58
« on: September 11, 2010, 01:53:36 PM »
My parents are education professors. My mom was in early childhood education and my dad was in secondary education. I only mention that because it shows that no matter how educated parents are, they can still be baffled by teenagers and their problems.
For reasons I'll leave out of the Fornits discussion, I was suicidally depressed starting at age 13. I attempted suicide several times. My counselor tried to get me to "contract for safety." When I "broke the contract," she recommended that my parents (who were in the middle of a divorce) sign over custody of me to the authorities so that I could be placed in a state institution.
My guardian ad litem found Three Springs as an alternative to the state hospital.
When I arrived at Three Springs, I was thankful to be there. Except I learned that instead of escaping spending the rest of my life in a state institution, I could be spending the rest of my adolescence in a locked facility. I'll stop going down that road, though, and keep myself focused on my parents' perspective.
I wasn't allowed any contact with my parents.
Eventually, I had letter contact with my dad, and visits from my mom and sister.
Whenever I had a day pass and it was coming to an end, my mother and sister and I would cry and cry. My mom knew about the abuse - as soon as I was let on a day pass, I was able to be honest about what was going on, and I did. Because she was no longer my guardian, she had no authority to get me released from Three Springs. My dad wrote letters in which he fantasized about "springing me."
I went on another day pass when I was covered in bruises from the only time I was beaten there. My mom took me to the doctor to have the bruises photographed and documented.
I'm condensing a long story here. I wrote a report about the abuse I witnessed (in marker, no less, because we weren't allowed to use pens, and then we lost pencil privileges too) and I gave it to my mom to get to my judge while I was on a day pass.
After my judge got the report, I was moved to a group home on the same Three Springs campus. Then a few months later I was placed in foster care. (From staff members I remained friends with on the outside, I later found out that many of the people who had committed abusive acts were terminated as a result of the investigation. Another longer story for another day, or PM, maybe.)
My parents recognize that they made some wrong decisions that led to my time at Three Springs, and I recognize that they made the best decision given the information they had. They didn't know they were shipping me off to a place where kids were physically and sexually abused. They didn't know that they would be powerless to get me out.
Since Three Springs, my mom has used alcohol and drugs to the extent that she is barely functional. My sister doesn't bother having contact with her - it's too painful to acknowledge that we don't have a mother. But I keep in contact with her because even though she's obliterated her short term memory, she's still the woman who did everything in her power to help me. My dad just finished paying his part of the bill for Three Springs last year, eleven years after my release.
When I was a teenager, I needed help. What I got instead was abuse to myself and an emotionally and financially battered family.