Transcript of #296 Meg Appelgate - Why Parents Are Being Lied To About Teen “Treatment” New

Meg Applegate, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

I'm happy you're here. This is, uh, man, these are so heavy. Yeah, we've really been diving into the kids stuff. Actually, we've been diving into it for a couple years. Yeah, you know, it started with, uh, one of my best friends, Ryan Montgomery, and it's just spiraled into There's a lot of evil shit going on.

I know. I feel like evilness is just like follows the kids. And anywhere there's kids, you're going to find people who don't have the best of intentions and they just flock to them.

You know, it's— I finally have come to that conclusion and everybody always talks about it, you know, that they're going to be where the kids are, but it doesn't register. And then, you know, when I— when I interviewed Elizabeth Phillips, who connected us, that I don't know, for some reason that interview is what made it click. And I just realized, you know, hey, we like that whole thing was about Camp Cana Cook, you know, the biggest— supposedly the biggest Christian camp in the world. And I was just thinking about it. I was like, man, this is— I mean, it's great. We're— hopefully nobody ever goes there again. But they didn't get all the pedophiles. They don't have a record. They're normal people in society with jobs. And for whatever reason, that interview made me realize, like, holy shit, these people are everywhere. Nothing's going to show up on a background check. They appear to be normal, hardworking, caring people.

Yeah.

And they insert themselves wherever there's going to be kids, whether it's a PE coach, a cheerleading coach, a swim coach, a— yep, church camp, outdoors camp, Boy Scouts, girls, it doesn't matter. And I'm not saying the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts camps or whatever. I'm just saying wherever there's kids, there is a very, very high possibility there's going to be pedophiles.

Yeah. I mean, Institutions forever have hidden predators. You know, that's just whatever. That's happened. If you add kids, institutions that have, you know, are tailored to helping kids, it's even more. And then unfortunately, if you add religious religion into that institution, it makes it even more likely that they are using that as a cover-up. And we see that within the troubled teen industry too. A lot of times if, you know, if someone tells me I'm a survivor of insert program name, and that program is a religious program, almost always the abuse tends to be more severe. And it's also harder to hold them accountable because a lot of times they're 501(c)(3)s and nonprofits, and they're— they have exemptions from licensing, and, you know, they have more leniency from, uh, the behaviors and the practices that they're allowed to, to utilize in their programs.

Man.

Yeah.

Well, I wonder if I'm gonna get sued for this one. I keep getting all these damn cease and desists.

I saw that right, like, a couple days.

Which one?

I know, look, I saw the Cana Cook camps and you came on like a day after, 2 days after it aired, and you were like, yeah, I just got this from them.

And I got another one.

Did you really?

Got another one from them. I haven't even responded to it yet. I actually— I didn't even read it. I just sent it right to the attorney. I'm like— now it's like the running joke here. Now when a FedEx envelope shows up, we're all taking bets on whether it's a lawsuit or not. It's always a lawsuit, you know.

To be honest, like, I was, I was nervous coming on the show, but then I saw your response to that lawsuit and I immediately was like, I feel okay now. All right, I feel safe, right? Because it, it takes someone strong to stand up to these people. Like, they can be scary. They can throw some heavy words and documents your way and try to scare you. Um, And I can't tell you how often this happens. They victim blame and try to silence survivors, silence people who give the survivors a platform. It's— it's sick.

It's crazy.

I know.

It's like, not just from— even if you take the morals out of it, you know, the morals and how fucked up it is, it's— it's like, dude, this isn't a good look for you.

No, that's what I don't understand.

Like, from a PR standpoint, you're coming after people who are trying to protect kids, right? And you're protecting pedophiles, right? Like, how do you think this is going to— if you take everything I have and you sue the shit out of me and I'm all done, you're still protecting pedophiles. It's a bad look.

I know it really is. But it really is. It's— no, it's— it's bad. Even I see it happen to survivors, too, where they'll talk about their story and all of a sudden they'll have a cease and desist. And it's just like, it's their experiences.

It's insane.

Like, it looks so horrible. Just say nothing. I mean, you look really bad by trying to do this to a survivor.

Well, you know, I couldn't. I got to give my attorney Tim Parlatori credit. I couldn't do it without him. He's a fucking bulldog. I love that. He's— he's like my— one of my guardian angels. It's just when I'm doing the right thing, he's always there to back me up and go after these fuckers with me.

That's good.

Yeah.

You need a bulldog when you're going against these people.

I know. He enjoys it.

Deeply connected.

Every time I send him one, he's like, oh, this is going to be fun.

I love it.

So thank you, Tim. But, well, Meg, let me give you an introduction here. Meg Applegate, founder and CEO of Unsilenced, a nonprofit launched in January 2022 to serve past, present, and future victims of institutional child abuse. A survivor of the troubled teen industry, abducted from your bed at age 15 and held in abusive facilities for 3 and a half years. Author of the 2024 memoir Becoming Unsilenced: Surviving and Fighting the Troubled Teen Industry. A leading advocate who testified as an expert in the Montana State Senate in 2023, helping pass HB 218 to increase oversight and regulations over TTI programs. What are TTI programs?

Troubled Teen Industry.

Troubled Teen Industry. You accompanied Paris Hilton and her team to Washington, D.C. in 2022 to push lawmakers for federal regulation of these unregulated facilities. Wife to Ben and mother of 4 children. And like I said, Elizabeth Phyllis made the introduction here. So thank you, Elizabeth. She's—

yes, she's amazing.

Another amazing human being. Yes, she is crushing these people. And I look— she's getting all the same letters I'm getting for that.

Is she really?

Yeah. So it's good.

She's probably used to it after the— I know. She's— it's good to be in battle. Another letter from them. Yeah, yeah, right.

But, but, um, well, before we get into the heavy stuff, everybody gets a gift here. So, ooh, Vigilance League gummy bears!

Oh, yum!

You're going to love them.

What— are these from here? What are they?

They're from Michigan. They're made in the USA.

No way!

It's just candy. All the bad shit— sugar, red dye— but they fucking taste amazing.

So that's what you're saying.

That's, that's what I'm saying.

My kids will fight over these. Right on.

Thank you so much. Give you 3 more bags so they're not fighting.

Thank you so much. All right, I am going to— I've got a 3-parter. First of all, my book, and it's signed, obviously.

Perfect. Thank you. Of course.

And then I wanted to bring a little bit of where I am and then where I've come from, right? So I'm in Orange County, California. California is known for See's Candy, and so I had to bring some See's Candy Food. Yeah, no, it is so good.

Should I open this?

If you want to, if you would like some deliciousness, you can go ahead. It's amazing.

Let's do it on the break.

Right. Oh yeah, yeah. And then this is, I was doing some research and I noticed you were born and I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. I was adopted, so I only lived there for 10 days. But we have a family farm that's been in our generation for, in our family for like 2 generations. My grandpa and my grandma, basically had my mom and two uncles on the farm all the time, and one of their favorite things to do was to go look for arrowheads. And they would go on the farm and go through the freshly tilled, um, dirt and find thousands and thousands, right? And so, uh, one of the things about the TTI, or the troubled teen industry, that most people don't know is they started back in the 1800s as Native American boarding schools where they would steal kids from their families, try to assimilate them into American culture, and strip them of their culture completely. And that's really where the behavior modification, taking kids from their families, putting them in a different place in an institution started from. So it's kind of an enmeshment of where I come from and kind of giving you know, honor to the troubled teen industry as well.

So this is one of the arrowheads that were— that was found. It could be 1,000, 2,000 years old, and it was probably found in the 1940s, late 1940s, early 1950s. And it's a legit, legit arrowhead.

Very cool.

Yeah.

And this is from Missouri.

This is from Stover, Missouri, which is only about an hour and a half away from where you grew up.

Right on, man. Thank you. What else do you know about me?

That's pretty much it. Only what Wikipedia was able to give me.

Oh, God. Wikipedia, right? Thank you.

Of course.

That's awesome.

Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure. So one more thing to crank out here. I have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account, and they're the reason that I get to sit here with you today. So they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. And this is from actually a previous guest. Dr. Dan Schneider, what is the single most important change, legal or cultural, that would actually prevent teenagers from experience— from experiencing what you went through in the troubled teen industry?

Hmm. A re-understanding of adolescence and a moving away from pathologizing adolescent behaviors from being bad into a place of understanding and figuring out how parents can get the support they need to be able to help that child versus looking at it, looking, looking at teenage behaviors as something we need to fix, right? I think that a lot of the things that end these kids up in facilities in the first place is not understanding that if a kid is drinking, doing drugs, skipping school, getting expelled, those kinds of things, it's not just the behavior. What is the behavior covering up? Did they have some kind of childhood trauma? Um, and trying to figure out where it's coming from, but also re-understanding that those kinds of things are so normal. That is a very normal thing to, to, to do in adolescence. And the research shows that actually doing nothing and letting that phase out— most kids stop smoking pot by the time they get into the workforce because it just makes sense. If you want to make money, you got to have a job, and if you want to have a job, you got to stop doing that stuff.

So really reunderstanding which adolescent behaviors are truly problematic, which ones truly need an inpatient stay, and which can be treated in community-based settings, and how parents can get help behind the scenes to learn how to parent in a different way for that child that may have a different set of needs.

Right on. I think this question is going to be answered throughout the entire interview too, so I will expand on that. But thank you. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, so you were adopted.

It was—

that is something I've been— my wife, I've been covering all this, like I said, I've been covering all this kids stuff, this horrible shit that's happened to kids. And my wife told me the other day, she's like, if you really want to get into the nasty shit, go into the adoption industry and the foster care plan for sure. And we have a— we have a neighbor that's a substitute teacher, and she talks about some of the kids that get bussed into this public school here. They're in that system— no showers, no clean clothes, ripped up clothes, they smell. I mean, you can just tell they're not being taken care of. It's fucking sad.

And are they in group homes or foster care?

I don't know. I don't know yet, but, um, I'm almost scared to do it because I think that's going to be the worst one, but get used to more letters. I have to do it. Yeah, I'm sure I'll get— I'm sure one of these days I'm gonna frame all the losses. Yeah, return to sender. But, um, yeah, man. So, so if anybody listening knows someone to talk to about that, I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah, I know quite a quite a few people in the adoption world. It's kind of a parallel industry as well. Um, you know, it's definitely for-profit, just like the troubled teen industry. Lot— well, too few regulations as well. Um, and then there's a whole subset of people that believe that, you know, um, we just— we're giving a child and we're giving it to a different family. Well, what about the future child's feelings about that? You know, open, closed adoptions. Like, in Missouri, I don't know if you know this, it's extremely strict. So in Missouri, there is no such thing, as far as my understanding, of an open adoption. There are—

what's an open adoption?

Open adoption is when you decide to adopt a baby, um, but you're keeping the relationship open. And what that looks like can be different. So it could be like yearly visits, or I will send you pictures of the child as they grow once a year. You'll get like a yearly picture.

Oh, to the biological—

to the biological child, to the family, right? So the child can have some contact. Sometimes open adoptions are like you know, you have a full relationship with your biological parent, right? In Missouri, it's not allowed. And I grew up deciding, oh, when I'm 18, because you're an adult, I'm gonna go meet my family. Lo and behold, in Missouri, you have to be 21. You have to be 21 to find your family, and you can't just go and find it. Everything is completely locked up. So I had to petition— hire an attorney, petition the courts to open the documents, and then before they open any documents to give me names, they have to contact my birth family and ask them, do you want me to open up and tell her anything? They had to say yes, and then we couldn't even have information. We had to talk through the courts for 3 months, and then once they unsealed it, then we could have contact directly. It's very strict.

So you did it?

I did it.

How was that?

It was crazy, you know, because you— I grew up in a family where it's— they're amazing, but I don't look like them, you know. No one's ever looked like me, and it's, you know, you grow up wondering what it's like. Like, do I have personality traits of anyone, you know? And I— the crazy thing is I found out I had a full sister. So they literally gave me up for adoption and then 18 months later had my sister. Same mom, same dad. They were not married, they just had another baby. So I have a full-blooded sister, and I only found out about her when I was 21.

Have you met her yet?

Yeah.

Yep. Where, where is she?

In Blue Springs, Missouri. My whole family is in Missouri.

With, with your biological parents?

Yep.

What's that like? I mean, 21. So you go 20. When did you find out you were adopted?

Oh, I remember being 2 and knowing I was adopted. My parents were very open about it, so I don't even remember a talk. I just knew I was always adopted, so I don't even remember. But I always knew I wanted to find them and know them. And I just had to prepare myself. Like, I didn't know anything about them at all— names, nothing. So they could have been drug addicts. Like, they, they could have been dead. So I had to really prepare myself before I got the information. Am I ready for what I'm going to find out?

Like, how, how, how curious are you as a child?

Very.

I mean, do you think about it all the time?

Um, mostly when I was, like, mad at my parents. Like, I get punished for something or I'm grounded. I'm like, well, my real mom wouldn't do that. I'm sure you know, or I'm gonna go live with my real mom one day. Um, it was more of like an escape, I wonder, and stuff. I wouldn't say I thought about it a lot. I never felt like I fit into my family. Um, my— and that's not their fault, it was more me projecting it onto myself. I just didn't feel like I fit in. They're very high achieving, and, you know, my brother never had any issues as a teen, and, you know, I, I was the one that struggled with everything socially, school. Everything else was easy for my brother and for my family.

Is he biological?

Yeah, so he's biological to my parents. Yeah.

How is, how is a relationship with a sibling who's biological and I once adopted?

I didn't really— it was like a normal one, I believe. Like, I feel like there was no resentment or anything of him being not adopted or whatnot. He was 6 years older though, so The only thing was the age gap, kind of. He was in college and I was like 10 or whatever, so it's like 11. So I was— felt like an only child for some part of it. But we're, you know, we're close. Um, he's— he was just more annoyed because I was such a big difference in years. I was this annoying young sister, you know. Right on. But it had nothing to do with like being biological or not. I was just really annoying.

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So what, what was— I mean, what was it like meeting, meeting your parents after 21 years?

It's— it was, you know, you learn in psychology nature versus nurture, right? And it's like the perfect experience— experiment for that. That's what it felt like. I knew nothing about my family at all. I just knew names at that point and email addresses. And I'm sitting there and I've, you know, I went to college, I lived in Europe, and I had these crazy cool experiences, and I was fortunate enough to have, and they lived much differently. And, you know, um, it was interesting to sit there, and despite all of our different experiences and how we grew up, my sister had an itchy nose. She went to itch her nose, and she went like this to itch her nose, and I do the exact same thing. So it's just like crazy weird stuff like that, that, that was obviously in our genes somehow, of how we itch your nose like this. And it's like, who does that? And I looked at her, I was like, that's so weird. It's so weird. And even like little looks, she'll, you know, be looking and telling a story, and I'll be like, oh, I look like that. I look like that sometimes.

I've seen that on a picture, you know? And it's— it was a cool sense of like belonging, but then also it gave me a sense of what I would, would have been like and what I would have expected my life would have been very similar to my sister's. So it gave me a look of what would have been if I hadn't been adopted, and what, you know, I obviously know what it's like to be adopted, and to kind of compare that. And it was just really, really interesting, man.

I'll bet. Was it emotional?

Yeah. I mean, second to like getting married, it's up there on the experiences of like nerves walking in, you know, like Oh my gosh, what were you expecting?

Honestly, what did you— what, like, what, what was your— what were you— what did you paint?

I didn't have any. I don't think— I, I think that that's what was scary, is I, I had taught myself to not have any expectations because they— I could have been really disappointed. I had fears, um, but really no expectations.

What were the fears?

I had fears that maybe they would, like, latch on to me and maybe try to— like, I'm trying to think, if I lost a child and then finally got to meet them, like, I would be globbed onto them because they're my child. But to them, like, you're not their parent, you know? So I was worried about them not being respectful of the relationship being in my court, and I needed it to be in my court, and I decide what this relationship looks like because I'm the one having to deal with two sets of parents. Um, And thankfully they were so great about that. Like, has it has never been an issue. They've never stepped on any boundaries. They know my mom and dad are my mom and dad. And so thank God that that didn't happen. But I think that was one of my fears, man. Or like getting taken advantage of, like, you know, are they going to want money or those kinds of things? I think I worried about. Thankfully it hasn't been an issue.

Do you still keep in touch?

Yeah. Yep.

Did the relationship develop fast?

Yeah, I'd say it developed fast and then it kind of evened out, like you're trying to make up for like lost time and then it kind of evened out.

Right on, right on. Did you ask them why they put you up for adoption?

Yeah. So my birth father actually didn't fully recognize that I was his at the time. Um, and so when the courts were like deciding if we should talk or not, he was like, oh, I want a paternity test. And then we did the picture exchange. And so he saw a picture of me, he's like, oh no, she's mine. He wasn't worried because I look so much like my sister and he knew the sister was his. But my mom would have been taking care of me and I had an older half-sister who was already living with my grandma because things were really tight. And so she was just not in a position to have another kid and she just knew that that she wanted something better for me. So it was one of those true, like, you know, I'm doing this for my kids. Yeah, it's out of love. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was probably one of the hardest decisions she's ever made, and she's talked about that. Yeah, man, I can't imagine.

I mean, me neither. I have a friend, uh, I don't want to mention her name, but she's been through hell and back. She's a veteran, and, uh, she, she put her daughter up for adoption and She sent me like— she stalks her on Facebook. It's so fucking sad. Oh, it's so— just rips her heart out every time.

But such a selfless thing, man.

I couldn't imagine. I could not imagine. So you got adopted how early?

Uh, so it was set before birth, so my parents helped with the prenatal care and all of that stuff. Uh, she gave birth and I had to stay in the hospital for like 10 days, and it was over like Labor Day weekend too, so it was a little longer So I stayed alone in the hospital for like 10 days before my parents could come and take me back. And they lived in Wisconsin at the time, so they picked me up in Kansas City, 10 days old, went to live in Wisconsin.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow. So what was childhood like?

Just really standard for that generation, honestly. Like playing outside, lots of love. Just really happy. I had a really happy childhood. I was a very opinionated little girl. Nothing's changed. I was— I've always been a fighter. But yeah, no, I think that I was a very active kid, really into sports before it was cool for girls to be into sports. So I was very much a tomboy. And my mom loves to tell the story of you know, I was really into soccer and we were living in Phoenix, Arizona at the time, and girls don't play soccer back in '92. So, uh, I had short hair, like a boy cut, and the team— and no one knew I was a girl until they were like, okay, let's play some shirts and skins. And I was like, no, no, I'm not taking off my shirt. And they're like, why? And they're like, she's a girl. And so, yeah, I liked sports a lot, but I was definitely a tomboy for a good time. Yeah. Yeah. But really just normal childhood. Definitely had that experience of like playing outside till the streetlights come on, come home, have dinner, lots of outside time.

So were you a hellion?

What's a hellion?

You get in a lot of trouble?

No, not as a— not as a little kid. Not as a little kid.

So the way— okay. As a teenager.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a different story.

What were you— what were you getting into as a teenager?

Well, I say trouble. Honestly, I'm just going back to what I was saying. It's just normal teenage behavior. Right when I hit puberty, probably starting around 13, I started getting interested. This is right around the time of AOL, remember, with American Online?

Oh man, we're about the same age.

Yeah, probably. And once you get AOL in the chat rooms and AIM, like, stop.

ICQ, you remember that one?

No, I don't remember ICQ.

That was the shit back in the day.

Yeah, and LimeWire. And downloading out. Yep. Mhm.

Right after naps.

So, you know, honestly, I struggled socially, right? And at that point, I was— I'm autistic, and I wasn't— I was not diagnosed back then. All I knew—

you're autistic?

I am, yeah. So back then, girls weren't autistic, you know. Autistic was really— it was a stereotype of what you'd see in a level 3, you know, autism kid right today. But back then, you know, girls are already like way higher masking. And, um, so it just got missed. And so I struggled socially with making— I would make friends, but then I'd want to keep being their friend in a very like intense way, and they'd like back up, and I wouldn't know why. Like, why are you backing up? I don't— so the social situations, you get super attached. Yeah, like, you're my best friend, why are you playing with someone else? What? You know, it didn't make sense, right? And so I had friends, but it was just easier to meet people online. I think that was the start of when my parents were like, uh-oh, you know? And granted, they didn't know anything about online back then, and it was a scary new place. I definitely met people from AOL, and I probably shouldn't have, you know?

So you were meeting strangers on AOL?

Yes. Yeah, I was.

What kind of strangers?

Thankfully, they were all my age and actually ended up being my age, but it could have been a potential really bad situation. Yeah. And so they had a right to be worried about that stuff. And that's kind of how it started, just trying to find my place, right? I didn't feel like I fit in in my family because I struggle and no one else does. And then socially at school, no one, you know, I, I can't like make friends as easy. And why is that? I found a place in online and I was able to like feel like I had a social life, you know. So that's how it started. And Then, you know, I had issues with school because I had ADHD as well. And so we kind of moved school, school, school, school, school, private school, private school, private school. So there was that issue. And then I went to high school and I decided then we're going to go to a public high school, which I had been in private for a long time. And I went to Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, California. And within the first couple of months, I was starting to smoke pot.

Out. And I found myself in like the counterculture, you know, the kids that would skip out on second period and go smoke pot in the alleys and stuff like that. But I felt like I fit in, like I felt like I had friends finally, and they weren't judgmental. And I wasn't— I was really, really bullied for a lot of years, so there was a lot of trauma with that too. So I found people that weren't bullying me, and they just so happened to make different decisions than my parents were okay with.

And Do you think you— do you think you craved being accepted because of adoption?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the— I had so little internal validation for myself, I just kind of sought it everywhere, right? And I just wanted to feel like I belonged no matter what. And that abandonment wound, I mean, I can't— I, I can't underestimate how severely prevalent that is as an adopted kid.

I can't imagine.

Even if you're not aware of it, it's there.

That's what that— yeah, that's what I was— I'm just curious of it. If you— have you adopted kids?

No, I had all mine. And that's another thing. That's probably the reason why I had 4 kids. And, you know, I'm like, didn't have anyone that looks like me. Well, I got 4 that look a lot like me.

So right on. Right on. I mean, what I'm asking is, do you think it would have been better if you did not know you were adopted growing up?

No, I think that would have affected my relationship with my parents. Um, I am an extremely honest person and I'm big into transparency, and if I would have found out that they were withholding that information, I don't know if I ever would have forgiven them. Wow. Because all that work that I would have done as a kid and having to— yeah, it was painful to go through abandonment and stuff like that, But imagine thinking that wasn't an issue, and in your 20s you have to go through it. Like, I would much rather get that out of the way when I'm forming my identity and my character and who I want to be in the world and my profession. Like, I'm glad that was out of the way. I think that would have wreaked havoc on my emotional stability.

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. So how did the Troubled Teen— Troubled Teen Institute—

Troubled Teen Industry, or TTI as we call it for short, Yeah, so, you know, we've got the behavior of sneaking out, you know. I think I drank a couple times and I smoked pot. I started having sex, and that was something my, my parents were obviously not okay with. They were— you remember modems and having to get internet and you have to have the modem? Well, they would lock the modem in a cabinet because I'd be on AOL at like 11 o'clock at night. But I have the, you know, these skinny little wrists, and so they had chain bolts on the cabinet, and I just, just reach around.

Holy shit.

Plug in the wire in the back and then, and reach it out and then lock it back up. And my, you know, so I was doing all this stuff. I had snuck out of the house a couple times, never overnight, never running away, but just like go smoke pot on the golf course, you know. And there was one incident in particular that really, I feel like, led to me getting sent away. They could have already known I was going to be sent away at this point, I'm not sure, but there was— so I was Newport Harbor High School. I had a really good friend, and we decided to skip out on the rest of the day at school, and we decided to walk around Costa Mesa, Newport Beach. And we had this guy that was sitting outside of a 7-Eleven buy us some beer in exchange for bagels. Um, he— I think he might have been like homeless.

Um, what a great trade.

Yeah. Uh, yes, I know, right? Um, his name was Len. And I say that because I'm calling him out. Uh, his name was Len. He ended up kind of following us around, and he, uh— so we only bought a six-pack, and granted, yeah, we're like 115-pound little girls, but having 3 beers shouldn't have equaled the amount of inebriation that I got. Um, and we were in an alley before I completely blacked out, and I remember him showing me a knife. And it wasn't like a, I'm gonna hurt you with this. It's more like an underhanded threat, kind of like, look what I have. I want you to know that I have this, kind of showing it off. Um, and it stuck in my head as, I now know he has a knife and I'm scared, right? But then I completely blacked out, and when I came to, I was laying on the floor or the grass at a nearby park. And my pants were around my ankles. And I came to and I saw my, my really good friend Stacy kind of slumped over his lap. He's sitting down and she's kind of like this, completely passed out.

And I started saying her name, you know, get up, get up, get up. And then all of a sudden a policeman starts walking. He had to have seen something completely inappropriate, but Uh, you know, I pulled up my pants. Stacy was able to, you know, come to, and the policeman, he ran off. The, the Len ran off, and the policeman decided to go to us and figure out why we're not in school versus running after the 33-year-old man who was just in a park in the middle of the day with two young girls, you know. Um, so then we, you know, he, he talked to us about where we lived, why we're in school. I thought it was so smart when he asked for my address. I just gave the wrong zip code thinking that he wasn't going to be able to get a hold of my mom. Uh, he did. And, um, on the way back on our walk home to school, Stacy and I talked about what happened, and we were really scared of getting in trouble. And we decided, because we wanted to tell someone what had happened physically, but we were scared because we had drank.

And so at that point, we're like, we made a pact. We're like, okay, we're not going to say anything about anything, but if we get in trouble, let's just tell them that he made us drink, right? Let's just say that he took us, like, he made us at the payphone, he, he showed us the knife, we know he has a knife, let's just say that he made us with the knife drink so we don't get in trouble for drinking. Because that was the big thing in our head is we're gonna get in so much trouble for this. We felt that— we felt we were gonna get in trouble for everything, even being sexually assaulted. Like, I thought I was gonna get in trouble for that. And lo and behold, I, you know, get picked up from my mom that day, and she said, where were you? And I just started crying, and I told her the truth. I told her what happened in the park. Um, and next day, the FBI is at the school, and they're taking our statements. A couple days later, I'm giving them my clothes to do forensics. Um, and a couple days after that, we're in like one of those places you see on TV, you know, like SVU almost, where it's like the two-way mirror and you're with a psychologist.

And, you know, she's asking me, with the bear, show me what he did with the two bears. And I have to like act out this whole thing in this like trauma-informed center for like interviewing kids. And holy shit, yeah, everything— I wasn't allowed to talk to Stacy at all because they didn't want like to cross the stories and stuff. And one day I went to school and the principal called me on the speakers and told me to come into the office. And on the way into the office, I saw Stacy crossing and she mouthed to me, I'm sorry. And I was like, oh no. And so she had told the truth about Len not making us leave, right? And, um, then they didn't believe us. The FBI didn't believe us. Anymore, um, even though there was forensic evidence. But, um, there was like— yeah, yeah, they had forensic evidence on my clothes and his. Um, hers, I, I don't know how far it went. For me, it was just molestation, but there was forensic proof of it. But back then, like, this is 2000, right? Back then, it's almost like it was the kid's fault because I was wearing a short shirt, you know?

It was, it was like I somehow did this to myself and it wasn't a true predator, which he is a predator, you know. So there is that feeling of, um, well, I lied about how I got off campus, so I'm— I don't get— like, now I'm a liar. And, uh, they went so far as to tell my parents I wasn't abused and that I made it up. And my parents didn't know I was abused, um, until about a year and a half ago when I decided to talk about it. And they said, wait, that actually happened? I'm like, yeah, it happened. Um, so they dropped all charges. They searched for Len. He— they found him living in a hotel a couple blocks away from where he met us. He was not arrested. He was not charged. Um, and because of the zero tolerance policy that California had in the schools, Stacy and I were expelled because we drank alcohol during school hours. We were not on school campus, but because we consumed alcohol during school hours. We were expelled. And so then I didn't have anywhere to go to school. And that is when I think things shifted for my parents.

You know, granted, at that point they thought I— what, I had lied about being abused too, right? They didn't know the truth. Um, and about, I think it was probably 3 weeks later, I was woken up in the middle of the night by 2 strangers, about 1 or 2 AM in the morning, and they said, you're coming with me. And I said, no, I'm not. And they said, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. And the hard way involves handcuffs. And that's kind of the beginning of the end for me.

So you had— your parents didn't tell you anything?

No, they were advised not to by the, by the program that I was going to be sent to. They advised that I know nothing because I had a propensity to run away. They advised doing it in the middle of the night. It was two off-duty police officers, male and a female, and they advised that just do it in the middle of the night and with force.

Holy shit.

Yeah. So 2 AM, I said, well, can I go to the bathroom? And they said, well, we have to watch you. And I was like, okay, can I—

How do you know you're not being kid— Hold on, wait, they've watched you?

Yeah, they watched me go to the bathroom. Um, and I said, well, can I get dressed? And they're like, we have to watch you too. So I changed in front of them. Um, at this point, you know, I didn't know what was going on. First, when they first woke me up, I thought I was being arrested because I'm like, I smoked pot the night before, so I'm like, oh no, gonna be arrested. Uh, but when I saw my parents at the door watching it and crying, I knew that I wasn't being arrested and I wasn't being kidnapped because why would they watch me being kidnapped, you know? But I was, I was being kidnapped. It was just, uh, they condoned it. But, uh, and then the last thing I remember is I said, can I at least pack a bag? And I forget if it was the guy or the girl, they said, your parents already did. And I snapped as soon as the parents already did, that they had not only known about this but they had my bag packed already to leave. And I just started screaming at them. And I remember my mom crying, saying, we're not abandoning you, we're not abandoning you.

And I'm, and I'm like, yeah, you are, you actually are, and I hate you and I'm never fucking talking to you ever again. And they took me by the arms, uh, took me out to a black SUV, threw me in the back, drove me to LAX. I wasn't allowed to know where I was going. This is back before, you know, you had like actual tickets that you had to have in the airport, you know. Wasn't allowed to see the ticket. They they faced me away from the gate so that I couldn't know what gate I was going to. And I remember vividly not knowing where I was going until I was on the plane and the captain came on and said, you're on a flight to Boise, Idaho. And that's when they gave me two letters, one for my mom, one for my dad. And I remember just disassociating so hardcore, I don't even remember what the letters said. And I don't remember the flight, probably the layover. I don't even know. I just remember arriving at Intermountain Hospital in Boise, Idaho. And my life was changed forever.

Holy shit. So when do you figure out— wow. Yeah. When do you figure out what this is all about?

You know, it was kind of a slow process because I, I didn't understand. Like, the only thing I'd seen on TV is really like kids being kidnapped. So, you know, I thought I was being kidnapped, but like, here I'm like this, what looks like a hospital, you know, and I just remember walking in to, you know, these big magnetic lock, like very heavy, like en with the noise of opening and then tchew. And it opened and it closed behind me. And I just remember thinking, like, things are never going to be the same. And it's truly like when my childhood ended is when I was 15, like when those doors closed at Intermountain Hospital. I knew the second I walked in there without knowing that I wouldn't be leaving, like I'm not free to leave. Like, this place was locked down. And I, you know, they immediately took my shoes, took all my clothes, and had to search through everything to make sure I don't have any contraband, or God forbid pencils, right? I wasn't allowed to have pencils because you can self-harm with pencils. And no conditioner or shampoo because it has small amounts of alcohol.

So they have to search like literally everything you own. And it was in the middle of winter. And they took my shoes because they had to check the shoes, but it was over Super Bowl weekend, so I didn't have shoes in the middle of winter for like 4 days. And it was just a complete tornado. Like, it just felt like everything you know for 15 years is just completely different. And all of a sudden, the people that usually protect you are not, and you're with strangers. You're not allowed to contact your parents. You have no use of a phone. You You can't even have pencils. And I remember having to write a letter home and I couldn't because I didn't have pencils. So I wrote it in crayon and because that's the only thing I was allowed. And I remember writing, I'm so sorry for being a bad daughter. Please take me home. Please. This is not the place for me. And all the other kids in this program were just very troubled, like dealing with very big issues, you know?

Before, before we move on. So what, what are these? What are these things? If I wanted to find one, what am I looking at?

Residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness therapy programs, boot camps, group homes.

It's all for kids that are getting in trouble.

Yeah, for either kids that get in trouble. Group homes are more for, you know, foster care, child welfare kids being able to have a place for them. Right. Like group homes, but, uh, they're using behavior modification and, uh, they're a residential setting and oversight is non-existent. And so, you know, these kinds of, these kinds of practices are happening in these facilities at large, at a large scale, very large scale.

Military boarding schools, would that fall?

So that's, so it's a little bit of a gray area. Um, you know, military boarding schools, if there is a therapeutic component, which I don't know of any military boarding schools that have like therapy, like you have a therapist and it's a part of a treatment plan. So that's really the difference. So we wouldn't even consider those to be— it's an institution that could potentially harm and abuse kids still, but is it a troubled teen industry program? We would probably say no because there is no aspect of therapy involved in the program. There's definitely behavior modification though, and that is gonna have long-term effects in that kind of way. So shit. Yeah.

How long do kids usually go to these for?

Depends on the type of program. So wilderness programs are shorter term, but they're a very big pipeline into the longer term, like therapeutic boarding schools and stuff like that. So wilderness therapy can be anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks out in the, out in the wilderness. But like I said, it's very, very rare for me to hear of a survivor going to a wilderness program and then going home. Like, it's almost always going to be recommended after that time that they need secondary care and that they get sent to and then a list of referrals that they probably get kickbacks on, on these therapeutic boarding schools. So it's definitely a pipeline into it, even though it's not long-term.

So nobody really gets out?

No. I mean, if you go into the troubled teen industry at 15, um, it's— there's a chance you'll be there until 18. And just the way that these things work, I was going in at 15, I stayed till 18 and a half. They got me to stay half a year.

You understand?

They talked me into staying. Yeah.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

You had no idea? Nobody had— nobody told— no, you had no idea there was going to be 3 and a half years?

No. I— in Boise, Idaho, I was only there for 6 months, and I thought until probably a month before I left I was going to be going home. And I didn't find out I was going to be going to my next place until like, like I said, like about a month. And I was so upset. And that was a therapeutic boarding school. And I knew that was— I knew at that point I'm probably going to be there till 18.

Holy shit. So what, what happens when you get— what's daily life like?

Kind of depends what the program is. But for me, I was— I'm not even sure Intermountain, like, what their licensing status is, if it's psychiatric or if it's residential treatment center. I'm not sure. But really, I think about it in terms of their job was to strip away all my autonomy. They thought that Meg has an issue with control. Let's make sure Meg knows that she doesn't control anything in her life. Let's take away all of her ability to make decisions and make it up to chance. So one thing, a couple of things they did with me to make that happen is something called random draw. And desk space. Random draw meant that any of the activities you do as a group, like going outside for PE or going to the cafeteria or going to therapy or OT or any of the things you program during the day, I had a bag that had 10 pieces of paper in it and there were 9 nos and 1 yes. Anytime I was able to be with my peers in any way, shape, or form, I had to pick from that bag And if it said no, I couldn't go.

But if I got the one yes, I got to be with my peers and go to therapy and do all the stuff with them. If I got a no, I was stuck at my desk and that was desk space. So for all day. And I had to be writing essays on all the thinking errors and that I have in my life and, and all these other crazy things. So it was about making sure I had no choices and no say over what happens to me. That's, that's what they wanted to teach me. At Intermountain Hospital, and it worked.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

Do they tell you what they're working on, or— I mean, it's just—

yeah, no, I mean, it's more like, oh, here's your treatment plan, and you're like, what's this?

So it's prison?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, straight up. There's a— we call it the QR. It's, it's the quiet room. It's a padded fucking room with a door that locks from the outside and a bulletproof glass that's this big. And then there's a bed in the middle with straps. You misbehave, they take you down in a restraint, they pull down your pants, they stick a needle in your ass and shoot you up and make you completely pass out, carry you into the room, strap you down until you— until you wake up. Like they did this. I saw this daily.

Strip you down naked.

Strap you down like to the bed. Strap you down to make sure that you're not going to go anywhere. It's a padded room.

What the fuck?

Oh yeah.

What were you doing when you got the injection?

I see. I've tried to get injected once. I thought I was like, this sounds like fun. I'm going to try to do this because it was so boring every day. So I actually tried once and I was like, I'm so angry. And I like grabbed it something and like threw it across the room and they're like, knock it off. And I was like, oh, okay. Because I wasn't one of the aggressive ones, but there were kids that had anger issues. And would create a safety issue on the unit. And then you would hear a code be called over the speakers, and then you would— I always remember this— the chains of people running and their keys, the noise of them running with their keys. And, um, most of the guys from the other units would come to assist with the restraints, and they would put the kid on the face down on the floor. One of the big guys had a knee in the in the middle of the kids' shoulder blades, then a staff on each arm, a staff on each leg. And if they didn't calm down, you know, the nurse would just come over, pull their pants down and give them what we called booty juice.

Damn.

Yeah. Damn. And I never had it done, but I saw it a lot. And even just see— I mean, I can't imagine the trauma of having it done, but even just seeing it, knowing that that's happening to kids in the world, like I'm just watching it. It's a normal everyday occurrence. Which is super fucked up.

What are you living in?

Uh, it's like a unit. It's like a one hallway, and then there's another hallway over here, and that's like— there's two different main units. Um, and then there's lots of magnetic lock doors, and it's usually two people to a room. You have a roommate, and then there's a sensor in the middle of the room so that in the middle of the night, if that sensor goes off, it's like they'll come running in because to make sure that no one hurts each other in the middle of the night. Like, it's— alarm goes off if you cross to go to the bathroom. It's wild. You're not allowed to have any toiletries, any makeup in your room. It was super, super traumatic. And oh, on top of that, they just diagnose everyone with bipolar disorder. And it took like 2 days and they're like, oh yeah, here's some antipsychotics.

And you got diagnosed in 2 days?

Yeah.

Bipolar and medicated.

Like heavily medicated.

With what?

Seroquel, Trileptal. I was on like 1600 milligrams of Trileptal and like a— holy shit, I was on a lot of drugs. I came in there at, you know, 125-pound 15-year-old. I gained 60 pounds. In 6 months from the drugs. From the drugs.

Holy shit.

Yeah, I remember it was like a race against time from— you got to get your meds from the med station, right? You got to check the cheeks and everything. It was always a race against time at the end of the night when they gave me the meds, or in the, you know, in the middle of the day because they gave me stuff that made me really sleepy then too. But I had to take the meds and get to my room before I passed out. And so I remember every night, my hand dragging on a very textured wall as I tried to go to make it to my room. And I'd start kind of getting loopy and like not be able to make it because of how strong these medications are. It was, it was really bad. Even my journal entries, I've got journal entries of me being like, it's the middle of the day and I'll say, uh-oh, the meds are kicking in. And you'll see my handwriting change and then it just goes off the page. And it's, it's just so sad. They're just medicating all of us because it's easier, easier to maintain a bunch of kids that are wild if you just dope them up.

Holy shit. How many kids are in there?

Oh, there was quite a few. Uh, probably on like one unit there would be like maybe 30 or 40. And so there's a couple units, so I'm guessing around them a couple hundred, maybe. It's probably maybe like 60 total out of the two different adolescent units. That's my guess.

Jeez. And this is an outdoor—

indoor only. You only go outdoors for about 30 minutes like a day. So there's like a high, like, huge fence around this place. Like, you're not getting out.

So it's legitimately a prison.

Yeah, it is. I mean, if actually, if you look at juvenile justice facilities, you have more rights there than you did at this facility. Like, you have a right to phone calls at a juvenile facility. You can go and make phone calls. Can't there.

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When do you talk to your parents for the first time?

I don't— I, I was so traumatized and so doped up there. I think it might have been like a week or two, um, but I never ever ever ever spoke to them in the 6 months without a therapist on the phone listening, like the entire time. So I don't even remember any family therapy, to be honest. I don't remember therapy, period. I knew I had a therapist because I remember what they looked like, but I don't remember actual therapy or working on anything, or family therapy at all. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. I just don't— I was so disassociated that entire time to just survive. I remember learned helplessness, just feeling like whatever I did wasn't going to change anything. And that's what they wanted. I mean, that's the whole reason why I was on text-based and random draw, right, is to teach me that I, I'm not in control of my life and I need to just give in and let people make the decisions for me. And so it's this feeling of nothing I do is going to get me out of this, and so I just have to kind of like ride the wave.

But when you're riding the wave, it's not even a rideable wave. Everything you do equals a consequence. Every— they set you up to fail. And so, you know, they have a level system. Almost all these places have like level systems or phases, and it's a very important part of behavior modification.

And what do you mean a level system?

So like if you're on level 0, you don't get these privileges, and then if you get to level 1, then you get to go and like watch a movie on Friday night. So they basically incentivize kids to want to work the program by giving consequences for bad behaviors and privileges for good to incentivize you to be better and work, right? But what that does is like, okay, to give you an example, we had a tracking sheet, and this tracking sheet was our lifeline. It was our entire day and our behavior for every 15 minutes during the day. So every 15 minutes during the day, we had to have a staff member do an initial, and it was a 0 to 10. Anything at 6 or above was fantastic. And they'd put their initials on 6. Anything under that would add up to even within one day losing a level. So if I forget for a total of, I think it's like, uh, 45 minutes giving my tracking sheet to that staff to sign off for my behavior, those 45-minute period, because it's 15, 15, 15, that would equal losing a level. So if you mess up for 45 minutes, and just forget to hand in a tracking sheet, you lost a level and now you're back at square one.

So it was so easy to backtrack that you just learned— you just feel like giving up all the time. And it's just so easy to fail that you just, you just don't know what to do. So I remembered that there, um, and feeling just really, really lonely, just really, really isolated.

Um, no relationships, no other than therapists?

Yeah. And I don't like— I don't even remember their name. So obviously they weren't very like memorable. And, you know, the kids that I— my roommates and stuff, I just remember being scared a lot.

How many roommates do you have?

I had a— well, one, two at a time, but I switched a bunch. So I had a bunch of different roommates throughout my time there. One of them, I remember she was like 12 and she used to eat cigarette butts. And so, like, I'm seeing this— these things happen and like, yeah, pica is a legitimate, like, condition. And it's— but I've never seen that as a 15-year-old. And you're seeing it and you're like, you're scared. And what's going on? And I had another one who was 17. She had schizophrenia and she would like— I'd wake up in the middle of the night and she would be like screaming at her dead boyfriend. And it's just very scary to be in that kind of environment and feel like you have no control. You can't leave when you want. And your parents sent you there. So it's like that abandonment obviously, like, coming through, right? So all of that together just made for— I was very— I think I was very depressed, to be honest.

Yeah, I'll bet.

But I didn't know it because I was so medicated. So I mean, it was bad.

Do you remember the first conversation with her parents? Nope. Do you remember any of them? Nope.

I was, I was so gone. I don't think my brain was like connected to my body for that time. I was so medicated. Um, and it, it's like, I don't— I didn't learn anything in that 6 months at all.

No school? There's nothing in there?

Oh, the school was horrible. The school, the, the, the school teacher, in my opinion, was so abusive. Like, he was so mean and so aggressive. I barely got any school done. I had to do the catching up at my next program. Um, but even then it was like self-taught, and I'm just reading and doing tests. There's no teaching, right? So it was— but yeah, basically no school. So that's 6 months I had to make up later.

Shit. And so what's the pipeline? I mean, so you're there for 6 months, you're not learning anything.

Where—

what's the next place? Why did you even move on?

Right.

There's no— if there's no curriculum and there's no program.

Yeah.

Well, then it wasn't about space. It was all numbers out of a bag.

And you got to remember also that, you know, yeah, I'm going through what I'm going through, but my parents are being told, oh, Meg's doing so well. She's, she's really progressing into a way I think she's going to really be ready for this next program. And here are some programs you should look into. You know, I think she needs a secondary place. The secondary place that I went to it's a unique place because they require you have pre-placement somewhere else. So whether it's at Wilderness Program, RTC, a residential treatment center, somewhere like that, you— it was very rare that a girl would just go to the program first without being somewhere else first to kind of learn the, you know, the program rules of, like, they're not going to get the wild ones, they're going to get the tamed ones, you know, that have already been through a little bit of it. And so my parents are being told that I'm doing great and I'm ready for the next phase of my treatment journey. So there's just a big gap in what parents are being told, what they are told is happening, and the therapeutic practices that are happening in these facilities, and really what happens in practice in these facilities and what kids are experiencing.

And you can't ever tell the parents because of the monitored communication.

Holy shit.

Yeah, it's a total institution.

So how do you know that they're telling your parents that you're doing so great? This all come out afterwards?

That comes back, you know, in my 30s when we start talking about this stuff and realizing like, what? That's what happened? I was told something different. I have a letter from my psychiatrist at the time, and he was really old back then. He was probably a practicing psychiatrist. He was probably 75 back when I was in Intermountain Hospital. And he wrote this crazy letter to my parents saying the type of bipolar that she has, and she's pushing back against treatment. And she keeps saying, I'm not bipolar, and she's wrong. And if we don't do something, she's going to end up an unmarried, pregnant single mom. And like all this weird stuff, like it's legitimately in a letter from the psychiatrist to my parents warning them if I don't continue with this, that's where I'm going to end up. So it's just like fearmongering, like they're scaring parents into thinking, oh, your parent's gonna— your kid is gonna die, they're gonna end up pregnant, uh, running away, whatever.

Do they come see you at all in person?

They allowed— well, they hold visits over your head. So if you're doing bad, they're like, I'm not gonna let you see your parents tomorrow if you don't do A, B, and C. But they do allow, um, parents to come and visit, and you're allowed off-site for a bit of time. But like no overnights or anything like that. So my parents would come. I think they came twice, I believe, in the—

twice in 3 and a half years.

And no, in the 6 months at the, at the hospital. Um, at the second place, I ended up— once you get good and programmed, you get to go home on a home visit. And I was still going back and doing my thing, acting good, and still not saying anything to my parents. They don't let you do it until you're— they can trust that you're not gonna say things.

How do they know that you're not going to say things?

They have instilled fear enough to the point that they just trust that you want to be perceived well by your peers and by them. Everyone wanted to seem like— everyone wanted to be the favorite of the two owners. And so they just had— they just had a way of knowing they, they— this was your family, and they made, they made the whole program your family. And would you turn your back on your family? So it's like when they become certain that Chrysalis, which is the name of the second program, was important enough to you that you weren't going to turn your back, and they were pretty certain— that's the trust phase. That's, you know, that's level 2. And then you were allowed to go home and do home visits. So I did have home visits throughout the 3 years I was there, and my parents came up when they could too, but it would be like probably evened out to like every 6 months.

So they completely brainwashed you?

Yeah, they did for me at least. And, um, now did it work?

Did it work? Did— I mean, oh yeah, did you want to go home, or did you consider it?

It was a very confusing feeling because they made— so the way that Chrysalis worked for me is, and after speaking to a lot of people, it works like this for a lot of people as well, they kind of break you down to make you hopeless, and then they help build you back up. And when they build you back up, they make you so reliant on them and their approval and your peers' approval. And then they've instilled in you that Chrysalis is a family. They, you know, they talk about the other girls in Chrysalis. Those are your Chrysalis sisters. We call them that, Chrysalis sisters. And this is my Chrysalis family. And so when you've used those, that kind of language, surrounding where you're living. It's like your family. Would you do that to your family? Would you turn your back? Would you lie? Would you run away? Like, and if I do that, I know I'm kicked out of Chrysalis. I know I'm gone. What then? Then my parents won't even accept me back. And then I lose my whole family. And this is my whole— this is everything right now. So they kind of— it's like a trapped feeling that you end up getting.

And It's, it's, it's very odd. So Chrysalis is, at least at that time, a very small program. There's only like 10 girls, and you all live together in the middle of nowhere in rural Montana next to the Canadian border in a log cabin in the middle of the woods. And the two people are married. They're your therapists. You share a bathroom with them. You live in the same log cabin with them. Yeah, like, yeah. See, that alone makes you go, what? Right?

A married couple in the middle of the fucking woods with 10 girls.

Yep. And they're your therapists. And we're a chrysalis family. Yep. So definitely already red flags with like relationship dynamics and separation of like patient dynamics and with therapists.

But I, I hate to like— I mean, fuck it. I'm just— I mean, what, what— I mean, what, what are your parents thinking? A camp in the fucking woods in a log cabin in Montana in the middle of nowhere with 10 girls and a married couple?

Yeah, yeah. I've asked my parents that, you know, also red flags. Definitely red flags. But it's like, think about it, if you're talking about like, well, Meg has always wanted family and this is like her second family and we're going to be there for her. It's providing a sense of community and family. And I'm not there because we're in California. We can't be there. Uh, but I did talk to my dad, and he said that when he visited, he saw like weird stuff, like weird dynamics. And he said he remembers seeing like a girl sit on Kenny's lap, and, you know, or Kenny put his arm around a girl and, you know, hug her. And he remembers thinking, that's a little, that's a little weird, but maybe I'm off. I'm gonna go ahead and look at Kenny's wife and see what she looks like. How is she responding to this? And that should tell me if I'm wrong. And he'd look over at Meri, and she'd be like, like, and so he's like, oh, well, maybe this is, this is good. Like, she doesn't have red flags, why would I? And so it kind of fed into that belief system that it's, this is how these programs work.

And according to them, they did work. So he had no other information. And it didn't take long for me to start categorizing the things that were happening to me that I now think were extremely traumatic and, in my opinion, abusive, um, to just be the way it is. And so it's like it wasn't abuse back then. Like, it's hard to explain that it wasn't categorized as what it was. Took so long.

So what you're saying How come? So what you're saying is you didn't recognize it as abuse because you had never experienced anything like that before. Everybody, correct, around you, all the other 9 girls are experiencing the same thing. They've already brainwashed you. So you have— this is just everyday life for you. You have no idea that what— and I don't even know what's going on yet.

But yeah, it— yeah. I'd say that's pretty accurate. I'd say that's pretty accurate.

And you don't realize this is abuse until like 33.

Took a long time. What was going on like when I was 33? And, and, oh, back then? Yeah. Um, so one of their biggest therapeutic practices was something called circle. And the name alone should just like tell you what we're going to be working with here. But circle was group therapy. And we would quite literally sit in a circle with all the girls. And sometimes up to 4 hours long, anywhere from like 2 to 4 hours long. And it consisted of one of the girls being in a hot seat. And you would have to hear from your peers for a very long time, everything you did wrong. Anything that you did that was wrong that week, or maybe you were moody, or maybe you stole a glass of milk and you're not allowed to have a glass of milk, or extra packet of oatmeal, or just whatever. You would hear from your peers how disappointed they were in you. And remember, these are your chrysalis sisters. These are like family. This is everything you have. This is your lifeline and your community. And you're hearing all the ways in which you fail. And all these negative things about you.

And then Kenny would start talking, and as soon as Kenny started talking, you'd get really nervous because that's when it's going to get hit home, right? It's gonna, it's gonna go even deeper. And the kind of things that I would hear in these circles are like, you know, that I need to change who I am, and if I don't, no one's ever going to love me and I'm not going to be accepted in society. And, um, I have a chance because I'm only 16 and I can change my personality still, but I have to work really, really hard. And I'm abrasive and I interrupt people and I'm a bad friend. And, you know, just things that when you're a teenager and everything's based on social interactions and stuff that just make you super subconscious— like, it's just self-conscious. I mean, it's, it's like you start doubting your confidence and who you are. And that was when I really felt learned helplessness, where nothing I did was going to ever stop this. And that's when I learned I just need to work the program and I'm just gonna let them influence me. And as soon as I did, Kenny started being happier with me, and that was the incentivization I needed because I just wanted to feel loved.

I was— I did not feel loved there for so long. And all of a sudden, when I started working the program, they started paying attention to me, and then they started calling me a leader, and then I started moving up the levels and getting more progress. And there's nothing like feeling like you're belonging to, like, brainwash you. Like, you know, I finally felt like I belonged. They knew that that's what I wanted. That was their in for me.

Was there any sexual abuse?

I don't— I, I have heard not by me. Um, I heard— I've heard stories, uh, definitely between the, the peers there was stuff going on that wasn't stopped, um, like sexual relationships and things like that, which in a youth facility like that should never be happening. They should be watching that, obviously.

Is it boys and girls or just girls?

It was all girls except for Kenny. Obviously, he's a man. But I have heard some other whisperings, but nothing that is like— nothing that is not during my time. There was a lawsuit that came against them recently for a staff member that had allegedly sexually abused some of the minors. But That is, um, but it really happens. I can't tell you how often I hear about sexual abuse in programs.

I've been—

and it's just like, imagine, it's like so commonly heard by me when I'm talking to survivors that I'm surprised I didn't see it firsthand.

But I will say you blocked it out, right? You were doped up. Were you still dope?

Yeah, they continued the medication. I think that they took me off some of the, like, Seroquel. I believe they might have like gone down on some of of the medications, uh, to help me function, but I begged to go off and they wouldn't let me. Um, I will say though that while I don't know how comfortable I am saying like I went through sexual abuse at Chrysalis, I do believe that there were very problematic relationship, uh, boundaries between the therapist, like Kenny and Mary, and ourselves. Like, and I think that's inherent just in living with your therapist. Like, it's hard to have enough, like, professional boundaries in that sense as it is. But like, to give you an example, Kenny used to have like wrestling matches with us. Like, we'd have wrestling matches, wrestling competitions. Yeah. And I, I loved it because it meant he was paying attention to me and he was okay with me and not mad at me. And so I liked it. It's weird.

Like one-on-one wrestling? Yeah.

Like in the grass, and like everyone watching and rooting people on. Remember that? Very strange. And like, like I said, I would see girls sitting on his lap, giving hugs. And I, at the time, you just like, that's my chrysalis family, family hugs. And it's, it's, that's how you see it. But you know, when I grow up and I have my own kids and I think about, well, if one of my kids was to go to the therapist and sit on the lap, would I be okay with that? oh wait, that's weird. And it took me having my own kids to actually realize that that's inappropriate.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

How long did you stay at this place?

3 years.

You were there for 3 fucking years?

Yeah.

Didn't you run away?

No. And I never even thought about it. I saw girls run away and I saw what happened. I saw how Kenny responded when girls ran away and they cut off— remember this, your whole family, if you run away You are dead to them. These are like even your best friends. And, you know, you think that these girls are your lifeline. And all of a sudden, I remember a girl would leave and Kenny would come up and say, she's a POS or whatever it is, an idiot. He would call girls idiot or idiot or whatever. I remember him saying once, and she wasn't working the program and we weren't allowed to talk about them anymore, but they were our family. Yesterday, and all of a sudden we had to cut them out completely, and we weren't allowed to talk to them. We weren't— they weren't approved. They weren't on the approved list, so we couldn't write them, we couldn't call them.

So how long would you be in that for if you ran away? Is there a way out of it?

No, you will never come back to Chrysalis. They made that very clear. Kenny would say all the time, Chrysalis girls are expected to stay in their beds. There aren't any bolts and chains on these walls.

Shit.

Yeah. If you ran away from Chrysalis, you were gone no matter what. And it was scary. That's scary because it's not just running away, right? You're also 14 miles from the nearest gas station, so. And it's in Montana, you know. I missed the bus once and I had to ride 14 miles on my bike in the middle of winter to school because when you're on level 2, you're allowed to go to the public high school, which is a whole nother level of making sure you're not going to say anything.

How do they do— yeah, they let you go to a public school, which actually I've never—

there aren't any TTI facilities that I know nowadays that I know of that do that. Um, but once you're on Level 2, you are allowed to go to the public high school. But when you were there, remember, you're in Eureka, Montana, population 1,200. So everyone knows Kenny, everyone knows you're a Chrysalis girl. And everyone knows what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. So he's got lots of people watching, and he would have people reporting back, right? And then he's got people in the school that are approved and unapproved. So if you've ever smoked pot, drank, go to keggers, or anything like that, you are not allowed to talk to them. And if you're seen talking to them, you're going to be the subject of a circle later on that night, and you're going to get confronted about it, right? So you were taught away from the program setting to still live program rules. And you had to live by the program rules at the school, same as when you went on a home visit. You had to live by the program rules. You could not listen to rap at home. Doesn't matter, you're not at Chrysalis, but you live by the program rules.

So you better not put on that bikini. You wear a one-piece just like at the program. So they had to be sure that you were going to live by the program rules at home or wherever you were. Before they could trust you doing that. And the way that they grew that trust was seeing you hold your peers accountable. So it was all about accountability and peer accountability, public accountability, calling out your friends, so putting them on the spot.

It's a cult. They took a page out of the—

in my opinion, it was.

Wow. Wow.

The effect of it made me, uh, experience what cult survivors have experienced. And I've had to, you know, deprogram, as, as we call it. Um, you know, these, these kids are ages 12 to 15 when they're going into these programs. That's very, very young. And the kind of treatment and the kind of tools you're using can have long-lasting effects, you know. And I don't think that's truly appreciated by them.

Shit.

Yeah.

And you stayed— you stayed until 18 and a half. 18 and a half. What, what did they— what are they telling people that are turning 18 that are getting ready to leave and go out into the world?

Yeah, so sometimes— okay, so there's different levels. There's one— back when I was there, it was 1, 2, 3, and then graduate, right? Not very many people graduate And I ended up being a graduate. I got the whole ring. They give you a ceremony and you get a butterfly ring and it's, it's really weird. Um, but so when you, let's say you're at level 3 and you are gonna turn 18 in like 8, like 6 months, they could potentially have a plan for you to graduate around the time that you're graduating high school and turning 18, stuff like that. I was, so the, I was, 18 at the start of my, my senior year, so I'm really old for my grade. So I was wanting to go home to my parents for all of senior year because I would have been 18 2 days before school started. But while it is my choice because I was 18, it was never truly told to me that it was my choice, like that I have that right as being 18. And I wanted to please them so badly, and I wanted to please family so badly. I— that's the one conversation I vaguely remember, is talking to my mom and dad about wanting to come home, and they said, you know, I just— it's a big transition to just do one year, like your senior year.

Usually you've had, you know, some time to make friends, and I worry about that transition. I'm not sure it's the right thing to do. That was enough for me to want to please my parents and be like, okay, I can't. I just have to deal with it. I just have to deal with it, because that's what Intermountain told me. Right? You just— you have no control over your life. Don't advocate for yourself. Stop advocating, Meg. Just sit and take it. Just, just take it. In reality, I look back and I, I categorize it— those two programs is really grooming us to be the perfect abuse victim in our future.

Pretty much.

Don't talk about it. Shut your mouth. You're not worth anything more. You can't do anything to change this. Is there any preparation for people that, for, that are leaving, like, that they're before going and mourning?

I mean, when you're getting ready to check out, when you're turning 18.

I mean, some programs, I'm sure. So one of the things we have is a home plan. That's something that you usually have to complete, but in my opinion, it's, it's just a bunch of bullshit. It's a bunch of making sure your parents are implementing the same rules as the program at home. And then a lot of times in these home plans, the repercussions of not following the rules that are set by your parents equals like you getting kicked out of the house. And like the same kind of stuff that's going to be super damaging to, you know, that if you were in the program and it happened, it's happening at home and it's— it doesn't end up doing much good. But many of these kids end up turning 18 and leaving. Sometimes they give them $10 for a bus ticket, sometimes they don't. And a lot of times they're just thrown out into the world. And I'd say that they kind of prepared me to go to college. I went straight from Chrysalis to college, which was interesting. But I mean, they kind of told me, I guess, a little bit what it's like, but I was not prepared.

I mean, they didn't tell me that circles aren't a normal thing you do with your friends, you know. So I went out thinking you confront people who you're friends with, you hold people accountable. On a daily basis and let them know exactly what they're doing and how they need to fix it and that you're disappointed in them. Make people feel shame. That's how you get change. And criticize everything. Like, that's what I was virtually taught, or what I was able to get out of it.

Why did you leave? Was it for college?

Yep. So I graduated the program, I graduated high school a couple of days apart. And I went home for the summer. My parents were still in Chicago at that time. And then I went— I was so brainwashed, I went back to Montana for school. So, wow. Yeah.

Did you go back?

Yeah.

Did you go back to see him?

Oh, yeah. I went many times.

What was that like?

It's this feeling of, like, empowerment, like this. I remember feeling like, I've been there, and I almost like felt this like, I'm a leader now. I almost— I thought about going back to be a staff member there. That is how into it I was until they— until they— so I told you about approved and unapproved, right? That applies also to girls that are ex-Chrysalis girls. So they heard there was another Chrysalis girl who went to my college, the same college, and we were friends. And somehow it got back to Marian Kenny that I was drinking alcohol. And Mary reached out to me and emailed me and said, I've heard that you are drinking and partying. And I just wanted to give, give you an opportunity to hold yourself accountable. And like, think about, that's my therapist. My therapist is reaching out past any kind of, we're not in treatment. I'm over 18. She's reaching out to me to hold myself accountable for drinking alcohol in college. And I remember feeling so much shame. And my response on that email, you're right, I'm so sorry. I knew it was a bad thing to do and I'm going to turn my life around.

You're right. Because if you did any drugs, like if you had smoked pot once and you went to Chrysalis, you're in AA every week, NA every week. So I was told for 4 years I was a— I was an alcoholic and I was an addict. And so I had to go to meetings. I had to have a sponsor. I had to work the steps. And, you know, it didn't take long for me to realize, like, I'm not, I'm not an addict, but I had to play the part. I had to, you know, I had to do everything that they said. So I got to college and realized I'm not an addict. And so I think I can partake in this in a responsible way. Well, I had to go back to I'm an addict. Okay, I'm an addict. And I had to, you know, I believed it again. And I wasn't even under their full control. Wow.

Was it hard to make friends?

Yeah. Yes, really hard. You know, I remember, like I said, I make friends easily and then it starts getting a little rough. Like, I had a hard time reading the social cues, right? I get along with so many people and it was fun and we go do fun things. But then I had a hard time reading, like, like, when am I supposed to leave? Like, like reading the room. And so I remember there was a time I tried to like get a bunch of my friends to do a circle because, I mean, that's what I was taught.

They're like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah, they're like, what is with this chick? Like, what's she doing? Yeah. So it was a big— it was a big like, why didn't they prepare me better kind of moment. Like, there was no point in time in any circle where they're like, okay guys, I know this seems kind of weird. I know it's going to seem a little off and this isn't something you're going to do when you leave. But we're practicing A, B, and C, you know, and we're working on working the muscles of being able to advocate for us, whatever. There's none of that. They were basically telling us that this is what the world is. In order to be successful, you need to be able to confront people, you need to be able to criticize people, you need to be able to be honest and not let people get away with things. And it's everything they drilled into me. It just carried over into college.

Do they, do they have any oversight? Do they have any federal, state, Government?

No, there's no federal oversight.

Any, any, any, any type of oversight at all? Nobody's coming and checking on the facility from a federal standpoint?

No, there's no federal legislation that oversees the regulation of these facilities. So everything is left up to the states. Now, Montana is really interesting, actually. Montana, when I was there, the programs were all— you're going to get a kick out of this— the programs were all overseen by the Department of Labor. Not the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor. And they were— I don't quote me on this, I believe they were inspected once every 4 years.

Once every 4 years, 3 or 4 years, maybe it was 2, I forget.

But before, um, it wasn't until 2019 that Montana passed a law moving the oversight of, uh, these programs in Montana to the Department of Health and Human Services. 2019.

Holy shit.

To give you an example of just like how powerful just that shift in oversight is, we had about 19 programs in Montana at— in 2019 when that law was passed. When it was passed, it didn't take long for it to go down to 9, and the rest of them shut down because they couldn't pass licensing. And those had been operating for decades.

Damn.

Yeah.

Meg, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into when you started to realize everything that you've been taught is not how it is.

Yeah.

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You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode. Plus, unlock bonus content like our Extra Intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions, our new SRS Onsite specials, and access to an entire tactical training library story you will not find anywhere else. And the best part? Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now, support the mission, and become part of The Sean Ryan Show's story. All right, Meg, we're back from the break. You're in school getting a psychology degree, correct?

Yeah, I was.

But you learned a lot getting that degree with with everything that you've been through?

It's almost as if I wanted to understand what I went through. Like, there was this part of me is like, there felt a lot of stuff in my childhood that was like undone. And I wanted to not only understand what had happened, but also understand why I am the way I am. And then also understand people because I still had that social aspect that I didn't understand. And so I think studying psychology was more like I obviously am not understanding the social dynamics here. I'm gonna study it so I can be better at masking and make friends easier.

Shit. I mean, when you talk about your abandonment issues, I mean, abandonment from your biological parents. Sure, you felt abandoned from your adopted parents. Abandonment at the actual facility.

Yeah.

Abandonment by the 10-girl, the 9 other girls, and Kenny and whatever her name is. Yeah, it's a lot of abandonment.

And actually, now that you bring it up, I guess I've never— we have all these stages of waking up, and I'm having like a little wake-up moment that you're right. The 3 years in chrysalis was probably the most amount of abandonment I felt, and it was from Mary and Kenny because I was so desperate for their approval. And I've talked to so many girls during that same period of time, and everyone wanted to be Kenny's favorite, and he had favorite girls, and the favorite girls got the most attention. Um, Kenny would do— Kenny would do this thing when he was happy with you and like his favorites. He would come up behind you and he would like grab the back of your neck, like right here, and he would squeeze really, really hard, and it hurt, but you're excited at the same time because it's like, ow, but oh my God, Kenny's Kenny's happy with me. And so you felt pain along with happiness. And he would do the same thing if you were sitting next to him in the Suburban. If this was like my knee, he would go like this and he would squeeze that part above your knee that like is ticklish, like, you know, where you're really ticklish.

And it hurt because he's like squeezing hard. But it also meant he was happy because he would never do that. He doesn't touch the girls when he's unhappy with you. That means I'm doing something right. And so when that wasn't happening, I was devastated. And, or when he's doing it to other girls and he's mad at me, the kind of things that were like said to me, you know, I remember, listen to this one. I remember being at the table and we were all eating dinner. We all ate dinner at this gigantic wooden table in the dining room. And you had to eat what was offered. And I was the pickiest eater. You could, ever meat. I had never had salad until I, until I arrived at Chrysalis. So like, this was, this was a culture shock for me. And they were forcing me to eat salad. And I'm sitting there and I would try to put all the salad in my mouth at once and chew it and with like holding my nostrils. And then I would drink it like I'd swallow it like a pill. But this time I gagged and I ended up throwing up on my plate.

And he forced me to eat it because, holy shit, you have to eat what's on your plate. And he said that I was being dramatic.

I did it through the photo food up, and then he made you—

and then he made me eat my throat. Yeah. Or it could be as simple as like, I'm putting— this was in my journal and I didn't remember this, so thank God I have 3 and a half years of journals. I was eating pancakes and I was just going like this with the syrup over it, and it accidentally went over the plate onto the placemat. And Kenny yelled at me and he called me a pig. So, like, simple things like that that you hear on a daily basis, and they just kind of chip away at, like, "Oh, he's mad at me. Oh, such crazy disappointment. I wish Kenny would like me." And I don't know what it was, but it was about Kenny. Everyone wanted Kenny to— like, to be on his good side.

Can you talk about the shame that you just felt on the break?

Yeah. You know, we took a break. I go into the bathroom, I'm touching up my lipstick, and I just was looking in the mirror And that's when it hit me, like, right in my solar plexus. I felt this, like, bubbling up of just shame and guilt. And I had just finished talking about Chrysalis and Mary and Kenny and the effects that it's had on my life. And I all of a sudden was like, oh, you know, Mary and Kenny are going to probably see this and they're going to be so disappointed.

And this is— this is over 20 years ago.

And I still have that knee-jerk reaction to want to please them. And even through my advocacy work, you know, I do all these great things. I help pass a law, or like, you know, these things that I'm proud of. And there's always that part of me that wonders, well, I wonder if they see this on the news. I wonder if they'll be proud of me. I wonder if they'll hate me. I, you know, I can't stop thinking about them.

It feels personal. Yeah, yeah, like you're personally attacking them.

And it shouldn't feel like that because all I'm doing is talking about my experiences, um, from having relationships with them and, and how it still impacts me. And it shouldn't impact me like this.

Isn't it weird how the human psyche is like— you, yeah, you feel, you feel guilt, like you're fucking somebody over that wronged you.

Yep, exactly. I think we're more apt to do that almost for the people that have harmed us the most, like the, like the abusive relationships I've been in.

It's like, you're the one that put yourself in this situation with me, but why the fuck do I feel guilty?

It's almost like because the relationship is void of any guilt or remorse, so it's like you're trying to fill the place. Maybe this should have remorse in this kind of interaction or in this relationship, so I'm going to make up for it because it's weird that it doesn't exist. I don't know.

Do you talk to any of the girls that you were in this place with?

I'm in contact with quite a few of them.

What do they think?

I mean, most of them are knew it was bad when it was back then. I'd say out of the girls that I know, I was probably the worst brainwashed. I probably got it the worst. And one of my really good friends, I won't say her name, but I love her to death. She was friends with me from getting out of the program all the way till now. And she knew it was bad when it was there, but I didn't. And I remember 15, 17 years later, starting to wake up. And I remember calling her and I was like, hey, so when we had circle and like Kenny and Mary would say these things, or they'd shame us about all this stuff, like, was that like not okay? And she goes, yeah, that was abuse. And I'm like, why didn't you say anything to me? And she was like, you weren't ready. I've been waiting for you to be ready. Because who is— who is it for her to say like whether I should have a feeling about it or not? And I probably, if I programmed enough would have been like, no, you're wrong. And it could have affected us.

You have to be ready. You have to make your own decision about your experiences. And forcing someone to come to that, oftentimes, whether it's a cult survivor or just any kind of experience you're not ready to handle yet, you're gonna run. You're gonna run away from the person that's trying to force it on you. And so she did the right thing. But there were also people, um, Kenny had a favorite favorite, and she was the favorite forever, and she was talked about all the time for many, many years after she left. And unfortunately, uh, what was it, maybe 2 and a half years ago, I saw on Facebook a rant by her in the middle of the night, and it was on— it was like on her Facebook feed, and there was probably like 80 posts in like 12 hours, and it was definitely a rant, and there was a lot about Montana and about hurting kids kids, and I said, shit, she woke up. And there was that part of me that was like, oh no. And I, I didn't do anything, and I just kind of was like, oh wow, you know, um, okay, uh, I guess maybe she's waking up.

I'm assuming she's talking about this, it means that. And then a couple months later, she ended up passing away, and I don't know the full story. I don't know if it was a drug overdose or suicide. I'm not sure. But those are both very common in the survivor community, substance abuse issues and suicide. So she's no longer with us. And she marked the fourth, I think the fourth Chrysalis girl that's been lost. And so, you know, when you have that many staring you in the face, you really start to like start to realize things. So she was— that was kind of a sign for me since she was the most— she was the most brainwashed in my mind. Um, once I woke up, I realized, yeah, she was definitely— and so seeing her wake up right before was eye-opening. Um, and I, I know a couple girls that have come after me and said that everything I'm saying is wrong and Chrisla saved their life, and, and it probably did. I mean, I'm not saying people can't have good experiences at all. Validate that 100%. Um, they both can be true at the same time.

Someone can go through an experience and not be traumatized, and another person you're sharing your space with can. And so I do know there are some girls that, uh, are completely thinking it's— nothing was wrong the entire time. Whether they believe that or it's cognitive dissonance, who knows.

How fast in college did you start to realize things maybe weren't the way they were supposed to I didn't.

I just changed what I was doing. No, I just changed what I was doing because it wasn't working and kept masking.

And even, even with a psychology degree, you didn't realize.

It took me having my own kids and, and knowing what I would and wouldn't want my kids to go through and have, and like relationship dynamics I wouldn't want to be there with certain relationships. So it really took me— and this is the way that I explain it. I had no self-confidence at all. I had been— I faked it. I appeared to others to have confidence, but I did not. And so when you have no self-confidence and you're thinking about whether something is abusive or not, if you don't hold yourself in high regard, then not a lot of things are going to be abusive because you deserve it, because you're not a good person, you're not lovable, you're not likable. So it's not a big deal. But when you have kids, you take yourself— there is— it's not about confidence. With yourself. You love your kids and you want the best for your kids, and so you have a much higher bar of what's, you know, gonna be not tolerated. And so once you're able to separate yourself— it's not about you being treated, it's someone you love— it's a lot easier to see. And then once you see it and you realize it, you have to think about every single memory, and then you have to kind of like play it in your head like a movie and recategorize it.

And you're like, oh, that was abuse. Abuse. That was abuse. That's not fun. Untag abuse.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, how do they— so how did this stuff pop in your head when you had kids? Because you're not sending your kids to these places.

Hell no. Yeah, hell no. Um, I think the first, first thing that I realized was the relationship dynamics between Kenny and Mary and me. And I think it was one of my kids got a therapist for the first time and and we were going to sessions and seeing how they would react. And then, you know, like a memory would pop up about Mary and Kenny, about something that happened in that session. And would I want that to happen to that kid that was in the therapy? And I would be like, oh my God, wait, what else did they do that I'm not okay with? And, and, you know, and then you make parenting decisions and thinking about what if I would make the decisions they made for me for my kids, you know? If I was to say, well, you know, Jackson, you had a glass of milk and you know that we don't have milk unless it's cookie day. And so now you have a consequence. You need to go outside and you need to put rocks into a wheelbarrow and just move them from one side of the yard to the other. Um, and that's your consequence, you know.

So like, if I started thinking about things that they did to me in Chrysalis or had me do and thinking about doing it to my kids, and that's when I realized like, oh, that's really fucked up? Like, would this cause CPS to be called on me? And for a majority of the things, I'd be like, yeah, if this was happening to one of my kids or one of my kids' friends, I would call. I would make this call if I knew a therapist is having wrestling matches with one of my kids. You— yeah, I would call.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, well, I'd probably do more than call, right?

Right.

Wow.

Wow.

So where— how did this turn into what it's turned into?

As far as what you're doing?

The book?

The book?

Passing laws?

Yeah.

Um, so you had these— you just had like a series of epiphanies?

I did. I did.

Still have them? Yes, I guess so, because we just have—

yeah, I just had another one. Uh, the true waking up really came in, in periods. Uh, first it the first suicide that happened, right? Losing the first program friend. Um, and I started recategorizing some of the things, and I thought about it as like, oh man, you know, Crystal's was kind of fucked up, you know? Like, uh, some of that stuff was kind of fucked up, like in my head. Um, and just how it— how I experienced it. But it kind of stayed still in a little pocket of— it wasn't abuse. That name didn't come until much later. Um, it was just kind of like, oh, that's fucked up. Up. And then the second part was when Paris Hilton's documentary came out. And I hear this from many survivors, how much, uh, This Is Paris allowed them to really truly wake up. And the reason why is, again, it took me out of myself and my own experience because of my confidence being so low. So in This Is Paris, it's really the first time the industry got talked about and the fact that there isn't just Chrysalis. And at this point, I had no idea There's a lot of different programs.

And not only are there tons of different programs, it's a $23 billion a year in public fund industry. And wait, oh, there's private equity backing it. What? Oh, wow. There's a community of survivors. Wait, huh? So once that aspect came into it, it was like— I remember breaking down, crying my eyes out. I was like 8 months pregnant. I remember with Bentley and Ben came in. My husband Ben came into the room and I'm sobbing. And he's like, do you want me to— I'm like, just go away, just go away. Oh my God. And I was just like freaking out because that's the time I was like, I was abused. I was like, what happened to me is not okay. And it's happening at a much larger scale. This is not just about me. And I woke up in that way, but it still stayed in that container. It still was like right there. And I'd start Googling things, you know, being like, I didn't have a troubled teen industry like name to it yet. But it was more like boarding school hurt, boarding school trauma. You know, I had no idea how to put any of this, this stuff together.

And it stayed like that until my husband, who was a recovering addict and alcoholic, had to go to an inpatient stay during his recovery. And all of a sudden I got this call from an unknown, like, restricted number, and and it was Ben, and he said— his voice was shaking— and he said, I'm being abused. And I was like, what? And there was that part of me that was activated, that little kid, that 15-year-old, where I was like, no, like, abuse? Like, I gotta, I gotta do something to help, right? And I told him what his rights were. I said, they can't, you know, they can't do this, they can't do that, just stay where you are, I'm on my way. And I had Bentley, who was like 6 months old at the time, I had my nanny meet me on the side of the highway to transfer Bentley into a car seat in her car to take him so that I didn't have to go pick Ben up with him. And on that drive is when that last part of the major wake-up happened. And it was me realizing that in that moment, I was being the adult that I needed back when I was 15, and I was going to rescue someone from institutional abuse and feeling helpless and the way that I needed to be.

And that's when I realized that that's what I want to be, that's what I wanted to do, and that's my purpose. I want to be what the kids in the facility need and who I needed when I was there— hope, um, and purpose, knowing there's a life after the pain that they're in right now. And that's when I made the decision that I wanted to do something about And that's, you know, going to pick Ben up. They had already kicked him out of the facility and he's like on the street, all because he wanted to move facilities, by the way. That's it. He just didn't want to use them anymore and he wanted to be transferred somewhere else. And they had this big issue, wouldn't give him his records. I mean, it was, it was bad and a perfect example of the institutional abuse that's going on within the rehab world. Right. So that made me realize I need to do something about my world. And that— I think it was probably a couple months later I decided that I was going to start a nonprofit. And then obviously a lot of therapy and a lot of EMDR, maybe doing 4 hours a week for 6 months before I was able to be sure that I could be grounded enough for this work, because you obviously hear about a lot of stuff.

But that's EMDR work.

Oh yeah, EMDR was a lifesaver. It honestly honestly was. It allows you to touch on the things that are like the most traumatic for you without talking about it. So you don't have to use the words that may be triggering, the adjectives, the feelings. All you do is you think about the way that it makes you feel, and then you, using rapid eye movements, are able to kind of retag that again. So let's say a certain experience in your past makes you feel, I am not worthy. I'm not worthy. That's the negative. And so as you're watching the light go back and forth, the bilateral stimulation, all of a sudden you'll feel that I'm not worthy turn into I mean something. And all of a sudden it's not about the experiences, it's about the way you feel about the experiences. They're retagged. And that was what was so powerful, is I don't have to think about the bad shit. I just feel differently and more empowered about the bad shit without touching it.

Interesting.

Yeah, it honestly, for people with CPTSD, PTSD, it's a, it's a godsend for sure.

I've heard a lot about it. I've never done it.

Yeah, but and it works fast if you're quick. Like I was a very quick processor and if you're a quick processor, you can like get over things very, very quickly. And it's all about like your feelings around certain circumstances. Wow. Yeah.

How did this all affect your relationships with men?

You know, I think that it made me very— you know, I mentioned earlier, like, it's a— they're kind of grooming us to be like perfect abuse victims. I think that I went on to try to find guys that treat me like Kenny, and I think I looked for men that are aggressive and make me feel like I'm not enough so that I have to work for approval. I think that that was a pretty big carry-through.

You're looking for your normal.

Yeah.

And I attracted to what's normal.

Yeah, exactly. That's what was modeled for me. I mean, and that's the sad thing and probably why all the girls wanted— you're normal, right? That's why. But I think that's why the girls wanted Kenny's attention so much. They're girls, and during that time in adolescence, it's really important to have a male father figure. Because that's teaching us how we should be treated, what to look for when we grow up. And that male relationship really matters in that time. So, you know, it made me—

so you sought out abusive relationships?

Yeah, I think, I think I instinctively did because I was mimicking the way that I felt about myself. It didn't make sense to be treated well in a relationship if I didn't feel like I deserved to be treated well. And so I think I instinctively was— and by no way was I like, hmm, I'm gonna choose that guy over there because he's gonna treat me like shit. It definitely wasn't conscious. Um, I would just realize I kept falling hard for the people who treat me like shit, or, you know, treat me like an option. That's it.

How do you change that?

By gaining confidence. By realizing I don't need anyone. And really, it took my whole— it's kind of another phase of the wake-up. My whole world tumbled and my health was failing. I had had, you know, 12 surgeries. I'm losing organs like crazy. My body is like shutting down from all of this.

You're losing organs?

I mean, I was so sick for so long. Like, I had an appendix burst. I lost my tonsils from getting constant strep throat. I lost my gallbladder. I, you know, I just kept having these things go wrong, constantly sick. And it wasn't until I really looked at the abuse and everything that I was ignoring that that stopped and that went away. And, you know, I still deal with autoimmune conditions from having— being— having an activated nervous system for so long as I did. But, you know, all the issues really started to resolve once I started to stop pretending that I didn't go through something really horrible. And so once I was able to do that, it, you know, I had a, I call it the trauma spiral of 2018. And it really forced me to, I was having really bad anxiety, super bad panic attacks, like we're talking horrible panic attacks daily, daily. And it got to a point where, I was agoraphobic. I was scared to leave the house. Um, I was scared that if I had a panic attack in public, no one would be able to help me and I would die.

Like, it was really bad. And it took having a really traumatic, um, experience in 2018 of everything— was like a storm of bad things. Ben broke up with me. Um, and then all of a sudden it was like this trauma, and I had a panic attack for 2 months straight, non-stop, 2 months straight. Um, Too much straight. I had to take Benadryl around the clock just so I could, like, function. And because I was so panicked all the time. And that was really the base. That's when I started doing things that are healthier for me and making better decisions, working out, weight training, you know, better food choices, and started building up my confidence. And then I think once I really— once I started on Silence and I found my purpose and which is really turning my pain into purpose, that is my purpose, and putting it to good use and trying to change the world for the better, that's when I started gaining a lot more confidence. And with the confidence came my ability to just feel like I am worth it. And that other part of me in needing someone to treat me like shit, it kind of went away.

And it was slow, but it went away.

You've been through two years of marriage?

Yes, Ben is my third marriage. Yeah.

How long did the other ones last?

Uh, well, the first one, he proposed after like two weeks, so obviously, you know, I was a mess to say yes to that. But, uh, that lasted— it was on and off because a lot of times women go back, right? Because, you know, of— we believe what they told us and we believe, you know, we've got really bad We don't do well when we're alone in those beginning stages. And so that in total, 2 years, I think. But like I said, I left for a good 6 months, had the baby, had a baby away from him, separated, and then I went back. So there was a lot of time that we weren't actually in the same house together. But I think like 2 years, 2 and a half total. So not very long.

How about the next one?

Around the same, like 2 and a half, around that.

Damn.

Yeah. And so, but it really, it was after the second one that I really started, just, I just realized like, I gotta start working on myself here. I'm making the, you know, same decision over and over again. And, um, I was choosing guys who was choosing me instead of choosing me so that I can become the person that that gets to choose who. Like, you know, I just wanted anyone to make me feel special and make me feel like I mean something because of all the damage that all those adolescent years did to make me feel like I'm nothing. I was told so often how little I am and how, you know, who I am is not lovable. It's really hard to counteract that.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy. Von dem Regisseur von Evil Dead Rise— Sie war 8 Jahre lang verschwunden. —kommt eine neue Vision des Grauens. Hey Schmetterling, hier sind Mom und Dad. Was passierte mit Katie?

Ich will nur meine Tochter zurück.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy. Ab 16. April nur im Kino. It, it, um, it's kind of a miracle that, you know, that you've— it is— moved past it, appear to have moved past it.

Yeah, no, I have. And, you know, I can sit here and say that I do mean something, and everyone means something. And the fact that I believed that for so long, you know, it's sad. I can't get that time back. But, you know, I can sit here and say to the people that feel like that, like like you can't feel different. And yeah, you just have to— you have to believe in yourself and believe in the people that believe in you and stop— stop listening to the— to the people who you think their words have weight, and they really— they really don't.

Have you ever been contacted by any of these facilities, uh, for speaking out?

No. Um, that's surprising. Yeah, I know. Um, it is surprising. The— I also work with a ton of attorneys and, you know, with building our attorney directory, I've got a lot of attorneys that I work with and, and think I'm great. And, you know, so, you know, it's just like all I do is talk about my experiences and take other people's experiences and verbatim put them on our socials. So there's not really much they can do. You know, I've I've gotten subpoenas. I, you know, have to deal with those just because of that's the nature of litigation going on in the industry and having an archive with program information on it and stuff. But no, I've never— Kenny and Meri have never reached out to me except for in college. And I'm really surprised, like, Diamond Ranch Academy hasn't come after, you know, after Taylor Goodridge died there. I spoke out a lot. Me and her family, we went, we went crazy about talking about what happened to her. I've never been reached out by them. What are your parents—

when did you tell your parents? I told them, like, come out.

I told them, like, literally not that long before Unsilenced was started. So they didn't even get that much time to be like, oh shit, like, this is going on. She's about to start a nonprofit. But it was in probably the end of 2021. And right before, right before I started on silence, I started talking about it. And at first my mom and dad were like, I remember the first time I said abusive. I think I used the word abusive when I talked about Chrysalis. I said something like, uh, yeah, Chrysalis was abusive to me. And my mom and dad were like, well, wait, Meg, you know, like, like, that's a really powerful word. And I said, yeah, it's a really powerful word. Do you want to hear why I say that? And they were like, yeah. And I started talking about it and you could see the light coming. They're like, oh my God. Because they had the realization that all the things that they were being told by the staff and Mary and Kenny were not actually happening, and that the things that were bad that were happening, we weren't allowed to tell them.

And they had that realization. And because all they— we haven't talked about Chrysalis. So all they knew was what they were told, obviously. So it took me saying I went through this stuff and they're like, oh, shit. And what people don't understand is that even though they didn't go to Chrysalis, they had their own wake-up period. Like, they had to wake up too. They were programmed.

They were brainwashed too. Do you blame them?

No. My God, no. My— like, my dad is the chair of our board. Like, he's one of my biggest donors, and he's one of my biggest advocates. My mom and dad, like, they they are one of the first people to be like, oh, I'll write a letter to Congress, I'll write a letter to the, you know, lawmakers telling them they need to pass this bill. Like, they don't want what happened to me to happen to other kids. And thankfully, they're like that because that's hard to find, to be able to say like, oh, I messed up, I listened to the wrong people and my daughter is hurt because of it. But instead of denying what happened to me, they're like, okay, let's fight this, let's fight this together. You know. And it was, it was a very powerful moment right after Unsilenced started, you know. Paris Hilton, her team, and Unsilenced, and a huge group of survivors, we all went to DC to advocate for a federal bill. And my dad was on the lawn next to me with the megaphone talking about how parents are deceived, parents are lied to. And that is a very powerful moment to be sitting there.

And he was— him and my mom were the ones who made this decision, but they're taking responsibility and they're standing there and they're advocating for me and for all other survivors and all of their parents for change. And so it's very cool. Yeah. Wow.

Are you and Paris working together? Yes.

I mean, her team and I, um—

So this happened to her too? Yeah, yeah.

The interesting thing is, is if you watch This Is Paris, uh, she uses— when she's talking about when she was abducted, because she was abducted as well, you can see that in the documentary.

So that shit's totally normal. I mean, it's not normal. No, it's not normal.

But in this— but get this, the same thing that was said to her was said to me. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. How is that possible? How is it possible that two different companies, probably two different companies, are using the exact same verbatim language? And I guarantee if I talk to someone that was abducted last week, It was along the same lines what they heard too. So yeah, Paris went to multiple facilities actually. Yeah. So Paris has done lots of hard work in legislation, so she's worked a lot in policy work. So when needed, you know, I collaborate with their policy team to help with certain states and whether it's the language, like I helped on the project of Montana with HB 218 and helping pass that law. Uh, but then also like helping get the community together. They're con— they're working on a lot of different states right now and different policy work and a bunch of them. And how do you get survivors randomly when you don't have notice and you need them to call their senator or write a letter and they need it from that exact state?

So having, you know, I kind of work with them with helping with, all right, let's get survivors together, let's find as many people from Michigan, let's, you know, so in that way. Yeah. And, you know, we— she had a recent, uh, documentary come out, came out out like a month ago, and we put on a showing for that for the survivor community. And, you know, they care a lot about making sure that, um, what Paris is doing is reaching the survivors. And, you know, I'd help amplify that and make sure that— because we're all in this together, you know.

Like, how many girls are in this right now? How many?

How many kids? That's so— that's one of the hardest things to be able to determine, and it's part of the reason why legislation, why the Stop— Stopping Institutional Child Abuse Act was— or the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act was passed by Paris is there's no data. Like, there's literally no data. And so the only way to get an understanding of how many kids are in facilities at this point, because we've got private placement, right, so parents can drive their kids to a facility, or child welfare, or juvenile justice, or through the educational system and school districts School district dollars are going to fund kids to these programs. So there's so many different pipelines. And so the only way to really know is to do FOIA or GRAMA requests for ICPC data, which is Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. It's the piece of paper that basically for any adoption, any kid crossing state line, any kid going to a facility, there has to be a document that states this kid is crossing state lines. It basically protects it from being trafficking, right? 'Cause you gotta say, this kid is passing for their safety to this facility.

This is where they're going. This is the permission, you know, to have that all good. So you'd have to FOIA or grandma request that for every single state. And a lot of 'em are, you know, kind of segmented in weird ways in the agencies in the state. So sometimes it's like per county, so you might have to do it per county. And then for every state, it's a different agency. You'd have to do that in the entire like country. And the timeline of getting those back could be sometimes 6 months, 9 months, the year is almost over. So now the data, you know, so it's just so difficult. But we have gained an understanding of industry, like what, what we can expect. And I'd say about 150,000 to 200,000 kids find themselves in a facility in a given year. 200,000 kids? Up to 200,000. Yeah, 120,000 to 200,000 is our estimate.

What would you like to see happen? Would you like to see these facilities just disappear? Do you want regulation? I—

we can't— the— yeah, you want— I want— I need kids to be safe. And we can't be sending kids into these facilities unless we have regulation that can ensure the safety of the kids. It's like hospitals. Are there any—

are there any facilities that you would recommend?

No, because there is no— there's no regulation. Federally overseeing these facilities. And I know from my investigations that the, you know, we know that the states are really responsible for setting the expectations and the licensing and the standards for the facilities. And I see on a state level what's happening and what's falling, you know, what's falling through the loops and what's happening and the holes that are there. And kids are dying. And I don't think we should be placing kids in this industry until we can make sure not only are kids not dying, but that based on outcomes, that kids are having very standardized outcomes and they're positive. You know, there would be no hospital that would ever exist if 85% of the people that went into the hospital and left called themselves survivors of that hospital. Is that—

is that— is it 85?

Oh, I mean, I, I would have no idea because the people with good experiences don't come to me, right? I do know they do exist, and there are people who have have legitimately good experiences, and I validate that 100%. But until we can make sure everyone has that good experience, we can't be sending kids here. We can't. Damn, man.

What kind of traction have you gotten?

We've made some really good traction. All I know is that back when I was telling you I was doing the Googling, I was like, what, you know, troubled teen industry, blah blah. There was nothing. There was nothing. Type in trouble teen industry now. Unsilenced is like number 3. We have over 3,500 programs in our program archive and over 100,000 documents on those programs. That's DHS reports, that's 911 calls, those are— that's like police camera footage, that is, uh, personal records from survivors that redact it and give us what these look like behind the scenes. That's survivor testimonies and news circles. And, you know, this is largely thanks to Paris Hilton too for using her platform to be able to talk about everything she's been through. And, um, we've gotten a lot of, a lot of movement, and we see programs closing. And most importantly, you were asking, you know, what do you want to happen? Man, I want justice. I want justice. And what does that look like? It's good. It's hard because a lot of these states have really poor statutes of limitations, right? I know so many states where, uh, physical abuse, even bad physical abuse, you have one year.

And, you know, look how long it took me to wake up. So, like, you know, statutes are— statutes of limitations are really over by the time you're like, okay, I'm ready. And even if you know it's abuse, you have to be ready for that. You have to go to therapy. You have to, like, prepare yourself for litigation. So there's a lot of barriers when it comes to having that. But what I want to see is, you know, regulations over the programs become safer and the, you know, limiting their ability to rebrand under a new LLC when they get bad PR for, let's say, sexual abuse that's going on or lawsuits. That's many times what happens. They just say, oh, we're shutting down. And then quietly a new LLC forms They pop up in the same building, same staff, new logo, and say, hey, welcome to blank. And it's hard to keep track of that for us. There's nothing that alerts us that this is happening. I want to see, you know, predators not be able to move from facility to facility. You see that a lot. If there's someone that is at Program A, a lot of times if there's allegations of sexual abuse, they'll just be fired quietly.

And what do they do? They go somewhere else in the same, you know, same state. I mean, do you have a solution for that?

How would, how would we stop that? I mean, I mean, if there's no record, it's, it seems to me it's almost impossible. It has to be on the parents, right?

I, I think it has to be dual, right? This is an industry. In any industry, look at the healthcare industry. Why can't we model it after the way that hospitals are run, right? I think that there's boards and there's licensing. Like, anyone can start a program. Anyone. I could be like, oh, I'm gonna start a program right now. I've never graduated high school, but I got a log cabin out in the woods. We can make that happen. Let's just get a log cabin in the middle of Montana. So there's no regulations on who can start them. There is very little regulations on the amount of experience. Most of the staff at these programs carrying out therapeutic techniques are 18 to 25. No experience with kids, let alone troubled kids and kids that are going through trauma and experiencing, you know, mental health crises. So seeing regulations and oversight in that way, we needed that to shift, right? But also, like, I'm not enough of a business expert, but like, we got to look into this private equity stakeholders and like, you know, the incentivization of really profit margins over care. And, you know, is— should private equity really be in behavioral health?

It really just inherently incentivizes the wrong thing. And so, you know, we need to look at that. But I think that, yeah, parents, parents need to realize that— I know it seems like a really easy answer, like, I am so worried about my kid, I am so scared they're gonna die, or, you know, fill in the blank. It's really easy when someone says, hey, I can help you with that, and you're going to be so much less stressed. I got you, I got you. Like, it's really hard when you're that stressed to not believe that and want to believe that these people are on your side. But really thinking twice and, you know, going to our website and looking at the red flag list and typing that into Google Um, what's on the red flag list?

Oh, is it facilities or is it—

no, it's things within facilities to keep an eye out. So are they monitoring contact with the outside world? Is there level systems and phase-based systems? Are, uh, do you have a discharge date at the time that you arrive? Do you know what you need to do exactly and when you're going to be leaving? Um, are there, uh, any kind of forced labor? Any kind of removal of food and essential items as a form of punishment. You know, these— there's so many different things, you know, all the way to like, what does school look like? Is it, you know, accreditation and licensing, like all those things? And we just basically ask, like, if you're going to send your kid, like, if they have any of these red flags, take a pause, because these are the ones that we see in problematic and allegedly abusive programs. Damn. And that's why we have an archive, right? We've got over 3,500 programs in this. So if you're like, well, I am thinking about sending my kid to Discovery Ranch, you go to unsilenced.org, you go to the program search, and you type in Discovery Ranch, and you're going to see, uh, the DHHS binder, and you're going to see all of the allegations, you're going to see lawsuits, you're going to see survivor testimonies, and you're— you know, we need to re-educate the public here, and so they, they make— parents can't make informed decisions unless they have all the information.

Unsilenced makes sure you have that information.

What's that website? Unsilenced.org. Yeah, man. Yeah, you're doing solid work. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. You're welcome. I appreciate you being open to hear it because it's— it— for many years, I mean, advocacy around this has been going on for decades. AIDS. I'm for real.

And this is the first time I've heard of it.

Yeah, what does that tell you, right? We've been operating in a silo. We've been, you know, screaming from the rooftops and no one's been listening. And what it means to have someone like you listen, and not only listen but be able to provide, you know, and amplify our voices— I'm not sitting here as Meg Applegate, I'm sitting here as Meg Applegate and all the survivors. And to be able to hopefully make them all feel very validated is pretty big. I'm sure that will. Thank you for that.

You're welcome, Meg. I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. Where's the next legislation going to be?

Oh man, um, there's some rollbacks that I, I've heard about that are kind of coming. So in the past year or so, we've made a lot of progress. Well, not me, I guess I haven't I haven't personally worked on all of it, but I've heard, like, Oregon did a lot of great work. Senator Gelser has done incredible work over there. And Utah has had a few bills that have passed that have made it, you know, better. And I've heard word that there's been a lot of pushback on pulling back, and recently. So I think there's going to be work there that we have to fight against. And then I did hear some recent stuff stuff from someone on Paris's team about Michigan. There's something going on in Michigan. So I think that they're hard at work, you know, and we're always needing more survivors to come forward and be like from those states and talk about how that state had a facility where they were hurt. It's really powerful to have survivors in those states when you're looking at policy work. So, you know, we really want people to follow Unsilenced and keep an eye out because we're always looking for survivors to help with kind of facilitating that policy change in the states.

Tell me about this attorney directory.

Yeah, so our attorney directory we launched, um, a couple years ago and has been incredible. It's our way of really getting into the legal advocacy work. So we created this directory to connect survivors of institutional abuse, and through our website are able to see all these attorney partners that we've been able to make throughout the entire country that are able and willing to take on survivor cases on contingency, which is a big deal. And so it allows Unsilenced as kind of the hub of survivor information to have survivors who trust us come to our site and see these attorneys that we trust to take care of them in these institutional abuse cases. And, and through our legal advocacy work, it has— it's been amazing. We've been able to get whistleblowers and witnesses and other plaintiffs for cases because we have this huge, huge community of survivors just ready to tell their stories. So what we do, we'll put out an experience survey for fill in the blank, whatever program, and within minutes we're getting stories submitted. And all of a sudden we're seeing names be the same, and maybe it's the same name as someone that's in, uh, has allegations in this lawsuit that we know about.

And we're able to connect these people to access for access to justice, and they wouldn't have known about it, right? There's so much litigation that's going on within this industry, and our job and what we really want is to make sure that litigation is known, because chances are, like, there's so many programs that have litigation that you could have an option of being able to participate in it in some way, even just to give information. Maybe there's a staff member that was problematic. Or you know something, anyone can help. And so being able to facilitate justice has been so incredible to see. And we did a little, we did a little survey at the end of last year, and within about 18 months, we have at least 200 lawsuits that we know about that Unsilenced was able to, through our website or personally, me working with attorneys, helping them investigate programs. There's been 200 lawsuits that we've had a hand in, in any way, shape, or form. Form in the past 18 months. Wow. Which is crazy. And it's really the only way I have seen problematic and allegedly abusive programs actually have any accountability.

This is all on unsilenced.org? Yes. So you have, you have what, 3,500 different facilities that people can dig into and see everything that's going on in there, or everything that's been documented by survivors, DHS, all this other You have the list of attorneys that can help with survivors. What else is on there?

We've got the red flag list. We've got survivor support resources. We offer free of cost support groups for survivors across the country. And we've got mental health professionals that facilitate those groups. We offer independence packs, which are sent out to kids that age out of these programs and like you mentioned, are just like sent out into the world. Got a laptop that are full of resources like How to write a resume and resume templates. They've got gift cards, books, essential items, hygiene items, and we send them to kids that are battling unstable housing across the country, and we offer those free of cost. And, uh, the attorney directory, as I mentioned. And yeah, how are you funding all this? Well, by donors. We really rely on the generosity of our donors and And that's another thing is, you know, all these resources take, it takes a lot and we're a very small team. So honestly, uh, donating is something that the public can do to help us be able to have a positive impact on survivors and also the kids that are still in facilities and, and, and making sure that we're fighting for the kids' safety right now.

Because I'm telling you, I've been involved, uh, in cases where kids die, uh, every year since this has happened.

Damn. Well, we'll donate right after this. Oh, well, thank you.

Appreciate that.

Well, let us know if you need any more top cover. Yeah, be happy to help.

Thank you, appreciate that. All right, best of luck.

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