Child Psych Podcast Episode #111

Introduction  

[Tammy Schamuhn] Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Child Psych Podcast. My name is Tammy Schamuhn. I’m a registered psychologist, a registered play therapist, and the mom to three amazing  kids. Today, we have with us Meg Appelgate, who is here to share her story and discuss the troubled  teen industry. We had a fascinating conversation before this, and this topic is incredibly close to  my heart.  

Meg’s story is both horrific and inspiring—it’s a testament to resilience and has led to the creation  of some truly impactful nonprofit work. For anyone listening, you may have seen the recent Netflix  special on this subject. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the name of it at the moment, but I watched it  and was deeply horrified. This discussion is especially timely. To give some background, the  troubled teen industry refers to programs where teens are sent to camps or wilderness retreats  intended to “straighten them out” using scare tactics. Meg will shed light on her experiences and  this controversial industry. Today, we’re discussing the reality behind these organizations and what  teens truly experience. Before I introduce Meg, I want to take a moment to thank our listeners. If  you enjoy our podcast and the content we share, please consider giving us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Your support would mean so much to us!  

Okay, so Meg is the author and CEO of an unsilenced grassroots organization dedicated to speaking out against institutionalized child abuse in the troubled teen and youth mental health industry. After being sexually assaulted and expelled from school for drinking at 15, Meg’s parents spoke to an educational consultant and forcibly sent her to a children’s facility for troubled teens.  For the next 17 years, Meg dedicated herself to nonprofit work before eventually coming to the  realization that she had been abused and brainwashed during her time in the troubled teen industry.  After already doing extensive work in the nonprofit sector, Meg founded Unsilenced and wrote a book by the same name, which has since been working to transform the troubled teen industry. If  you’re watching this video on YouTube, this is the book we’re talking about—Becoming  Unsilenced. Welcome!  

[Meg Applegate] Thank You so much for having me!  

[Tammy] Yeah, this is—it’s very juicy, but also very unsettling. I don’t think we’re talking about it enough. I mean, Netflix recently released a documentary—have you seen it?  

[Meg] Yes, I mean, there are quite a few. There’s Hell Camp, which is the one I saw. Then there’s also The Program, which does a deep dive into WASP programs—these were pretty horrific  programs that existed and have mostly all shut down due to the abuse that occurred. But there are  actually quite a few more starting to mention it, and word is that more are coming. I’m really happy  to hear that. 

[Tammy] Yeah. So, everyone, I mean, I really like, did you like hell camp? I thought it was very eye-opening. Would you say that’s reflective of what you experienced? I’m just curious.  

[Meg] Hell Camp covers a lot about wilderness therapy programs and Steve Cartano, as well as the start of wilderness therapy. I never went to a wilderness therapy program; I went to a therapeutic boarding school and then a psychiatric facility, so my experiences were a bit different.  However, from what I know about most wilderness therapy programs, they followed a pretty standard model. All modern-day wilderness programs stem from Steve Cartano’s Challenger Foundation.  

What is the Trouble Teen Industry?  

[Tammy] So, okay, when we say ‘troubled teen industry,’ Meg, what does that mean? If anyone’s  listening, what do you mean by the ‘troubled teen industry’? Some parents may have never heard  of this. We mentioned wilderness camps—these are places where kids end up. So, what do you think this is? Why would someone end up there?  

[Meg] In general, it’s really hard to pin down one definition, but I would say the troubled teen industry is a network of powerful and punitive congregate care facilities or residential facilities that claim to help struggling youth. And by ‘struggling,’ that’s really in the eye of the beholder, right? It could refer to kids with behavioral issues, mental health disorders, or learning disorders.  Even kids with autism are becoming a target, with many programs claiming to help autistic kids.  So, it really varies. These kids are sent to facilities that go by many different names. You mentioned  wilderness therapy programs, but there are also therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment  centers, group homes (where many foster kids end up), juvenile justice facilities, religious academies, and boot camps. They go by a myriad of names, but the one consistent thing is that  kids who go there often leave calling themselves survivors. And yet, these are supposed to be  treatment programs.  

Meg’s Journey: From Survivor to Advocate  

[Tammy] Yeah, I always think of a show on TV called Scared Straight. Do you remember that?  Yeah, that’s what it reminds me of a little bit. When I was reading your book, it was those kinds of  kids who seemed really hardened on the outside. Now, I’m sure these kids all have a lot of traumas  and there’s all kinds of stuff going on, but then they’re just terrified, terrorized by these adults. But  what I think was really poignant, when we talk about it, is how you walk me through what that  was like for you. One thing that seems to be in common is how kids are removed—how this whole  thing starts. There seems to be a common thread in how they’re taken from their homes, and I  think you called it kidnapping in your book. Then there’s isolation, coercion, and brainwashing,  along with the collective trauma that happens between all the kids who go there. But let’s start  with that. What was it like to be taken from your home? What was going through your mind? What did that look like?  

[Meg] So I’ll preface it by saying that you touched on in a second, but it’s important to note that most of these kids that are being kidnapped, or even the kids that are going into this industry, almost always have some kind of unaddressed trauma, as it is, right? A lot of times it’s because of behavioral issues that parents see and they want to fix, but oftentimes it’s because of unaddressed trauma. So, you got to remember this, they already usually have some trauma, and so that just  doesn’t start them off on the right foot. But a lot of these kids, like you said, are being woken up  in the middle of the night, 2 am 1 am, and being told that they’re coming with them. And that’s  what happened to me. It was about one or 2 am they said that we can do this the easy way or the  hard way, and they implied that the hard way involved handcuffs, so I complied, right? And I think  that the most prevalent feeling if I try to remember what I was going through, was here I was this  15-year-old, and as most 15-year-olds, think I thought I knew everything. I thought I had the world  figured out. And in one fell swoop, I realized, kind of just, oh my god, I don’t and I’m scared, right? They proceeded to undress in front of them, go to the bathroom in front of them, and then  they put me into the back of an SUV, drove me to the airport, and the rest is kind of history. The next three and a half years were spent in two different programs.  

[Tammy] One of the things that stands out to me the most— and we’ll get into more details later— is that the people who are supposed to protect you, love you, and keep you safe are the ones who, instead, are saying, “See Ya.” You’re terrified, right? When we’re in a state of trauma, anxiety,  fear—whatever we want to call it—our natural response is to look to the adults in our lives for comfort and guidance. And I just wonder, in that moment, if you were with your parents, thinking,  “Save me, please,” only to realize that they weren’t going to.  

[Meg] Yeah, I think that was a really hard realization. That’s when it went from fear to anger. My  first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in over my head on this one.’ So, I kind of looked around for  my parents, thinking they’d save me, they’d help. I remember seeing them at the doorway, and my mom was crying, saying, ‘I’m not—we’re not abandoning you. We’re not abandoning you.’ In my  head, I’m like, ‘Yeah, you are. You’re 100% abandoning me.’ Then it really shifted into anger when I asked the two people escorting me, ‘Can I at least pack a bag?’ I remember the woman responding, ‘Your parents already did.’ That’s when the anger really flipped. I remember screaming  and cussing at my parents, saying, ‘I’m never going to talk to you again. I hate you. I’ll never forgive you for this,’ and just going off. It’s that realization that you’re put into this world, and  you’re supposed to have your parents protect you from these kinds of scary situations. But there I was, feeling like I had no one to protect me—and I didn’t.  

[Tammy] Yeah, you didn’t. And I think we relate to your story a little bit, though I’m not sure how  comfortable you are sharing it. I mean, it’s in the book, but still. You were already struggling  because, as you mentioned, you were on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, right?  Was there anything else going on for you? I’m just trying to recall. Yeah, I mean, there were other  things. You had been sexually assaulted, so there was that, right? You were just trying to figure out  who you were. It sounds like there were multiple things going on with you that led to this moment,  right?  

[Meg] Right? I mean, I was undiagnosed as autistic at that point. I was only diagnosed about two  and a half years ago, so it was really like, ‘What’s going on with Meg? We don’t really know.’ But  I’d had ADHD, and I was adopted, so I was dealing with the inherent trauma I carry around from  that. And then, yeah, I was just sexually assaulted. And I don’t think I had realized I was sexually assaulted. It didn’t register as a sexual assault back then when I was so young, but I was dealing with all of that and trying to fit in, and, you know, trying to find my place in the world, and who am I? The normal teenage stuff. And so, it came at such a crazy time that just made everything  worse.  

The Tactics of Control & Compliance  

[Tammy] Oh, and you’re so vulnerable when you’re you know, you’re a teenager, and your brain is  going under all these changes. You’re trying to reconcile your birth trauma and the sexual assault,  and then you have this you see the world a little differently than other kids do because the autism,  and no one knew at the time. I didn’t know at the time, but your worldview is a little bit different.  You’re just a teenager trying to figure out who the hell you are, and then you’re stripped from the  people who are your safe place. And then you’re put into this situation with adults who take  advantage of you, from the sounds of it. The whole point is really interesting—you have point  systems and all these different strategies to get kids to comply. I think we’ll get into some of these  strategies and why there are such high rates of suicide among kids who go through this program.  But first, maybe we should start here. The troubled teen industry has its roots in the concept of a  ‘troubled teen’ and the idea of tough love. You mention a child who struggles but isn’t genuinely  troubled. So, you say that the majority of these kids you meet in these institutions are mostly  struggling with mental health issues. What leads parents down this road, instead of, say, sending  their kid to counseling, if it’s mostly about mental health? Why this program? How do they get roped into this? Where do you think the problem lies?  

[Meg] I think it really lies in the fear-mongering and deceptive marketing. They’re banking on the  fact that, as a parent yourself—and I have four kids too—parents get very scared when things come up, and they don’t know what to do, right? Also, we will do anything for our kids. We’ll sacrifice  anything for their happiness and safety. So, when you’re calling these programs and inquiring  about them, they’re going to say, “Oh, they’re doing A, B, and C; you’d better get them in quick.  If you don’t do something soon, they could end up on the streets, running away, pregnant, or even  dead.” They scare parents into making rash decisions without giving them the opportunity to weigh  their options, speak to other professionals, or get second opinions. Another big part of the problem  is that many parents aren’t educated about what constitutes normal teenage behavior. For instance,  I mention Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development in my book. If we simply look at that framework, kids between the ages of 12 and 18 are supposed to push back against authority. That’s  how they figure out their place in the world. If they don’t have that experience, they can face  developmental delays because they aren’t allowed the space to test boundaries. This is when you  might see behaviors like sneaking out of the house, challenging authority, suffering grades, and  pushing back against rules in general. It’s crucial that kids go through this phase. At the same time,  parents need support because it’s scary. It’s very scary when a child starts acting differently, like  someone you don’t recognize. They’re going through adolescence, starting to become who they  are, and it’s a difficult, but important, process.  

[Tammy] Absolutely. In psychology, we call that individuation, and it prepares them to leave the nest because eventually, they have to go, have their own families, and move out of the house. They need to develop their own compass for navigating the world, make mistakes, and figure out who they are. When our kids are little, they’re sweet, cuddly, and eager to please us. We can cuddle with them on the couch, and it’s easier to redirect them. Then they become teens, and it’s like  they’ve turned into little pod people. You’re left wondering, what did you do with my sweet girl or boy? Suddenly, it feels like someone came in the middle of the night and replaced them with  someone new. That’s not every parent’s experience, but I can’t count how many parents have said that. Even my parents said I was that way as a teenager, like one day, our sweet girl was just gone.  

[Meg] Well, I think it’s also very common for parents in these circumstances—when the kid you thought you knew suddenly starts acting differently because they’re becoming an adolescent or a teen—to instinctively try to control the situation. The thought process is, if they’re not doing this,  I need to control them to ensure they make good decisions. But in reality, teenagers need the space  to figure out how to make good decisions on their own—decisions that feel right and those that  don’t. If you don’t give them that space and try to control too much, that’s when even worse  behaviors and mental health issues can emerge. It can also stifle their ability to progress through  these critical developmental stages.  

[Tammy] Absolutely. With caution, I’m going to proceed here. I want to read everyone a poem from her book that she wrote when she was 15. Interestingly, we had a bit of a parallel experience.  I know I haven’t talked about this on the podcast much, but I was very much a teen who went through some strife between the ages of 14 and 16. Then, at 16, I snapped out of it. A lot of it had to do with my parents’ reaction to me. I was the girl who was a straight-A student, always  compliant, and never said no. Then, all of a sudden, I started pushing back. Instead of accepting that pushback and trying to get to know me as a teenager, my parents reacted by controlling, grounding, and punishing me. I just kept pushing back and pushing back, which led to them almost  putting me into one of these programs. I hadn’t remembered that until I read your book, and it really hit home. Thankfully, my story had a happy ending. Instead of being sent to one of these programs, I ended up in counseling, which ultimately led me to become a psychologist. But it  could’ve easily gone another way. This brings me to your poem, which I found so interesting. It  says:  

“I wrote this to express the way I felt—the vicious cycle of being a 15-year-old, 

Grounded within the boundaries set by those who love you.  

You feel betrayed. Grounded.  

Feeling the hatred bind your blood, your skin, your family, and your heart.  You need them. You love them. You can’t live without them.  

But in your soul? F them.  

You don’t need them.”  

It really captures that internal conflict: I love you, but you’re suffocating me. That dynamic creates  what we call counterwill—a natural resistance to being controlled—which parents often don’t  recognize. I was just on another podcast where we talked about the importance of being in the right kind of relationship with our teens. You have to make space for them to mess up, to figure out who  they are, without simply reacting or punishing them for trying to become their own person. Of  course, limits and boundaries are necessary, but I’ve worked with enough teens to know that if we  don’t give them the space to discover and explore, we risk damaging the relationship. Maybe it’s not sending them to a troubled teen program, but reacting too harshly can still have long-term consequences. Your poem really struck me because it encapsulates that experience so powerfully.  

[Meg] I remember being grounded, then grounded again, and then grounded yet again. Eventually,  it reached a point of learned helplessness, where I thought, well, I’m already grounded for the next  four months, so why should I just sit here for four months? I might as well keep doing whatever I  want since the punishment isn’t changing. At that point, it just stopped being an effective  consequence.  

[Tammy] Yeah, or we start numbing ourselves by experimenting with things we probably shouldn’t  be experimenting with, especially while our teen brains are still developing. That’s exactly what I  had done, and it’s what made my parents so desperate.  

[Meg] I don’t know, that was part of my experience too. I started smoking weed, which really  scared my parents. In reality, looking back, I was just self-medicating. I had anxiety, I didn’t fit in,  and smoking weed gave me a group of friends who finally accepted me. So, that’s just how it was.  

[Tammy] Yeah, for me, it was alcohol and weed, and then shoplifting was another thing I got into  as a teenager. It was all part of pushing back and acting out because I didn’t feel accepted. It ended  up getting me into a lot of trouble. But, by a stroke of luck, something happened—I won’t get into  the details—that led me to a really good therapist who turned things around for me. I ended up  pursuing psychology and wanting to help other kids. I had multiple great therapists who really  understood me, and those experiences made a huge difference. Looking back, I know things could  have ended very differently if my father had gone through with sending me to one of those  programs. Luckily, that didn’t happen. But let’s talk about what does happen in these programs.  Do you have any statistics on the suicide rate? It’s devastating to think about how many kids we’ve  lost as a result of these programs. Suicide seems to be a tragic trickle-down effect we’re seeing  from these systems.  

[Meg] Yeah, I mean, honestly, I wish we had reliable statistics on this. It’s so difficult to track, but  even beyond the kids who die within these programs—which is already astronomical, over 370  deaths recorded so far—we’re also talking about kids who leave and may not even consider themselves survivors. Some of them think the program was the best thing that ever happened to  them, so they’re not part of our community, not on Reddit threads, and not identifying as survivors.  But then there are those who leave and go on to experience higher rates of issues like suicide, substance abuse, accidental overdoses, or entering domestic violence situations. Survivors are at a  significantly higher risk of falling into these dangerous patterns. The real question is, “How can  we track these outcomes? How can we follow the survivors who end up in such precarious  situations or even die as a result?” If we could gather that data, we’d have stronger evidence to  prove that these programs aren’t delivering the positive results they claim to be.  

[Tammy] Absolutely. I think, for a long time, you had said in your book that you believed the  program had helped you—that you had even been an advocate for those programs, like Chrysalis.  Am I saying that right? It’s Chrysalis, correct? But it wasn’t until much later, when you had your  own kids, that your perspective began to shift. Was that it? You had your kiddos, and then you also  saw some posts on Facebook from people who had gone through the program with you. I believe someone had committed suicide, or something detrimental had happened, and that made you  reflect. It made you think about how you wanted to respond to your own kids, and suddenly you  realized, I don’t want to do this to my kids. This doesn’t feel right. Am I getting that correct?  

[Meg] I think having kids gave me a crucial and completely different perspective that I had never  considered before. Before becoming a parent, I only viewed my past through the lens of my own  self-confidence and self-worth, which were both incredibly low because of what they had done to  me. When I thought about the things that had happened, it was almost as if I believed I deserved  it—because I wasn’t a good person, wasn’t smart, wasn’t capable of anything, and wasn’t worth  anything. But once I imagined my own kids in those scenarios, my perspective began to change. I  distinctly remember a moment—this was after I had already started recognizing the abuse—when  I woke up to a new layer of it. I was looking at my daughter, thinking about my relationship with  Kenny, and I imagined her in that situation for a moment. I thought, Would I want Spencer, my  oldest daughter, to sit on her therapist’s lap or receive a hug like that? The thought made me feel  sick. I realized, Oh my God, no, that’s not okay. That’s unethical. That’s abuse. That shift in  perspective was monumental. I started examining all the experiences I had during those three and  a half years and questioning them. Would I want my daughter to be at a wrestling match with her  therapist? Absolutely not. That’s gross, and it’s wrong. I had to go through every experience I’d  had in that program and ask myself, was that okay, or was that abuse? I had to categorize and  deprogram myself because I had been completely indoctrinated into that program and its practices.  

The Emotional Need to Belong

[Tammy] Well, when I read your book, you mentioned how these programs take the emotional need to belong and turn it against teens. How do they do that? This need to comply and the desire  to feel significant within a group is a critical developmental milestone for teens. As they begin to  break away from their parents, they naturally seek to expand into peer relationships, making  belonging a fundamental aspect of their growth. Not to mention, parents are still a pivotal part of  a teen’s development, and when teens no longer have their parents’ support, that void becomes  even more significant. So how do these programs manipulate and exploit that need to belong and  to be accepted? How do they take advantage of it?  

[Meg] So, basically, first and foremost, as young teens aged 13 to 17, the girls in this program still  had a fundamental need for their parents, as you said. They needed to feel a close, familiar  connection with their family. However, that wasn’t really possible in this environment. Instead, the  program manufactured a sense of family within Chrysalis. We referred to the girls as our “Chrysalis  sisters,” and Mary and Kenny, along with all the girls, were considered our “Chrysalis family.”  This dynamic instilled the perspective that this was our new family—that Kenny and Mary were  the mom and dad figures of this family, and that they cared for us the way a mom and dad would.  This created a lens through which we projected the love and trust we would typically associate  with our families onto them. It fostered a need to feel loved and accepted by them. The toxic aspect  of this setup, beyond the fact that it’s entirely inappropriate for a therapist to occupy such a role,  was the unhealthy relationship dynamics it created, especially with Kenny. He had favorites among  the girls, and those who weren’t his favorites—like me—were constantly striving to gain his  approval and acceptance. I spent three years treading water, desperately trying to get him to like me and accept me. This deepened my indoctrination because I was so desperate to be accepted and  loved. Sadly, I never truly felt that during my entire time there.  

[Tammy] I remember one part of your book where you talked about isolation. I’m not sure if it was Chrysalis or if it was another treatment center you were at before that.  

[Meg] Yeah, the isolation room was at Intermountain hospital.  

[Tammy] Okay, so you were there, and you would see these kids get put into these rooms, right?  And there’d be someone watching them, correct? Like, they were watching them. I’m not a big  fan of isolation for any child, honestly. But you tried to get put into the isolation room. Why? And  I really think it comes down to the care they received. Can you talk about the care they received?  Weren’t they restrained? Were they drugged? This is violent. But you wanted that. I think it’s  interesting to see how this desperation for love morphed. Can you explain it?  

[Meg] Yeah, I mean, the Intermountain Hospital in Boise, Idaho relied a lot on isolation and seclusion too. So, I spent the first couple of months there at a desk, 12 hours a day, writing  assignments. I didn’t get to participate in the program with the rest of the kids and things like that  because they tried to take all control away from me. My entire treatment plan was about, you know,  “Meg thinks she knows everything, and she doesn’t, and she wants control over her life, so we need to take it all away so she learns that lesson.” That’s why I was on the desk space program.  But I was already alone all the time. I would see these kids act out, throw things, or have temper  tantrums, and then all of a sudden, you’d hear the speaker go on, hear keys jangling, and the big  guys would come through the magnetic doors. They would run in, and they’d have like four staff  members throwing the kid down on their face. There’d be a staff member on each arm holding  them down, a knee between the shoulder blades, and staff on each leg. If they continued to struggle,  they would just pull down their pants, and the nurse would bring over a shot, which we called  “booty juice,” and they would give them a shot of it. You’d just see them go limp, and then they’d  carry the kid into the QR (Quiet Room), where there was a wooden bed in the middle of a padded  room with straps. If they were fighting the medication, they would strap them in; if not, they’d just  leave them there to sleep. They’d go and lock the door. There was like a little window to see, but  they really wouldn’t watch them. They’d just knock when they woke up and were calm. I saw this  going on all the time, and I was like, “Wow, they’re getting a lot of attention.” So, I tried it. I tried  to freak out one day, just like, “Wow, I’m so angry!” But they just looked at me and said, “Sit  down, knock it off.” I was like, “Oh.” Because I’m not, like, an aggressive person, they knew I  wasn’t one of the ones that got in trouble like that. They just knew I wasn’t; you know? So, I was  like, “Oh, that backfired.”  

[Tammy] But just think about that. I’m just thinking of the level of desperation for physical contact  from another human being and how you would crave even that kind of conflict and abuse, simply  because you wanted someone to see you, to feel you, to notice you—just for human touch. Do you  think that’s intentional? Like, do they create that deprivation so you’ll do anything to get it? It’s  not even love; it’s a sick kind of then, you know, I think they do it on purpose, in my opinion. 

[Meg] I know that at least my treatment plan was all about taking away my control and making  sure I didn’t feel like I was in control. It really started that grooming process of believing that I deserved it, and then Chrysalis just took it to the next level. In my opinion, they groomed me to be  the perfect abuse victim. I believed that love looked like abuse, so there’s no question in my mind  why I ended up in abusive marriages afterward, putting up with narcissistic abuse. It’s because I  experienced narcissistic abuse within the framework of what I thought was love, and until I was  able to deconstruct that, I didn’t know any different. It became enmeshed with my idea of love,  and I had to really work hard to separate them.  

Circle Therapy & other Harmful Practices  

[Tammy] I think, as a therapist who works with troubled teens, the most mortifying part of the  book, aside from the experience of being ripped from their homes—which was just horrific—is  how similar it is to what kids in foster care go through. That experience is just. Anyway, It’s very  similar, right? And then I think it was how they conceptualized therapy for you, especially when  we talk about the circles—the Circle and the Circle of Accountability. There were two kinds, right?  That was the therapy. Please enlighten them as to what this “therapy” is. If you can see me, I’m  putting quotation marks around “therapy” because it’s not therapy—it’s horrendous. Can you  explain what that is, the Circle and the Circle of Accountability? Because that is not the kind of  therapy we want for our kids, but this is what these programs are providing.  

[Meg] Right? So, the circle was Chrysalis’ version of group therapy, and it was all about peer accountability. The problem with that is that, if you remember, we were all a family, right? This is our Chrysalis sisters; these are my Chrysalis family. So, people that you viewed as sisters and parental figures were basically drilling you for everything you had done wrong that week. You would sit in a circle, and everyone would come in, and you just hoped you didn’t hear your name.  And if you did, you knew you were going to hear an hour’s worth of things—not only about what  you had done wrong that week, but what was wrong with you as a person. At the end, Kenny,  usually, or Mary—though it was usually Kenny—would come in and basically drive it home. You  had to sit there and couldn’t really say anything. You could cry, as long as it didn’t look like a cry  with hidden meaning. But you couldn’t be defensive. If you responded with, “But I thought that…”  you would get feedback about being defensive and told you needed to work on that and work the  program. The idea behind it was to really break down who you are and how you think about  yourself, to make you super vulnerable. Then they would swoop in and ask, “How did that feel last  night? Let’s talk about how we can process this and rebuild you back up,” always in the Chrysalis  way. The idea instilled in me was that relationships should have lots of confrontation. The word  “confront” was used daily. You should confront them. You should hold them accountable. So, in  general, the circle was all about accountability, but they also had a separate circle specifically for  accountability. These circles were really bad, and it was usually when Kenny and Mary would find  something out. For example, if I had been sexually assaulted before the program and they thought  it was relevant to the whole group, they would have an accountability circle where I would have  to take accountability for things like being sexually assaulted and my role in it. If you did  something wrong at Chrysalis, you would have an accountability circle where you had to tell the  whole group what you did wrong and then hear feedback from every single person. These circles  could last anywhere from two and a half hours to, at times, four or five hours. They were drawn  out, emotionally abusive, and so draining. And we were doing this instead of homework. As soon as school was done, you would go to dinner and then have circle from about six to ten. So, a lot of  the days would end completely emptied.  

The Aftermath: Trauma and Survival  

[Tammy] Yeah, no. It’s just the shame—the constant shaming and breaking down your psyche to  the point where you feel like you’re nothing. That way, they have all the control to mold you into  whatever they want you to be and make you say whatever they want you to say, especially to your  parents. This is so they’ll keep paying for you to be there. That’s the thing, right? They want you  to appear sick. From what I was reading, they aim to give you a very heavy diagnosis, like bipolar  disorder, and keep you drugged up. I’m sure there’s some connection here with the pharmaceutical  companies, especially in the U.S., and how the state runs pharmaceuticals. The bigger your  diagnosis, the more money they can get. So it’s about how sick they can make you to justify  keeping you at this camp, this retreat, or whatever you want to call it.  

[Meg] It’s not just about how sick they can make you, but also how compliant they can make you.  A lot of the breaking down was done specifically on the girls who had really strong spirits and  were very strong-willed, like myself. What is seen as a positive attribute—being strong-willed and  having the drive to speak your mind—was broken down because it made it easier to manage that  many girls. If you have seven girls who are constantly speaking their minds and are very strong willed, you have to push that down to make it easier to handle, especially with certain staff  members, and sometimes not enough staff. The more outliers there are, the harder it is to control  all the girls in the group. So, they have to bring everyone into a range that’s easier for them to  manage.  

A Call of Awareness & Change  

[Tammy] So, with your experience in two of these programs and all of your nonprofit work, what can we do? How do we stop this? I Googled it because I was curious about how many of these  programs are still running, and I was mortified by my search results. I was like, “Holy crap!”  Canada, the U.S.—of course—all these programs popped up in Montana, Wyoming, and closer to  Washington. But is there anything you can suggest that listeners can do to stop some of this? Is  there any political action, or what steps can people take, other than just spreading awareness?  

[Meg] Yeah, I mean, I think if you’re into policy work, you could be working on creating some  kind of policy for your state to provide more oversight into these programs and require more  reporting. If you’re a parent of a teen, you can check out Unsilence.org to familiarize yourself with  this industry. Our program directory and archive have over 3,500 different programs and 100,000  documents on these programs, giving you better information to make informed decisions. If you  don’t have a teen, or even if you do, and you want to help, Unsilenced, the organization I founded  and now lead as CEO, is working to close these programs and push for more oversight and  regulations. Donating to Unsilenced can make a huge difference. Really, whether you’re a survivor  or not, just talking about this industry is crucial—tell your friends about it and mention the Netflix documentary you’re going to watch or the book you’re going to read. I think talking about it is key,  because it hasn’t been discussed publicly for so long. Now that we finally have the public’s  attention and the media’s attention, this is the time to act. 

[Tammy] The key message here is that these schools, camps, and therapeutic programs for teens  are part of a larger industry that profits off trauma. Some of these camps exploit kids by making  them do hard labor, and pharmaceutical companies are involved, with money flowing through  these industries. They want parents’ money, and to get it, they’ll make kids appear as sick as  possible, capitalizing on their vulnerability and need to belong. Parents are often desperate, and  the websites of these programs make it look like kids are going to a spa or a camping retreat, which  is far from the reality. It’s crucial to critically assess the kind of advertising used, which often  features idyllic scenes like horses, mountains, and rivers. Meg’s book, Becoming Unsilenced, and  her website, Unsilence.org, reveal the truth about these programs. Before putting kids in these  situations, we need to wake up. Any camp that abducts your teen in the middle of the night, in  handcuffs or without warning, is not legitimate—no well-established program would do that to a  child. Thank you to Meg for putting her book into the world and using her horrific trauma to make  a difference and protect other teens from enduring the same atrocities. The vulnerability it took for  her to write that book is truly appreciated.  

[Meg] It definitely took a lot of vulnerability, but I’m really happy because I’m able to take all that  pain and show the world how it truly became my purpose. It helped me realize what I’m really  here on earth to do: keep kids safe, keep them out of these programs, and do my best to help  survivors who have unfortunately already been through it.  

[Tammy] Thank you so much, Meg, and thank you for your time today. We’re truly honored to  support your work.  

[Meg] Well, thank you. I’m honored to be here. Thank you so much for having me.