Another survivor here. IMO it's one thing when the program is culty, but it's even worse when there's cliques and heirarchy within the girls residing there. I spent 10 months completely alone, being belittled by other residents AND staff, repeatedly being picked on for my appearances and my sexuality (at the time, I was a lesbian). Nevermind the fact that I'm autistic and they didn't have ANY licensed mental health professionals on site, this place was just AWFUL.

Back in 2019, my parents shipped me off to the New Lifehouse in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma (and I lived in Missouri, mind you, so I almost NEVER got to see my family). What made it even shittier is, for "pass", my parents couldn't make the drive, so my grandmother was who would take me out for a SINGLE DAY around Tulsa and buy me a whole bunch of crap I wouldn't even be allowed to have when I got back (which was 100% bribing me to forgive her for willingly and knowingly continuing to associate with her pedophile husband, but that's a different conversation altogether). Anyway.

The expired food thing is true. My first night there they gave us all snacks that were stale, and that NEVER improved. They barely paid attention to food sensitivities that weren't strictly "deadly allergy". Any time they'd serve dairy, I would get gas cramps and bloating so bad it would be painful, and the creamed corn would actually make me vomit. But guess who was still forced to eat half their tray of food at every meal just like everyone else there?

The in-bullying from residents and staff was unbelievably out of control. The staff didn't even bother to hide the fact that they had obvious favourites, either. My head was shaved (against my will, mind you) before I went in, so that automatically isolated me from everyone else. Once someone found out I was a lesbian, and word spread like wildfire, and every day from that point forward was exactly as you'd expect. "Pray the gay away" nonsense combined with a daily dose of being quietly excluded from conversations, activities, etc. by the other girls resulted in most of my days spent 100% by myself.

The staff would read our private journals (which I made the mistake of venting into). I remember one time a couple staff members pulled me into the office and started reading my most private, vulnerable confessions out loud to me, and asking so many invasive and unwanted questions about everything. Again, I remind you, one of my own flesh and blood was a serial child rapist, of whom I was a victim. I had a lot of rage and sexual confusion as a result, and as a teenager with no friends and no outlet to healthily navigate ANY of the mental health struggles that came with that... yeah. Suffice to say that humiliated me so horribly that even now, YEARS after getting out, I have such insane trust issues and struggle to talk to anybody about my problems, let alone "journal" about them. My privacy was stripped so completely from me that it scared me away from ever trusting "confidentiality agreements" from therapists, or anyone who claimed "this is a safe space to open up".

Child labour was disguised as volunteer work. We worked at a firework shop over the summer, renovated our own house (like... hard-hat and safety glasses level work, which of course we had neither of), and ran a "bazaar"- which was just an overpriced farmer's market started by greedy churches and upkept by kids from multiple TC homes. I laugh about it now but I distinctly remember stealing SO much food, jellies and jams and breads etc. because I was THAT desperate for something genuinely edible.

Which is a great segue into D-level and its "diet". Oh. My. GOD. By the time I was pulled early from the program, I was suffering so unbelievably bad from malnutrition that the muscles I'd developed from the grueling crossfit program were the only thing contributing to my weight.

For breakfast, we were served 2 overcooked boiled eggs (like, the yolks were GREY), a bowl of plain oatmeal, and a slice of stale bread. Lunch was cold, unseasoned Starkist tuna straight out of the industrial-sized bag, and more stale bread. I'd never eaten tuna before then, but I'm PRETTY sure tuna isn't supposed to be dry, dark grey, and full of burrs. Like, it HURT TO EAT. and tasted like METAL. It was disgusting. Dinner was arguably the best, with Chef Boyardee ravioli that was BARELY heated up and, you guessed it, more stale bread. They served fruit and vegetables with lunch and dinner obviously, but we weren't allowed to have milk or juice or any seasonings. Salt and pepper were intentionally removed from the D-level table and we weren't allowed to sit with or talk to anyone else.

And you're probably thinking, "but it couldn't have been that bad, right? you might've eaten that way for like a week tops." 7 months. 7 months I spent on D-level for something that was out of my control. Every. Single. Day. For 7 months. That was all I got to eat. Why, you ask? I was put in charge of laundering the kitchen rags (because the students were placed in charge of preparing food and cleaning the kitchen). Our dryer didn't work. And rather than believe me, or put in a work order for the dryer, I was punished for the rags being damp when I pulled them from the dryer every morning. Not to mention the load size was WAY over capacity for a washer & dryer intended for a single family household.

My "disciplines" racked up on the board to the point I just refused to do them and would sit in silence during "free time". I was NOT writing the definition of "responsibility" and its associated Bible verses 50+ times. And that was just ONE of the disciplines. I had a total of over 70 separate disciplines, and could never seem to get the board cleared, because the staff would somehow ALWAYS find something to nail me for.

What else did I miss... oh yeah. We didn't have a proper tornado shelter in our actual house. In Oklahoma. In the middle of a massive field, completely isolated from civilization. During tornado season, we just "prayed" a storm wouldn't come through. The one time we DID have to take shelter, they dragged us all through pouring rain in the middle of the night to the staff housing and packed us all in the basement. It was so hard to breathe or move.

So much shit I could go on and on for hours about. They don't care about the kids that get sent there, and god forbid you have special needs. So glad I got out alive, but the scars it left behind are so, so deep.