I was a resident of Three Springs New Beginnings (and briefly, Three Springs Turning Point) from May of 1997 until the summer of 1998.
I remember that shortly after I arrived, there was a pizza party celebrating the facility's certification for mental health. Before then, according to the other kids, the facility had been more like a correctional facility, and retained that structure during my time there.
The Three Springs "bible" was called PPC, or "Positive Peer Culture." It was basically a rulebook, listing the "norms" that we were to follow, like counting through the doorways and having hospital corners on our beds. It also detailed the level system. On entering Three Springs, we were placed on Orientation Level. Peer level was the highest that most people got, Pledge and Honors being the two that were most unattainable. Many people never got past Orientation Level, and spent most of their time on ROL (Reorientation Level) for "acting out behaviors."
There were certain people who were restrained all the time, who it seems like they spent more time tied to "the board" than they did standing up. There was one staff member in particular, whose initials were B.W., who would beat kids pretty regularly during the restraint process. (He also probably weighed over 400 pounds. No kid stood a chance.)
To say that I felt hopeless during my time there would be an understatement. I had very little contact with anyone on the outside world. I had no contact at all with my parents during the first few months, and then over time I was permitted to have more contact with my mom and sister. All contact with anyone was monitored. If you tried to send a letter mentioning the abuse, it was censored and unsent, and you would be placed on ROL. If you tried to tell someone about the abuse during your 8-minute phone call, the phone was disconnected immediately. Theoretically, our guardians ad litem and our social workers would have been able to have uncensored contact with us, but like most of the kids, I never had contact with my social worker or lawyer during my time at Three Springs.
I was only on ROL once, for a suicide attempt. If you take a fourteen year old kid with an abuse history who has depression, and put them into a facility where kids are abused more and they threaten to keep you until you turn 19... well, I wasn't the only one to think that life wasn't worth living.
One of the punishments that often went along with ROL was "non-com," or "non-communication." That meant you were not permitted to speak to anyone. You also lost clothing privileges and furniture privileges with certain offenses.
Groups also gave punishments to individuals, and groups were punished together for the behavior of one individual.
"School" might as well have been playtime. Since I had the privilege of attending magnet schools before entering Three Springs, I was academically ahead, and the "teacher" didn't know what to do with me, so I ended up teaching other students. Because of this, I was held back a grade in school when I left Three Springs.
The glimmer of hope in this whole mess, for me, was the relationships with particular staff members. Not all of them got sucked in by the systemic culture of abuse at Three Springs; many of the people who worked with us were idealistic, young, and just out to help kids. Unfortunately, they were few and far between, in a sea of adults who had become power-hungry tools of the system that created them.
I remember the moments of goodness, but mostly I feel sick when I think about this place. I remember the screams, the shit-smeared walls, the sound of beatings, pretending to be asleep while my roommate was being sexually abused, the caged windows, the riots. "One, sir. Two, sir. Three, sir," as we walked through doorways. Pleading with group members to conform so they didn't get beaten again. Sneaking to the kitchen in the middle of the night (at Turning Point) to eat uncooked rice because I was starving. I reported the abuse to my judge by smuggling a report out during a day pass, and that resulted in the only time I got beaten. I remember how my glasses were thrown across the room, how a staff member blocked the doorway so I couldn't escape.
It was too much to handle at 14, and it's too much to think about now at 27.
Coming to this website in the past weeks has triggered a recurrence in nightmares.
But being in a community of people who understand makes skipping over all the flaming and bullshit worth it. I think our stories are so important. What happened to us is important.
I'll try to write more soon, but this is all I've got for tonight.
