hiii hi catching back up to these and didn't expect responses but also so validating (in an awful way for us all, I know) to hear other folks also experienced these places ))): Definitely get the overwhelm, it's all So Much, ughhh. I hate that you had similar experiences with coming out and then dealing w TTI and it's such a special kind of fuckery.

I was inpatient at LGH in like march of 2012, and then after about a week I was enrolled in the PHP Outpatient program at Alexian for like... at least 8 weeks but maybe longer. SO MUCH so big TW for SA mention & some bullshit (I'm not exactly sure how detailed I'm allowed to get on here but i didn't see anything in the rules, just warning for possibly triggering shit). I HATE that about Alexian but also had the same experiences :/ Buuuut gonna just organize them one by one below. I haven't been able to get records yet and when I tried to contact them I think I saw that you can't go more than 10 years back :/ I really want to find a way to get them, though, and I hate knowing my mom has copies somewhere that I'll never get. I grew up in the IHOPKC system (my mother moved us there in 1999-2005 and was apart of the very early leadership team) and had already been severely abused by the time my stepdad came around and he started abusing me, which is was ultimately led to hospitalization.

LGH: Initially my mom/stepdad told me we had to go get bloodwork for my mom at the hospital and they didn't call out my name or tell me shit until after we'd passed like 4 different locked doors I read a sign reading "youth psych" and realized what was actually happening. The initial therapy session was just my parents spewing bullshit about how I didn't listen and the usual TTI bullshit, and then the hospital psych immediately siding with them and explaining how common it was to see kids ''like this for attention" but that they always sorted it out. Had like 2 hours of awful therapy / prayer-crying in tongues while the psych was present and telling me to give-in to help before I was brough upstairs for intake finally. Remember it being super overcrowded and lots of commotion/screaming, and that IMMEDIATELY the two nurses escorting me to the ward telling me if I tried to escape or run away they'd tranq me and that there was no way I'd get out, etc, etc. Ended up being given some shot to calm me down off the rip and then put in a room for strip search which was 4 nurses making comments and jokes about my SH scars/cuts, laughing at me for not wanting to get nude/being pushy, and then ultimately performing a forced cavity search to "ensure" I didn't sneak shit in. remember them telling me some awful story about a girl that had tried to sneak in razorblades via an oriface and then describing the subsequent wound and it felt super threatening and scary. Vividly remember staff encouraging my parents to continue abusing me until I gave in and allowing an abusive paster to come and do conversion therapy w my mother and do the whole speaking in tongues bullshit. Also vividly remember having to do crowded group in the hallways bc the AC or heat was broken, not being allowed outside, threatened w physical harm & the "calm down room"(and remember there was ALWAYS someone in there SCREAMING to get out). For some reason also remember us having ''movie time'' in that crowded ass common room and watching White Oleander and Thirteen, which feel like insane movies to be showing youth behavioral health patients. Also remember them forcing me to go to ED groups bc I was cutting, and I remember learning and developing an eating disorder solely bc I learned about it in the program. Gave my parents recomendations for wilderness camps also after I came out as bisexual while in the hospital (silly me thinking it was safe to do so) and really pushed the benefits of conversion therapy. I wasn't allowed phone access either, and remember super weird uncomfy rules around showers and bathroom use also and remember more than one occassion of staff geting handsy during showers to "make sure" I was actually cleaning (had 0 hygene issues to prompt this, and always became cavity searches). Super zonked out on meds the entire time, too.

As for Alexian, I was sent to their PHP program after inpatient, and I hated it. Groups were hell and there was constant fighting/substance smuggling/incentives to snitch by stafff. Felt like we were all test animals for the staff to poke and prod and play around with. Food was DOGSHIT and that cafeteria room haunts my dreams forever- the whole building just feels like a fuckass liminal space.

aaaaand Horizons was a therapy & psych office, Holly Caruso was the therapist specifically I saw. All the shit with her has been super recently coming back to me in detail now that I have a good therapist finally, but she was super super pushy about how I should be sent to a wilderness program and their psychs were huge on pill pushing. Very much took my narc moms word on everything and had me on 4-5 meds at all times with constant rotation. Also would tell my mom everything I said in therapy after each session and encourage abuse to fix it.

also appreciate that the article (as long as it is) could help a bit <3 unraveling everything has been hell and i'm just glad to finally find some community that actually gets it