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 Jay, Florida – a rural town in the middle of peanut and cotton fields. Upon my arrival, I was strip searched and forced into a shower. Once I was in there they snuck in to take my last personal item from me, my clothes. They were replaced with over-the-knee skirts, nylons, collared shirts, culottes and jumpers. Anything less made me look like a “Jezebel” and simply didn’t exist in this place. We could not even say the words “pants” or “jeans.”

New girls were not allowed outside for their first month. So I had to do indoors “P.E.” which was basically jazzercise videos. In the first few days they said I was not moving vigorously enough for P.E. I told them that I had a bathroom problem (stress induced urinary tract infection) and was in pain. They took me to a bathroom and kept the door wide open and watched me as I could not relieve myself. Then they claimed I was just bulimic and looking for a way to throw up. I had never in my life had an eating disorder. I went back and tried to do exercises to their satisfaction but could not due to the pain. I was then “floored” for my first time. “Floored” is when they instruct other students to trip, drag, tackle or otherwise put you on the floor face down and sit on top of your body and limbs. They told our parents this only happened if we were a threat to ourselves or others, but this happened to girls for simply refusing to stop picking their fingernails.

Sometimes girls would be taken to the isolation box (a minimum of three days) where they would be forced to listen to “fire and brimstone” preaching for hours on blast. They might even decide you don’t eat if you’re still being “defiant” in there, and there’s no toilet unless someone takes you to one. It smelled awful in there. But you don’t curse them for it or they will put chunks of Ivory soap into your lips, like dip, until it chemically burns sores into your gums and lips. Then make you take Vitamin C for days after to heal them. I was put on bathroom and shower rules. I was not allowed to use a bathroom or shower in privacy, not just from staff eyes but from other students. I remember vividly sitting on the toilet with four girls standing in front of me brushing their teeth in one sink. My naked body was just another part of everyone’s day.

We had limited time to eat our meals or we would have to eat it cold and sometimes even expired later. I would get sick trying to finish my food and water in the 15 minute time limit. I would get up and flag a staff member down to take me to a restroom. One day I was flagging a staff member when the pastor’s wife stood up and announced to the dining hall that I was not allowed to use the bathroom if I felt sick. And if I was going to throw up, I could throw up on my plate.

And I did. A lot. I felt bad for the girls who had to sit at a table with me and eat their food next to my vomit plate. Eventually I was given a puke bucket that I would have to carry around during and after meals, because of course I couldn’t use the bathroom after meals. I never once threw up on purpose while I was there. I’ve never had a history of an eating disorder. And my parents never told them otherwise.

But many other girls had greater bathroom problems too. The pastor’s wife also said it wasn’t physically possible that we would have to use the bathroom as much as we claimed. Girls would wet themselves in church, in their beds, in school. They said they never used mechanical restraints but I and many girls witnessed times when that did happen. They once punished a dozen girls by forcing them to live in a classroom for a month. They sat at wood desks with the lights on and ate cheese sandwiches and water without speaking or any stimulation. They were zombies. We would have “RAPS” which sometimes went for hours into the early morning. They would stand girls up and have others rat on them for any rule they broke or friend they made. People would pass judgments on their spiritual well being and blame their lack of relationship with God for things like a student’s mental health.

A known child predator previously ran the facility and lived on the premises. He sometimes ate meals and preached to us. One of the female staff members was secretly gay and wrote me letters which now make me sick; there are numerous assault allegations against her. One staff member would shave an autistic girl’s head when she misbehaved. The man who ran our P.E. was ex-Air Force, ran us beyond crying and puking. I watched him drag a girl across a field when she couldn’t run anymore; this happened plenty of times. We had a “silence” rule that resulted in students not speaking beyond “pen, paper, or potty” for YEARS. Best case scenario, there were around two hours a day you might be able to speak to another student if you were in good standing, had someone to monitor your convo and it was about approved topics. But friendships were strictly prohibited. You also could not keep a diary/journal or calendar or write poetry or even freehand draw stuff.

We memorized hundreds of scriptures to be allowed privileges like going outside or butter for toast. Forced to sing, to pray, to work. You could not express negative emotion, no crying loud or clenching your fists. I was forced to stay up all night to “floor” other students and pin girls to their beds. If a girl wouldn’t sleep, they were threatened to run aield “til they were tired,” some scrubbed floors all night then were “floored” for falling asleep during the day. Phone calls and letters were monitored; they would tell your parents you were lying or manipulating if you got something through but mostly they would rip up/Sharpie out your letters, or take away your one 30 minute call per month. There was no therapy, no checklist of things to accomplish in order to leave, no medication for anything that wasn’t physical. I witnessed and experienced medical neglect. And they charged parents THOUSANDS per month for us to run their program.

Today the staff that ran Lighthouse Christian Academy work for a new facility called Masters Ranch in Couch, Missouri . It’s been nine years since I left Lighthouse Christian Academy. I have a degree in Business Administration, I own a business and I advocate against the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) on TikTok (@Hwy89survival). But I suffer deeply from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and major depression as a result of my time at LCA.

The years that I was meant to be finding myself were spent losing myself. But I have learned to live with the remains of that girl, I’ve salvaged fragments of her personality and passion. With them I’ve put together a person that maybe I wasn’t meant to be, but it’s the person I need to be. And I stand with my fellow survivors today. #BreakingCodeSilence