A Manual for Fire and Stories by Hannah Straton (HIPPOCAMPUS MAGAZINE)

This testimony was found in the HIPPOCAMPUS MAGAZINE. All rights belongs to the author Hannah Straton and the HIPPOCAMPUS MAGAZINE

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WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
Flames rejoice around the kindling, their elegantly dangerous silhouettes leaping from stick to log and back to stick again, bright against the dark of the night.



GETTING STARTED
On the first day, they give me the wilderness therapy packet. The packet says “Fire Phase.” It holds the secrets of the program–it is the way out. To build fire is to succeed.

Bow drilling: traditional Native American technique to begin a fire



First, find the tools to make the bow drilling set. You may find them only in nature. In the Appalachian Mountains there are trees and rocks and streams, all at your fingertips. You may use all of them. You have to use all of them.

Second, practice. Hours every day. The callouses on your hands should ache for the feel of the bow, your fingernails dirty with black punk- the stage before embers appear, your mind dull from the monotony.

Third, make fire.

Gather tools, follow directions, practice diligently, and achieve the goals they set for you.

Fire is light. Fire is warmth. Fire is the way home.



TOOL: TOP ROCK
The top rock is typically found in a stream. It is a smooth, round, black rock that fits nicely in a palm. But the rock is hard, it is stubborn; it is not ready for use.

Quartz is a hard crystal, used to carve a depression on the underside of the top rock, so the spindle can be held in place, so that the bow can twist it and create friction on the fireboard to make an ember.

The top rock still fits in a palm, it looks the same on the outside, but the underside has been changed. Now the top rock is useful.



TOOL: SPINDLE
The spindle is initiator of movement- it twists in the string to rub against the fireboard, making the black punk. These small, angry circles of the spindle can be the beginnings of huge fires.

The whorl of Bipolar descended on me, leaving me twisting in place against the friction. The auditory hallucination named Gordie lives inside my head, always commanding self-harm and always demanding to be heard.

By now Gordie is a familiar voice. I started to hear him months ago. He is a man who wears a white suit with a white top hat; he lives in my head and tells me what to do.



Run into the road, Hannah.

Jump out the window, Hannah.

Take those pills, Hannah.



Sometimes I can ignore him. Sometimes I can’t.

In the end of August, just weeks before school was supposed to start, it became apparent that I couldn’t go back—I had episodes daily. As the days before school trickled slowly by, my parents realized I was even too sick to live at home. It wasn’t safe. They didn’t know what to do, so they turned to the advice of the people who were supposed to know better: the “experts.”



PLACE: Wilderness Program
Wilderness Programs, like the one I went to, claim to help parents take their troubled teen from “bad kid” to “productive member of society.”

But I got there by mistake.

My psychiatrist didn’t believe the negative drug tests. He hadn’t ruled out “attention-seeking behavior.” I saw dancing spiders with bowties on my desk in English class. I hurtled through manic jumping jacks and sobs shook my body as I rocked back and forth on the floor of the guidance office.

My symptoms did not have boxes to check on the bipolar differential diagnosis sheet. He told my parents this wilderness program would help me. They believed him.

Here, there are no papers to diagnosis me based on the boxes I checked. There are only packets about the program– packets that tell me what I did wrong, what I did to get myself here. And packets that tell me how to make fire.



TOOL: BOW
A bow consists a piece of wood and a string. You must make both the string and the bow from products found in nature. The wood for the bow is usually taken from a branch of pine. It must be carved carefully into a curve and stripped of its bark. You must then tie a string to either end and pull it taut in order to trap the spindle. The spindle will resist, the spinning will test the string. Your string must be strong and tight. Make it from the nearby vines, but they are thin so you must combine them with slowly, and with precision. You may begin on the fourth day.

The first three days are an observation period. I am to be separated from the other girls, to watch and learn, but most importantly; I am to stay within eyesight at all times.

The fourth day, I walk into the forest to search for wood to make a bow. Distanced from the camp, I call my name every three to five seconds to prove I have not run away. I take my bow from a branch of a drooping tree. Near the fire, the staffers oversee as I whittle down the bow to its naked arc.

Upon admission, we are given silver and brown tarps. When we arrive at a campsite, we put it up. When we leave, we take it down. We carry it on our backs when we walk. For six weeks, this tarp is our home. However, once we no longer need our home– after we have moved to “transition”– the tarp is reused; the next girl to enter the program gets that tarp.

I found my string in the tarp, expertly twined string attached to the metal holes on the ends of the tarp. The girl before me had left her string for the next person to use. She knew the difficulty of creating and the frustration of failing. This act of kindness is strictly against the rules. I smile up at the sky and tie the string to my bow.

At sunset, for the last moments of light, we line up for medication and mouth checks (to ensure we have not cheeked our pills) so that by the time darkness sets in, we lie in sedated sleep under our tarps. My bow drilling set is not finished, not yet ready for use. I will start again tomorrow: a new day, the same task.

Bow drilling is a monotonous chore. The bow must go back and forth hundreds of times before anything happens. A talented bow-driller can “bust” (create an ember) in the time it takes to sing the alphabet twice; no one here is a talented bow-driller. We move the bow back and forth for hours, never creating an ember. Sometimes the spindle falls out of place, sometimes a foot slips and the bow falls, sometimes it just doesn’t go fast enough or hard enough to make enough black punk to make an ember. The push and pull is exhausting. We’re too tired to fight.



TOOL: FIREBOARD
The friction between the spindle and the fireboard make black punk and enough black punk makes an ember. But in order for this to happen, the fireboard has to be soft enough for the spindle to dig deep, to make that black punk. It is best to make the fireboard out of a popular tree. Popular trees are the most yielding of the woods and the most abundant in the southeastern mountains. Take the little knowledge they give you, it won’t happen often. Accept it when it does. Use the popular board.

My fireboard has many black holes in it. When one hole gets too deep, the spindle can no longer spin; I move over, start a new hole, and start accumulating new black punk. My black holes are impressive. They give me status– I’ve been here a long time.



TOOL: NEST
The nest is an essential part of the bow-drilling process. Once you have a small ember, you must tilt the fireboard downward so that the ember falls out and lands gently in the nest of entangled twigs and grass. Carefully, hold the nest above your head and blow gently until it catches. You have to wait until the fire has engulfed enough of the nest so it can survive in the wood pile, but must drop it before it burns you.

By my eighth week, I know the fastest way to build shelters and the best locations for latrines. I had completed all the therapy assignments; I wrote about my faults, how my parents treated me, what I wanted out of life. I finally gathered the courage to ask the therapist when I would go to my emotional-growth boarding school.



“Hannah, we both know you want attention. You won’t leave until you admit you’re making it up.”

Gordie screams. I cry. She nods.



Tears drip down my face as I realize all that is being taken from me. This program was supposed to be a temporary situation on my way to a boarding school. The brochure said six weeks. On the glossy front page, there were smiling kids around campfires. But really, nothing has been taken away from me because it was never going to be a six-week program on my way to an emotional-growth boarding school. I find out later that the emotional-growth boarding school doesn’t take kids on medication.

Nothing has been taken away, just been illuminated. Now I know what they really think, what they really want. No more worksheets or therapy sessions. I know– I can deny who I am and they will let me leave. Or I can be who I am and they will keep me here indefinitely. Gordie tells me he knew this would happen, that I deserve it. For once, I don’t believe him. I know what I did to get here and I know I am not the one who needs to take accountability for this placement.

The therapist smiles down at me as she stands up. She tells me that today’s session is over. She tells me that she’ll see where I am next week and re-evaluate then. I watch her walk away, leaving me sitting under the looming trees. Her car sputters and starts, driving on the nearby dirt road, leaving a cloud of dust in its place.

I run away that night after the fire dies down. The dying embers and charred sticks wait for morning, when someone else will blacken their hands picking up the remains of my decision.

In the darkness, I make my escape.

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If your child suffers from illness please consult hospitals and doctors. Make a real evaluation instead of paying an educational consultant which lives of money paid by parents AND referral fees from wilderness programs and boarding schools.

Source:
A Manual for Fire and Stories by Hannah Straton

A parent's view of a runaway story

This testimony was found on Fornits. It was originally posted on another website which is not up anymore:

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At 7:45 p.m. on August 1996, I received a call that began a parent's nightmare. My 15 year old son had run away from camp. In the dead of night, he had slipped away from his camp in the Idaho desert and was apparently wandering lost in an inhospitable wilderness.

For the next few hours, I paced the family room, my heart in my throat, willing the phone to ring. Finally, I got the call from Idaho. He had been spotted at a truck stop at a nearby town. Blessed with determination and an uncanny sense of direction, he had managed to navigate ten miles out of the desert in the darkness, then had taken a staff member's bike to make the fifteen mile trek to the nearest town. Unfortunately, he had ditched the bike at the truck stop, and had probably hitched a ride with one of the truckers. Although some remembered seeing him, no one had seen him leave. The trail was cold.

Half an hour later the phone rang again. At the sound of my son's voice, I felt such a rush of emotions I could barely speak. The thought that the phone call could literally have life-or-death consequences for my son, that if I said the wrong thing I might never hear from him again, overwhelmed me. As we spoke, I groped my way, relying on my maternal instinct to say the right thing. He told me about his "escape". From the truck stop, he had hitched a ride with a trucker. No, he wouldn't tell me where he was, but wanted to let me know he was safe, that he loved me, and that he would keep in touch. He sounded both exhilarated by the adventure and his newfound freedom, and scared to death of the uncertainty and potential dangers of his situation. I listened to everything he said, tried to convey my unconditional love, and, as calmly as possible, tried to convince him to go back to Idaho or to come home. After fifteen minutes, he said he had to hang up because the truck driver was ready to go, but that he would call me again soon.

I immediately rang the staff in Idaho to let them know I had heard from my son. Then, realizing that he was using the calling card I had given him, I contacted the customer service representative. Calling up the last few calls made on my account on her screen, she was able to pinpoint his location to a commercial phone in a small town about three hours from the camp in Idaho. I quickly passed the information on to the staff in Idaho, and two of the men raced off to try to find him. Hours later, they called back to let me know they had scoured the town, but had come up empty.

During the next few days, my son called me several times to let me know he was still okay. With the help of the calling card system representative, I was able to follow his route west to Portland, Oregon. At home in Pennsylvania, I wanted to jump in my car and drive the width of the country to find my son and bring him home, but knew chances of finding him and then convincing him to come home with me were slim.

Once in Portland, he found a group of runaways who showed him the ropes of living on the street. Portland had a relatively large runaway population with established social services and crisis centers. Again the calling card people were able to let me know what areas he called from. Unfortunately, the numbers were never private phone numbers, but always pay phones located in different parts of the city. My son kept moving, and although I was so grateful for his calls which let me know he was still alive, I realized that I was probably not going to be able to pin him down to any location.

Although he always talked as though his life was an exciting adventure, sometimes the emotion in his voice betrayed him, and I wanted so much to be able to reach out and give him a hug. Always I controlled what I said, trying to say just the right words that might bring him back home, or at the very least would encourage him to keep in touch with me.

Through my library's Portland phone directory, I found the number of the Portland Police Department runaway officer, contacted her, and sent photos of my son. I also located agencies in Portland that help runaways and are willing to post messages, and sent them messages in the hope that someone who knew him might call and help me locate him, or convince him to come home.

Time went by, with the phone lines my lifeline to my son. In the stores, in my neighborhood, I saw other mothers with their sons, and felt pangs of grief mixed with feelings of guilt and shame. I had failed as a parent and had lost my only child. Depression hung like a dark heavy curtain over my life. Parents of a runaway grieve, but often with little support and sympathy from those around them, especially if the child has been in trouble in school or the community. Like me, they may feel isolated, not knowing any other parents who have lived through the experience.

In September, when we should have been shopping for school supplies, a local newspaper in a section of Portland ran a story on runaways. The reporter and photographer spent time with some of the runaways, including my son. Excited by his fame, my son told me about the article and I sent for a copy of the issue. The photos used in the story showed me his new life, his "family" of runaways, and the squat under the bridge he and his young friends called home. The story confirmed the dangers of life on the street, painting in all too vivid details what until then had only been my imagined fears.

Through the email address listed in the newspaper, I contacted the reporter, who was kind enough to reply. He had spent a day with my son, and was able to fill me in on his life on the street and how he was coping. One thing in the reporter's message struck me. He said that too often parents opt for the "let 'em run wild" approach, thinking that the streets will knock some sense into them. Unfortunately, for a while the dangers of the street life can seem adventurous and romantic to the runaways. By the time they return home, many have serious problems: alcohol and drug addiction, other physical and mental problems, and legal troubles. Most dropped out of school long before graduation, and face problems picking up where they left off in school.

Not long after I heard from the reporter, I got another call in the middle of the night. This time it was from the Portland Police Runaway Office. The police had picked up my son for littering. Did I want them to hold him? For me, happiness was hearing that my son had been arrested. For the first time in months, he was safe.

Two days after my son was picked up, one of his street friends passed through detention and told him the bad news. The night my son was taken off the streets by the police, his friends had been attacked while they slept under the bridge by two men with heavy metal pipes. Some of the runaways had been hospitalized, others had fought back and had been arrested on assault charges.

That was five years ago. These days my son lives the typical life of a college student not far from his home. He limits his travelling adventures to his computer and his Internet connection. Although he undoubtedly has many stories to tell of his time as a runaway, when I ask if he wants to add his story, he declines saying only that he would rather forget that time in his life. And I certainly won't argue with that.

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If your child escapes from the wilderness program, take the child home once the child is found so you can understand what made your child take this decision.

Source:
The original post on Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora

Letter from the grave

Freddy McConnel - a talented musician died as result of Heroin overdose. It is rare in countries where people are not punished for overdosing but still happens where the authorities publish the overdosed patients after they have recovered.

The young man was sent to Sagewalk in a try to get clean. Here is what he stated in his journal discovered after this death:

I arrived at the SageWalk office scared out of my wits. I was stripped of my belongings and clothes and given a bright orange uniform similar to those worn in prison. I was handcuffed, blindfolded and thrust into the back of an SUV for a two-hour drive into the Oregon desert where, with a large, heavy rucksack containing a sleeping bag, rice, lentils and farina (a sort of carbo¬hydrate gloop), a small tarpaulin, orange clothes and hiking boots, I was left in the ‘care’ of two of the hillbillies who accompanied us.

I at once refused to do anything they said and to my horror received a slap to the face. I told them that that was illegal but they ignored me and, as I further protested, one of them pushed me and I fell face- first to the ground, cutting my face and starting to bleed. I recall shrieking amid tears of anguish for my dad to save me but it was to no avail.
About a week into my stay, we were backpacking and there was a small rock face, maybe 10ft high, that we had to climb with our backpacks on. We had already hiked about five miles that day and I was feeling faint.

Halfway up, I lost consciousness for a second, or just lost my footing, and fell 5ft on to a rock. I landed back first and experienced an excruciating pain.

When I put my hand to my back to inspect the damage I felt a hot, thick trickle of blood. I asked for a doctor but received instead a kick to the ribs and an order to keep on hiking. The next break wasn’t for another mile-and-a-half. I have since seen doctors and had X-rays and it seems that it is a permanent injury. This makes me feel extremely bitter and upset

There were no phones so I couldn’t talk to my parents and the letters were checked before we sent them so I couldn’t tell them what was happening.

I delayed telling my parents even after I was let out because there is a policy that if the child misbehaves within two years, they can be sent back for free.

The brutality continued for two months until I was set free. It was like being born again but I carried a huge amount of resentment.

[A spokesman for Aspen Education, which owns SageWalk Wilderness School declined to comment on Freddy’s claims that he was slapped, shoved and kicked, resulting in bleeding wounds and a permanent back injury during his two-month stay.] I had asked my parents for an escape but they had not listened. They had sat by while I had endured untold physical and emotional pain.

I recall one week there when I was so overrun with emotion that something snapped and I didn’t speak for four or five days. I couldn’t. I felt so completely void. I lived in fear and so was relatively well-behaved as far as my parents could see for a few months after I got back, but then I discovered mephedrone

The cost for this stay was that he felt abandoned. It might have thrown him further into drug use.

Sagewalk closed in 2009 after a 16 year old boy died on his day at the wilderness program. Aspen Education Group is in the process of dissolving after many of their former patients have become adults willing to speak out about their experiences.

He died only 18 year old. Decide the rehab for your child with care. Seek unlimited visitation rights from day one. Support your child by your presence.

Source:
How drugs snuffed out Freddy McConnel's brilliant young life - told in his own vividly moving words (The Daily Mail)

Epileptic girl could be at danger in a wilderness program

A recent plea from a step-parent was found on the Internet and it is quiet alarming. A girl suffering from epilepsy was put in a stressful situation far away from health services which are needed to help her overcome a possible seizure.

I looking for anyone who has good information on SUWS of the Carolinas.

My step-daughter is being held there. She was "escorted" there by a transport service 23 days ago. We are trying to get her released and need more information on the conditions of the camp.

She has epilepsy which is a concern, because her seizures are triggered by emotional stress (psychosomatic). We have had a phone conference with the Judge to request her release into our care. The judge doesn't seem to have an issue with awarding us custody of her, as our state says that any child over 14 can request a modification of custody. (Her mother is currently the custodial parent.)

The trouble we are facing is that the judge does not want to release her in the middle of a "therapeutic program" for fear of causing psychological harm. We are looking for good evidence to support that keeping her there would cause more harm than good. We submitted a letter from her psychiatrist that says removing her should not cause harm, but he is not convinced. We have a full hearing set for November 26th.

I am looking to paint a picture for the Judge of what the conditions at SUWS are really like because he just doesn't get it.

If anyone is willing, I need good information on living conditions, hygiene practices, meals, restrictions, pack weights, etc.

Can you help me, please?

That is quiet alarming. People with epilepsy are at an increased risk of death. This increase is between 1.6 and 4.1 fold greater than that of the general population. One of the key issues is stress. Being removed in handcuffs and leg restraints will cause stress. While people suffering from epilepsy are recommended to wear dark glasses being hooded to prevent the participants in wilderness programs to see where they are taken will be a huge risk provoking a seizure.

If a seizure occurs in a wooden area like the one SUWS of the Carolina, the paramedics could face difficulties to land their helicopter and save her life.

We know that a judge will have to rule in this case. Please release this girl now, so she doesn’t end up dying from a seizure far away from the emergency services which could save her life.



Sources:

• The meassage on Reddit
• About the illness on Wikipedia

Does wilderness therapy work? A friend of an attendee looks back

A friend to a former attendee reflects over the ordeal his friend George (Name invented) went through at an unnamed camp and the later life George had after he returned having lost important time in school.

Throughout elementary school and into high school I mainly hung out with a guy named George and one other kid from the neighborhood. George was a smart kid with a physically abusive older brother, an absentee/overworked dad, and an emotionally abusive mom. Whenever I stayed over at his house, we were completely unsupervised in the basement and did whatever we wanted to do. As we got older, we were harmless teenagers who occasionally smoked pot, had "girlfriends", occasionally got invited to parties with booze, and were generally fairly harmless suburban kids. We had never gotten into any real trouble and all did well in school.

One night when I was around 16 I found myself staying over at his place. I could tell something was odd; his mom practically insisted I stayed over, and she took us out to eat junk food (which never happened). We spent the night playing video games. We didn't have any pot, but I remember I had just obtained a new (crappy) pipe to smoke out of, so I had it on me that night. I left it sitting in his nightstand drawer so I wouldn't have to sleep on it in my pocket.

We were woken up by several men crowding into his basement room. The first thing I remember was them going straight for the night stand and taking my new (crappy) pipe, and holding it up triumphantly like they had found the grail. As George's mom was bitching him out, I calmly explained it was my pipe, and I'd like it back.

In response, we learned what was going on: these strange men (3 of them, 20s-30s, well built) were going to take George to an outdoor program in southern Utah for like 6 months. I didn't know what to say. I looked at his mom in disbelief and asked to call my parents who lived about 5 minutes away for a ride. Normally I'd walk, but I wanted to get out of there immediately.

When I explained to my mom what was going on over the phone, she suddenly became very terse and asked to speak with George's mom. I didn't hear the conversation but his mom went a little bit white, held her hand to her mouth, and started apologizing to my mom. My parents were not impressed that I had been put in the middle of their shitty parenting decisions (to send George away to a camp) and were appalled at the fact she even let me stay over that night, knowing this was happening the next morning. My parents never thought very highly of George's parents, even though all 4 of them (my parents and his parents) were doctorate-level educated professionals.

George was led out of the house and into a car. I followed him and waited outside. We both ignored the men from the program and his mother telling us to be quiet, and George gave me a big list of social things to do for him as he way being led away. My mom showed up a few minutes later and I quickly left.

George was gone for nearly the whole school year.

When he got back -- and I remember the day very clearly -- he talked the taxi driver that his parents had paid for to drive him from the airport into dropping him off at my house instead. He had lost about half his body weight and looked like a different person with his extremely tan skin. He had a duffle bag full of very dirty clothes and -- wait for it -- tons of booze that he had bought at the airport. Obviously camp was effective.

Since he had missed almost a full year of school, he was being held back. One of the smartest people I knew (he had been in the "gifted kid" classes) was being held back. He found it so insulting that he immediately dropped out of school, moved in with his girlfriend (her parents were huge enablers), and didn't speak to his parents for several years. George's dad was a lawyer and pulled every string possible to legally force George back into their house, but he always chose the street (and slept in the park several times) over going back to his parents. His parents got divorced shortly after he turned 18.

George had stories about being outdoors for days. He taught us all how to make a fire using sticks (but he was the only one who could reliably get a fire going). When we went on hikes in the mountains, he suddenly knew all this stuff about the plants and animals. It was actually pretty cool, except that... he was a different person -- infinitely more bitter and full of hate. He started to act out in weird, violent ways -- taking jokes too far, accidentally physically or emotionally hurting friends of ours. He started to lose friends and people kept their distance from him, scared of him. He started hanging out with much older people (late 20s) that were weird, always pushed drugs on us (including cocaine), and, in hindsight, were probably child molesters. Eventually he faded away from our social scene.

As the years went on he developed a significant drinking problem, was never able to hold a job, and got a couple girls pregnant. Last I heard he was doing alright, living with his wife and their kid, and working some deadend job.

This kid had a lot of potential and it was ruined by one gigantic act of stupid parenting. People who knew him as a kid are amazed to hear this story -- they never thought it would happen to George -- the kid who showed so much promise.

I continue to be thankful that my parents are reasonable people. I got an informative lecture on how smoking pot stunts a growing brain (who knows if its true, but when it's coming from your doctor parents, you tend to believe it as a kid). It actually made some sense to me and I smoked significantly less pot until my 20s. I probably got grounded too. My parents gave me a long leash, but still stepped in to be parents when it was appropriate. Also, I was forbidden from going over to George's house, but not because of George -- because of his parents. They would turn a blind eye when George would stay over for a few days.

Hopefully some parent out these reads this and has their perspective changed for the better. And I feel so fucking sorry for kids that are put through this shit.
PS: there was zero religious influence in any of this. His family is agnostic as far as I know.


Source:
When I was a teenager growing up in Salt Lake City... (The original testimony)

Isolation in wilderness program requires thorough screening of employees and security precautions

When you send your child to a wilderness program the only way of communication is through old snail mail. Some program even execute censorship when it comes to these letters so they become more "therapeutic".

But what if your child experience real trauma due to the hands of the employees? How does your child alert you?

The simple answer is: It cannot be done as the wilderness programs are designed today. The child protection departments in various states do not conduct uannounced inspections in private and public wilderness programs. It is a question of logistics.

But without any public oversight in the field the teenagers are easy prey if an employee decides to assault or otherwise abuse one of teenagers.

In a case involving Second Nature Blue Ridge wilderness program, authorities is now investigating whether a teenager was forced to have sex with one of the employees.

If you decide to make use of wilderness programs, please ensure how you will able to communicate with your child without censorship and without notice to the program, they would not have time to alter certain statements.

Source:
Sex abuse alleged at camp for youths (The Clayton Tribune)

Aspiro wilderness experience

This testimony was found on the author's webpage. All rights goes to the original author

In the summer of 2010, I disappeared without a trace. Peers speculated about my month-long absence. Their theories included: suicide, spiritual voyages, and internment at a mental institution. None of these were far from the truth. I was forced against my will to attend the Aspiro "wilderness therapy" program Vantage Point, a camp in the state of Utah that specialized in the treatment of "adolescent boys and girls ages 13–17 and young adult males and females 18 – 28 who are struggling with a variety of social, cognitive, learning and processing issues such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Verbal Learning Disabilities and more significant executive function, impulse control and attention deficit disorders. Vantage Point camps are co-educational groups for adolescents whose cognitive and learning issues are a primary contributor to their emotional, behavioral, academic, social and family difficulties". My purposes in creating a brief transparent account of these experiences are as self-therapeutic as they are expository of largely unregulated institutions that operate on the fringes of the mental health industry in ways quite complementary to "pharmaco-capitalism". Camps of this sort are usually last-ditch efforts pushed by mental health professionals on desperate parents after conventional therapies and medications do not produce desired results in their children (namely the normalization and repression of behaviors and identities deemed inappropriate). The following images are sourced from the documentation(carefully selected by Aspiro personnel) provided to parents of patients. These images where shared on an online stream throughout the internment period for parents to check their children's statuses and progress as constructed by Aspiro specialists. A month after my return, I was given a collection of these images on a disc.


When I arrived at the Salt Lake City airport I was met by two muscular young men deemed "transporters". The transporters promptly took to me to a medical center for examinations and followed up with a trip to "base camp" in Mt. Pleasant, where I was issued the standard clothing, equipment, and rations; they also confiscated any items I traveled with until deemed appropriate. They ran short on male shirts so I was given a few female tops after which I was mocked by these men due to my appearance (this was only within a few months of re-discovering my gender dysphoria). Outside the sun began to set over the pastoral setting, the silence was beginning to torment me. That evening I was taken to a temporary group, a group of "misbehaved" who did not suffer from mental illnesses, since the Vantage Point crew was in another part of the state at the time.


After a few days I finally grouped with the Vantage Point group and headed toward the planned destination of the week. Each week groups were taken to different locations in cramped vans throughout the state of Utah and returned to base camp once a week for food rations and medical examinations. Though parents were sold a "immersive" and "constant" therapeutic treatment, I only saw a therapist for less than an hour once a week. The "counselors" who presided over the groups the rest of the time were actually young, underpaid(they complained about this quite a few times), predominantly Mormon babysitters without any credentials in mental health professions(with some of them working at Aspiro straight out of high school). My assigned therapist had credentials in Wilderness Therapy from an anonymous Buddhist university and Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a barely clinical background considering the range of conditions the program promises to treat. I was barred from two-way communications with anyone including my parents, and was only allowed to send letters to them read and approved by the therapist herself(I later found out that one of these was intercepted because it communicated the deleterious conditions I was in). These letters were scanned and included in the edited live-stream along with the rest of the images, depicting as idyllic and adventurous an experience as possible. I didn't smile much, but you can bet when I did it was caught on camera.


Everything we did was highly regimented and surveilled. Language was regulated, conversation topics carefully handled. I was constantly photographed, even while sleeping. We had to brush our teeth collectively in a circle. In order to prevent drug trading, counselors would carefully administer the medications of those who needed them, inspecting the mouths of those lucky enough to have the undersides of their tongues and sides of their gums assessed. I was "tarped" a few times, meaning two counselors slept on my sides over a tarp placed over me, that way if I seemed unstable or tried to escape it would firstly be very difficult and secondly, if I succeeded, would be noticed and subsequently restrained. Every morning we would wake up and be encouraged to write in our journals and have group discussions, noting our progress along the way. I felt like a celebrity, I was special.


Utah is a beautiful state. I was miserable against the stark backdrop of magnificent landscapes. The uncanny mixture of teetering madness and majestic vistas harkened to Romantic depictions of sublime. Dissociation kills the experience however, flattening everything before you into dull postcards that say "I was here"... but not quite there. I thought Utah would be a giant red-rock desert, but it was more of a melange of biomes. Depending on the location of the week, I would be exposed to a range humid mosquito-filled forests, desktop-background flower fields, and jagged mountain-range Native Reservations. I wanted to see Utah's famous rock arches, but I didn't have a chance to since Moab never landed as one of my scheduled locations. I still got my fair share of red-rock desert, one with an oasis-like stream the counselors dubbed "the Indiana Jones river". I still wanted my arches. Maybe I should have stayed longer...


No. It felt long enough. The days were slow, my body heavy. My large backpack didn't help much either...I remember having dreams about leaving within the second day. In various desperate frenzies I would beg, kick, and scream. I did not belong there, I filled myself with false hopes of leaving early. This was impossible, as any plea toward my parents would be censored regardless. Escapes were very common, but never successful, even that one time (according to legend) that a patient/client turned 18 during his treatment. Of course one could walk away, but where would one go looking and smelling like a vagabond without any cash, cell-phone, and sense of direction in an unfamiliar topography? There was no way out but death, and surely enough I attempted suicide various times. Hanging from fastening cords, cutting wrists with sharp shale-like desert rocks. One hikes precipices seemed very enticing. One time in the shit-van during our voyage to the week's target destination we were very close the edge of a cliff, the dirt path swaying us in unexpected directions. I prayed that we would veer off into the depths of that picturesque ravine. "Let's end this cinematically" I thought, envisioning a charred, crumpled van with the remains of adolescent boys. We actually came close to being swept by a landslide in another instance, missing it by a few minutes. By the time we arrived at the destroyed road it was too late, the lovely aftermath of fellow motorists salvaging their partially submerged SUV.


I was asked by various other patients if I was "gooned". I learned that this meant abducted by hired escorts and taken to the airport. It became clear to me why the transporters appeared so Herculean. Many patients would be woken up by visitors in the middle of the night and instructed to pack, without any warning whatsoever. Some were coerced in different ways. One boy recounted about how his father told him they were going "camping". They both went to the airport with their individual luggages in hand when his father suddenly pauses while nearing the security checkpoint. Two escorts appear and his father notified him that he isn't going with him. Many of us were notified a few days prior. I myself was told by my parents a week before. I adamantly refused to go, I even threatened with running away. When I told my parents they could not force me to go, and that there was nothing they could do about it, they responded with silent nods, seemingly assured that this was not the case. I knew that this treatment meant trouble and would worsen my condition rather than improve it(which turned out to be more than true). Eventually I caved and agreed against my will, with a doubtful sliver of hope that this treatment might improve me. When I learned about the escorts at the camp, I realized that any continued resistance would have meant getting "gooned" and going anyways, albeit in a more traumatic fashion.


Nights always brought a certain level of calm to my tattered soul. Maybe it was a sense of defeat or exhaustion. Maybe it was the stars I could see in the dark state of Utah. One night in one of the darkest territories in the country, a petrified forest in the desert, I got to experience a significant meteor shower. Some of the meteors would explode and fragment, lighting up the sky and rocky landscape like storm-less lightning. It was beautiful, it calmed me. I thought about the abyss these alien showers came from, my inconsequentiality outside of my immediate experience. I felt depersonalized, but in an improved way. My nights were filled with dreams. One of the hippy counselors gave me a New Age explanation to this phenomena. He spoke of electromagnetic circuits forming between the earth and my body as I slept close it, separated only by a thin mat and sleeping bag. He took my aside after one of my psychotic breakdowns in which I violently threw my pregnant therapist's water bottle and dented it (She feared I would hurt her and her baby, I was insane but not a barbarian. What the hell was she doing out there anyway?). He was very soft spoken, a real flower child. He talked about energy flows and the spirit of nature. He told me I had power, but didn't know how to control it, like an untamed stampede of horses. He told me if I worked on it, that I could achieve clairvoyance. Unfortunately, no amount of hocus-pocus and wishful thinking relieved me of my trauma.


The other kids in the group came from varying backgrounds. We all had our own stories to tell, some of us shared some of us didn't. With some of them, I couldn't even tell why they were there, with others it was obvious. Many had a lot to prove, fabricating their pasts in the process. One kid told us he drove a Mustang GT back home and even lied about his age. He told us about all the hardcore things he did, the fights he won, the things he stole. He was outed eventually, and forced to apologize in a group talk session. I made good friends with a very amiable programmer from the Bay Area. He spoke very formally, and appeared to be a genius, intimate friends with notorious hackers from all over the country. We agreed that the program was worsening our conditions and that our parents acted out of desperation. Another boy described being institutionalized at a prior time for being defiant to his parents. He was released after being evaluated by psychiatrists that concluded he didn't have any problems. He seemed quite bright and healthy to me. Wealthy parents can afford to relocate their children against their will as they please, under the banner of ameliorating treatments and outdoor adventures, sometimes indefinitely. I knew of one very young autistic child in the younger Vantage Point age-group who's stay kept being extended. He was there for over 17 weeks and counting. I left before he did, wondering when he would finally go home.


Not all of us went home. According to my peers, about 75% of Aspiro attendees end up at one of the many special boarding schools connected to the organization. When I found this out I almost lost my mind. My parents told me I would be back once my month was up, but considering the deceit and coerciveness that colored this entire process, I had my doubts. After all, it wouldn't be the first time in my life there was an attempt to place me in a special school. Goodbyes were always bittersweet, with some people happy to leave to their previous homes, and other to their new "homes". This would only be a relief for those who had violent or treacherous home lives previous to their abductions. One guy, who knew he needed to be away from drugs back in his Boston home, complied with his fate. He still took his pharmacologically sanctioned drugs of course, and his mood stabilizers gave him a lazy eye and vacant gaze. His last words to me were "Bro, it was really nice meeting you. At first I thought you were gay but you're cool. I don't know, you just looked really clean and pretty". Oh the irony. He left me with that and I pondered my own fate, wondering what life in boarding school would be like. I expected the worst.


Conflict would often break out. Each group its own special kind of pressure cooker. Some kids were particularly violent, rowdy, and offensive. Some of us were quite the opposite: hypersensitive, easily hurt, and vulnerable. I vacillated between the two, vacillating between a teary catatonia and explosive rage. Many of us victims of bullying back at home merely transplanted oppressors while others became the bullies themselves, finding that they were dominant in a group of broken, debilitated people. Some were notorious for their brutality, as in one kid with Oppositional Defiant Disorder(ODD, imagine that!) who compulsively(and at times to his own dismay) picked a fight at any moment possible. Some of us couldn't direct our violent energy toward each other, and would explode in the middle of the night after being bitten by one too many mosquitos. Racism, homophobia, sexism were out and abound. A musical chairs game: Who will blow their fuse today?


Did I mention Utah is a freak state? Weird geography, weird wildlife, weird people. A red state. One time we crossed through Provo, a medium size city home to the Latter-day Saint run Brigham Young University and a burgeoning high-tech industry. It had a bizarre modern single-spire temple, perfectly fusing its seemingly disparate famed sectors. In a smaller town we passed through, a counselor asked for directions from an elderly man in overalls (who too closely resembled Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2). He replied with an "over yonder" and pointed toward the horizon. For whatever reasons, this dowdy character seemed impressionable. Residents dressed conservatively, some Mormon pilgrims and students from all over the world (I bet you haven't seen a Korean Mormon before). We weren't allowed to interact with town and city dwellers, to do so would be a serious infraction against the treatment program. Of course, we wouldn't want to raise suspicions in the local residents.


Sexuality was the insidious undercurrent to the experience. There were talks about masturbation and ensuing disavowals of homoeroticism. No homo. The boys worshipped the few women(primarily counselors or those from the girls groups we saw at base camp) they came in contact with. One time, the ODD guy made a disgusting comment about our counselor's "fire-crotch" and had to apologize to everyone in the group about the comment. How embarrassing... Sexuality was to be toned down, all our hormones were presumably raging at the time. Any hints at intimacy between group members (I would eventually be moved into a co-gendered group during the final week) was to be closely monitored and suppressed. I kept to myself and retired to my dreams and fantasies, but how could I have kept my eyes off of that lovely boy from North Carolina who looked like a superior rendition of Shia LaBeouf(he was in the first temporary group and unfortunately not in any of my photos)?


Image really was everything. As aforementioned, an online stream of photos, scanned letters, and therapist commentary maintained parents at ease back at home. All photos taken of my treatment resemble the branding and presentation schemes of the company website. Images harkened to the spirit of nature, promising the reinvigoration of your troubled child; therapy and a countryside. You would be fed wholesome organic food which patients prepared for themselves. You would burn sage bundles, undergo an alchemical resurrection. Humorously enough, the pastoral character of the landscapes in these images appears as if it could come straight out of an anti-depressant ad. The program fuses the new-age spirituality, health-craze, and nostalgia rife in our milieu with the mental institution. A truly neoliberal upgrade from the aging vestiges of the Great Confinement.


As it was all occurring, it was too overwhelmed to understand the implications of what I was experiencing. One of the overly cheerful and apparently veteran counselors commented one night in the something along the lines of "wow guys, isn't this surreal? Like all of a sudden you are in another state on this adventure? You're experiencing all these changes and this isn't an experience a lot of get to have". Yes it was surreal. I couldn't comprehend how it was legal or even possible to non-consensually exercise control over a minor. How a therapeutic institution, that was supposed to "help me" controlled every facet of my life for an extended period of time. I wondered how they got away with the things they did. Why would my parents relegate this much control over their children to strangers in another state, strangers working for profit?


This experience revealed a complex meshwork of institutions, health practitioners, and other agents. Parents of patients would often be referred to "educational advisors" or "counselors" by psychologists and psychiatrists. These individuals would then present options for inpatient treatments, specialized schools, camps, and the like. The distinction between mental health programs and disciplinary programs(boot camps) is somewhat unclear. Many years before this all happened, the threat of boot camp was used against me often, in spite of the clinical knowledge of the professionals who assessed me with "Asperger syndrome-like" symptoms, a diagnosis that does not warrant the similar treatment as those deemed simply as "delinquent" or "aggressive". Interestingly enough, one boy in Vantage Point was there by judicial mandate. He was exempt from a sentence in a juvenile detention center if he was willing to be attend a therapeutic program. Thus these therapeutic programs are not entirely prescribed by mental health professionals, but also by the law as bailouts for those can afford such a program(the costs are beyond reach for most). It is juvenile hall for those who "plead insanity", so to speak. In my case, I was sent not because my behaviors were dangerous or illegal, but because I was suffering from a mental illness. I was effectively locked up in a wall-less, picturesque, mental institution. Though that was the extent of my experience, one must not forget how these programs are pipelined to boarding schools, the final destination for most patients.


I was fortunate. I was not shuttled off to a boarding school. By the time I was ready to leave, I was manic. I was excited, I could not sleep those last two nights. I stayed up, in the total silence of a mountainous forest, consumed in by the prospect of finally leaving; my delirium intermittently broken by the howls of coyotes. Morning came, the transporters arrived, heralded by "pick up your shit, you're going home". I picked up my shit, said my goodbyes and began the hour long hike towards the van. They had my belongings, I changed into my clothes in the dangerously speeding van (we were a bit late). I turned on my cellphone and received a month's worth of messages. The mania was still there, the trip was fleeting but not enough. I felt paranoia about missing the flight. An endless desert sped by me for over an hour, until finally I arrived at Salt Lake City. The longest and most arduous month of my life was coming to a close.


Screens looked strange, air conditioning felt even stranger. I was that smelly over-tanned kid on the airplane. I had huge scabbed gash across my left forearm. I must have looked quite suspicious. None of that mattered, what mattered was my survival, I made it out. The aftershocks persisted for months: flashbacks, existential dread, and more. I felt like I lost a part of me over there (I know, its cliche, but trauma really does that to some). I promptly began my senior year of high school as if nothing happened, though those close to me sensed something was different. I became hollow, even losing friends in the process. I do believe this experience contributed in my deferral of exploring my gender identity, as the experience overshadowed my discoveries of the previous months. I do believe that these programs benefitted a fraction of patients, but at the expense of those who don't. Even those who did benefit to some extent expressed hurt, including the employees of the program. Many were success stories who came back for more, this time as counselors. A good patient always comes back for more. Some would have breakdowns, at times their emotional states were indistinguishable from those of patients. In this sense, it really seemed that no matter the outcome, individuals were marked by this treatment for better or worse. I knew better, and wouldn't even consider going back to perpetuate this form of therapy. It took me years to arrive at a point where I could consider my memories with some understanding, able to process them, analyze the processes that led to this. My initial reaction was indignation at my parents for making the decision to send me there and I developed a bit of resentment that I am still working through. With time I have come to realize that the decision came from desperation, and the options provided by a pathological system of care to address that desperation. When pharmaceuticals and therapies fail to conform children to an education system that is itself broken and unable to accommodate difference, professionals and frantic parents turn to the practice of exile. Indeed the term "pharmacology" is itself derived from the Greek "pharmakos", the ritualistic sacrifice or exile by a sorcerers of a human scapegoat or victim (usually a cripple). Pharmaco-capitalism has returned to its origins, complementing biochemical strait-jackets with institutions of exile that surpass the traditional psychiatric ward in its modes of repression and control. Hospitals still exist, and they are as horrific as they have historically been, but these new privatized options present themselves as "softer" and even safer improvements of the asylum. Based on my experience, this is misleading. I believe that biopower has mutated toward less outwardly insidious yet increasingly profitable means of subjugating the mental ill. The clinic has merely torn down its walls and sublimated itself into personalized, branded forms. I survived this inhuman, monstrous new-age clinic. I almost lost my life in the process, even attempting suicide within months of my return, but I am here alive and healing. I carry my scars, within and without, and possibly will for the rest of my life. I'll be okay though, really.


Sources:

• The original testimony (Author webpage)
• Datasheet about the program (Fornits Wiki)
• Comments about the testimony (Reddit Troubled Teens)