I am an alllumni as well. and I had a bad, actually really-bad experience at MMS. I was always usually on punishment/"intervention" while I was there. I did not do anything so awful to deserve it, and the issues that I was dealing with at the time deserved to be handled with love and attention rather than being dealed through anger, and being ignored. I was not even brought there because of extensial drug/alcohol usuage or permiscuity. I was just a very damaged child since I was born and abused most of my life.
I can see that there's definetly a problem between girls who had a good experice and a bad experince. I believe that it's great that some us managed to make it through and look positively at the school, but I don't understand how some say "the school saved my life, or "the school changed me"....WE CHANGED OURSELVES, AND SAVED OUR OWN LIVES, and I believe this with my entire heart. You are the one who commited yourself to everything and made the best of things....just like me...I cried many times at MMS and I wanted to give up, but I looked to the man above (God) to survive this. My story is actually diffent from many because the work that I labored was extreme to the point that my hands would get stuck each morning from all the work that I had done. I would work endless mornings and nights with only 15 minute breaks in between. In surviving all of it made me strong and very wise..but it could have been any institution, prison, metal institution etc...I DID IT, I SAVED MYSELF. I SAVED MY OWN LIFE.
I validate your good experiences, and I think that I would rather see it as you do, but I can't. It's seems as though people with good experiences are "protecting the school" and those who had bad experiences are "bashing the school." I think that most of us have decent lives now, and should not even bother in getting in a battle about it. I do believe that all the credit needs to be put where it deserves. YOURSELVES. Even now we are the ones battling for our own lives. no one else is doing it for us. We run our own lives. and just because someone had a bad experience does not mean that they have bad lives now. I have a great life! AND I DID IT!