What a brilliant young woman! The thing that stands out about her story, despite the sour grapes of the guy that obviously wanted to "get some" and didn't, is that she had the incredible common sense *not to talk to the "therapists" or other students in "group"*!
For a teen stuck in one of these places, that is the single best technique for maintaining sanity---
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My "how-to" for avoiding cult brainwashing in confinement:
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Never, from day one, talk about a single "problem" with either a therapist or another kid---the kid will tell the group, he/she is brainwashed already.
It is a technique of therapists--real and good ones as well as unethical ones--to use "uncomfortable silences" to extract information from patients. The response is not to be uncomfortable with silence.
Even though anger is a normal response to what is happening to you, also realize that giving in to anger gives the "therapists" a way into your head.
Stillness at peace with yourself in the silence is the one thing they can't get a grip on. Cultivating the understanding that when other kids or the therapists yell at you or mistreat you that those are comments about *them*, not you, and using deep breathing to cultivate peaceful stillness within yourself, at peace in the silence--and saying *nothing* about what you're doing or about any personal problems, secrets, or insecurities you might have---is the absolute best and most effective technique I know of to prevent a hostile, unethical therapist from getting into your head.
Of course, they'll try to guess, or they'll use reports from your parents or outside friends and family they or your parents can trick into giving up information to try to convince you they know all the secrets of your inner heart already.
Keep your silence. Cherish it. Be comfortable, still, and at peace within it----even if you can't do this perfectly, keep coming back to it over and over again. Even if you screw up and let them provoke you into anger or saying something, return to the silence and peace again and again.
Remain quietly aware. Try to cultivate hyper-awareness. If anyone tries to stare you in the eyes, look at the bridge of their nose. If anyone offers you sweets at therapy or rap sessions, refuse them. Both make you more suggestible---what you want to avoid is hypnotic trance any time other kids or the therapists are around. However, you can *use* self-hypnosis late at night, when others are asleep and *you* appear to be asleep, if you know how, to reinforce your will to calmly and intently observe while in the presence of therapists or in groups, to be comfortable in personal silence, to let your anger go, acknowledging it as legitimate, but promising yourself you will take the time to feel it and address it *later*---when you are free, out of the lockdown facility.
Plan one specific, positive thing you will accomplish with your life when you get out------whether that is to write music, or poetry, or be a car mechanic and fix people's cars, or to help out in a homeless shelter, or to climb Mt. McKinley, or whatever. Avoid thoughts of harming the people who stuck you there---not positive.
Never admit this goal to anyone whatsoever at the TBS. Not even your closest friend. Especially not your closest friend--if you aren't cooperating with "therapy," they *will* put the screws to any kid who gets close to you to get the goods on you, and that kid *is* in their control and *will* give up the goods on you.
Your positive goal is something you can think about in the silences and stillness. You can imagine it and plan and replan it in detail.
That personally chosen positive goal, kept secret, will be your anchor and keep you sane in an insane environment----it's a variant of the strategy successfully used by Jewish concentration camp survivors, adapted for the TBS environment.
Accept being on level I for the entire length of your stay. Realize that to play the "level game" of the facility will do you permanent psychiatric damage that will be far more painful than the small priveleges you get are worth. Realize that you will have a small revenge and victory because your silent, calm resistance will drive them absolutely nuts. They *will* abuse you more aggressively than other level I's, trying to break you. Take small, quiet, personal satisfaction from their frustration, but don't let it run away with you and give them a route into your head.
Count the days, and leave when you're 18 even if it means permanent no-contact with your loony family---calling their bluff---even if it's not a bluff---on that kind of ultimatum is the only way to get free of a control freak. And *sometimes*, like Ginger's Dad, someone caught in that control loop breaks free and you can reconcile.
If they don't let you leave when you're 18, run away and raise holy hell with the FBI and/or the public based on the TBS having kidnapped you---it will be ten times more trouble for them for every day over 18 they keep you before you manage to run than it will be for you. It may even let you get the whole place shut down---because if you've never let them into your head, it will be *much* easier for a conscientious lawyer, working pro bono, to make your case.
You will naturally worry that they may kill you. Dying free is better than living as a slave. Know this in your heart---also know that if they do, and you haven't let them into your head, the scandal *will* get that particular school shut down and avenge your own death and protect others.
Some things are worth dying for. Freedom is one of them.
But you will almost certainly *not* die. And if you never let them into your head, then recovery will be *much* easier and smoother when you do get out than if you didn't resist.
(I'm a rape survivor---had to work through that whole rape recovery thing, as well as assorted other really heavy crap---believe me---*resist*---it will make recovery so much shorter and getting your life back so much quicker!)
