To the parent, what state do you live in? I want to withhold judgment, but why do I get the sense you live in neither Utah or Ohio. The first placement is an understandable mistake. But two separate placements in two RTC's thousands of miles away from each other, huh? I pray for your sake and your daughter's sake that you live in Ohio or at least in a neighboring state. I won't say that makes the decision to use Starr Commonwealth a good decision, just something that makes more sense.
Otherwise you really do sound like a parent who had an extremely difficult child, and you didn't want to be a parent to that child anymore, and found places far enough away from home that it wasn't reasonable for you to visit.
From NYRA a post about Starr Commonwealth in Michigan:
Hey y’all. I’ve been lurking on this forum and I got to say I LOVE everyone here and their stories. It’s about time we show the world what these places are really like!
Starr Commonwealth must be stopped. I have a lot of INTERESTING TALES to tell you. <g> Understand that I’m not exaggerating or making up ANYTHING. It’s all 110% true so help me God.
They don’t help kids at all. They really suck. I was there for about three years. (1999 to 2001) They WOULD NOT LET ME LEAVE JUST BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T LIKE ME. It’s because they were homophobic and I wasn’t shy about being gay. I wasn’t a self-loather and it made people feel uncomfortable.
I am fueled with SO MUCH ANGER about it sometimes, but I’m glad that it’s a part of my life that’s over. I’m 23 now.
They claim they listen and they’re ‘therapeutic’ but it’s A BIG ASS LIEEEE. They only want you to think and act the way you tell them to. I could only escape by faking and not being myself for an entire year. Whatever the solution is to 'help' (that word sounds so condescending doesn't it?) teenagers who are socially outcasts that SURE AS HELL isn’t it. I wasn’t the one that needed to ‘change’ anyway, people that enjoyed bullying me needed to change. *sigh*
I just find it so ironic that a place that evil is trying to say how good and responsible it is. It seriously makes me sick to my stomach.
The biggest evil bitch there was this woman named Renee Hunt. (real name to NOT protect the guilty) She would try to accuse me of being a sex offender and made up all this horrible shit about me. She turned everybody against me when I was well-liked. She was a total heartless monster, and I hope she gets ran over by a truck. (that would be hella funny) I mean to seriously destroy somebody’s reputation like that. That wasn’t right… what a nasty shrew!
You couldn’t talk about your real religious beliefs. You had to be a Christian and nothing else. They were sooo close-minded. They also believed in those chick tracts. They thought that shit was real, I kid you not! It was hilarious sometimes. They thought masturbation was wrong and evil.
“Sam, why don’t you tell us what the REAL ISSUE WAS.”
“Um nothing, I just didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to go?”
“THAT’S NOT TRUE AND YOU KNOW IT. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GOT SEXUALLY ABUSED BY YOUR FATHER. WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO ‘GROOOM?” (Ms. Cunt’s favorite word!)
Me: “Uhh…”
NO MATTER WHAT I SAID THEY MENTIONED SEXUAL ABUSE. IT WAS HILARIOUS. Like that one Southpark episode kinda.
Finally, in order to leave I had to lie about a bunch a shit and say I was sexually abused and that I did stuff to little boys. And everybody else said ‘good job Sam’ for me telling an OUTRIGHT LIE. Trying to explain that I wasn’t a sexual victim or offender was POINTLESS as they would say you’re in ‘denial’ or some shit like that. Man, it was CRAZY! But I HAD TO DO THAT or I might not even have my freedom to this day.
Renee was so funny. One time she was all ‘DID I TELL YOU THAT STEVE (name changed for protection) WAS MASTURBATING TO ME WHEN I FIRST CAME?’ like 6 months after she met the guy. And I’m like ‘YOU BITCH. IF HE WAS DOING THAT, WHY DIDN’T YOU MENTION IT WHEN IT WAS HAPPENING? AND I THINK WE WOULD SEE SOMEBODY WANKING OFF TO YOUR UGLY FACE ANYWAY.’ Of course I couldn’t say that. Anytime I tried to stand up for myself and talk back to Renee she would try to threaten me with plans of ‘escalation.’ I almost hit her once but I’m so glad now that I didn’t! Even though she deserved it.
Staff would also lie and say you were masturbating WHEN YOU WEREN’T. I kid you not!!! As for the gay thing, they were naturally horny teenage boys, some were straight some were gay but of course they were going to experiment. What did they expect? No access to females at all….it was like prison really, so situational homosexuality was to be expected. I never had sex with anybody since they watched us so close but we would sometimes hold each other’s hands when nobody was looking…we were just starved for affection but they weren’t allowed to hug us or anything. (well some of them did it wasn’t ALL bad I think some people were just tricked into believing it was a nice place….so I did receive some nice hugs from staff members that made me feel like I was still human….)
I’m just glad that I’m alive today and that I was too intelligent to be brainwashed and that luckily I’m a big guy so nobody tried to mess with me physically. I thought about escaping but there was just too many people and I’m not a very physical person so I don’t know if I would outrun them. They were just messed up in the head really. I might have more stories that I’ll share later but yeah it was basically being wrongly accused of one horrible thing after the other.
