I would like to share my encounter with childhood abuse. From the ages of 11 to 17 I attended five different Independent Fundamental Baptist programs for troubled teens. I came from an abusive home. My childhood was stolen from me. My adoptive mother was physically and emotionally abusive towards me and my three other siblings. When my adoptive mother Mary got cancer my aunt took me in for a short period until she placed me in my first Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) program called Charity Haven in Milton, Florida. The program was run by Dave and Norma Walkden. They owned [...]

I am #BreakingCodeSilence Natalie Silver PROVO CANYON SCHOOL #324 99-00 I was groomed extremely well by an older gang leader by 13/14. I was dropped off at a shelter/detention center in Blanding Utah by my father in 1998. He said I don't want you, and to ring the bell... after I had taken off I don't know how many times. Before that I had lived with my mother in Nebraska. He didn't have custody of me. I was put in detention because of abuse and uncontrollable and then charged by the State of Utah. After that I was put in [...]

It’s been more than 15 years since I was kidnapped in the middle of the night and imprisoned by my parents in a school called Academy at Ivy Ridge, in Ogdensburg, New York. I was there for 19 months. I know it’s difficult to understand… but I’m currently going through a lot mentally at the moment. It’s difficult but at the same time, I now see the light at the end of the tunnel. At the boarding school I went to, it was incredibly traumatic for me. Now that the industry has been exposed more through Paris Hilton, so many [...]

My name is Hannah. I was 13 when I was sent to Lighthouse "Christian" Academy for the first time and I left when I was almost 18 years old. I was picked up in the early morning hours by two strangers who gave the old "easy way or hard way." Being hardly 80 lbs., I opted for the first, which consisted of being put in the back of a child-locked car with a cage around the back seat and led onto two airplanes without so much as one word of where I was being taken. They dropped me off in [...]

I have only recently discovered the name of the torture “Attachment Therapy” I had to endure as a child and thus gained the power to educate and understand what was done to me and how it affected who I became in life. Not only that but it showed me a terrifying flaw in our society as a whole. We like to pretend horrible things don’t happen.  The sheer amount of horror stories I’ve read and seen have helped me understand what was done to me and so I feel it is necessary to join the fight to put an end [...]

My name is Rebecca and in 2008, when I was 16 years old, I was sent to Carolina Springs Academy, located in Donald’s, South Carolina. I lived there for a year. We lived in a point based system. We could earn around 25 points a day but they set us up to call one another out for rule violations, which resulted in loss of points. Breaking Code Silence was a ‘Category 2’ violation, which meant a loss of 25 points. A loss of 25 points was a day added to your stay. Points were needed to vote up to different [...]

The following is my account of March 10 and March 11, 2005 - the night that everything changed. Oftentimes on television and in music the world coming to a stop sounds like the screeching of a car slamming on the brakes. So much so that the term “a screeching halt” is in our lexicon and used in day-to-day life. I can’t speak for everyone but I can tell you what it sounded like when my world came to an abrupt standstill. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t earth shaking. It was just fast. It was the blood pumping in my ears [...]

This post is not to deter from any other survivor who has told their story. This is my story. They have their own stories which deserve just as much if not more attention than mine does. It has taken me 16+ years to tell my story to the world. This post barley scratches the surface of my story though. It is a long post too. You may look at the photos and see me as a smiling and happy teen but that is far from the truth. I was in a dark place in my mind and an even darker [...]