Now Return Us To Normal

Leslie Koren: I had a relatively normal, happy childhood.

And then one day, I didn't feel that way anymore.

Maia Szalavitz: What these programs have done is sell parents on the idea that you can take any kid, send them away, and we'll fix them.

Megan: Giant dude in my doorway.

"Get off!"

It was like catch.

Denise: I don't really think it's appropriate for anyone to be sent to a program like this.

Whitney: When my family talks about it, everybody gets quiet.

Leslie: The rules are as follows: Never leave camp.

female announcer: This program is funded in part by the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Foundation, Temple University, Film & Media Arts, Artist Relief Fund, and the Robert Morris University Faculty Summer Fellowship, with additional funding from the New York State Education Department.

Leslie: Hi, we made it.

Yeah, and I realize, I mean, obviously, the contact for him is to explain more, so I don't--I-- Yeah.

No, I mean, I think--well, it would be a conversation.

I mean, like, the reason that I asked--wanted to ask you is because you were someone that was important to me there.

It's not--you wouldn't be, like, an expert witness that I'm interrogating or something.

Leslie: It was our shared belief that I deserved to be sent away.

My parents saw my vulnerability as a burden.

That's what I had become.

We hid my mental illness from the world.

I was ashamed.

Would I ever trust myself and my choices?

Bruce Koren: And over here is Leslie.

[children singing] Leslie: I had a relatively normal, happy childhood.

I used to play ice hockey.

My parents would come and watch me.

I loved to skate.

And then one day, I didn't feel that way anymore.

Overnight, I developed severe clinical depression.

I lost interest in everything I loved.

My parents got divorced.

I dropped out of high school and I felt out of control.

I wish I could explain what happened or how I felt, and I can't.

I was scared.

We didn't know how to get the support I needed.

My parents were referred by friends to a consultant.

After one visit, he suggested a behavior modification school in rural Utah.

I quickly realized I would not be returning home.

Lindy Koren: Come back!

Leslie: I was kind of like, momentarily paralyzed, like an electric shock running through my body.

All these memories would just come flooding back.

I'm in a rural desolate place.

There are other children around me.

I don't know them.

We're locked in a room.

An older man is looking down on us, yelling, "You're not going home!"

There's nothing to protect me from him.

I pleaded that I have done nothing wrong and must be in the wrong place, and then I wake up.

Twelve years after I graduated, I had a flashback, something had irrevocably shifted.

What was this trauma that I haven't been confronting?

Leslie: I thought if I could talk to my parents maybe this gnawing feeling that something was wrong would go away.

Bruce: You're the Ralph Edwards in this play.

Leslie: Who is Ralph Edwards?

Bruce: He did "This is Your Life," an old TV show.

Lindy: I feel like Milton Berle's here.

You were 16-ish and, you know, in my mind, you were always a good student, you were very bright.

You asked questions.

Your perceptions were way beyond your years and you were always very sensitive.

But all of a sudden, you became like a normal 16-year-old, but a little bit more dangerous and it was a little scary.

You had shown signs of not being able to--or not interested in school to a level I had never seen before.

One time, I think you said you couldn't think to do something that you knew how to do.

So I guess there were signs.

And one particular night, you were talking to me or trying to talk to me and the phone rang and it was somebody I had to answer and when I got off the phone, 'cause I cut it short, you were gone, and the car was gone.

And I remember calling Bruce and saying, "I don't know where she went, you know, and I'm scared she has the car.

She doesn't--maybe she'll hurt herself, I don't know."

I remember that night as being a demarcation from normal, chaos.

Lindy: I didn't know what happened to you to take you to a spiral that took over your mind.

And you were like--it was, like, empty.

There was nothing there.

Maia Szalavitz: What was your diagnosis?

Leslie: My diagnosis was basically severe, like, major depressive disorder.

Maia: Right, the sad thing about this is that depression is probably the worst diagnosis to send a kid away for because, basically, when you're depressed what you need most is the support of your loved ones and to feel safe and secure in your attachments and to be held by your family and your community and told that it's okay.

Troubled teen is not actually a diagnosis.

What these programs have done is sell parents on the idea that you can take any kid who's acting in any way abnormally, send them away, and we'll fix them, and all will be well.

And this just isn't how mental health works.

These programs are aimed at making you feel powerless, helpless, and cut off.

The thing that is most likely to create PTSD is putting somebody in a situation where they have no social support, where they feel powerless and helpless.

That is the definition of the types of experiences that produce PTSD.

Bruce: I remember 7:00, 7:15 in the morning, your mother calling me, all worked up because she had gone in to make sure you were up to get ready to go to school.

She said you were sitting on the edge of your bed and you were just sort of staring at the wall.

You were just being non-communicative.

We ended up going to BryLin Hospital.

You had been placed in a room, and I'm working from memory, with a girl who had tried to kill herself at least three times.

So when the time came to release you, you got into the car and one of the first things you said to me was, "Get me out of here.

Those people are crazy."

The very second you said it, I remember being struck by your use of the word "Those," because what that told me was you weren't including yourself in the crazy people.

"Get me out of here.

Those people are crazy."

Leslie: I remember wanting relief.

I just wanted to feel better.

And I knew--I mean, I wasn't trying--I wasn't, like, out stealing cars or something.

I was just trying to, like, get back to being in control.

And my roommate didn't try and kill herself three times.

Bruce: Not while she was there, but she had been--she was in there because she'd had repeated suicide attempts.

Leslie: Well, that's why I was there.

Bruce: But you didn't have repeated--you had one that I remember where you mixed cough syrup and whisky and you took a sip and hated the taste and spit it out.

That's the only one I remember.

If you remember more, then they're gonna be news to me.

I remember the Posner episode as being a significant turning point where your mother made an appointment with him and he's, of course, at Cornell so we, the three of us, drove down to Ithaca.

He told your mother and me, "Now, go get a bagel, go get coffee.

Leave us alone for a while."

And you ended up being with him alone, just the two of you, talking, for I wanna say 2 or 3 hours.

He was explaining to you the idea of your finding an appropriate therapeutic boarding school for lack of a better phrase.

And then he mentioned--came around to the Oakley School in Oakley, Utah, and I remember my reaction when what I said was, "F--Utah?

What you are talking about, we live in Buffalo, New York."

And his response being, "Well, JetBlue can get you there in 4 hours."

Leslie: This is the extent of my parents' knowledge.

They can't give me answers.

I decided to return to Utah to visit the school.

Leslie: Someone once said to me, "The most significant things to do in life are the things that are the hardest for us.

Every one of us has chosen the path less traveled, having come through Oakley.

Maybe not because it was harder, but because eventually it would provide what we needed.

And I'm sure most of us didn't realize this until about halfway through our stay.

I know I didn't.

I needed something, some experience to shake me into caring about my life, my future, myself.

I couldn't do it on my own now.

My mother and father made it possible for me to access the resource I needed.

I'll never forget when my mother proceeded to walk through the double doors, both of us crying.

She showed me her greatest love by walking out.

Jen Schneider: Do you want to pull in?

Then turn around in there?

Leslie: I dunno.

We're, like, losing light and I'm afraid.

'Cause if we go in, then we have to go all the way in.

Jen: Is that it?

Leslie: Yeah.

This is so hard.

Leslie: My parents were proud of me.

I knew what it was to be rehabilitated, or so I thought.

female: I felt very uncomfortable that I was even thinking about the possibility of admitting that, guess what, we have depression in our family.

We have issues.

And we're gonna talk about them and we're gonna-- Leslie: It's clear that the pitch to fix kids was far from ideal.

female: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, you know?

Leslie: I wanted to find a psychiatrist to further understand the impact of being separated from family.

Steven Berkowitz: The term "least detrimental alternative" actually grew out of interest in custody hearings.

female: Diagnosis: PTSD, ADHD, and is currently taking the following medications: Seroquel 25 milligrams at 2 p.m. Steven: Initially, actually, it was called "in the best interests of the child."

And there was a recognition by the people who really started this kind of idea that there wasn't actually a best interest.

There was what was least worst?

That none of this was actually good.

Steven: Does she understand what a 15-year-old girl is supposed to be like?

female: Yeah, what's developmentally appropriate?

Steven: Yeah.

female: Yeah.

female: And no matter how many times we say this-- Steven: You know, it's complicated.

It's incumbent on the caregivers to make the adjustments.

That's the role of a parent.

And if they can't do that, or in, you know, some cases where it's their poor parenting or their poor skills that either exacerbate or cause the difficulties that the child has, dramatic changes are needed.

I think the data's pretty clear that if we're able to help make those changes in the family that kids do better than when they're taken out of the family.

But again, that's not always possible and that's where we, you know, go to the least detrimental alternative.

Leslie: I wonder about my former classmates.

It's painful to go back to this time, and it's daunting to process it with family, friends, or anyone who may be unfamiliar.

If I feel isolated in this experience and wanna ask questions, maybe they do too.

Megan: Because I haven't started my career yet.

I still have to prove myself to employers and to the field that I wanna work in, and I think that there's a lot of judgment and stigma around mental health issues and so, career-wise, I feel like it's important that I, at this point, protect my identity.

Megan: I'm in my third year of law school and I'm planning on practicing child advocacy law when I graduate.

Typically, the first question is why you wanna-- why do you want this job?

Why do you wanna do this work?

And part of why I wanna do this work is because having had a somewhat rocky childhood makes me all the--want all the more to deal with--to make other people's childhood smoother and happier in any way that I can.

My parents got divorced when I was eight and that--it was a very ugly divorce that was still not finalized when my dad passed away.

It was, like, long and drawn out.

And the next year I lost my godmother.

She was young.

She passed away very unexpectedly.

And then the next year I lost my grandfather which was less unexpected, and then the next year my dad passed away.

So it was kind of a few things in a row.

When I was 12, my sister started acting out also, so I think I sort of was following in her footsteps a little bit.

And when I was 13 she was sent away to a program out West.

I think I kind of held it together until it was my turn to fall apart and then fell apart big time.

But it started with smoking cigarettes and then drinking and smoking pot, and I didn't too much worse than that.

Leslie: If there was one, what was your diagnosis?

Megan: Depression, and then since Oakley, anxiety.

Leslie: And is that--that's continuous?

Megan: Yeah.

Leslie: Most students come to these programs with some kind of existing symptoms: bipolar disorder; depression; physical, sexual, or emotional trauma.

I find that my own mental health diagnosis has a new layer since graduating.

I have complex PTSD.

Its shape takes the form of a recurring nightmare or flashback, but not of a singular event.

Instead, I relive feelings of sadness, helplessness, and fear.

I learned this is a common outcome of attending these programs.

female: Hey, hey, hey.

female: Oh my God, it's been forever.

Karen: The way I came to Oakley, I kind of fell out of the sky in my world, you know?

I come from a big family with limited resources.

My father, who I love dearly and we have a fantastic relationship now, at the time was completely absent, struggled with alcohol and very self-centered.

My mom, who did not struggle with alcohol, was no different.

She had different men around that had different agendas with her children on a pretty regular basis, whether it be sexual abuse or physical abuse or, you know, she was just very checked out.

I think that, for my father, this was like his moment to have an impact on my future and he took it.

He began to pitch the idea of having his 14-year-old daughter who was in a bad situation get out of Rapid City, South Dakota, and maybe be taken care of in ways that he couldn't even provide.

You know, my grandparents have all been through boarding schools that were very abusive, you know?

My grandma on my mom's side went through it, a Catholic Indian boarding school, and two of her siblings were murdered there.

And they didn't tell her mother about this until a year later, that her children were dead, you know, so really intense things happened in boarding schools.

And I thought, "Hell, no, Dad.

Like, I'm not going anywhere."

He was like, "Well, you know, this could be a real opportunity to get you out of a bad situation," and he sent me all this information in these, like, brochures and they even got, like, kids on mountain bikes and, like, snowboarding.

And like, fulltime therapists and there's, like, pictures of these professors or teachers or whatever, like, hovering over a book with a student and explaining things to them and just these images, I guess, in this brochure.

I was like, "Wow."

Like, "This looks like that movie I watched about the Mighty Ducks or something," you know?

And I got a little more interested in it.

And before I knew it, you know, I was being swept off to Utah.

[door opening] Leslie: When did your home life start becoming rocky?

Denise: Um...

Sorry, I'm like, I'm just thinking about the euphemism, like, what does rocky mean?

Can I say, like, two?

When I was 2 years old?

[laughing] My home life has always been pretty rocky.

Denise: And there were just some things that I think got totally blown out of proportion.

Like, I would "steal," but stealing is, like, I would take my mom's makeup or I would take my sister's hairbrush.

But it was just always like a big scene whenever something like that happened, so.

I was so depressed that I, you know, there were times that I couldn't get out of bed in the morning and I would just miss school.

I was also angry about a lot of things.

Leslie: What were you angry about?

Denise: Like, can we come back to that?

I don't know.

I don't know how to answer that right now.

Whitney: Even if someone asks you, like, "Oh, where did you go to high school?"

I usually just tell them I went to boarding school and kind of leave it at that.

When my family talks about it, I feel like everybody gets quiet, and it's weird.

Whitney: I grew up dancing.

My first, like, time on stage was I was 3 years old.

My mom is--she's like the head of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, and I was performing with her all the time.

It's based on, like, Greek mythology, a lot of silks and flowing movement.

She used bare feet.

And as a child, like, it's very natural for children because it's so free.

You know, it was our time together.

My parents were divorced when I was three and I was with my mom, traveling with her, and we went to Brazil, we went to Korea.

I was, like, on the road with her all the time, like, dancing.

Leslie: You mentioned that when things soured in your home situation, that it was about dance.

Whitney: Basically, it was really about the relationship with my mother.

She's very, like, work-obsessed, so I kind of felt like second.

So I think I really tested that, like, I'm second, like, I don't want to be a part of dance.

That is like, this important special thing for you, and I'm second.

Then when I hit adolescence, I was like [clicking fingers] it was like, "I don't wanna dance."

Like, I don't wanna be that, or something.

I wanna just go crazy, I dunno.

I could have--I wanted to die.

I was just like, I don't care about anything.

Everything's caving in on me and I feel so small.

And I--like, there were no options.

I ran away, I lied all the time.

I skipped school, I started doing drugs, I started drinking at, like, 11.

I had no fear, I was just like ready to go, anything, it's just get out.

Leslie: On the day that I enrolled, I remember my mother walking away as, like, I'm screaming, "Please don't leave me.

Please don't leave me," over and over again.

The further she got, the louder I screamed.

While I was able to say goodbye to my mother, most of my peers were taken forcibly by hired escorts from their homes.

Megan: Sunday night, I went to sleep, thinking I was going to school the next day, if I felt like it.

And then, probably around, like, 4 in the morning, I was woken up.

My mom woke me up.

She said, "I love you," and she ran out of the room, tearful, and I sat up and there was a giant dude in my doorway and a pretty strong-looking woman in my bedroom, and they said, "Get up and get dressed.

We have a flight to catch."

And being a lawyer's daughter, I tried to negotiate with them, and I said, "I don't even know who you are.

Where are you taking me?"

And they said, "You don't need to worry about that."

And I said, "I don't feel comfortable going with strangers somewhere.

I don't even know where I'm going."

And they said, "Well, your mom has signed over your custody to us, so you don't have a choice."

I got dressed and they were clearly trained escorts, walked on either side of me, like, the woman had her arm linked in mine the whole time.

Put me in the back of a car and drove me to the airport.

And we all got on a flight to Utah.

I alternated crying and sleeping on the plane right there, but when I woke up and found myself in Utah, I was not happy about it and I was passed off to another set of escorts that were gonna take me to the Wilderness program and I, at that point, became extremely uncooperative, argumentative, and I--they had to take me to get a physical on the way to the Wilderness program and I refused to let the doctor see me.

Once I got to the base of the Wilderness program, I was supposed to be strip-searched and changed into the clothes that they were providing me and give them all my belongings, and I refused.

And I balled up on the couch and just lay there crying and refusing to do anything for hours and they finally had to take me out into what they called the field, but take me out into the wilderness to meet the group that I was going to meet in my street clothes 'cause I just refused to do anything.

And they said, "You're going out tonight, whichever way you go," so that's how they took me.

Denise: The day that I left home was a Saturday.

male: Continue to await the long waiting game for the White House.

Denise: It was during the 2000 election and they were, like, fighting over, you know, the presidency so I was, like, watching the news.

female: Still to be counted in Florida, an undetermined number of-- Denise: My parents came downstairs and my dad said something like, "Listen, there are two people here to see you.

You're gonna go with them and we love you."

And then they came down.

The rest of my family left.

They got in the car and they went away, and then after they left, the escorts, you know, they made it very clear that I was not to leave them, you know.

They let me use the bathroom and that was about it.

They didn't handcuff me, they didn't, you know, physically do anything to keep me with them, but I just knew that I had to stay with them at all times.

Once we left the house, we got into whatever car they used to pick me up.

Now that I think of it, I might have known, like, as we were approaching the airport that we were going to the airport, 'cause we were in Queens and then I started to really freak out, actually.

And there was this thing, we called it "FI," Future Information, you know, future information.

You know, I would ask them questions about where we were going or about what was gonna happen, and they said that they couldn't tell me that information, or they told me, you know, not to worry about it until it was actually happening.

They told me not to worry about anything, that I would be taken care of, that I was going to a safe place.

I did feel safe, which is amazing to me now.

It never even occurred to me to try to run away or to try to fight this.

I was, like, "Well, this is happening."

I think I had this complex where I wanted approval from adults that were outside my family.

So, you know, I was just on my best behavior, basically.

Is how I remember it, but God knows if I, you know.

You know, I think that I actually had it pretty good because I know that some escort services, they hire these big, like, ex-marines, but my escorts were very friendly, they were non-threatening.

It kind of amazes me the time, though, that I went with them, because they took me after my family had left and, yes, my dad said, you know, "Go with them and do what they say," but it's just kind of amazing to me, looking back on it that I didn't think to myself, you know, like, "Oh my God, I'm being kidnapped," 'cause I really had no idea what was going on.

And I knew what was happening was a big deal, but I don't think I had any idea that it was gonna completely change my life the way it did.

Leslie: Do you feel like you deserved to be sent away?

Maia: The idea of a therapeutic boarding school is, basically, a school which uses a tough love, break-kids-down approach in order to fix these various problems, whether it be defiance or addiction or whatever else the parent says is wrong with the child.

The idea of a therapeutic boarding school is sort of an extension of the tough love that is seen in a wilderness program which only lasts a few months, whereas a therapeutic boarding school lasts for as long as high school would last for.

It's an extension of these ideas that come from the addiction treatment world, originating in a program called Synanon where the idea was that in order to break through the tough street identity of people and in order to get them away from deviant activity which, in the case of Synanon, was drugs, we need to completely reformat your personality, erase you, and then rebuild you.

And these ideas from the '50s through the '70s moved into the therapeutic boarding school or the emotional growth boarding school or the Wilderness program and the boot camp.

All of these places took these ideas and did slight twists on them, but the main idea remained: we break you to fix you.

When you are making a big decision about your child's mental health, you need to think of it the way you would think of a cancer diagnosis, which is you call Aunt Sally who works at Sloane, Kettering.

You engage your entire family network, you talk to your friends.

You don't hide it, you don't pretend that it's something shameful that nobody should be dealing with, because part of the reason these programs have been able to thrive is that people search on the Internet in the middle of the night and they don't talk to their friends and they don't hear the horror stories that are out there, and they don't do their research because they're ashamed of having the problem in the first place and they really shouldn't be.

Denise: There were different levels at the Wilderness program, so the first level when you first go out there, you're not allowed to talk to anyone, except for one person.

I was really, really upset once I was actually in the field and understood what was going on.

And the thing that kind of brought me out of it was that we were hiking up a mountain and I was just kind of taking in the view and taking in the fresh air.

Utah is a beautiful state.

It looks like something on another planet.

And I just kind of thought to myself, "Okay, well, you know what?

This is happening.

I can't stop it from happening.

And I'm hiking in the mountains and it's beautiful.

And I don't really have to do anything except for, just like, be.

Leslie: Did you feel like you were surviving that experience?

Did you feel like when you were there, you did what you could to get through it?

Denise: Um... You know, I think that when I was actually in the Wilderness program, there was definitely a time for a good chunk of it, I thought that this was gonna be the end, that I was gonna be, like, institutionalized.

So, you know, I think in that sense, like, kind of emotionally, I had to survive and get through it, but I would say there were things that I had to survive before I went to Wilderness.

Whitney: Well, after I kind of had, like, explosive episodes, my parents were, really, like, "We need to do something."

I started therapy and I kept skipping therapy.

I changed schools and it still just wasn't working out.

And then I went to Wilderness.

Wilderness in Utah, for 7 weeks, I think, Aspen, Aspen Achievement Academy.

That was rough.

And then after Wilderness, I went to, like, a lockdown we had.

Your first, like, experience is you can't, like, you have to sit on the floor.

It's, like, at low-level.

You can't sit on the couches, like, the upper levels.

And you can't talk.

Leslie: For how long?

Whitney: Until you prove yourself in some way.

I think I even went below that level, if you can go below, and I had to be, like, watched sleeping.

I think I tried to run away, that's what it was.

Even though I didn't really believe it was real or whatever--right, or--you're pressed into submission, and it's funny that that's the only way out.

Like, that we're so sick or, like, stuck in ourselves, that we think that we're right until we see, like, "Okay, this is not--no, this is wrong, and I have to go along with it because I've dug myself into this big hole."

And I didn't--I mean, am I gonna figure out a way out?

Am I gonna, like, make the rules?

No, it's not gonna work.

Like, I am in an institution, I'm institutionalized right now.

In the middle of nowhere.

Leslie: The rules are as follows: Never leave camp without staff permission.

Always ask permission to do anything and always follow staff directives.

Never lend, trade, or borrow equipment or food.

Keep all belongings neat and orderly.

There will be no foul language.

Do not approach any vehicle without staff permission.

Never touch or go near staff equipment.

No sarcasm.

There will be no questions pertaining to the future.

Megan: At Oakley, we had, I think it was weekly therapy with our individual therapist, but we also had weekly group therapy with our entire floor, which was our dorm, maybe 20 girls.

There were also some times where they would call group therapy unexpectedly.

It wasn't scheduled and they would let everyone in the dorm know, "We're meeting here for group therapy," and that always was because someone in the dorm had done something wrong that they wanted to bring to the attention of everyone and deal with very openly.

Denise: You know, in particular, I just remember the feedback sessions.

And my memories of them are I look back on it with horror at these feedback sessions.

It was like, you know, you get a bunch of teenage girls living together to give each other "feedback."

I remember some of them that were just awful.

I remember one girl raised her hand during a feedback session.

She was in--she was new.

She'd just come in.

And she said to this other girl, who was the subject of the feedback, "You know, I just--I don't like you," and then she turned to the house coach who was running the session and said, "Am I allowed to say that?"

And the house coach said, "You're allowed to say whatever you want."

I feel like there was just a general culture where we liked to see each other getting knocked down, 'cause it brought us up somehow.

Steven: There is very little that needs to be shared outside of the therapeutic relationship, other than if the individual is a danger to themselves or others.

It's really important there's a lot of trust between a therapist and their individual client or student or patient or whatever you wanna call it.

And in the situation where the child or, you know, adolescent feels that anything they say is going to get back to either the residential facility or the parents, that trust doesn't exist.

And I would suggest that it's very hard to improve and to heal in therapy if that's the case.

Karen: The students were brought into this fishbowl of a room, you know, and they had to sit in front of their peers and staff members that held a lot of power over their daily life.

And confess what they did.

This person comes in and he sits down and he's confessing how he pulled some foam out of the back of our van seat and threw it at one of the students, towards the front of the van.

And then that's it, like, he then--he leaves, you know.

And we spent the next 3 days, 5 hours a day, talking about the foam that was picked out of this seat and thrown towards the front of the van.

He was no longer going to be allowed to be alone.

He'd be supervised at all times.

He was not going to be able to speak to anybody until they decided that he would be allowed to speak again.

He would have to wear what they called the off-form uniform.

He wasn't going to be allowed to wear his own clothing anymore.

He'd have to sit and eat alone.

He would spend his time outside the classroom in a what they called the mud room.

It was like an entryway to the building with shoeboxes everywhere.

He would be supervised while doing his laundry, you know.

He would have night checks, like, up, the amount of night checks, a staff come in and shine a flashlight in his face and make sure he's sleeping in his bed the way he's supposed to.

I mean, every action that this student was gonna make after that was going to be heavily supervised and controlled, you know.

So everything's just gone, you know, over, in my opinion, a very age-appropriate behavior that should be dealt with in an appropriate manner like, "Hey, dude, like, stop tearing up the van seat."

When you got put on "Off-form," it's what they called it when you had to live like this, it wasn't like being grounded at home for the weekend.

It was going to be a lengthy process to get off because all of a sudden your integrity was constantly questioned, you would be torn down in groups, you know, like, you became the target and because of the way they had this, like, whole privilege system set up, and it was so terrifying to lose your privileges, there was always a scapegoat in the room, you know?

And what better scapegoat than the ones the staff identified?

Leslie: I was terrified all the time and I don't think I was really experiencing how terrified I was.

Karen: Right.

Leslie: Did you feel that way?

Karen: Yeah.

Leslie: I'm starting to feel out of control and worn down in this process.

Putting the pieces together, unlocking these feelings, and reliving these stories, it occurs to me how much I had to suppress in order to survive.

Megan: There were two girls that, supposedly, made a pact with each other to kill themselves, I think by taking pills, by overdosing, and only one of those girls had to go to the hospital because the other girl didn't actually try to kill herself.

What was essentially manipulated the other girl into trying to overdose and kill herself.

So they had a fake suicide pact.

Denise: It was in a 7-hour group and I just remember, you know, being entertained during it because this therapist spoke for most of it, okay, and he just told this story and he was such a good storyteller, and I was like, "Oh my God."

She told her to take these pills and then said, "Sit back, and it's gonna be a wild ride," and then, you know, and he was just like--it was entertaining, you know?

It wasn't therapeutic at all, for anyone.

It was all about shaming the girls that were involved.

Or the girl that was involved, because one of them was rushed to the hospital, but.

Leslie: It's getting harder to deny the danger we were put in.

And when I hear this story, it makes me angry.

We weren't getting any help.

And yet, I still have an issue speaking badly about this place and this time and the people that had power over us.

Leslie: I need to speak to someone who had authority over me at the school.

Will talking to them make me feel more resolved?

Two former instructors from Oakley agreed to meet with me.

Mr. Katchuck now sells snakes and reptiles and is still a teacher trying to help kids.

Mr. Katchuck: I've done three different schools in my life for about the same time.

There has been a high percentage of the Oakley kids that are now much dead.

They're just, you know, there have been way more deaths in that school, that group, than any other school that I've ever been.

I do believe that Oakley worked for a lot of kids.

And there's plenty of kids it doesn't work for but, you know, I've seen enough with the drug stuff to know that there's no talking to kids when the drugs come into it, nothing in the world scares me like that.

I don't know what you do if you're a desperate parent.

I'm just a big believer in, I guess, warm, fuzzy, and caring, and it's always been easy but then, you know, just recently in a girl that I tried so much to help, goes to prison and I find out, you know what?

Even I can't--I just--I'm not used to losing and I don't like it because, you know, you try so hard and I see so much good in these kids.

Her home life is a nightmare.

There's no support of any kind.

But there's--look at all the success stories, though.

That's what's neat.

Leslie: My former history teacher is a chocolatier and coffee roaster.

Mark: You didn't volunteer to be there, you didn't wanna be there.

In fact, I only know one student that ever came back voluntarily.

Didn't have to come back, and decided that was a better place for him.

Mark: My bosses that would want to put me into a group 'cause they saw me as a large muscular guy and I could be a threatening presence and I would just say, "I'm not that guy."

And he was also the same person that would always say, "Don't confront the students if they say they're gonna run away.

Just say, you know, 'Why would you wanna do that?

It'd be really difficult for you.

We're just gonna start the whole thing over again if you do run away.'

Try to demonstrate the consequences were gonna be different."

And I've been thinking about this since we talked the other day where you had people telling you you're not going home.

And I do remember a lot of that being coached into us when struggling with students: try to get to the point where the student does acquiesce.

Just get them past the point where they're thinking, "I can get out of this.

I can go--I can go home."

And it was never meant to be or done with disrespect and I would never--I'd personally never say, "You're not going home," but I did tell a lot of students, "You've gotta get past that, or you're not going home, okay, because you know the alternative is worse than this.

And this is what has been set up with your parents."

I thought, "Well, we're helping these kids get to a better place."

Some of the things that we would encounter was, you know, a student is--they'd be, you know, cruising along, everything would be fine, they'd find their pace, they'd find their comfort level, but they might not be excelling academically, and you'd have parents, "Look, they're just not ready for college."

Yeah, they're not ready for college.

You know, they need a gap year, they need a fifth year, they need more time to mature.

They don't have those skills yet, but they'll-- they could get them.

They can get those skills and it'll be after they leave here.

But some parents, you know, they've gotta be going to school.

They can't come home.

Arch' used to always say, "We didn't say, 'Drop 'em off and we'll hand 'em back to you fixed.'"

Leslie: Hi.

Hi we made it.

I'm aware that you work in the field and that you probably have clients and that you have a private practice.

This conversation would be more about kind of my bridging of two selves, the one who went to Oakley and trying to understand that as an adult.

Leslie: No, I mean, I think--well, it would be a conversation.

I mean, like, the reason that I asked--wanted to ask you is because you were someone that was important to me there.

But I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable.

I can just tell you that it would be an important conversation for me.

Sounds great.

I'll talk to you soon.

Okay, bye.

[trolley bell ringing] Leslie: Where are we at now?

I feel really overwhelmed right now.

Like, why did I make this film.

Why did it have to be a film?

Like, couldn't I have just, like, called people?

female: Don't you think, and I mean this, don't you think that sometimes thinking of it in terms of this film you're making makes it all a little bit easier to digest?

Leslie: Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, it's like it put some distance between myself.

female: It's six.

female: Yeah, I got my phone on.

Start recording now.

female: Are you pressing "Record"?

Okay.

Leslie: That might be him.

I have to go.

Leslie: Hi [bleep].

Really s--weather.

How's it going?

Leslie: We could hang out in the car.

Leslie: I have this recurring dream where if I've done something bad or I'm worried about something, I go back to Oakley.

former dean: Have you talked to your parents about this?

Leslie: Ah, yeah.

But it happens pretty regularly.

There are these, like, remnants of some kind of--I really internalized the good, the bad, the rules, the order, in a way that maybe I wasn't supposed to.

Leslie: I was just a sick kid.

I didn't need to be in a punitive system.

I just needed to be heard.

Instead of being open and growing, I think that I took advantage of the structure and just kept my head down and survived, was resilient, moved forward, and I think that looked like, even to me, like it was progress.

My fear jolted me into survival, but survival isn't recovery.

I think my experience in Utah made me never wanna be uncomfortable again.

former dean: It was really uncomfortable.

The circumstances of the world or the structure of Oakley, the way it handled things, where was there a place for Leslie to make sense of this?

Where was there a safe place for her, a place where she felt safe too?

And there wasn't.

So you built a resilience, you smothered these feelings, these emotions, you appeared to be coping.

You said the symptoms are--because if you display the symptoms, that would be bad and then there'd be a lot of punishment for it.

Whether this was Oakley's fault, which I'm not disagreeing with it, you did not have a place to deal with these things, to feel safe with these things.

And that was a--it sounds like a real problem with your experience there.

I'll validate everything you say in here.

I think it's really important you didn't feel safe.

And for you to say there's a lot Oakley is responsible for, the fact you couldn't go anywhere, you had no outlet here, you had no choice here, it was do it or prison, you know, these kinds of things, you know, that's what Oakley was.

Leslie: There is a level of isolation that I've discovered among my peers and most of them haven't talked about Oakley to anyone in their life, and it's too hard to talk.

It's--how do--where would you start?

And not just Oakley, but their process away from home.

Where would you start in these 7 years, 2 years, 3 years of these people's lives, ejected from their loved ones.

Most of the time where those people don't know where they went, their friends, you know, and the burden of recovery's on them.

I think that I'm wanting to, on behalf of my peers, hold someone accountable for--not someone, but maybe less than a jail term.

former dean: So what are you looking for?

Leslie: Just acknowledgement, you know, and that doesn't mean that it's coming singularly from you or from any one person.

former dean: Or staff or hierarchy or administrations and all these things.

Yeah, it was a complicated system.

And I don't feel accused by you, so-- Leslie: That's good.

Will you decide what do you want?

former dean: Yeah, I'm curious what you're looking for here.

Leslie: I think it's productive just to be able to talk about it as an adult with people that had authority over me, because you, in my mind, you--all these people when I think about Oakley, you do have some power over me still.

I don't have, like, the answers.

former dean: I know, I know, and I'm processing this with you.

Leslie: No, that's fine.

former dean: And for me, too, but back to it, and I didn't say it well.

Was it Oakley wasn't safe?

How much of it was Oakley wasn't safe?

How much was it Leslie didn't feel safe?

You don't like what I'm saying, Leslie.

You'd like some accountability.

Leslie: After talking to him, I'm filled with self-doubt.

Was it the school or was it me?

Do I have the right to be angry?

Can I trust my feelings?

Or is it in my head?

Why is our experience so often denied when we speak up?

Why is the burden of proof on us?

What did I really accomplish by starting this journey?

Maia: You get sent away and told that you're the problem, this is going to make it worse.

Maia: Why is it that we end up blaming the child?

Maia: How can they get any other message but that it's their fault?

Leslie: We're so privileged that we all have someone loving and caring enough to give us what may have seemed like hell on earth at times, the second or maybe third or fourth chance to change.

And we have, and the credit is ours for that because the hurdles some of us have overcome are--were no easy climbs.

And I am amazed when I think of the strength that our class possesses.

Leslie: I was really mad, but I also felt, like, very confused.

It was so useless.

Leslie: I felt like we were losing ground because I didn't know where we could go next to look for answers.

There was no bad guy.

There was no one that could really give me, like, proof or validation that I wanted.

Leslie: So many things happen to people every day and they're very horrible, and so what?

So what?

I left home, I was sent away, I went to this place, and it was very scary, and I didn't go back home for 2 years in any real way and that was the end of my childhood.

It's like, so what, you know?

And the people that worked there, they weren't bad people, they're just there, working.

I don't--it's just hard to, like-- there's no one to demonize.

female: I think that that, the PTSD moment that we always talk about, I think that that--I think that's grief.

I think that's grief for that kid who needed that.

Leslie: Yeah, it makes sense that that flashback was about the opening up of grief.

female: That kid didn't survive.

You survived.

Leslie: I don't know.

I just don't wanna take up so much space and just own it, you know, like, own that.

'Cause a really painful thing happened and, like-- to say to figure my way out of it.

So, I don't know, like, what do you do with that information when your--the people that are supposed to care for you and then the people they pass you on to care for you, just make so many misguided choices, I don't-- Lindy: Leslie, this is your mother.

I need to know--you need to keep in touch with me.

I need to know what the doctor said and how you're feeling.

Give me a call.

female: Hey, lady, it's me.

Give me a call.

I'd love to hear from you, find out how you're doing.

Give me a call.

Talk to you soon, bye female: Hi, Les.

It's me, just calling to see how you're doing.

It's Friday evening.

I love you very much.

Call me back this weekend.

'Kay, bye.

female: Les, call me back.

I need help, and I wanna help you.

Love you.

Call me.

Leslie: People are looking for me, but I feel alone.

After filming in Utah, I get sick again.

My symptoms haven't been this severe since I was a teenager, spiraling downward, have ruminating thoughts, paranoia, feeling hopeless.

I can barely move.

This goes on for months.

Amy: Amy, I miss you.

Been thinking about you and hoping you're feeling good, better.

Give me a call.

I'd love to hear from you, yeah.

So, love you, thinking of you.

Give me a call whenever.

Bye.

Lindy: Between the time you went there and you stayed there, you would call me and tell me to--that you wanted to come home, that you hated the place.

It was a constant.

And I was told to tell you, "Okay, Leslie, what do you wanna do about it or, like, basically, not to give in to your wishes to leave.

And that was really hard because you were my daughter, I trusted you, and yes, I was paying this place and I was supposed to trust them.

It was very difficult.

And what happened in between the time you were dropped off and the time you came home, shortly before you came home, I had a heart attack, but I didn't tell you I had a heart attack, because I didn't want you to worry or to think you had a part to play in it.

So I never told you.

And I only told your sister because, when I had to have some other follow-up work, right after the heart attack, I thought I might die, and so, I don't know, she was supposed to be there.

Meanwhile, she came home and she got drunk because she was too nervous, so she was no help at all.

She was actually the prod daughter.

But the point was my life went to a very dark place myself.

I mean, I was only 47.

Lindy: Just shout at the moon and I'll hear you.

When you look at the moon, and I'll shout back and I'll send my love and messages, and whatever you hear, that's me.

Lindy: You wanted to come home and I imagined from hearing your stories there comes a painful moment where you have to tell your child, "Home ain't an option right now."

Leslie: "Dear journal, I wish my mom and dad had come out here to the field.

I want them to know how long and cold it is out there.

What am I going to say to my mother?

I envisioned running to her and simply running to her arms.

I'll never forget that image and a scene in my dream where I found this room and there she was, turned around in a backless white dress, more like a gown.

I ran up to her and she held me like a baby, swaying me back and forth for a while."

Whitney: This is something that I found in the file cabinet.

It's a journal that my mom kept.

She says: "I hope all of this is something to put behind me.

She knows so little of what she wants.

I can barely believe her, such confusion.

Today, after 4 days in the house, she bolts for the stairwell down in her socks.

I have taken her shoes.

I ran after her with no shoes, barefoot.

No keys or money.

I start yelling, "Stop that girl."

She stops and lets me grab her.

We, thankfully, get buzzed in by the neighbor's assistant.

We sat on the steps until the hallway traffic gets to be too much.

I coaxed her upstairs.

'I want drugs, I wanna go out to see my friends.'

No, you're too vulnerable now.

She later runs for the deck, saying she will kill herself.

John and I," that's my stepdad, John.

"John and I grab and restrain her.

It was horrible.

I was shaking."

Sorry.

"We talked for a long while."

Oh my God.

It's just like I tested her so much, and it was.

I mean, it must have been horrible.

If my daughter did that, I don't know what I'd do.

Like, I wouldn't know how to reach her.

Leslie: Yeah, that's, I don't know if it was a metaphor or just an image but, you know, the idea of parenting is imagine like you're flailing your arms and you're going all over the place and your parents are supposed to, like, give you a hug and just, like, let you freak out.

And they stay still.

Like, that stillness.

Whitney: Yeah, yeah, my mom, like, when I was flailing and kicking, she didn't even recognize me.

It was like I was some other ugly demon, you know?

I don't know, I just so wanted her to, like, hold me.

Maybe that's what love is.

I mean, even if it's, like, letting them go or giving them a different experience, like, you're still there, like, behind them.

I feel that with my husband.

Whitney: And it's so funny because, like, today, I feel like I had so many options, like, the world's at my fingertips, I could do whatever I wanted, if I wanted to.

Megan: I think, at least socially, I'm pretty open about my experiences.

I think that everything up to this point in my life has made me who I am and I'm not a 15-year-old that's screwing up her life anymore, so I don't have anything to be ashamed of.

I don't think--I don't think I thought about it often.

I think it tends to come up in conversation sometimes, just because I went to four different high schools if you include Wilderness in there.

So, you know, that tends to come up.

And if it does, this is still how I deal with it.

Like, if I'm talking to anyone else about it, I call it "bad kid school."

I think most people aren't aware that there is such a thing as therapeutic boarding school or Wilderness programs.

So I talk about it kind of jokingly, I guess.

I think that there were definitely people at Oakley that never bought into it, and I don't know if that means that it was--just wasn't the right program for them.

I definitely drank the Kool-Aid, 'cause that was the best way to get privileges.

I think I also bought in genuinely, I wanted my relationship with my mother to get better.

I wanted to be successful, which I hadn't wanted for a while.

Leslie: Do you think your parents' perspectives on sending you away have changed?

Denise: If you ask my mother, she'll say that I was completely out of control and that they couldn't handle me, and that I needed to go away.

My father, definitely, you know, has admitted that they could have done more while I was at home.

I think they had some professionals that were misleading them and this is something that they admit today.

When I was around 11, I think, 11 or 12, my parents saw a psychiatrist.

So she put me on an AVP medication and I feel like that was kind of the start of something.

That's something I've always been a little bitter about, honestly, was the medication I took when I was a teenager, because I didn't like taking it.

I didn't feel good on it and I told my parents that, and I told my doctor that.

And I just kind of felt like no one listened to me.

So I think that's another testament to the faith that my parents put in these professionals they were working with.

They listened to them over me, so.

I think my parents didn't have the tools they needed to really handle the situation appropriately.

I mean, I'm debating whether to say this.

You know, you know, I wanna say I don't really think it's appropriate for--I don't really think it's appropriate for anyone to be sent to a program like this.

I mean, you know, they're so expensive.

I think my parents, they were just letting their lack in other resources that weren't financial, and I think that's--I think in a way that's kind of sadder for me 'cause I feel like maybe if they tried harder, they could have done more.

Karen: I feel like, as a young person, at the time, how high the expectation was on me, if you want.

And like, what was interesting to me, I mean, just getting into Oakley, like, that it was, like, the way it was described to me, you know, was that it was a therapeutic school, you know?

Like, and therapy refers to our emotional intelligence, you know, and development.

But how, actually, I felt, like, the experience that I had and that I really witnessed as well, was to hush the emotional aspect of what was going on and it was very behaviorally focused.

And I would actually say that happens across the board.

It's not specific to the Oakley school.

We look at our juvenile correctional systems and it has nothing to do with rehabilitating a young person to function in society as an engaged citizen.

I was 16 years old, you know, and I had my peers older and younger than me coming to me crying about these things that they were dealing with, knowing full well it wasn't safe to say out loud in front of staff.

And a lot of these issues or situations or whatever it was that's coming up, definitely needed the attention of the staff, you know, with these things 'cause so quickly be turned to victimize a student that was needing support, you know?

Which just seems really anti what, like, the pitch was in regards to what kind of school Oakley was meant to be.

It felt like this was about making money, and there was a particular class of folks that were targeted and the sense that I got by the time I had not--by the time I graduated, was you were sent here 'cause--for us to raise you through these years that your parents can't handle.

Therefore, you will come out perfect.

And it was just a really wonky system that I felt like had a lot more to do with keeping an investment than actually investing in the student body that was there at the time.

But I've spent a good portion of my adult life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, doing a variety of things, ending with being involved in some pretty awesome work with young people.

I knew that I wanted to, in some way, work with youth, in particular teenagers, and I've spent a lot of time working for non-profits with youth and I've worked with school districts and school counselors and teachers and nurses.

What I've got my hopes on at the moment is something in regards to, like, public policy, public administration.

Leslie: What led you to be interested in that, in this career path?

Karen: You know, I've had a lot of reflections about it.

I think a big part of it is going to a school like Oakley.

I had to spend a week with my dad, listening to him and his wife at the time, and he was getting really upset that I didn't have any faith.

Who in the heck are you to tell me that I need to be praying when I don't watch you pray at all, you know?

And he looked at me and I felt really tough.

I was 12 years old and I was talking back to my dad, you know, and he said, "I do pray.

I just pray different."

I thought about it for a while and I was like, "Well, how do you pray?"

He took me out on a hike the next day and went up on top of this hill and there was a prayer circle up there and he started showing me these things, was Lakota way, you know, in such an innocent way, like it was so beautiful.

And he said to me, "Just listen.

You know, you don't have to say anything, you don't have to do anything.

Just listen."

And he pulls out this sage and, you know, and he smudges things off and I can smell it and I felt at home.

And he pulls out this sweetgrass and he makes this prayer, and he's praying and he's speaking and his eyes, like, are just like somewhere else, you know, and he's--and it's almost like he's talking to someone that I can't see.

And I can't wrap my brain around what's going on except that I know that it's perfect, you know, and that I felt safe.

Karen: At the end, I said, "Dad," and he kept saying this word over and over, at different times, and I said it was [speaking foreign language].

And I said, "What does that mean?"

And he goes, "Well, sweetheart, it means a lot of things.

But if I was gonna try to say it simple, it means the Great Mystery."

I wanna pray like this, Dad.

female: But I don't know where a lot of those guys are anymore.

male: Well, let's pause for one second.

Let's just go back to the family situation.

Do you feel like-- Leslie: When we got back from Utah, I started going to group therapy 4 days a week.

male: Somewhat of a second chance, but then how do you feel about-- Leslie: It was all about what is happening to us and the blame wasn't on us.

It was: Here are the textbook symptoms of what you're going through.

Oh, and it'll be about 6 weeks before you feel a little better and, oh yeah, the swirling thoughts, that's day 2 classic.

Just depersonalizing it, making it about symptomology, and it was so liberating.

Leslie: After making this film, I stopped having dreams and flashbacks of being sent away.

And I started to remember that when I was at Oakley, I would escape into my dreams and go ice-skating.

Recently, I tried out for a women's ice hockey team.

I bought some used equipment and I wanted to see what it would be like to play again.

Leslie: It was amazing how I remembered to handle the puck and skate.

announcer: This program is funded in part by the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Foundation, Temple University, Film & Media Arts, Artist Relief Fund, and the Robert Morris University Faculty Summer Fellowship, with additional funding from the New York State Education Department.