My 1'st night there, I was thrown into obs, (observation) and because it was the Friday, I didn't get any clean clothes, or toiletries until Monday.
There forms of discipline were two extremes: They either treated us like immature children, giving us 'punishments' like, sitting on a chair facing the wall for hours on end, or, they would get extremely physical with us, calling (dial 9's) - restraints, which pretty much meant, that if a girl were to show any signs of emotional distress, all the available staff in the area, were to grab a limb, and slam her against the wall as forcefully as possible, as they drug her to obs. It was like a game to the staff. A competition to see who could leave the most bruises on a patient.
My first night, I got a dial 9, because I was upset about being there, and I was confused, but I wasn't freaking out or anything. Two guys just came out of nowhere and tackled me. The next morning I had bruises everywhere, and I 'got' to see the campus doctor. He recorded them, but just waved them off as 'routine.'
I tried to tell my parents about the form of abuse that was taking place here (it happened daily, constantly. There wasn't a day that went by, that you weren't constantly hearing over the staff radio "DIAL 9!" And the screaming. You could always hear the screaming of the girls from inside obs.) You couldn't contact your parents for the first two weeks, so I wrote them. Telling them what happened. And their reply was "'Thats a lovely story (they obviously thought I was BS-ing them, trying to get them to withdraw me) Perhaps you can write a novel when you get home." Also, since there was so access to a telephone, there was no way to contact the authorities to help the abuse issues.
There also was the food. The same menu every week. Oatmeal for breakfast. Pasta for lunch. Tacos for dinner. And, since there were so many anorexics, they were essentially ''force-feeding'' us. (we had to take everything offered (a ridiculous amount of food) and finish it all.) So, if you weren't suffering from an eating disorder, you would gain weight. Not, to mention that the food offered was ridiculously unhealthy.
I went through two therapists in my duration there. My first therapist and I never talked about anything. He mostly used our sessions to bring up my past and make me feel guilty about every little thing that I've ever done in my life. When he left, I got another one, who wasn't an upgrade. She used our sessions, to gripe about her personal life, and we stared at each other in awckward silence and read Oprah magazines. The website is very misleading. It brags about how great its school system is. But, what it doesn't say, is that it consists of a square hallway, 11 classrooms, and adults that are even barely qualified to teach the subjects they teach. The classes aren't arranged by grade, because there isn't even a system, so while the parents are under the influence their child will stay 'up to date' with their credits, they're really just being thrown into what ever class is availible, i.e a Seinor in basic algebra.
I Still vividly remember that godforsaken place.
The PCS Lingo, that all the girls used, the Staff, my Peers.
I'm haunted by memories of that place. I dream about it...could you even call those dreams?
I just hope that someday enough people will fight hard enough to liberate those that are still trapped in places like that. I don't see why anything hasn't been done yet.
In year 2000 Charter Behavioral Health Systems sold Provo Canyon School to Universal Health Services, Inc.
Sources:
- The original testimony found on a archived website (The Internet Way Back machine)
- Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
