u/Cursed_Cherub

TW discussion of the troubled teen industry (TTI) + child abuse + conversion therapy + discussion of suicidal thoughts

This is a heavy post of mine so proceed with caution. Your mental health is important! 🫂🩷

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So I survived a troubled teen industry camp but honestly I saw and still see it more as a conversion camp. Why?

My “parents” sent me there specifically for being queer and not exactly cis. And the camp heads really did embrace that.

I was told again and again that being a lesbian was a sin and I was bad for just existing. I was hurt and kicked more times than I can count which to this day? I have a spinal cord injury that has me in a power chair.

I was specifically targeted for just….being me. I was told that my parents wouldn’t save me and that I’d end up straight when I returned home. They were determined to just… “fix” me. Whether it be through humiliation or intense physical punishment. (That again harmed my spine mainly. Ugh)

I was very vocal about how wrong they were treating me. But I ended up becoming quieter, patching myself up and prioritizing….survival. I needed to make it home. I had three years before I turned 18 and damnit I was determined to live!!! Even when sometimes I didn’t want to!

I wasnt the same when I returned home but…I was still gay! Like this did NOTHING to change my sexuality really. But my mind was not the same. I was prone to what I now know as flashbacks. I couldnt sleep in the dark due to a specific punishment they had. I couldnt eat oatmeal since that was a huge thing served at that awful place.

I have really severe PTSD from this entire time of my life and it’s a HUGE reason why I went no contact in the end. No parent should ever justify sending their kid away to be “fixed.” Nor should any child have to endure that.

….I was 15 when I was sent off. And at 26, I still carry those scars. They weigh on me so heavily. But I’m stronger than the hurt I endured. (And the camp I went to actually got shut down so this is a win truly!)

It just hurts on days like today. It’s Easter and most are seeing relatives and having fun. All I can remember is being told that I was being sent away that summer and that I needed to not get so comfortable being at home soon. It…hurts a lot.

That’s what all my abusers have told me over the years when I (from 15 to 17) was very open and blunt about me going fully NC at 18.

The night before I left at 18, my “dad” yelled at me, saying how I’d be a shitty adult, lose everything and be unable to care for myself. He told me how I’d just be forever a dumbass who’d never graduate. And made it clear that I’d come crawling back when things got too hard for me to handle.

And the thing is- it ended up being the opposite. He (the “dad”) ended up contacting ME, begging me to move home since financially everything was falling apart.

….so much for me crawling back. He got too comfortable with me providing financial stability for the home and it showed. He got too comfortable sitting by and letting one of his kids be a breadwinner.

At 15, I dropped out of HS to take care of the family financially since we were losing a lot and my much younger sibs were definitely feeling the brunt of everything. I was fully working as if I were a third parent. I didn’t care about my grades- not when my sibs were hungry.

Me moving away meant that the cash income I had even though it wasn’t much? Was gone. And he had no one else to depend on. Same with my mother who cried crocodile tears after finding me again.

Also they both would LITERALLY clown me over my job being not super high paying despite me being a minor who worked hard to make sure half my check went towards rent and other bills. (While the other half went towards me saving to move the fuck out and attend school in an entirely new area)

Idk just- I’m venting to both say fuck him for being awful towards me but also?? I do sometimes feel awful about leaving him, my mother and my last two siblings to live underneath him in such a toxic environment.

But I refuse to “come crawling back.” Not after sacrificing my academic dreams to make sure these monsters (the “parents”) would be able to be fed and take care of shit. Fuck them for being the reason I fundamentally can’t attend school again. (They’ve traumatized me so much mentally and hurt me sm physically to where attending school again is both trigger and physically a danger so it isnt happening)😠🔥

My siblings have graduated and one is even on the way to graduate college. I just….wish I could do the same. I wish I didnt sacrifice so much just to be the one that suffers in the end ☹️

I didn’t know how else to tag this but I just…had to tell someone. I’ve been sitting with this information for so long but haven’t been able to talk about it since I don’t really have others to discuss this with who’d get it.

I went NC with my patriarch and matriarch (mom and dad) in 2018, two days after I turned 18. I hopped on a flight, moved to an entirely new state, and basically reinvented myself. My adulthood has been largely me handling my care at every pivotal point.

It really wasnt easy navigating the loneliness. It wasn’t easy both having to hold myself and say I’ll be okay while also pushing myself to learn more, make mistakes, and just fuck up. Because growing up, messing up anything meant awful and cruel punishments. I assumed the adult world would treat me the same.

But it didn’t.

Yes I’ve fallen on my face and have made mistakes. But I’ve also bounced back and pushed twice as hard to do better and be better. I wanted to be able to live as an adult without even having to consider moving back in with those who hurt me since I was a child.

They’ve tried finding me (even sending a PI at some point which was my Final Straw towards being nice about my boundaries fun fact!) and getting me to return to them but I refused. And have been refusing whenever they’ve tried and guilt me into returning.

I was homeless for five years, I battled addiction, I had to flee a physically abusive relationship (with my first ex partner no less), I had to pay for my own education since I had no parental help and through it all…I knew no one would save me. So I saved myself. Just like I did when I originally moved out.

I’m 26 now. I’m writing this post from my apartment that I live in on my own. I have no relatives guilting me into coming back. I am also no longer with a partner who scares the wounded child within me. The rooms are quiet. The environment is calm. I am consistently and proudly at peace.

I’m growing and healing everyday, even if it feels really bad sometimes.

“You’re so selfish” is what my mother screamed at me before I moved. It’s also what my “father” (not my bio dad- just my mom’s husband but yk) yelled at me when I refused to let him drive me to the airport the day I moved out. (I really wanted to cover my tracks and give neither him nor my mother ANY inkling of where I was going.)

And to that I say? Yes I am selfish. I am healing. I choose myself and have chosen myself over everyone else again and again.

Happy 8 years of going no contact to me. It isn’t today but today’s a day I can finally look back and actually Celebrate This.

Choose yourself, no matter what anyone else says 🫂🩷