It's been 6 months since I came back from my experience at SUWS of the Carolina's. A hard 6 months to be exact. While there are far worse camps and schools to be sent to, SUWS was able to break me and attempt to "rebuild" me as how they think a human should be. Most of the members of the group I was with are now in TBS, which I luckily worked my way out of.
When I went to SUWS I weighed 155 lbs at 5'11. Currently I weigh 130 lbs at 5'11. That doesnt seem healthy of course but I cant even force my self to eat at this point. Thats only one issue SUWS has left me with. I picked up bad habits that I didn't have beforehand; such as cutting (before SUWS I had never attempted self harm in that manner) ,smoking (which I was able to stop), and binge drinking.
Other side effects of SUWS include what I think is PTSD where I have night terrors of being sent away again or waking up in the woods. It used to be every night and now its about 5/7 days a week. Since I get these dreams that wake and keep me up I am constantly tired. Sometimes I can't even stay away from home because my anxiety will go up about not being in my zone, which didn't happen before. And again with my eating, I can't eat certain foods such as peanut butter anymore because it gets me thinking of what happened over the summer which makes me sick and agitated.
One of the worse post-SUWS side effects is my constant apathetic attitude to literally everything. I'm a senior in high school who wanted to go to college right after high school. Those dreams have disappered because I can't get myself to care about my future. I only ever want to lay in bed. The lack of motivation doesn't stop there either, my school grades are falling and any activity I enjoyed pre-SUWS is impossible to start.
I've been to a therapist for the past 5 months after the one who sent me to SUWS said that I couldn't be her client considering the fact I wasn't going to boarding school. Therapy is not working it seems. I am way more depressed than ever before yet not suicidal. Yet I could care less what happens to me.
My parents have blamed my lack of motivation, tiredness, and lack of appetite on me 100%. If I try to bring what they sent me to over the summer up in a conversation they automatically say "We did it to save your life." But was it to save my life for my sake, or extend my suffering so they wouldn't feel guilty if something did happen? In all honesty I want to take legal action against anyone I can about the traumatic experience I went through and the side effects of that. Any advice on that (or anything) would be nice.
TL;DR: SUWS has made my life collapse in on itself harder than before, my parents won't hear me out, I'm blamed for every mistake
How can you comfort the author. To let the client know that the clients life wasn't lost like two teenagers who died in the program?
Sources:
- Update on My Current Situation (Reddit - the original testimony)
- Gregory Owens Jones (Today a child died memorial blog)
- Rocco D. Magliozzi (Today a child died memorial blog)
- Factsheet about the program (Fornits Wiki)
