Testimony of Abuse at Provo Canyon School

[Anonymous]

I was tricked into going to Provo when I was 15 I didn't get to graduate from middle school and i think it was 1992. I did suffer from depression and my family I think was the reason why my dad never had a kind positive thing to say about me and my mom and dad were always not happy and my parents didn?t really know how to take care of teenagers and showed no interest in my life. I am a parent of a great young boy and now I see that they really didn?t involve themselves at all in my life and really didn?t supervise me at all.

       Well my dad tricked me into going to Utah to visit my sister who was in B Y U at the time and when we got there I was put in Provo. I couldn?t believe my parents did this to me they still don?t even ask about what happened in there for fear that they have to bring up the guilt they put on themselves. My brother moved out of the house and lived in his car because he was so upset at my parents and my sister called them every day to remind them what a mistake it was to send me there.

       When I got there they took all my stuff away from me took all my clothes off and put me in pink sweats. I was very upset but did not see my therapist for three days. I?ve looked at the online brochure for Provo and there were no outside facilities on the girls campus when i was there just a patch of grass in the backyard that i went in once. I remember we weren?t allowed to look out the window or they would consider it run plans.

      I remember some girls were in there because parents didn?t want to deal with there kids any more. One of the problems I had was we all needed counseling and barley ever got it and my parents were the ones that needed the counseling and they were 2 states away just hoping to fix me and send me back home.

      My brother used to write me but i only got 4 of the 15 letters he wrote. I took all the classes for the 9th grade year but had to take them all over again when I got home and everyone at that high school already heard all these rumors about where I went and why so my chance of survival in an already socially harsh high school environment was diminished to nothing.

     When I was there i got homesick for my brother and they wouldn?t let him visit or let me have his letters and one day I got sad and started crying and was really sad and I hadn?t been outside in 3 months and because I was crying they didn?t talk to me they didn?t get my therapist they stuck me in a small empty room with tile floors and painted white brick walls and told me they would let me out when I wasn?t sad anymore. Now at 27 I see how there methods would never work.

      Having to stand military style for 1 or two hours without moving and one time I passed out and did not receive medical attention I was told to get up and start my time all over again. At dinner we would like jail have a certain time and a certain way to eat and afterwords go strait into exercise I remember it making a lot of us sick but we wouldn?t say anything or we would have more punishment. All of the punishment would be from not folding our clothes right or washing the bathroom. One of my friends had asthma bad and she had an attack at night and just left her in the hallway and it got worse and worse and all she needed was her meds and nobody got it i don?t remember why but she almost died and ended up going to the hospital.

      There is so much more but I have moved on but will never forget and think somebody needs to do something that place makes life lots worse than better for every one.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that place was totally jacked up.  Who are you?  I was also there in 92.  My name is Megan Flynn.  My parents were equally as ignorant (as your parents seem to have been).  However, I let my parents know just how ignorant they really were, and now with the internet, they are able to see for themselves.  They do apologize and realize they made a mistake.  I was there with Angie Curry (whom I am still in contact with, and she is now in nursing school herself, and hopes to work in psych).  Sure, I've "gotten over it".  I finished college, I'm a nurse, I have a nice boyfriend whos a doctor who loves me.   I do talk to my parents often (my father lives in Europe, but my mother lives closeby).  I have lots of friends and a cool job and a beautiful loft condo.  I like to travel and do yoga, ect, ect, ect...  I also have a social and a professional responsibility to make the public aware of what really happens at PCS, how it is based on nonsense, implemented by idiots, and tends to have really poor outcomes.  So keep posting, and letting people know how terrible that place really is.  Good luck to you.