I was sent to a long-term treatment program in my early twenties. My family was told it would help me stabilize, become independent, and build resilience. Instead, I stayed for roughly nineteen months and came out feeling like a completely different person.

Before treatment, I had a real life. I was extremely social, had a huge circle of friends, a strong social media presence, momentum in music and film, and actual industry attention. I had been working toward a creative career since I was fourteen. I had songs reposted by major artists, film credits, people around me, confidence, visibility, and a real sense that I was close to becoming something.

When I got back, one of my closest friends described me as “skittish, avoidant, couldn’t hang out for more than five minutes, kept everyone at a distance.” That is exactly what happened. I isolated. I lost friendships. I lost momentum. I lost trust in people. I could not tolerate being around others the way I used to.

The program also destroyed my relationship with my parents. They believed the institution’s interpretation of me over my own account of what was happening. They accepted soft phrases like “self-reliance,” “resilience,” and “higher levels of care,” while I experienced those phrases as warnings that if I resisted, I could be sent somewhere even worse.

Now, even though I know my parents are intelligent, accomplished, complicated people who believed they were helping me, my mind instantly turns them into grotesque cartoon clowns. I picture them wearing bright red noses, enormous floppy shoes, oversized pants and tiny hats, wandering around bumping into walls while treatment executives calmly empty their pockets. I imagine them tripping over each other, walking into doors, nodding seriously at obvious manipulation, then congratulating themselves for making a “responsible decision.” Sometimes the image gets even more humiliating and absurd: two helpless boomer clowns stumbling through a circus, peeing on themselves while the people taking their money laugh behind the curtain.

I know that image is not the whole truth about them. It is what betrayal looks like inside my head. Contempt is easier than admitting how much I depended on them and how badly I needed them to see through what was happening. I used to trust their intelligence and judgment. Now part of me sees them as people who were manipulated at the exact moment I needed them to protect me.

My body changed too. Before treatment, I was considered unusually attractive and felt confident in how I looked. By the time I got out, I had gained weight, was constantly stressed, looked exhausted, and barely recognized myself. I am still good-looking now, but I have never felt that I returned to the level of confidence, health, physical presence, and camera-readiness I had before.

The worst part is that the damage kept compounding. I did things out of desperation after I got out that I regret. I was trying to regain connection, attention, control, and some version of the life I had lost. I take responsibility for those choices, but I also know they happened after a severe collapse in my functioning.

Sometimes my anger gets even uglier. I have heard rumors about the founder of the program using crack, driving luxury cars, and dating a woman half his age. I cannot verify any of that, and I am not presenting it as fact. But those rumors fuse with the image already stuck in my head: this man laughing all the way to the bank with my family’s money while we live with the damage. I picture him cruising around in some expensive car, living indulgently, completely untouched by what happened to the people whose families funded the program.

Meanwhile, I am left trying to rebuild my career, friendships, body, confidence, and relationship with my parents.

People talk about these programs like they build independence, accountability, and resilience. My experience was the opposite. I came out more afraid, more isolated, less functional, less trusting, less creative, and less connected to my family and friends.

I cannot prove exactly how successful I would have become if I had never been sent away. But I know I had momentum, relationships, confidence, public attention, and a future I was actively building. I also know that after treatment, those things were gone.

That is what people do not understand about the TTI. The harm is not always one dramatic incident. Sometimes it is watching your personality, career, body, relationships, confidence, and future slowly collapse, then being told the place that did it was helping you.

i was sent to Heritage RTC in provo, UT when i was 13, summer 2017 to summer 2019 (i was on peers/spark, summit south/summit), and i graduated and went back home for my sophomore year of high school, but was sent to Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness at the end of may in 2020 (i sorta escaped the worst of the pandemic i guess lol), and then i was sent to Alpine in Erda, UT (Gene Smith for my first 2ish months, then Aspire) and i again graduated, in summer 2021.

i suppose one of the only good things about RTC was that the school there was year round, so i didn’t have to go back home for very long. I got my diploma a year early and went to right college. It was amazing. i had bees robbed of my whole teenage life but i just got to be instantly normal in college. I had left all that behind me and memories of my experiences there were largely absent from my mind.

in the past month or so, it seems it’s all i can think about. I’m constantly anxious, i’m having much more trouble sleeping, and i don’t know what to do. I graduated college last year and now i’m in a phd program and this is beginning to affect my work. I’m teaching a summer lecture section for general chemistry right now and i nearly had a panic attack mid lecture, so at this point if i don’t get my shit together, then it won’t just affect me but also my students, and i cannot accept that.

I really felt like i had my life together! I’m almost 23, and form the outside, my life looks great! granted i live in a shitty studio because my stipend is terrible, but i run 5k’s, i eat super healthy, i play hockey, i play guitar and have an amazing group of friends! and all my friends are so normal too!

i watch The Program last night and they mentioned that it takes a few years to come to terms with your time in TTI. i’m wondering if that’s what’s happening to me.

Even still, i feel a bit guilty for how i feel about my time in RTC. heritage and alpine were nowhere near as bad as Ivy Ridge. i was never sexually assaulted (but i did hear about it, i was friends with one of the girls who had Shawn Talbot at Alpine)

I was also a dick to many of the other kids. If any of you are reading this, I have red hair, so if you remember me, i’m really sorry. (please don’t say my name in the comments, if you know me and would like to talk, send a pm)

Last night i got back in touch with another girl from heritage, and i learned that the vast majority of of my peers there have overdosed or have taken their own lives. My life is relatively in order!! I feel like i don’t deserve to struggle with my time in RTC, seeing as it looks like i’m one of the lucky ones.

i also feel like the relationship to my parents haven’t been the same since.

I’m not sleeping, i’m barely eating, my PI, who is a very stoic 60 something Irish-American woman from Kentucky has even gone so far as to ask if everything was ok and that i “seem depressed, you’re normally so cheery!”

I also justified my time in RTC to myself. i no longer struggled with the issues i had that landed me there. I i hated myself for so long for even needing it, but i think slowly stepping into adulthood and the maturity and hindsight i now have, and being scarcely younger than many the staff who worked there has enabled me more empathy towards how i was treated there

i’m so sorry about this disorganized rant, I’m normally a more articulate writer but i felt like this was the only way i could get this out of my system. i don’t know what to do. if anyone has any advice please share.

like i said, all my friends are so normal. Most people don’t even know places like those exist. i can’t talk to my parents (obviously), i just feel so alone.

edit: also if anyone has any advice about calling and getting files back, please share!!

RAD is overdiagnosed in adopted kids — and there’s an industry built on it

On a recent episode of the Lila Rose podcast (ep. 322, guest Kelli Ingram), RAD came up — the guest shared that she learned about reactive attachment disorder, and the words “Reactive Attachment Disorder” were shown one at a time in big text on screen, over a caption about love being what helps a child develop.

This isn’t about that show or that guest: but seeing RAD put in front of a big audience with no context is what got me thinking about the machinery a RAD label feeds, and why a mention without caution matters.

It’s wildly overdiagnosed in adopted and foster kids. Real RAD is rare and has strict DSM-5 criteria. But in practice the label gets slapped on adopted kids who are grieving, adjusting, traumatized, or just acting out. Studies have found that a large share of adopted and foster children referred to specialty clinics arrive already carrying a RAD or attachment-disorder diagnosis that doesn’t hold up once they’re properly assessed. Clinicians reach for the scariest label in the book and the child gets marked by it.

Bad actors weaponize the label. The framing pushed in attachment-therapy circles is that these kids are manipulative, can’t love, can’t attach, are dangerous — that “love isn’t enough” and normal parenting and talk/play therapy won’t work. That reframe does something specific: it relocates the problem into the child and away from the neglect, the placements, the losses, and the adoption itself. Once a kid is labeled, extreme “treatment” starts to sound justified.

And there’s a whole industry waiting for those parents. Attachment therapy, holding therapy, “therapeutic parenting” programs, residential treatment, “attachment camps,” and even adoption dissolution services all market directly to desperate, misinformed adoptive parents. The through-line is deadly and current:

**•** Candace Newmaker died in a “rebirthing” attachment session in 2000.
**•** Four-year-old Skyler Wilson died in 2023 after his adoptive parents used restraint and “swaddling” techniques they said they learned from Nancy Thomas, a prominent “therapeutic parenting” figure who trained at the same Colorado practice tied to Newmaker’s death. His parents were sentenced for his murder in 2026.

This is a live, well-funded system, not history. An AP investigation this year went inside CALO (Change Academy at Lake of the Ozarks), a for-profit center that has charged up to $20,000 a month and markets itself specifically around “reactive attachment disorder” and “developmental trauma.” The AP found adoptees are as much as 10 times more likely to be institutionalized than the general population, that these centers are often taxpayer-funded yet barely overseen, and documented runaways, assaults, and more than a dozen lawsuits.

So when RAD gets mentioned to a big audience with no context, this is the ecosystem a curious parent walks into when they search “RAD parenting.” The clinical reality — that these kids overwhelmingly heal through stable, patient, responsive care — is the exact opposite of what the industry sells. Getting the information right is prevention.

Author’s Note: Sources will be added in the comments later.

TW: sexual assault, self-harm, suicide attempts​

Actually IDK if you can call​ i​t a hard time. I'm just feeling a lot of stuff. For context, Ben Trane was the director of Midwest Academy. In 2018 he was convicted for, among other things, sexu​a​lly assaulting an inmate​. He got ten years in prison​. wwaspsurvivors breaks the trial and testimonies down if you want to look.

Two other witnesses at the trial (other than the S​A​ victim, I mean​) were boys who were held in solitary​ for 100+ days over their stay. One of them was 12 when he arrived​, with adhd and depression; he was SAd by an older boy​ while at midwest​. His mom was a witness at the trial.

And obviously I'm happy she was there. It probably helped put Trane​ away. ​After midwest she and her husband got their son into a school that actually helped him deal with the ptsd and depression. She didn't throw him out like some parents do, and in fact when Trane told them the son would assault their daughter she told him to f​u​ck​ off.

On the other hand, she tells the court that she knew her son was in solitary sometimes for 29 days out of a month. That he was hurting himself and attempted suicide while in there. She knew that in order to get out he had to stay in a certain position for *nineteen hours straight* (not counting bathroom brea​k​​s​... but I doubt he got them that often​) and then had four hours to write up to a 10k word essay. And it never occured to her that she as a non-adhd afult would probably have trouble doing that, let alone a 12yo.

I have adhd. I'm not hyperactive but i do stim and I need to be able to jiggle my feet or fiddle with my hands or something. I wouldn't​ be capable of doing that, and that's ignoring the effects of solitary.

Her son was taken to the hospital. She couldn't come along because her son never got past level 2 (out of 6, I believe). That didn't bother her. ​

So yeah, I'm feeling a lot of things. It seems awful to me that she went along with this for almost a year, but she did the right t​hing at the trial. And she ​tool her son out a little after learning he was hav​ing sex with an older kid.

But then again she still seems v​e​ry strict. She says that a kid has to obey adults no matter what, and tbh I think that's a very s​hort-sighted and damaging way to think.

IDK why I wrote all this out. I don't think anybody else would really understand.

Still actively looking for people I knew from seven stars and elevations rtc between January and June 2019. If you are someone who went to one of these places in this time frame or know of someone who has, please get in contact with me.

Did anyone else request their records form TK once they turned 18? I just received mine in my email yesterday. I'm shocked at some of the things written. And they mentioned BPD in my records, but it's not in my psychological testing and was never mentioned to me or my mother. I just read through all of it and holy crap I guess I didn't realize both how sick I was but also all the stuff they did that they really shouldn't have done. I'm just realizing also how much of it I just don't remember. Like I have bits and pieces. I guess I also forgot how they literally discharged me less than 2 weeks after having me on CO2 because I was losing my mind and had plan/intent. I'm just so confused and frustrated. Ugh. Anyone else gotten records and then realized everything that happened?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

one of my friends at ECA said it was shutting down,does anyone have any info?

https://portal.ct.gov/dcf/knowledge-base/articles/supports-for-children-and-families/out-of-home-care/solnit-south-campus?language=en_US

Hello! I'm a survivor of severe abuse, starvation, medical neglect, and a near-death experience at Newport Academy when i had just turned thirteen. I just got the best lawyer in the state who accepted my case and it's been looking extremely strong so far! for evidence reasons, does anybody have the binder from newport and if so, could you DM most or all of the pages you have to me? Thank you so much for helping me bring this hell hole of a place to the ground! 💪

I was previously at Indiana TC (Refuge) and left for various reasons, but mainly I didn't like what I was seeing and changes weren't happening. Is there anything I can to do to make a difference now? How can I help? I'm struggling with just leaving the girls but also couldn't stay and support the org, and certainly couldn't keep taking their money.

The Central Indiana Teen Challenge facility for girls is called The Refuge. But according to 35 former residents, it was a house of horrors.

The residents have filed a lawsuit against the residential facility, saying the home for troubled teens inflicted punishments that were “bizarre, random and cruel.” This reportedly included locking girls in a “safe room” where they were deprived of human contact; eating ‘repulsive food’ and controlling everything from when they slept, used a toilet and showered.

On this eye-opening podcast, two former residents and plaintiffs in the lawsuit tell their harrowing story to host Julie Roys. Joining them is their lawyer, who gives even more details of the alleged shocking treatment her 35 clients endured. She also explains the complete lack of regulation at these faith-based, residential centers.

Given that Teen Challenge operates more than 220 of these centers throughout the U.S., the information offered in this podcast is crucial for many thousands of people involved in this ministry and the churches supporting it.

i can't live in this household anymore im autistic and i get mistreated all the time here, get called names, get shouted at all the time bc of my diability and my depression and much i cant take it anymore would a psychward be better

Sununu Youth Services Center (previously, the notorious YDC - Youth Development Center)

I swear they just want attention....Let's give it to them!

Posted about 12 hours ago!

UHS-owned behavioral health facility faces child sexual abuse lawsuit  - Becker’s Behavioral Health

Seriously. SO MANY programs have been shut down recently! Hearing about Crimson Heights and PCS and Anasazi (I think?) is insane. I genuinely cannot keep up currently. Thank you to absolutely EVERYONE for all you do. I am delighted about all of this. And the only thing I miss is a force from the UK with an equally childish / funny “unique” sense of humor that doesn’t hate marmite, has perfect pitch, and thinks everything about pickles and Richard Scary books (the children’s author/illustrator) is funny. 🤠

OK. So can we do a run down? What has closed recently? What is looking to close? Has sanctions, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Assist 🥒♥️🤠 (too long of a story to explain right now for those who don’t know!)