Fuck The Troubled Teen Industry

Star | 18 | DID system | TTI Survivor

[tti-horror-stories]

Welcome to TTI horror stories

This is a blog for sharing the countless abuse we faced in our 6 and a half years in various programs.

This blog will have heavy topics — such as psychiatric, emotional, and physical abuse.

About the mod:

Hi, my name is Star and I am a polyfragmented DID system. I was in the troubled teen industry against my will from ages 11 to nearly 16, then again from 16 to nearly 18. I use I/we pronouns interchangeably. Main blog is @circusofthestarscollective

Our DNI:

We are posting in a public space so we don’t mind you reading our posts as we can’t control that. That being said we respectfully ask that you do not like, comment, share, reblog, or otherwise interact with our posts or blog. If you break our DNI we are under no obligation to be kind

- (pro)non traumagenic ‘systems’. This includes endos, willos, tulpas, etc. we don’t appreciate people roleplaying a trauma-based disorder that deeply impacts us then claiming to not have trauma. Get a life

- T.R.A.S.H. this stands for transphobic, racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic.

- radqueers, radfems, transIDs, TERFs

- Zionists, MAGA, etc

Ask Rules

1. Provide trigger warnings. This is for my sake as well as anyone reading the blog. Be specific in your trigger warnings and make them readable. That means no typing quirks, no fonts or colored text, and no abbreviations (that means spelling out self harm instead of saying sh)

2. We may not get to your ask right away. We have a life outside of this blog, and in addition sometimes we won’t be in the headspace to answer. We are still healing from our own trauma.

3. Do not share personal information. This includes your name, the name of the TTI(s) you went to, the name of the staff or people there with you, etc.

4. Be respectful essentially

[tti-horror-stories]

copy and pasted from my post on r/troubledteens —

“i noticed that we don’t really have a day to honor those who died in or after the TTI and those who are still in it.

i propose December 21st, which coincides with the winter solstice. the reason i picked it is because it’s the darkest day of the year, but the days begin to get longer and brighter after - which i feel is symbolic to healing.

i’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this”

Reddit - Please wait for verification

[orangepawscollective]

one thing people dont tell you about the tti, is that even if you make it out without having more trauma than you came in with, the stories of people who werent as fortunate get passed to you. you look up your facility to try and find community and see story upon story upon story of mistreatment, or you see posts of parents asking if a facility was beneficial, with comments saying "never send your kid there". you slowly realize that what happened to you there was not normal, that even if your experience was "positive" there was something underlying it that was negative.

they dont tell you that the tti becomes ingrained in your brain. that everywhere you look you will see someone that looks like a friend, an enemy, a staff. you will hear a story, or read a fiction book not even set in the tti, and go "that could've happened there" or even "that is exactly what happened there".

even if you dont come out traumatized, you come out with a totally different view of the world. you come out with labels, a record, a new piece of medical history. you come out different yet everyone expects you to be the same person you were when you went in, just less "crazy".

[starfuckerz-incorporated]

i think leftists need to start thinking of taking a job as a psychologist/ psychiatrist with the same extreme suspicion as someone taking a job in the justice system

yes, the person in the justice system *could* be a prison teacher or a restorative justice practitioner, but most likely they are going to uphold the status quo and make a living of the violent oppression of others.

just like how the psych *could* be anti forced rescue, anti forced treatment and work with service users to decide if they wish to be diagnosed or not. but more likely they will swallow what the system teaches them unquestioningly and go on to enact terrible violence to a group of people they see as a doomed underclass to fall in line with the policies of regulatory bodies.

[starfuckerz-incorporated]

forced drugging is violence. restraint is violence. incarceration is violence. the perpetrator wearing scrubs does not stop violence from being violence nor does it stop those subjected to it from being traumatised

[traumatizeddfox]

“i was a bad kid” bro idc if you were a child sent from hell an adult should’ve never done that to you

[forever-bi-myself]

“oh but they must have done something bad—” shut up. SHUT UP. Does it matter? Does any child deserve to be abused? To die, alone and afraid? Do you really think a child could have done ANYTHING to deserve that?

[tti-horror-stories]

i was a “bad kid”. i was a scary kid. i was the entitled brat you saw having a meltdown in the grocery store when they were way to old for that. i bit.

I DID NOT DESERVE THE ABUSE. nobody fucking does. holy shit!!

[armchair-lethroe]

You were a child. You didnt deserve it. You didnt "earn it". There is no amount of rudeness, sexuality, defiance, disobedience, laziness, ungratefulness, or sass that justifies an adult screaming at or hurting a child or raping a child. It was their responsibility as a parent, a guardian, or caretaker to take care of you.

You didnt deserve it. You never deserved it. You never will deserve it.

[melanch0lyism]

Oh FUCK this. Absolutely not. My blood is boiling.

Here is a list of things that I saw/experienced firsthand in one of these wilderness programs or heard from other survivors:

-Your parents give people (who have no childcare qualifications) the right to take you from your bed in the middle of the night. They are allowed to physically restrain you. They are allowed to lie to you about where you’re going.

-Restraints from these transportation people caused somebody bone fractures. They were not allowed medical attention for two weeks. This is just one of many stories about how this legal kidnapping often causes lasting physical/emotional issues.

-Once you are forcibly strip searched by strangers and dropped off in the middle of the woods, you are given one outfit to wear no stop for a week that will not be cleaned during that time. You eat food full of ash out of cups that are cleaned with dirt and the one bandanna that you also use to clean your body twice a week. These places will restrict food if they feel you are too fat despite hiking 5-10 miles with a 30 pound pack.

-One of these groups had to drink puddle water off of the ground in the woods because THERE IS NO RUNNING WATER

-One of my best friends was in a wilderness therapy group that was not provided adequate gear to protect them from the cold in the mountains of Utah in the dead of winter. And you wanna guess what happened? THEY ALL GOT HYPOTHERMIA. THE STAFF DID NOT CARE.

-And, of course, contact with parents is restricted. All phone calls are monitored by people who work for these programs. You are forced to lie about how well everything is going so your parents will keep you there and keep dishing out money.

I didn’t even get into the emotional abuse because that’s something I have less personal experience with (but don’t get me wrong, it happened.) If I left anything of importance out please message me and I will be more than happy to add to this post.

I will scream this as many times as I need to- I was not an entitled brat, I was suicidal because something’s wrong with my biochemistry. It’s as simple as that. This is not “tough love” for “spoiled” and “entitled” “snowflakes”. This is the legal kidnapping of children and deprivation of basic human needs as a cash grab and the way netflix is framing this is sickening.

[forever-bi-myself]

absolutely disgusting behavior. Turning peoples trauma into a reality tv show so people can laugh at them and humiliate them is fucking disgusting. Fuck them. Fuck everyone involved. I’d say I hope they have to experience what they’re doing to other people but honestly I wouldn’t wish this stuff on my worst enemy. It’s THAT bad.

(Edit: by “everyone involved” I mean the producers and program, NOT the victims. Obviously)

[tti-horror-stories]

ew yeah this is fuckjing disgusting what??

[exposingtroubledteenindustry]

This clip from low budget movie shows how the troubled teen industry kidnap people from beds perfect

[tti-horror-stories]

Forgot about this blog, oops

I’m starting to realize how desensitized we are to all the trauma. We were talking with someone on discord about how we weren’t allowed to see our parents for four months and they were astounded. And I was like… that’s not even that bad compared to everything else???

I guess it’s illegal yeah but like. We went through worse.

Idk

[tti-horror-stories]

Thinking about the time that we were in group and it looked like the therapist had just printed out some worksheets five minutes before and called it good

Me: *raises hand* what therapy model is this

Therapist: if your going to be DISRESPECTFUL and DISRUPTIVE then you can LEAVE

Me: ??????????

Long story short I don’t think she was a licensed psychologist 😭

[exposingtroubledteenindustry]

what is wilderness therapy?

Picture this: you’re forced to live outside under a tarp for 90 days with only basic food. You can’t bathe or shower the entire time, and most days you’re required to hike more than 10 miles while carrying a 39-pound pack. And the so-called ‘high-intensity therapy’? It’s just a therapist showing up once a week during the staff shift change.

[tti-horror-stories]

throwback to that one time they accidentally gave me another kids meds and didnt tell me until two days later (i was fine thank the fucking gods)

[bsideheart]

every time i think about the troubled teen industry and remember that it still exists i am filled with incandescent rage. what do you mean it’s totally legal for parents to hire strangers to literally kidnap their child out of their bed and take them to a secondary location without telling them anything where they will be abused and tormented and deprived of basic rights for months?? just because the parent thinks they have behavioral issues? how are we not marching in the streets every day to get this horrific, abusive, traumatizing practice completely outlawed and everyone involved prosecuted??

[simplysebby]

I love you "troubled" kids. I love you disobedient kids I love you kids who threw "tantrums" I love you kids who were "brats" I love you "spoiled" kids I love you kids who "caused problems" I love you kids with anger management issues I love you kids who were treated as if they were inherently evil I love you kids diagnosed with ODD I love you kids who screamed and yelled and bit and hit I love you kids who had their abuse justified with "they deserved it" I love you kids who were forced into TTIs I love you "bad" kids. I love you if you never "grew out of it." I love you "troubled" kids who've grown up. I love you "troubled" kids who can't or won't. I love you. I love you & you're not a monster. I love you.

[tti-horror-stories]

Spending all of my formative years in the troubled teen industry really was something ngl

Like all of this abuse was so fucking normalized for me. And things that I wouldn’t consider abuse necessarily but just extreme control designed to strip any autonomy away from you.

Asking permission to get up to go to the bathroom. Asking permission to begin eating. Asking permission to get water. Time limits on showers. Etc etc etc.

I was in these programs for a total of six and a half years, starting when I was fucking eleven. Not even a teenager, just starting to discover who I wanted to be. And then to be trapped in these places where autonomy is punished, where you have to conform to their ideals and rules to survive, I just became who these places wanted me to be.

And I still quite often feel this absence of identity. It scares me when I think about it. And what little identity I feel at times is always changing.

Idk this post has no point just needed to get my thoughts down.

[clockwork-col]

One of the things I hated about residential treatment (TTI) was how the staff would twist the 'coping skills' you learned to their own gain.

For example, the DBT skill radical acceptance - a skill that is essentially for accepting your emotions surrounding an event/stressor when you can't do anything to change said event/stressor.

An example of this would be, let's say, your late to an appointment because of traffic. You have to accept that you can't do anything about the traffic and you're going to be late.

Its also not an entire skill, its like a part of one. you accept you are going to be late, and cope with the stress that brings you by using other skills.

ANYWAY.

I would be like "hey this is one of my needs" and the staff would be like "im not going to meet that need because i dont want to" and i'd get frustrated and be like "well thats not cool" and theyd be like "radically accept it"

BITCH DONT TELL ME TO 'USE MY COPING SKILLS' WHEN YOUR ACTIVLEY BEING A DICK AND NOT DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!!!!!!

sorry that got a bit angry. anyway, if you work at a TTI i automatically hate you. you're like a cop in my eyes. thanks byeee