I just had this weird memory pop up about one of the residential i was at. It was written in the handbook (we had a level system), that at the base level you were only allowed to shower for five minutes… I never understood how they expected someone to physically be able to get completely clean in under five minutes. They would bust into the bathroom as a “safety check” if you ignored the timer going off. We weren’t allowed to shower more than five minutes as a safety precaution… So weird!

Did anyone else experience this rule or something similar about hygiene? This specific facility had a lot of weird rules about hygiene.

I was 15 years old on falcons unit from July to November 2018. Around October a new 13yo kid named Casey came and we quickly became friends talking about SoundCloud rappers and NBA. Before I left he told me I should sneak him a note with my phone number but for some reason I gave him a note with the link to my SoundCloud instead. I really don’t know why I did this the place made me crazy. I posted a couple songs on SoundCloud after my release and got all hate comments, justifiably, the songs were really bad i attribute the shittiness to my trauma from meridell. Anyway I deleted the SoundCloud and I’ve never made contact with Casey to this day. I hope to become successful enough in music or fashion or something (I became a decently successful underground rapper years later after retrying) I hope to become successful enough in something so that he’ll see me. I’ve commented on some youtube videos of meridell and managed to reconnect with the kid on the other boys unit who we would always look at each other for being the only ones with cool fits but we were never able to talk. He was really happy when I found him in 2021 but he just spent a couple years in prison and now he’s in jail rn again. Anyway. I wish I could find Casey or anyone else who was on falcons at the same time as me. It’s been 8 years of constant rumination

1. Dead, Insane or in Jail • A CEDU Memoir

2. Trapped in Paradise : A Memoir

3. RUN

4. ESCAPE - My Lifelong War Against Cults

5. Institutionalized Persuasion - Technology of Reformation in Straight Inc and the Residential Teen Treatment industry

6. The Discarded Ones

7. Girl Sent Away

8. Crossing the Water

9. No Matter How Loud I Shout

10. What it Takes to Pull me Through

11. Kids for Cash

12. Gone to the Crazies

13. COMEBACK

14 The Whitehouse Boys

1. Bootcamp

2. Help at Any Cost

3. When Abuse and Neglect Occur at Residential Treatment Facilities

4. Breaking Their Will

5. An America Gulag - Secret POW Camps for Teens

How many of you went to places that had P.P.C.? (Positive Peer Culture)

I dont miss it at all. It was a way for kids to ostracize people they did not like.

Has the forum seen the South Park episode where Troubled Teen programs are parodied as part of the goth/emo replacement kids story arc? Maybe some would think South Park is too light a treatment for this phenomenon, but the show does offer parody and publicity. Likely more eyes are on the phenomenon and the fact of resistance due to this show episode. I remember being told students who passively resisted the outdoors program I attended were sent "someplace worse "... but I imagine they were probably sent somewhere that looks like Troubled Acres in the South Park episode ... a place closer to a hospital psych ward than a program with strenuous labor. The phenomenon of forced removal and the involuntary aspects of these programs are visible in the show .... as is the theme and anxiety around brainwashing and personality replacement ... dramatized in the story of Henrietta ... who after passing through the program goes from being a "goth" ... to being "emo." Even some of the anxiety around the morals of staffing and possible conflicts with the media are hinted at towards the end of the show ... where a senior staffer ends up on a kind of "punk'd" hidden camera style prank show.

I know they were used as a holding center for kids from ICE raids, but what are they doing with the property? Wouldn’t it be easier just to sell it?I know it’s in the middle of nowhere Michigan but so many kids have died there. I bet Floyd Starr is rolling in his grave.

I'm surprised no one has brought it up on this subreddit. His story is currently trending due to his new book and he was on a facility for 2 years from age 11.

Does anyone have experience with Fairmont?

Congratulations to Riley Board of the Portland Press Herald, whose reporting on the lawsuit alleging forced labor and emotional abuse at Hyde School in Bath, Maine, received a Publick Occurrences award from the New England Newspaper & Press Association.

The recognition came as the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram also received newspaper-of-the-year honors - a significant acknowledgment of the importance of investigative journalism and public-interest reporting.

For survivors of the troubled teen industry, this recognition is particularly meaningful. Former students have spent years speaking publicly about their experiences at institutions that exercise extraordinary control over young people’s lives. Too often, those accounts have struggled to receive the sustained public attention they deserve.

The lawsuit involving Hyde School raises serious questions about student treatment, institutional practices, and accountability. Riley’s reporting helps bring these allegations into the public record, where they can be examined and discussed rather than remaining unknown to the broader community.

Journalism like this matters because families making educational decisions deserve transparency, students deserve to be safe, and allegations of abuse and forced labor deserve serious scrutiny. Survivors deserve to have their experiences heard and investigated - not automatically dismissed because the institution involved presents itself as a respected school.

This award is also a reminder of the critical role local newspapers play in holding powerful institutions accountable. Investigative reporting gives the public access to information it might otherwise never encounter and creates opportunities for difficult but necessary conversations.

Congratulations to Riley Board and the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram teams. Thank you for bringing attention to this important story and for recognizing that reporting on allegations of institutional abuse is a vital public service.

For everyone following Hyde School and the wider troubled teen industry: this is an important piece of journalism to read and share.

📰 Read the article: https://www.pressherald.com/2026/10/09/maine-sunday-telegram-portland-press-herald-and-reporters-receive-top-new-england-newspaper-awards/

Hyde boarding school accused of abusing students, forced manual labor

Former students recount abuse and neglect at Hyde School in Bath

More former Hyde School students allege mistreatment. Others say experience was positive.

Hyde School asks judge to dismiss lawsuit alleging forced labor and abuse

Revisiting Hyde: Former students say abuse allegations reopened painful memories

Federal judge allows suit against Hyde School to proceed

Congratulations to all you survivors! This is an enormously huge win ❤️🥹👍

https://chrysalisschoolmontana.com/

This school is trash, they kidnapped my 10 year old and took him to an insane asylum without so much as a phone call, violating Florida Law. Can't even call mom? What the crap? What shocked me even more was there were multiple autistic children being pulled out of the back of cop cars..

All 9 girls who ran away recently from Pathway of Madison County were caught. I hate this for them. I’m afraid to know what happened to them.

Hi all, curious if anyone went to LKS and wants to discuss. Went there for a bit and hated it. Not going to speak for others but it was a terrible place imo, even when compared to other programs.

Pathway of Madison County has a long history of bad incidents. They also have a several decade long history of abusing kids. The previous names of this facility were Sequel Owens Cross Roads and Three Springs New Beginnings. Both were just as abusive as Pathway of Madison County. This place needs to finally be shut down permanently. Their reign of terror torturing kids since at least the 1990’s needs to come to an end.

How do they even help

I wish I could find someone to talk to about it who could relate to it. I know that's selfish but I just wish I could have someone I could talk to face-to-face who understands the ins and outs of this kind of shit without me having to relive every pain of it. Like I wish I could just have a support group, like how they have ones for other traumas like addiction or violence. It's really hard to find any support or understanding in people when they can't really truly know what its like to have gone through similar.

Like of course I have friends and people who listen but it really feels like no one really *gets* it.

They can't see how much it hogs the space in my mind, or how much fear is still instilled so deep within me when expressing any amount of emotion at all.

It feels like the fact they made us be so numb to expressing ourselves that uniquely isolates me when trying to find any kind of support I can relate to.

Anyone else struggled with finding support this way? Is it something I should even realistically pursue trying to get? Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

Hello, I'm using a new account because I am worried about friends finding me. I desperately need help. My son asked to go back to PHP, he was having sever trouble at school. I suspect he has adhd and his therapist thinks he has PDA. I have never been able to find actually help for him, it's all been shit. This program was decent but he got angry and said he had an impulse to hurt another kid in the program so they discharged him today and told me I had to send him to residential care. They called the mobile team, I told them I was scared and refused to send him there as I have heard only horrible things.

However, I need help. Desperately. Are there any PHP programs in San Diego that help for neurodiverse kiddos and impulse/anger issues who go zero to one hundred?

He has been suspended from school twice and he was failing, I am not sure traditional school suits him, but I am so lost and desperately seeking help.

Does anyone have recommendations for me to actually help him? Mental health care is such a joke in this country.

So I posted here before on my experience and how my life turned out I just gave a brief description. I was at a boys ranch called Shamrock Acres the a place in Utah called Sorenson's Ranch then a place in Montana called Spring Creek Lodge and finally in Mexico a place called Citrus Hills which grew into what I believe High Impact. To make this short I spent close to 3 years between these places in the late 90s as I got older I suffered from all sorts of mental health problems including scitzophrenia which led to the murder of my step mom. Is it now to late to sue for the abuse I endeared in these places which I believe was a direct result in the way my life turned out. Please any information would be appreciated, thank you

I spent 1990-1991 in SMTC.

I am trying to reconstruct what was real from fiction. Who were we?

My name is Chris and I was on Gateway and that intake unit, and I think Sunrise.

That place got dark. Before and after my time, kids were killed and it was covered up, later to come out in a Texas investigation, and in a twist of irony, an SMTC lawyer's own son was killed in restraint. He sued and cashed in. His son Brandon remains dead.

Does anyone remember Jean? Pookie? Scary? Brian, Danny (later executed by Texas), the Boy Scout Liberation Organization BSLO, an inside joke like all of us must have had.

Let us see if we can reconstruct our reality.

Hi! I was wondering if there are any book recommendations that detail/cover/discuss TTI. I know there are videos and documentaries which I appreciate but I have a difficult time processing information aurally which is why I ask. Does anyone have any book recommendations that deal with TTI in a nonfictional way?