anxiety and severe Impostor Syndrome. I’m also beginning to recognize the resiliency that I’ve gained from living this surreal experience with other amazingly strong individuals who have come out on the other side as healers with me. I have been deeply touched and inspired by those from Spring Ridge as well as other Troubled Teen Industry program survivors who have shared their stories, and I hope that as I share mine, more will feel safe to do the same. You’re not alone. As we share our memories of this time in our lives, and as we delve into what we experienced and who we really authentically are — not just because of what we went through, but also in spite of it — we will continue to cultivate, share, and embody the healing elixir that is the strength and spirit of The Survivor.
UPDATE 1/16/2024: Spring Ridge Academy attempted a rebrand at the end of 2022, changing its name to “New Day Rising,” but shortly thereafter closed its doors permanently in early 2023. Many WWASP-offshoot programs like it are still open and operating today.
To learn more about the Troubled Teen Industry, its history, and resources for survivors, see below:
Additional Resources:
#TroubledTeenIndustry #WWASP #TTI #BreakingCodeSilence #SpringRidgeAcademy #theProgram #ISeeYouSurvivor
