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Childhood Trauma: Testimonial
November 28, 2012
| Last Updated on Friday, 17 May, 2013 15:38
I was born on April 27th 1987. I was given up for adoption and adopted by a wonderful family. I had
a normal life up until I was about seven years old. When I was seven, my oldest cousin committed
suicide on his 24th birthday by hanging himself in the park. He suffered from severe depression and
had some other diagnoses and was also a drug addict. I’m a lot like him. This is the point at which I
lost my faith. I Prayed and asked God to let me switch places with him. I saw what his death did to his
family and mine. I couldn’t believe that anyone worth worshiping could allow a person’s life to get to
the point where taking it seemed like the best option. And so I stopped believing in the God of my
family. I was forced to continue going to CCD and church. I was forced to take communion and get
my Confirmation, all the while hating God and everything that stood for him.
After my cousin’s suicide, I was taken to the doctor and prescribed various medications. I’ve been on
many different medicines over my life. Also at this point, I started to be sent to behavioral camps every
summer. At one of these camps, S.O.A.R., I was forced to sleep in a counselor’s tent one night and I
hated it. In the morning I said that I hated him and wished he would die. The counselor in question
then tried to give me a knife and repeatedly ordered me to stab him in the chest. I didn’t. I returned
home from S.O.A.R. and life went on. I was a horrible kid.
I was placed in a non-profit school for children with “Special Needs” for third grade. I did okay at this
school and was there for one year. At the end of the year, I got into a fight with the owners son and was
asked not to return. It turned out later that the school was a scam and the owner was pocketing a lot of
money. After that, I went to a private school. Around this time, one of my grandfathers passed away.
He had a heart attack in his sleep and went into a coma. I didn’t go and see him in the hospital before
he passed away. When he did pass away, I stole some whiskey from my dad and got drunk. That night,
I spoke to my grandfather in my dream. That was my first experience with alcohol.
I was on medication and receiving therapy up until 8th grade. Around 5th grade I started to become
extremely rebellious. I would fight with my parents every day. It got to the point where I threatened
them with knives on several occasions and there were times when they were afraid to sleep with me in
the house. I was extremely depressed.
At the end of 8th grade, I got into a fight with another student and choke slammed him into a row of
computers. He had spit on me. I was a problem student all through 8th grade, refusing to go to school,
not following direction, receiving multiple Saturday detentions. This however was the last straw. I was
given In-School Suspension and asked not to come back to school after 8th grade. At this point I was
out of control. I hadn’t used any drugs or started drinking, but I was a danger to myself and those
around me. I wanted to die.
My parents were forced to make a decision. They hired a consultant to find a school for me. The
consultant found Hidden Lake Academy. It was a therapeutic boarding school for troubled youth,
located in the Appalachian Mountains in Dahlonega Georgia. This would prove to be a turning point in
my life. I arrived at Hidden Lake four days after my 14th birthday. I was promptly separated from my
parents and strip searched. I couldn’t have any music there and all reading materials had to be
approved by staff. I got to see my parents one last time to say good-bye and then I was taken to the
Dining hall while my belongings were searched. My first day there, another student threw a brick at
me because he didn’t like the way I looked. We were both taken to what was called “Restrictions”.
Restrictions was basically a work detail. You walked in a line, did physical labor, couldn’t talk, were
kept separate from the general population as much as possible, and were made to do P.T. (Physical
Training). You were also given writing assignments by your counselors. These could be anything from
your life story to “How did/do you feel when” assignments. In the morning you had to be dressed in
your school uniform, Room checked (bed made, room clean, chore done and checked), out the door,
and ready before the rest of the school when you were on restrictions. You were given: 2 small milk
cartons, an apple, and two single serve cereals for breakfast. You were made to sit outside, on the
ground outside one of the dormitories while you ate. Then, when the rest of the school went to school,
you were allowed to rejoin them until lunch. At lunch, you were again separated from the general
population. You had to wait in a line outside while the rest of the school walked past and then you
were taken back behind the building to where you ate breakfast. You then were given: An apple, two
baloney sandwiches (no cheese) or two cheese sandwiches (vegetarian only)and a cup of vegetable
soup (they took the salad left over from the salad bar the day before and boiled it with soy sauce to
make a kind of French onion soup). The trick was to make friends with a vegetarian kid and trade him
the bread from one of your sandwiches for the cheese from one of his. You then remove all the nasty
vegetables from your soup and make a kind of dumpling from your remaining bread and your cheese.
You eat the baloney separate while the dumplings soak in the broth. After Lunch, you wait in a line
until the general population finishes their lunch and then rejoin them as they return to school until
3:30pm.
Childhood Trauma Begins with Environment
After school you then return to the dorm and you have an half hour to socialize, shower and change
from your school uniform into your personal clothes. After that half hour is up, when the rest of the
school goes to their after school activities (art, weight lifting, gym time, sports, or after school study
hall) you go back to restrictions. During this time they usually make you do physical labor (dig, break
rocks, chop wood, pick up trash, carry trees or rocks, etc.), clean something, or some other task. Then,
when it’s time for dinner (Restrictions eats after the general population) you all go to the dining hall.
You then get your only hot meal of the day. You get one serving of the normal food (Honestly it was
usually pretty good, unless it was the chicken) and limited access to the salad bar, meaning there are
certain items you are not allowed to eat (and are punished if you do). After dinner, you clean the dining
hall and have study hall for one hour. Then, you usually have to do PT until it’s time to go back to the
dorms at 9:00pm. Now, this entire schedule can be changed at the Staffs will. They can delay anything
and make everyone do PT anytime they want. Staff also had little games they liked to play using us.
For instance, when Restrictions was split into two or more groups, the staff would sometimes choose a
student to have to run back and forth between them and say either “Ping” or “Pong” to the staff upon
arrival. Then they would have to run back. If at any time a student begins to refuse to follow direction
the staff will then make the rest of the group do PT or remain in the “Front, Lean, and Rest ” (push up
position) until the student complies. Or, if the student begins to walk away from the staff, the staff will
“restrain” (A tackle followed by a submission hold) the student. And that’s basically restrictions. Your
counselor can assign you three, five, or seven days of Restrictions depending on what you did.
Now, during the week you would have three 3-hour therapy sessions. Two of these were with your peer
group (about 14 kids who got there in a row) and one was called “Mixed Reals” which was usually a
theme based therapy session with groups selected by the counselors. Sometimes you would be put in
“Fall-Out Reals” which was where you would have to write down everything you did wrong and
people you know did wrong. Then there would also be campus wide Fall-out Sessions, or “Fallout
Fests” as we called them. There was a Fallout Fest on my 2nd or 3rd day there. I had to sit in a hot
room with 13 other students who I didn’t know and get yelled at by a fat lady named Abbey (I might
have a bit of a resentment against her, just maybe) who for some reason refused to believe that I didn’t
know anything that anyone had done wrong in my 2 days there. So I had to write “I have no more
Fallout” over and over for 3 hours.
After this wonderful start to my time at HLA, I was thinking about suicide. When staff found out, I
was placed on Suicide watch. This meant that I had to be near staff at all times and had to sleep in the
common area, under fluorescent lights that never went out with a yoga pad and a sleeping bag so staff
could keep an eye on me. I was constantly awoken by staff’s radio and them walking up and down the
hallway doing room checks. I was eventually placed on what was called “Life Line”. This is there you
are given a 5 foot piece of rope and staff has to hold one end at all times, except in class, and you have
to hold the other. This was not only embarrassing and demeaning, it was provocative. I responded the
best way I knew how. On my first day one Life Line, I made a Slipknot and put it around my neck,
effectively making the “Life Line” into a Noose. Needless to say, staff was not pleased with my actions
and my Restrictions were extended. I was on Restrictions for my first Six weeks straight at HLA.
Eventually I got off restrictions and returned to normal student life, which consisted of getting bullied,
harassed, and generally taking a lot of shit for being a new kid. After three weeks of being there, you
are allowed to call your parents for 15 minutes. Staff sits next to you and listens to and writes down
everything you talk about. If you say something they don’t like, they disconnect the phone and you are
sent to restrictions and your counselors are told what you said and you are punished for it. All the
while you are at HLA you are constantly reminded that “You can leave anytime you want, the road is
right there.” The staff taunts you with it, knowing that yes, you can leave, but you have no money, no
food, no water, and no one around to help you. And, depending on your situation, staff may or may not
follow you and “Restrain” you once you are out of eyesight.
Very few of the staff actually care about you, just like very few of the counselors are licensed and the
same went for the teachers. There were a few teachers and staff who genuinely did care about you, but
they usually didn’t last long. The school was “accredited” only because the multi-millionaire owner
paid for it. It violated several laws and illegally with held several Rights. While there I was sexually
abused by some of the other students. I didn’t say anything because no one would have believed me
and no action would have been taken to protect me from reprisal by the guilty parties.
Hidden Lake was a 2 year program. I was there for four years. It got a little better after the first two
years when I was allowed to have music. I was however never allowed to practice or study my
religious beliefs, which are Pagan Polytheism. Even on Martin Luther King Day, after delivering a
speech about being accepting and tolerant of other people and their beliefs and race, they refused to
acknowledge me. I raised my hand for the entire 15 minute question and answer session afterwards
and even when mine was the only hand raised and I stood up to make sure I was seen, they refused to
call on me. It took several of my friends raising their hands and pointing out that I wanted to speak for
them to finally call on me. The only answer I received was that “We could talk about it after.” Upon
approaching him after the meeting, my answer was “I’m busy and have go to a meeting.” I was then
told if I continued to harass them, I would be sent to Ridge Creek (a wilderness program owned by the
same guy and operated on the same campus and HLA). Having already been sent there twice by that
point, I didn’t want to go again (although I eventually did end up there again.)
HLA was and is a large part of my life because of the things I witnessed and experienced there but I am
working through it. I made many good friends there and that is the only reason I made it through that
place. I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made there and while that has brought me a lot of
joy, it has brought sadness as well.
I graduated from HLA at the age of 18. Up until this point I had never touched a drug in my life. That
was all about to change. You see, at HLA I had been forced to attend AA meetings and that put me in
touch with others who were being forced to do the same. While there I became resentful of sobriety
and Recovery. Upon leaving HLA, I immediately made it my mission to get high. I had been accepted
to Dean College in Franklin, MA and was going to attend an accelerated summer session there. Within
my first week, I had gotten my hands on some Opium from a kid in my class and was smoking it mixed
with Bugler tobacco out of a corn cob pipe. I did this until I finished the summer course and on the last
night there, I smoked weed and got really drunk with some of the friends I had made there. This was
my first time smoking weed and getting drunk and I immediately fell in love with the sensations. I
returned home for the remainder of the summer and proceeded to smoke weed at home. I would sneak
out at night and use my 1-hitter to smoke either in my car or outside the house. I would immediately
have to take a shower, brush my teeth, use eye drops, and change clothes to avoid my parents catching
on. This continued until I returned to college.
I did okay in college, not extraordinary but not horribly either. I continued to smoke weed and while
there I met two of my best friends. I met Sam first. We were both pagan and we both like the same
music and video games. That’s how it started. Me, looking like Hagrid and him looking like Jack
Skellington. We began to play online games together and when we realized that both of us smoked
weed, we started to smoke together as well. Sam introduced me to Matt a few months later. Matt was
another stoner gamer. But Matt was also a mathematical genius. He was also bitter and sarcastic. He
fit right in with us. Matt would use the things he learned in his Engineering courses and some pretty
advanced mathematics to create bongs and pipes for us to smoke from. He even mapped out his room
and using mathematical formula, he re-arranged it to maximize airflow out the windows. He even built
air ducts out of cardboard to increase it. One of our favorite places to smoke was out in the woods. It
would be cold with snow on the ground on a nice clear night. There was a lumber yard nearby that had
a small forest next to it. In those woods was a ridge that rose into the tree tops. That was where I first
found my Peace. Out there, in nature, surrounded by beauty and cold, I would lay down and meditate.
I felt like I was at one with the universe and I felt such peace and happiness that I knew it couldn’t be
wrong. Going out there at 1-2 in the morning and laying down to watch the sky are some of the best
memories I have. That I got to do it with two of my best friends made it even better. Me, Matt and
Sam hung out almost every day. We would all gather in Matt’s room, get high, and do our homework,
and play video games for the rest of the day.
After Graduating from Dean with an Associate’s Degree, I returned home to Florida. I was going to be
there for a summer and then return to Massachusetts to attend Dean College’s Sister School in Boston.
During that summer, I was working at a Super Wal-mart as a cart collector and I noticed one of the kids
I worked with would always disappear during work. When I asked him about it, he introduced me to
my new addiction, Roxycontin. We would get together before work and smoke a few pills. Then
throughout the day we would get more. This continued for the entire summer and by the time I left to
Boston, I was doing 10 pills a day.
When I got to Boston, Matt and I had a very nice apartment in Cambridge. I had to stop using opiates
and went through withdrawal with only weed to make it easier. The apartment complex raised the rent
and Matt and I had to move out of that Apartment after about 2 months. We moved to a small 3
bedroom, 1 and a half bathroom in Allston. It was about 2 miles away from the Green line and it was a
tough walk in the snow and ice. We loved it there though. I had a Job buying and selling electronics at
a store called C.E.X. It paid $13 an hour and I had good hours. It was the best job I have ever had. I
ended up not getting into the school but stayed in Boston for almost a year and a half. I stopped taking
my medications and ended up losing my job. I got really depressed one day and decided that my life
wasn’t worth living. I had a little rubbing alcohol in a bottle that I used to clean games. I decided to
drink it in the hopes it would kill me. I ended up blacking out and waking up covered in vomit in the
bath tub with the shower running. I don’t know how I got there and there is no one to ask since Matt
was visiting his family out in Cape Cod. I stayed in Boston for a little while longer before I had to
leave. I told Matt and My family that it was because I was depressed and wanted to make some
changes in my life. To this day, neither knows about my suicide attempt.
I left Boston and returned to Florida to attend a program called “Milestones”. It was a primarily eating
disorder residential treatment facility. They focused mainly on Anorexia and Bulimia but I still learned
a lot while I was there. They taught me a lot about nutrition and helped me with my depression a little
bit. They promoted an No sugar No Flour lifestyle. Fuck that. I stayed there for around 40-50 days.
After leaving, I was renting a room from an older English Woman named Jen.
I lived with Jen for a few months and decided to go back to school. There was a tech school located
somewhat nearby and I began to attend it for courses in Network Systems Administration. Eventually I
moved out of Jens house and into a room closer to my school. When I moved in there, I met my land
lords two nephews. They both sold Roxycontin and one was addicted to it. After living there for
almost a year, my life took a turn for the worse. My mother and my grandmother both got cancer one
after the other. I began using Roxy’s as a way to cope. A kid I knew from school, Jeff, also used
Roxy’s. Jeff was a good friend to me at first. Soon though, he was stealing from me and using me to
feed his own addiction. All the while my own addiction was growing worse. My mother eventually
recovered from the Cancer, but my grandmother did not. During my grandmothers fight with cancer,
she stayed at my parents house. I noticed that she had been prescribed oxycontin and kept them in the
guest room. I stole some when she was getting her chemo treatments.
Trauma Gains Strength Through Loss
My grandmother passed away on her birthday. This is when my Addiction really took over. I had been
attending school up and getting Straight A’s the entire time. Around this time I graduated and since I
didn’t get a job, my time was consumed with getting high. All day every day. It got to the point where
I was only eating solid food every 2-3 days and that would only be a cheese burger from Burger king. I
lived on Slurpee’s from 7-Eleven, vitamins, and Smoke. I lost 150lbs in two months. By this time I
was a known person in the Hollywood Oxy Scene. I knew almost everyone who used and could almost
always get what people needed. And, since I was one of the people with a car, I would take people to
the doctors, the pharmacists, and then drive them around while they made their deals and broke me off.
I was in my car from 8am to 4am every day. I lived in a perpetual daze. Every week I would pawn my
laptop and get it back the next week. Then pawn it again a few days later. I had a serious habit. My
laptop is one of my most important possessions and I lived without it for a long time. Eventually I got
myself into a situation bad enough that it woke me up to the way I was destroying my life. My bottom
happened in Gainesville Florida. I had gone up there to take Jeff’s uncle to court for a old ticket and
Jeff had tagged along since his Uncle had a Script for Oxy’s. That night, I let them use my car to go
pick up some weed from one of Jeff’s uncles old friends. They were on their way back when Jeff, who
was driving, jumped the curb as they were leaving the neighborhood. They were pulled over and the
vehicle was searched. It turns out that Jeff had a suspended license and being in Gainesville was a
violation of his probation. They also found Various Oxy related paraphernalia, the ounce of weed,
three daggers, and his uncle’s script. Jeff and his Uncle were arrested and I received a call from his
Uncle’s friend. She dropped my car off at the hotel. I ended up staying in Gainesville for two weeks
trying to bail out Jeff’s Uncle. I couldn’t get any Oxy’s up there, but the girl who knew Jeff’s Uncle
shot up crack. I slept on her floor, stole food from Publix to eat, smoked crack, and detoxed from
Opiates. It also turned out that she was a prostitute. Finally after two weeks, I ended up bailing out
Jeff’s Uncle using his debit card and a sneaky three way call to the bank using my cell phone to
connect the call from the prison to the bank. I had been using the Uncles Debit card to purchase Crack
and the card had gotten temporarily suspended due to too many cash back transactions. I had also
gotten kidnapped by a group of crack dealers and luckily managed to escape. Yeah, it was a bad two
weeks.
Up to this point, my family had thought my only drug use was smoking weed. They were about to
learn differently. After driving Jeff’s uncle home and staying the night camped out on his floor, we
decided I would move into his house and pay rent in order to pay him back the money I had spent on
crack. He got me two of the Big Orange Suboxone and I went home to my parents to tell them I was
moving. We all sat down outside on the patio and I started to tell them about how I had to move in
with Jeff’s Uncle to pay him back. They said that was fine, but they wanted to talk to me about my
life. They thought I was smoking weed again and wanted me to stop. They were going to give me a
drug test which I would have passed since I hadn’t done any drugs in 3 days and smoked weed in over
a month. The only thing I had done was one of the Suboxone which won’t show up on your standard
drug test. My family told me they wanted me to take the test and I started to laugh. They looked at me
like I was crazy, which I was. I was totally out of my mind. I decided then and there to come clean. I
told them I was addicted to Opiates. They didn’t realize just how bad painkiller addiction was. I had to
explain to them that Roxycontin is basically synthetic heroin. Putting my head down on the table, I
started to cry. It felt so good to finally tell them what was wrong. To get that weight off my chest was
amazing. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I didn’t want to get high anymore.
After this little intervention, my life became pretty shitty. It didn’t matter that I had come clean about it
and didn’t want to use anymore, I was still an addict and was treated as such. I was forced to turn over
my phone and car keys to my parents. I was also forced to begin attending B.A.R.C. (Broward
Addiction Recovery Center) which is a state run facility with little funding and a lot of overcrowding.
I was unable to get a bed in their facility for two reasons, the first being that the opiates no longer
showed in my urine. The second reason I could not get a bed was that I am a cutter. A cutter is
someone who engages in self harm and purposefully injures themselves for various different reasons. I
had picked up this practice while at HLA. It helped me to deal with the horrible reality of my situation.
The helplessness, the lack of any sort of control, the soul crushing despair at having no way out, all of
these got a little better when I would carve designs into my arm using an Exacto knife I had stolen from
the art room.
Anyway, to get back to the situation at hand, I could not attend B.A.R.C.’s inpatient program because I
was a high risk patient. I had last cut two weeks before, right before we began to drive to Gainesville.
You see, Jeff had told me we were just going to pick his Uncle up and take him to his house in Port
Saint Lucie. After arriving at the house, I was pressured into driving them to Gainesville. Jeff knew I
had bought a pill and kept following me around the house, waiting for me to do it so he could ask to
smoke it with me. Eventually I snapped at him and told him I was doing it alone and he tried to guilt
trip me. I don’t remember if I split it with him, but I remember going outside to my car after and
getting my dagger out from my car. I then started cutting again after not having done it for over 2
years. Even now this incident makes me feel sick. Not the cutting, but the addict behavior exhibited
by myself, Jeff, and the others in the house.
I could attend the day classes there, I just could not be inpatient. This was not good enough for my
parents. They refused to spend any money to put me in a detox or rehab program and I was left to find
my way myself. They barely let me stay at their house and that was only for a very limited amount of
time. I had to get up at 4am while detoxing and walk a mile to the bus station to get on the bus to go to
fort Lauderdale. Occasionally my dad would drop me off there or my mom would drive me to fort
Lauderdale. After the program was done for the day, They would rarely pick me up. More commonly,
I would have to ride the bus back and then walk back to the house. All of this would normally be
miserable here in the beginning of summer, but was even worse because I was in the middle of
detoxing from Opiates and Crack. My next and last hope to avoid homelessness was the Salvation
Army center in fort Lauderdale. I was making arrangements to get in there. The woman there asked
me if I had issues with self harm in the past, and I was honest with her. She also told me I would not be
able to attend there program or live in their center. That was my last hope. I was going to be
homeless. My life was over. I had decided long ago, that if I ever became homeless, I would kill
myself. I spent the next few days stringing my parents along to get a few more days of non-
homelessness in my now considerably shortened life. During that time, I continued to search for a way
to get into an inpatient facility and avoid homelessness. Now during this time Jeff’s Uncle, who was
not happy that I had not moved in, was continuing to call my phone and try to get me up there. He then
somehow got my parent’s house number and began to call and harass them. My dad spoke to him, told
him he would get nothing and informed him if he continued to call, the police would get involved. He
stopped calling.
One day, my mom happened to find the number of a person who was known to be able to get people
into rehabs. I called this person and he got me into a rehab, which is where I met Paul, Mike, and Phil.
I graduated from this rehabs inpatient program and moved into a halfway house. I made some good
friend in this program. I stayed in that halfway house for almost a year. The rules were very strict and
the program itself there was a scam. It engaged in excessive drug testing and billed my insurance for
each one. At the end of that year, the owner forced me to move out under the guise of concern for my
weight and well being. I have been overweight since I attended HLA, where I purposefully over ate in
an effort to give myself a heart attack. This was so my death would look like natural causes and not
suicide and then it wouldn’t affect my family as much. My life was hopeless at HLA and this seemed
like my only way out. My weight is out of control and it will kill me if nothing is done about it. I had
begun to go to the gym 2-3 times a week but after two months of that, I slipped going into a store and
caused severe nerve damage to my left leg and got a condition called “Drop Foot”. Now, I am
attempting to get the Gastric Sleeve Surgery in an effort to bring my weight under control. It will kill
me if I don’t. I now have things to live for and am fighting to be there for my family.
Lifescape Addresses My Trauma With New Age Therapy Treatment
I currently live in another halfway house, where I have a studio apartment to myself, which is very nice
since I don’t really like company. I attend Lifescapes Solutions, which is run by Paul, Mike, and Phil
and is honestly the one of the best things to have happened to me. I even work here now. I do the
blogging and web stuff for them. I have almost 2 years clean and while not every day is a good day,
none of them are even close to how bad my life used to be. My family and I talk now, I go over there
occasionally. They let me watch their house and cat when they go out of town and are an incredibly
important part of my life. I have a younger brother who I neglected for most of my life and am
currently building a relationship with. He does a lot of things that irritate me, but as my brother, that’s
his job and he does it because he cares. He has girlfriend and a 6 year old daughter who is able to
brighten even my worst days. I occasionally join him when he takes her to a movie, restaurant, or
arcade and we have a great time. Currently she has something wrong with her eye that they have been
taking her to the doctor to have treated, but nothing has really been working. So now she will have to
receive an injection every week for the next two years otherwise she could go blind. The medicine
could cause her to lose her hair and I worry about her a lot. I know she will be ok, but kids can be
cruel. If she loses her hair, I will shave mine in support like I did for my mother when she lost hers
from her Chemo treatments. Life is far better than I ever thought it could be and while it is hard, it is
worth it. I’m still dealing with a lot of the trauma caused by the things that have happened to me and
the things I have done, but this place helps me heal those wounds and move on with my life.
Sometimes it’s hard to let go but I can honestly tell you that it can be the best thing for you.

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Childhood trauma testimonial

  • 1. Childhood Trauma: Testimonial November 28, 2012 | Last Updated on Friday, 17 May, 2013 15:38 I was born on April 27th 1987. I was given up for adoption and adopted by a wonderful family. I had a normal life up until I was about seven years old. When I was seven, my oldest cousin committed suicide on his 24th birthday by hanging himself in the park. He suffered from severe depression and had some other diagnoses and was also a drug addict. I’m a lot like him. This is the point at which I lost my faith. I Prayed and asked God to let me switch places with him. I saw what his death did to his family and mine. I couldn’t believe that anyone worth worshiping could allow a person’s life to get to the point where taking it seemed like the best option. And so I stopped believing in the God of my family. I was forced to continue going to CCD and church. I was forced to take communion and get my Confirmation, all the while hating God and everything that stood for him. After my cousin’s suicide, I was taken to the doctor and prescribed various medications. I’ve been on many different medicines over my life. Also at this point, I started to be sent to behavioral camps every summer. At one of these camps, S.O.A.R., I was forced to sleep in a counselor’s tent one night and I hated it. In the morning I said that I hated him and wished he would die. The counselor in question then tried to give me a knife and repeatedly ordered me to stab him in the chest. I didn’t. I returned home from S.O.A.R. and life went on. I was a horrible kid. I was placed in a non-profit school for children with “Special Needs” for third grade. I did okay at this school and was there for one year. At the end of the year, I got into a fight with the owners son and was asked not to return. It turned out later that the school was a scam and the owner was pocketing a lot of money. After that, I went to a private school. Around this time, one of my grandfathers passed away. He had a heart attack in his sleep and went into a coma. I didn’t go and see him in the hospital before he passed away. When he did pass away, I stole some whiskey from my dad and got drunk. That night, I spoke to my grandfather in my dream. That was my first experience with alcohol. I was on medication and receiving therapy up until 8th grade. Around 5th grade I started to become extremely rebellious. I would fight with my parents every day. It got to the point where I threatened them with knives on several occasions and there were times when they were afraid to sleep with me in the house. I was extremely depressed. At the end of 8th grade, I got into a fight with another student and choke slammed him into a row of computers. He had spit on me. I was a problem student all through 8th grade, refusing to go to school, not following direction, receiving multiple Saturday detentions. This however was the last straw. I was given In-School Suspension and asked not to come back to school after 8th grade. At this point I was out of control. I hadn’t used any drugs or started drinking, but I was a danger to myself and those around me. I wanted to die. My parents were forced to make a decision. They hired a consultant to find a school for me. The consultant found Hidden Lake Academy. It was a therapeutic boarding school for troubled youth, located in the Appalachian Mountains in Dahlonega Georgia. This would prove to be a turning point in my life. I arrived at Hidden Lake four days after my 14th birthday. I was promptly separated from my parents and strip searched. I couldn’t have any music there and all reading materials had to be approved by staff. I got to see my parents one last time to say good-bye and then I was taken to the Dining hall while my belongings were searched. My first day there, another student threw a brick at
  • 2. me because he didn’t like the way I looked. We were both taken to what was called “Restrictions”. Restrictions was basically a work detail. You walked in a line, did physical labor, couldn’t talk, were kept separate from the general population as much as possible, and were made to do P.T. (Physical Training). You were also given writing assignments by your counselors. These could be anything from your life story to “How did/do you feel when” assignments. In the morning you had to be dressed in your school uniform, Room checked (bed made, room clean, chore done and checked), out the door, and ready before the rest of the school when you were on restrictions. You were given: 2 small milk cartons, an apple, and two single serve cereals for breakfast. You were made to sit outside, on the ground outside one of the dormitories while you ate. Then, when the rest of the school went to school, you were allowed to rejoin them until lunch. At lunch, you were again separated from the general population. You had to wait in a line outside while the rest of the school walked past and then you were taken back behind the building to where you ate breakfast. You then were given: An apple, two baloney sandwiches (no cheese) or two cheese sandwiches (vegetarian only)and a cup of vegetable soup (they took the salad left over from the salad bar the day before and boiled it with soy sauce to make a kind of French onion soup). The trick was to make friends with a vegetarian kid and trade him the bread from one of your sandwiches for the cheese from one of his. You then remove all the nasty vegetables from your soup and make a kind of dumpling from your remaining bread and your cheese. You eat the baloney separate while the dumplings soak in the broth. After Lunch, you wait in a line until the general population finishes their lunch and then rejoin them as they return to school until 3:30pm. Childhood Trauma Begins with Environment After school you then return to the dorm and you have an half hour to socialize, shower and change from your school uniform into your personal clothes. After that half hour is up, when the rest of the school goes to their after school activities (art, weight lifting, gym time, sports, or after school study hall) you go back to restrictions. During this time they usually make you do physical labor (dig, break rocks, chop wood, pick up trash, carry trees or rocks, etc.), clean something, or some other task. Then, when it’s time for dinner (Restrictions eats after the general population) you all go to the dining hall. You then get your only hot meal of the day. You get one serving of the normal food (Honestly it was usually pretty good, unless it was the chicken) and limited access to the salad bar, meaning there are certain items you are not allowed to eat (and are punished if you do). After dinner, you clean the dining hall and have study hall for one hour. Then, you usually have to do PT until it’s time to go back to the dorms at 9:00pm. Now, this entire schedule can be changed at the Staffs will. They can delay anything and make everyone do PT anytime they want. Staff also had little games they liked to play using us. For instance, when Restrictions was split into two or more groups, the staff would sometimes choose a student to have to run back and forth between them and say either “Ping” or “Pong” to the staff upon arrival. Then they would have to run back. If at any time a student begins to refuse to follow direction the staff will then make the rest of the group do PT or remain in the “Front, Lean, and Rest ” (push up position) until the student complies. Or, if the student begins to walk away from the staff, the staff will “restrain” (A tackle followed by a submission hold) the student. And that’s basically restrictions. Your counselor can assign you three, five, or seven days of Restrictions depending on what you did. Now, during the week you would have three 3-hour therapy sessions. Two of these were with your peer group (about 14 kids who got there in a row) and one was called “Mixed Reals” which was usually a theme based therapy session with groups selected by the counselors. Sometimes you would be put in “Fall-Out Reals” which was where you would have to write down everything you did wrong and people you know did wrong. Then there would also be campus wide Fall-out Sessions, or “Fallout Fests” as we called them. There was a Fallout Fest on my 2nd or 3rd day there. I had to sit in a hot
  • 3. room with 13 other students who I didn’t know and get yelled at by a fat lady named Abbey (I might have a bit of a resentment against her, just maybe) who for some reason refused to believe that I didn’t know anything that anyone had done wrong in my 2 days there. So I had to write “I have no more Fallout” over and over for 3 hours. After this wonderful start to my time at HLA, I was thinking about suicide. When staff found out, I was placed on Suicide watch. This meant that I had to be near staff at all times and had to sleep in the common area, under fluorescent lights that never went out with a yoga pad and a sleeping bag so staff could keep an eye on me. I was constantly awoken by staff’s radio and them walking up and down the hallway doing room checks. I was eventually placed on what was called “Life Line”. This is there you are given a 5 foot piece of rope and staff has to hold one end at all times, except in class, and you have to hold the other. This was not only embarrassing and demeaning, it was provocative. I responded the best way I knew how. On my first day one Life Line, I made a Slipknot and put it around my neck, effectively making the “Life Line” into a Noose. Needless to say, staff was not pleased with my actions and my Restrictions were extended. I was on Restrictions for my first Six weeks straight at HLA. Eventually I got off restrictions and returned to normal student life, which consisted of getting bullied, harassed, and generally taking a lot of shit for being a new kid. After three weeks of being there, you are allowed to call your parents for 15 minutes. Staff sits next to you and listens to and writes down everything you talk about. If you say something they don’t like, they disconnect the phone and you are sent to restrictions and your counselors are told what you said and you are punished for it. All the while you are at HLA you are constantly reminded that “You can leave anytime you want, the road is right there.” The staff taunts you with it, knowing that yes, you can leave, but you have no money, no food, no water, and no one around to help you. And, depending on your situation, staff may or may not follow you and “Restrain” you once you are out of eyesight. Very few of the staff actually care about you, just like very few of the counselors are licensed and the same went for the teachers. There were a few teachers and staff who genuinely did care about you, but they usually didn’t last long. The school was “accredited” only because the multi-millionaire owner paid for it. It violated several laws and illegally with held several Rights. While there I was sexually abused by some of the other students. I didn’t say anything because no one would have believed me and no action would have been taken to protect me from reprisal by the guilty parties. Hidden Lake was a 2 year program. I was there for four years. It got a little better after the first two years when I was allowed to have music. I was however never allowed to practice or study my religious beliefs, which are Pagan Polytheism. Even on Martin Luther King Day, after delivering a speech about being accepting and tolerant of other people and their beliefs and race, they refused to acknowledge me. I raised my hand for the entire 15 minute question and answer session afterwards and even when mine was the only hand raised and I stood up to make sure I was seen, they refused to call on me. It took several of my friends raising their hands and pointing out that I wanted to speak for them to finally call on me. The only answer I received was that “We could talk about it after.” Upon approaching him after the meeting, my answer was “I’m busy and have go to a meeting.” I was then told if I continued to harass them, I would be sent to Ridge Creek (a wilderness program owned by the same guy and operated on the same campus and HLA). Having already been sent there twice by that point, I didn’t want to go again (although I eventually did end up there again.) HLA was and is a large part of my life because of the things I witnessed and experienced there but I am working through it. I made many good friends there and that is the only reason I made it through that place. I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made there and while that has brought me a lot of joy, it has brought sadness as well. I graduated from HLA at the age of 18. Up until this point I had never touched a drug in my life. That was all about to change. You see, at HLA I had been forced to attend AA meetings and that put me in
  • 4. touch with others who were being forced to do the same. While there I became resentful of sobriety and Recovery. Upon leaving HLA, I immediately made it my mission to get high. I had been accepted to Dean College in Franklin, MA and was going to attend an accelerated summer session there. Within my first week, I had gotten my hands on some Opium from a kid in my class and was smoking it mixed with Bugler tobacco out of a corn cob pipe. I did this until I finished the summer course and on the last night there, I smoked weed and got really drunk with some of the friends I had made there. This was my first time smoking weed and getting drunk and I immediately fell in love with the sensations. I returned home for the remainder of the summer and proceeded to smoke weed at home. I would sneak out at night and use my 1-hitter to smoke either in my car or outside the house. I would immediately have to take a shower, brush my teeth, use eye drops, and change clothes to avoid my parents catching on. This continued until I returned to college. I did okay in college, not extraordinary but not horribly either. I continued to smoke weed and while there I met two of my best friends. I met Sam first. We were both pagan and we both like the same music and video games. That’s how it started. Me, looking like Hagrid and him looking like Jack Skellington. We began to play online games together and when we realized that both of us smoked weed, we started to smoke together as well. Sam introduced me to Matt a few months later. Matt was another stoner gamer. But Matt was also a mathematical genius. He was also bitter and sarcastic. He fit right in with us. Matt would use the things he learned in his Engineering courses and some pretty advanced mathematics to create bongs and pipes for us to smoke from. He even mapped out his room and using mathematical formula, he re-arranged it to maximize airflow out the windows. He even built air ducts out of cardboard to increase it. One of our favorite places to smoke was out in the woods. It would be cold with snow on the ground on a nice clear night. There was a lumber yard nearby that had a small forest next to it. In those woods was a ridge that rose into the tree tops. That was where I first found my Peace. Out there, in nature, surrounded by beauty and cold, I would lay down and meditate. I felt like I was at one with the universe and I felt such peace and happiness that I knew it couldn’t be wrong. Going out there at 1-2 in the morning and laying down to watch the sky are some of the best memories I have. That I got to do it with two of my best friends made it even better. Me, Matt and Sam hung out almost every day. We would all gather in Matt’s room, get high, and do our homework, and play video games for the rest of the day. After Graduating from Dean with an Associate’s Degree, I returned home to Florida. I was going to be there for a summer and then return to Massachusetts to attend Dean College’s Sister School in Boston. During that summer, I was working at a Super Wal-mart as a cart collector and I noticed one of the kids I worked with would always disappear during work. When I asked him about it, he introduced me to my new addiction, Roxycontin. We would get together before work and smoke a few pills. Then throughout the day we would get more. This continued for the entire summer and by the time I left to Boston, I was doing 10 pills a day. When I got to Boston, Matt and I had a very nice apartment in Cambridge. I had to stop using opiates and went through withdrawal with only weed to make it easier. The apartment complex raised the rent and Matt and I had to move out of that Apartment after about 2 months. We moved to a small 3 bedroom, 1 and a half bathroom in Allston. It was about 2 miles away from the Green line and it was a tough walk in the snow and ice. We loved it there though. I had a Job buying and selling electronics at a store called C.E.X. It paid $13 an hour and I had good hours. It was the best job I have ever had. I ended up not getting into the school but stayed in Boston for almost a year and a half. I stopped taking my medications and ended up losing my job. I got really depressed one day and decided that my life wasn’t worth living. I had a little rubbing alcohol in a bottle that I used to clean games. I decided to drink it in the hopes it would kill me. I ended up blacking out and waking up covered in vomit in the bath tub with the shower running. I don’t know how I got there and there is no one to ask since Matt
  • 5. was visiting his family out in Cape Cod. I stayed in Boston for a little while longer before I had to leave. I told Matt and My family that it was because I was depressed and wanted to make some changes in my life. To this day, neither knows about my suicide attempt. I left Boston and returned to Florida to attend a program called “Milestones”. It was a primarily eating disorder residential treatment facility. They focused mainly on Anorexia and Bulimia but I still learned a lot while I was there. They taught me a lot about nutrition and helped me with my depression a little bit. They promoted an No sugar No Flour lifestyle. Fuck that. I stayed there for around 40-50 days. After leaving, I was renting a room from an older English Woman named Jen. I lived with Jen for a few months and decided to go back to school. There was a tech school located somewhat nearby and I began to attend it for courses in Network Systems Administration. Eventually I moved out of Jens house and into a room closer to my school. When I moved in there, I met my land lords two nephews. They both sold Roxycontin and one was addicted to it. After living there for almost a year, my life took a turn for the worse. My mother and my grandmother both got cancer one after the other. I began using Roxy’s as a way to cope. A kid I knew from school, Jeff, also used Roxy’s. Jeff was a good friend to me at first. Soon though, he was stealing from me and using me to feed his own addiction. All the while my own addiction was growing worse. My mother eventually recovered from the Cancer, but my grandmother did not. During my grandmothers fight with cancer, she stayed at my parents house. I noticed that she had been prescribed oxycontin and kept them in the guest room. I stole some when she was getting her chemo treatments. Trauma Gains Strength Through Loss My grandmother passed away on her birthday. This is when my Addiction really took over. I had been attending school up and getting Straight A’s the entire time. Around this time I graduated and since I didn’t get a job, my time was consumed with getting high. All day every day. It got to the point where I was only eating solid food every 2-3 days and that would only be a cheese burger from Burger king. I lived on Slurpee’s from 7-Eleven, vitamins, and Smoke. I lost 150lbs in two months. By this time I was a known person in the Hollywood Oxy Scene. I knew almost everyone who used and could almost always get what people needed. And, since I was one of the people with a car, I would take people to the doctors, the pharmacists, and then drive them around while they made their deals and broke me off. I was in my car from 8am to 4am every day. I lived in a perpetual daze. Every week I would pawn my laptop and get it back the next week. Then pawn it again a few days later. I had a serious habit. My laptop is one of my most important possessions and I lived without it for a long time. Eventually I got myself into a situation bad enough that it woke me up to the way I was destroying my life. My bottom happened in Gainesville Florida. I had gone up there to take Jeff’s uncle to court for a old ticket and Jeff had tagged along since his Uncle had a Script for Oxy’s. That night, I let them use my car to go pick up some weed from one of Jeff’s uncles old friends. They were on their way back when Jeff, who was driving, jumped the curb as they were leaving the neighborhood. They were pulled over and the vehicle was searched. It turns out that Jeff had a suspended license and being in Gainesville was a violation of his probation. They also found Various Oxy related paraphernalia, the ounce of weed, three daggers, and his uncle’s script. Jeff and his Uncle were arrested and I received a call from his Uncle’s friend. She dropped my car off at the hotel. I ended up staying in Gainesville for two weeks trying to bail out Jeff’s Uncle. I couldn’t get any Oxy’s up there, but the girl who knew Jeff’s Uncle shot up crack. I slept on her floor, stole food from Publix to eat, smoked crack, and detoxed from Opiates. It also turned out that she was a prostitute. Finally after two weeks, I ended up bailing out Jeff’s Uncle using his debit card and a sneaky three way call to the bank using my cell phone to connect the call from the prison to the bank. I had been using the Uncles Debit card to purchase Crack and the card had gotten temporarily suspended due to too many cash back transactions. I had also
  • 6. gotten kidnapped by a group of crack dealers and luckily managed to escape. Yeah, it was a bad two weeks. Up to this point, my family had thought my only drug use was smoking weed. They were about to learn differently. After driving Jeff’s uncle home and staying the night camped out on his floor, we decided I would move into his house and pay rent in order to pay him back the money I had spent on crack. He got me two of the Big Orange Suboxone and I went home to my parents to tell them I was moving. We all sat down outside on the patio and I started to tell them about how I had to move in with Jeff’s Uncle to pay him back. They said that was fine, but they wanted to talk to me about my life. They thought I was smoking weed again and wanted me to stop. They were going to give me a drug test which I would have passed since I hadn’t done any drugs in 3 days and smoked weed in over a month. The only thing I had done was one of the Suboxone which won’t show up on your standard drug test. My family told me they wanted me to take the test and I started to laugh. They looked at me like I was crazy, which I was. I was totally out of my mind. I decided then and there to come clean. I told them I was addicted to Opiates. They didn’t realize just how bad painkiller addiction was. I had to explain to them that Roxycontin is basically synthetic heroin. Putting my head down on the table, I started to cry. It felt so good to finally tell them what was wrong. To get that weight off my chest was amazing. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I didn’t want to get high anymore. After this little intervention, my life became pretty shitty. It didn’t matter that I had come clean about it and didn’t want to use anymore, I was still an addict and was treated as such. I was forced to turn over my phone and car keys to my parents. I was also forced to begin attending B.A.R.C. (Broward Addiction Recovery Center) which is a state run facility with little funding and a lot of overcrowding. I was unable to get a bed in their facility for two reasons, the first being that the opiates no longer showed in my urine. The second reason I could not get a bed was that I am a cutter. A cutter is someone who engages in self harm and purposefully injures themselves for various different reasons. I had picked up this practice while at HLA. It helped me to deal with the horrible reality of my situation. The helplessness, the lack of any sort of control, the soul crushing despair at having no way out, all of these got a little better when I would carve designs into my arm using an Exacto knife I had stolen from the art room. Anyway, to get back to the situation at hand, I could not attend B.A.R.C.’s inpatient program because I was a high risk patient. I had last cut two weeks before, right before we began to drive to Gainesville. You see, Jeff had told me we were just going to pick his Uncle up and take him to his house in Port Saint Lucie. After arriving at the house, I was pressured into driving them to Gainesville. Jeff knew I had bought a pill and kept following me around the house, waiting for me to do it so he could ask to smoke it with me. Eventually I snapped at him and told him I was doing it alone and he tried to guilt trip me. I don’t remember if I split it with him, but I remember going outside to my car after and getting my dagger out from my car. I then started cutting again after not having done it for over 2 years. Even now this incident makes me feel sick. Not the cutting, but the addict behavior exhibited by myself, Jeff, and the others in the house. I could attend the day classes there, I just could not be inpatient. This was not good enough for my parents. They refused to spend any money to put me in a detox or rehab program and I was left to find my way myself. They barely let me stay at their house and that was only for a very limited amount of time. I had to get up at 4am while detoxing and walk a mile to the bus station to get on the bus to go to fort Lauderdale. Occasionally my dad would drop me off there or my mom would drive me to fort Lauderdale. After the program was done for the day, They would rarely pick me up. More commonly, I would have to ride the bus back and then walk back to the house. All of this would normally be miserable here in the beginning of summer, but was even worse because I was in the middle of detoxing from Opiates and Crack. My next and last hope to avoid homelessness was the Salvation
  • 7. Army center in fort Lauderdale. I was making arrangements to get in there. The woman there asked me if I had issues with self harm in the past, and I was honest with her. She also told me I would not be able to attend there program or live in their center. That was my last hope. I was going to be homeless. My life was over. I had decided long ago, that if I ever became homeless, I would kill myself. I spent the next few days stringing my parents along to get a few more days of non- homelessness in my now considerably shortened life. During that time, I continued to search for a way to get into an inpatient facility and avoid homelessness. Now during this time Jeff’s Uncle, who was not happy that I had not moved in, was continuing to call my phone and try to get me up there. He then somehow got my parent’s house number and began to call and harass them. My dad spoke to him, told him he would get nothing and informed him if he continued to call, the police would get involved. He stopped calling. One day, my mom happened to find the number of a person who was known to be able to get people into rehabs. I called this person and he got me into a rehab, which is where I met Paul, Mike, and Phil. I graduated from this rehabs inpatient program and moved into a halfway house. I made some good friend in this program. I stayed in that halfway house for almost a year. The rules were very strict and the program itself there was a scam. It engaged in excessive drug testing and billed my insurance for each one. At the end of that year, the owner forced me to move out under the guise of concern for my weight and well being. I have been overweight since I attended HLA, where I purposefully over ate in an effort to give myself a heart attack. This was so my death would look like natural causes and not suicide and then it wouldn’t affect my family as much. My life was hopeless at HLA and this seemed like my only way out. My weight is out of control and it will kill me if nothing is done about it. I had begun to go to the gym 2-3 times a week but after two months of that, I slipped going into a store and caused severe nerve damage to my left leg and got a condition called “Drop Foot”. Now, I am attempting to get the Gastric Sleeve Surgery in an effort to bring my weight under control. It will kill me if I don’t. I now have things to live for and am fighting to be there for my family. Lifescape Addresses My Trauma With New Age Therapy Treatment I currently live in another halfway house, where I have a studio apartment to myself, which is very nice since I don’t really like company. I attend Lifescapes Solutions, which is run by Paul, Mike, and Phil and is honestly the one of the best things to have happened to me. I even work here now. I do the blogging and web stuff for them. I have almost 2 years clean and while not every day is a good day, none of them are even close to how bad my life used to be. My family and I talk now, I go over there occasionally. They let me watch their house and cat when they go out of town and are an incredibly important part of my life. I have a younger brother who I neglected for most of my life and am currently building a relationship with. He does a lot of things that irritate me, but as my brother, that’s his job and he does it because he cares. He has girlfriend and a 6 year old daughter who is able to brighten even my worst days. I occasionally join him when he takes her to a movie, restaurant, or arcade and we have a great time. Currently she has something wrong with her eye that they have been taking her to the doctor to have treated, but nothing has really been working. So now she will have to receive an injection every week for the next two years otherwise she could go blind. The medicine could cause her to lose her hair and I worry about her a lot. I know she will be ok, but kids can be cruel. If she loses her hair, I will shave mine in support like I did for my mother when she lost hers from her Chemo treatments. Life is far better than I ever thought it could be and while it is hard, it is worth it. I’m still dealing with a lot of the trauma caused by the things that have happened to me and the things I have done, but this place helps me heal those wounds and move on with my life. Sometimes it’s hard to let go but I can honestly tell you that it can be the best thing for you.