Brat Camp Let me know what you guys think So I figured that after so many damn years of trying to write and finish my memoir it might be worth having a break and focusing on another aspect of my #life. I've been busy thinking about events that took place and something interesting to write about. So I thought it might be interesting to share with you the three and a half months I spent living in the mountains of Clayton, Georgia. So obviously, if you didn't know already in from England, and when I was fourteen years old I was 'sent away' to America for a number of reasons that we don't really need to go into. But I thought it might be cool just to reflect on my #life and some of the experiences I had in the woods. So, as soon as you mention 'the woods' you might be like, oh my god! How can you love in the woods? I know, right? And god only knows how I got through it, but I did. So it was at a wilderness program called Second Nature Blue Ridge, and parents pay thousands- literally thousands of dollars for their kids to be sent here. Therapy is almost like a fashion in America, you don't really find program's like that in England to the point where they actually make TV program's about boot camps and brat camps. But the big media thing isn't so much like that in the US because it's so common. It is still weird though for kids to be sent away, but to I'll be surprised at how many kids actually do get 'sent away'. The troubled teen industry is a billion dollar industry, they earn thousands- billions of dollars every year from kids who have been mandated to these program's and paid for by the state, to kids that come from privileged backgrounds who's parents can afford to send them to these program's. The program's range from Therapeutic boarding schools, to residential treatment centres and wilderness program's. Honestly, there is probably a whole book on them. So I was taken from my first program in hancock New York, and escorted onto a plane from NY to Atlanta, Georgia when I was handed over to an elderly couple that escorted me from then onwards. I was taken to a doctors surgery where they conducted a range of different examinations to determine whether or not I was 'strong enough' to participate in the program. Deep down I was hoping that I wasn't. Then we drove for about an hour or so up a dirt track and into the mountains when I was taken to 'base' and strip searched in a small room . My clothes were put into a locker and I wouldn't see them again until the day I left. I was given a pair of navy blue zip up trousers that could zip off into shorts, a t shirt and some hiking boots, and a red fleece. I was given a large backpack with a spare t shirt inside of it and a food bag, a sleeping bag, a camping mat and two plastic water bottles, and then i was sent on my way. A pick up truck was already waiting outside for me and they would take me to my group. The backpack was so heavy, I think I kind of executed that someone would help me, you know- being a lady. But nobody did, and I figures that I would have to get used to it or they'd be no way that I would be getting out of here alive. There were I think about six different groups in the program, half of which were boys and the other girls. Each of the groups were single sex. I remember my first meeting with my senior mentor, his name was dan, and I soon learned that everybody called him 'dan, dan the wilderness man.' He truely was a wilderness man, I had never met a man anything like him. He didn't have a care in the world of what anyone thought of him, he was just a free spirit and he brought joy to anybody that came into his presence. He was a very compassionate man, he wasn't particularly good looking, but his personality really shin through, and I always said that one day I would marry a man just like him. He was amazing. We sat under a tarp and on some of the group members back packs that were shielded from the rain. It was raining at this time. But it wasn't cold, it was in mid July so there was a lot of humidity, I guess it was a bit like a rain forest. The group wasn't around but two members of staff were, dan of course and a lady called Mary, I was told that two members of staff must be present at all times and one of the same sex as the student. Dan asked me to tell him a little bit about myself, it's amazing when I look back at it now and I see how we communicated at the beginning of our friendship and how much it had grown stronger towards he end. It's a shame that I had to say goodbye to him. At the time I was a little bit confused about myself, to be honest, I didn't really understand why I had been sent here and who exactly I was after what I had been through at a previous program. To cut a long story short, I'd been through pretty much a Jain sentence and was locked up in a religious sect that told me I was everybody I wasn't. So the mental repercussions of what I had been through were pretty strong, and a lot of the labels that these unqualified Catholic maniacs diagnosed me with seemed to have rubbed off on me after the torture I'd been through at the Family Foundation School. So I told Dan that I was an alcoholic and a pot head and I had an eating disorder, when in hindsight and in my, now mature opinion, I was none of those things. I had only ever been sent away in the first place because I had anxiety and #depression , but in my previous placement they lived to brain wash us into 'admitting ' that we were all if these things so our parents would think that their program was working. So Dan told me that as I had an eating disorder- ha! I was not allowed to go to the toilet for at least a half hour after every meal, and I would have to call my name every three seconds. The three second rule was a general rule that everybody had to do, it reassured staff that we weren't running away or trying to make ourselves puke . Not that I would have anyway. I was just fed up and I wanted to go home to my family that I hadn't spent more than two nights with on the six months that is been here. I think I was just too emotionally and mentally fucked to even consider doing something wrong and risk staying out here any longer. Dan then asked me what I'd like to be called, and that there was another Steph here too, so would I mind being called Steph 2. I said that I'd prefer to be called Zoe, my middle name. It took a while to get used to, but I quite liked it. It gave me a little bit of escape and something new to look forward to. I was given a packet, and was told that it was an opportunity for them toget to know me, and until id complete the packet I would not be allowed in the group. I would only allowed to speak to one person, and that would be my mentor. She would teach me how to survive out here in the woods, and she'd tell me everything I needed to know, but, we were not allowed to go off topic and talk about anything other than to do with the program. Dan told me to have a lookin my beanbag and have a bite to eat. Inside of it there were two packs of ramen noodles, two pieces of fruit, and a clear bag of dried fruit, nuts and m and m's. I picked at the dried fruit and nuts as I wasn't really that hungry. Once we got the okay from dan we started hiking to meet the group. I will never forget the awful stench of body Oder that dan left behind him as we walked along. It was like hundreds of mouldy onions sweating in the sun, I almost felt like I couldn't breathe it smelled so much. I didn't want to make it obvious that I thought the stank though, so every time they asked if I was okay I just said yes and tried to look content. They kept telling me to hurry up because I was walking too slow. I was very conscious of what was at my feet and was careful not to step on anything that would make me trip over. Dan kept insisting that I would keep up. I could hear the sound of a water fall. It was so loud. It sounded like the rain when it used to tap on my windows at home, but when it really poured it down during a storm, like that high pitched noise. The girls were sat like mermaids nearby a river, they were each about three feet away from each other and reading letters or writing in their notebooks. Nobody was talking to each other. They were wearing bright orange jumpsuits and I immediately thought that they looked like criminals, and that they'd be the total opposite of who I was and it would be exactly the same as it had been at the family school. I was so scared that it would be the same as how it was there, and that we wouldn't be allowed to talk again. I started crying. I would try and stop myself and tell myself that I needed to be strong, and that it was okay and that id be able to get through it. I wondered what the girls were doing, and what they were thinking about and what they would be like and If they'd like me. I wondered when is be able to speak with my family, and if they were thinking of me. I thought about how I had got here, and how much my #life had changed from what it used to be. I couldn't believe I was here, and I couldn't beeline what had happened to me. And I couldn't believe that my own parents wouldn't want to talk to me. There were all sorts of mixed feelings, feelings of anger and hate. Feelings of sadness and loss. Feelings of abandonment yet rejoice, rejoice that I was no longer here anymore. And feelings if remorse, and regret, because if I hadn't got on that plane, then I wouldn't be in this mess. I could hear birds fluttering in the trees, and echoing through the forest trees. And although it had rained the air was humid, it really felt like I was in a rain forest.

Geraldine & The Gypsy Boy (Still needs work) Her mother was a house wife, and her father a business man. She was brought up in the suburbs of a prestigious town called Gallalane. She had lived in the same house for the seventeen years of her #life, where she had been locked away from the harsh reality and treatment that many other had faced. Tragedy and loss she was blind to, for she had forever been protected and lived a greater way of #life, that so many others had dreamed of. For Geraldine it was normal, and to her everybody else lead the same lives as her. Little had she known that people on the outside envied her, and wished for the very #life that she had. Geraldine spent days out in the poppy fields, picking them and dressing her bedroom with fresh flowers and making daisy chains she placed on the crown of her head. She was out there from sun rise to sunset. It was 6 in the morning on this particular day. She had picked the last poppy for her bouquet, when she noticed a young men sat in a tree across the field. He jolted and fell from the tree. Geraldine ran over to him. "Are you ok?" She asked. He stood up and brushed himself of the dry grass that stuck to his clothing. "I'm fine love, but I couldn't help but feel so entranced with just how beautiful you are," he said, belong out smoke from his cigarette that he'd still managed to keep alight. She blushed. "What are you doing around here anyway?" She asked, shying away from his kind remark. "This is where I live." He said. "You live here?" "Yup. Over in that caravan over there, you see it?" He pointed. "And this is my field, and my sheep. Wanna say hello?" He chuckled. "Geraldine," her mother called from the kitchen door. "Oh sorry, I have to go." She said, "nice speaking to you." "Take care love," he winked. Geraldine ran to her mothers call. "Who were you speaking to?" She asked. "Oh just this boy." She said. "From next door? Don't you go speaking to them gypsies Geraldine. They are not the kind of people you should be associating with. They are bad news, you stay away or you won't be allowed in the poppy field." "Yes mama" she said. Geraldine didn't listen to her mother though, in the early afternoon when her mother took a nap and her father was at work she would purposely go out in the poppy field, just to be seen. Oscar was his name, he took her to see the animals. He had goats and sheep, and horses and chickens. All the animals you could imagine, and he looked after them. When Geraldine returned home one afternoon, her mother had been awaiting her return. 'Dont you speak to that gypsy boy!' Her mother raged. 'I told you to stay away from that family! That is no place for you to be hanging around!' 'But mum he' 'Dont you speak back to me! Go it your room this instance! Dinner will be waiting for you outside your door. And don't you dare show your face here again. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!!' Geraldine spent days in her room, and she only parted with it when she needed to use the bathroom. Cold soup and french bread was served outside her bedroom door. The poppies dropped and dried out as days swept by. Geraldine wept day and night, and tissues piled up on the floor at her bed side. The gypsy boy paraded her mind with his sweet comfort and peculiar #life. Every night before she went to bed , her heart raced as she thought about them riding the horse through the forest and into the moonlight, it was the perfect paradise. And all this had been taken away from her, all the love and the joy and he happiness that she had found in the heart of her empty #life that lead her to no pleasures or fullfillment that she forever wished for. Her heart had been buried alive , and ripped and torn apart she had rather just die. She lay in bed one night, and a knock on her window have her a fright . She crawled into her bed and quickly pulled the duvet over her head. 'Geraldine. Geraldine,' she heard a whisper, but a whisper that was loud enough to be heard from the inside. It was him! It was him! He had come to find her! He loved her! She rushed out of her bed and pulled away her long, silk curtains that rippled on the floor. 'Oscar, what are you doing here? You can't be here.' She cried, her heart racing with excitement and fear all at the same time. 'I came to find you Geraldine, come outwith me tonight,' he said. His eyes were like blue marbles and mystical blue skies that had her hypnotized. She stood in silence, worrying about what her mother would say and what would happen if she had found out. 'Please geraldibe, come with me.' He said, touching her hand gently. 'Ok,' she said. But I can't be long'. She quickly went to her door and put her dressing gown on. It was made of silk, and shone like the feathers of a swan in the glimmering light. Oscar put his arms out and carried her out of the window, they ran across the poppy field into the moonlight, and over the wire fence that separated their lives from one another, but bound their hearts together. They spent the evening tucked under a cosey blanket in a caravan that was candle lit, laughing and joking about what they just did and cuddling in the warmth of each others caresses. It was truely majestic, touching each other's soft bodies and locking their love for each other with a sealed kiss. Their love grew and grew for one another. It was a love like no other. Out of the window and onto the dirt track, was a torch light that shone like the lantern of a guard hut. 'Who is it?' She gasped, reaching for her top and dressing herself as quick as she could. 'Geraldine! Geraldine!' 'Its your father, quick hide!' Oscar said blowing out the candle light. 'Get under the bed Geraldine, quickly,' he ordered. Geraldine slid into the cupboards of the wooden bed and shook with fright. The door swung open. "Where's my daughter?" He shouted. "What have you done with her?" He raged, lifting the boy by his shirt. "You stay away from my daughter, the next time I come around here you'll be lucky to be seen alive." He said. "Where is she?" "I I don't know sir. She, she's not here I haven't seen her since last month, out in the poppy fields." "You're lucky boy. You're lucky that I don't beat the crap out of you. Your lucky that I don't throw you out of this dirt wagon and feed you to your animals and let the maggots have ya. You dirty scum bag. You stay away from my daughter. You don't go near her. Do you hear?" Oscar nods his head in fear. "Do you hear boy?" He raged. "Do you hear" he spits in his face. "Yes sir." Oscar says. "You won't see me again." Her father lets him go. "You stay away from my daughter," he says one last time. And slams the door on his way out, it swings back and forth. He coughs the evidence of the years he's been smoking, and grumbles to himself. "I spent all these years bringing my daughter up to be hanging around here in this badgers den. What have I done? What have we done for her to meet a no good gypsy boy like this? So much for a god. Where has god been all these damn years." He laughs hysterically and smashes his beer bottle onto the ground. The caravan is filled with fear, and white ghosts escape their breath in the cold air. Geraldine gets up from under the bed. "I have to go! I have to go!" She said. "My dad will kill me if he knows I'm here!" "No Geraldine you can't! He'll know! I want you to be safe." "I have to oscar, I have to!" She panics. "I'll say I took a walk for some fresh air, no, I'll say I took a walk to the pond and pinched one of his cigarettes!" She said, grabbing her leggings and putting them on quickly. "Pass me your phone," she said. She looks at herself in the reflection and ties back her hair. " I have to go" she runs out of the caravan and heads towards the wire fence. "Geraldine wait! He says, running after her and kissing her again. "Will you be ok?" He asks. " i'll be fine," she says. She jumps over the fence and runs across the poppy field and into her back garden, she lifts herself into the window sill and tucks herself in bed. Only a few minutes had passed when she heard the front door open. "I told that boy to stay away from our daughter. He and his no good family are to stay away from our daughter and make sure they don't show their faces around here, anymore!" He shouted. Another beer bottle was popped open. "Honey don't you think you have had enough for one night?" "I will drink however much I want, whenever I want. This is my house, my rules!" He shouted. She could hear the sound of her mothers slippers clap along the corridor. Geraldine hides under her blanket. "Geraldine? Geraldine are you here?" He calls, approaching her bedroom door. "And where have you been you stupid girl? Have you been out with that gypsy boy!" He rages. "No pa, no pa I haven't!" She cries, clinging onto her blanket. "You have you liar!" He strikes her with the back of his hand. "You dirty bitch. You are a disgrace to this family, you have put a bad name to us. You filth, you filth. Go and live with that gipsy boy, go on!" He strikes her again, and again until her eyes are blue and beaten and she cries in despair. "I'm sorry pa I'm sorry!" She cries weeping and dribbling over the wooden floor. "You bitch! You whore!" He stomps on her and throws his beer bottle at the wall. "Chris what are you doing?" Her mother cries at the door, rushing to Geraldine's attention. "What do you think I'm doing?" He raged. "Is this how we raised our daughter!" "Chris, go to your bed, you've had enough, you've done enough now!" She starts to cry, "Geraldine sit up." Blood is seeping from her nose and her eyes are beaten black and blue. They are so swollen she can barely open them. Her hair is matted with dribble and snot. Her father leaves the room. "You complain and tell me to do something about it, and then I get told off for it. Well isn't #life fair," he complains. Geraldine and her mother slept side by side that night . Geraldine didn't speak to her father or leave her room for days on end. Her back was black and bruised, and ached whenever she moved. She didn't return to the poppy field either, and every day Oscar sat in the tree and waited for her until sunset and even after. Seven days had passed and still there was no sign of her. Oscar had written a song for her, that he wanted to play on his guitar. He knocked at her window. "Geraldine" he whispered. She opens the window, "I can't see you anymore." "Geraldine, what happened to you?" He asks. "Oh it's nothing, I just had a fall. "Your lying, your lying. Your dad did this to you didn't he?" He's shaking with adrenaline. "No, no it wasn't him." Geraldine cries. "Come here," he says, holding her through the window. "I'll look after you, I promise," she wheels in his arms. "Come with me Geraldine, let's go away, let's get you away from here." He says.

Anna Bella (Still being edited) She wasn't a dancer,and nor was she a singer. She was just a teenager with no apparent talent like the girls had had that surrounded her. In fact, she has never felt entirely happy. For all that she could remember she lived in sadness, and emptiness that plagued her heart as she watched #life happen outside of her. Unfortunately, it was something that she felt she was never really a part of. She was a lonely girl, and she lived outside a prestigious town in a large white bungalow that her parents had owned. Her mother was a house wife, and her father a successful business man. She had had everything in #life that most others dreamed of; private education, holidays abroad, a loving family and a cat that she loved dearly. But there was still that one thing that was missing, and it was something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Every day was emptiness, wherever she went it followed her like a disease. It was dangerous. It stopped her from doing all the things she'd ever dreamed of, because, well, most other people her age thought that writing was lame. Anna Bella always dreamed of being a writer. Her dream was to write a book, but she never thought she'd be able to achieve it. There was this girl at school, and her name was Carrie. She always got bullied because in her spare time, when all the others were having fun in the playground and flirting with the boys, she would sit inside and write her little sister stories. Annabella always used to watch the other girls bully her, and she made an oath to herself that she would never become Carrie. She wouldn't ever let anyone find out who she really was, and she would go along with all the pointless antics that the others did just so that she could fit in. So, Annabell was a boarder, she spent weekdays and weeknights at school. She didn't mind it so much, not when her sister bullied her though. Lara was in the year above her, and she was everything that Annabell wasn't. A singer, a dancer, an actress. Annabell hated to be in the limelight, it just wasn't her, but she craved it; just as everyone else did. She wanted to be just as normal as everyone else was, but there was something about her, something about her that even she didn't understand. Her feelings went way beyond than what anybody else could imagine. She soaked up emotions like a sponge and she couldn't understand why she had been cursed in such a way that nobody else of her age had to deal with. There was something about her, something about her that she hated. And she fought so hard just to get rid of it. Everyone else just thought she was over sensitive, but perhaps it was something far beyond anything that others could imagine. Sometimes she knew things, sometimes she knew things that she didn't want to know, and perhaps, dare I say, that she shouldn't have known. Annabella tried so hard to run away, but eventually the time came when she had to face up to what she feared most, and that was the truth. The truth that buried itself in her heart many many years ago, and now she thinks, and knows, that it is time to expose. It had all begun when she was thirteen, the number that most would associate with the devil, and I don't doubt that perhaps there was a reason for it. Because for her, that year was when everything went wrong. She had been attending the same school since the age of three, she had formed some strong friendships with those that had been attending for the same time that she had, and she had familiarised herself with the school and its staff over the years. She wasn't an underachiever, but more of an over ache over if anything, and she had a love for English literature. She was a quiet girl, and one most wouldn't notice if they walked into a room. There was nothing quite so dazzling about her, she was plane, and some would call her ordinary. Her mother and father were often on business trips and holidays to the south of France, so her and her sister spent a lot of time boarding at school as I had mentioned before. Annabella was nothing like her sister, and her sister treated her terribly, for what reason at this time she didn't understand. Her father had a drinking habit, and on some occasions that she can remember as far back as her childhood, ended violently and in No way that any child should witness. Her mother would always cry , and Anna Bella would be the one to comfort her and lay by her side until she would come around. Lara didn't do her mother much good either, she was an uncontrollable child that always wanted her way and no other. I wouldn't want a daughter like her. Her mother would cry and weep and Lara would push her buttons until she couldn't cope much more and act in ways that Anna Bella wasn't familiar with, now, when she looks back at it. She realises just how dysfunctional her family was, and how I much can be hidden behind closed doors. It's a saying that Anna Bella only knows too well. A lot can happen behind closed doors, a lot can happen that never gets exposed, and that's why the beauty of writing becomes so healing when one can express themselves in the form of black ink and blotches on paper that connects and bounds our hearts together. By the age of fourteen Anna Bella had taken two overdoses. She was so depressed she found no purpose in #life for her to be here, only to suffer and watch the #life shed envisioned crumble at her sleeve. She'd been to four different boarding schools and hadn't even achieved any GCSE's. All the people she thought were her friends has betrayed her, and the men she thought had loved her had thrown her away like dirty linen. Annabella couldn't find a way out of this #depression, it had taken over her mind and her #life it was like anywhere she went it would follow her. The rumours, the half truths. Nobody knew her side of the story, and how much she had been through. How much she had survived, and how much of a mask that for all these years she has been hiding behind. Her mother had reached wits end. This wasn't her daughter. She hadn't brought her up to end up the way that she had, and associate with people she didn't approve of. Anna Bella had reached a dead end. It was only a few days after shed been discharged from hospital that she cried for help, and she begged her mother. "I need help mum. I don't know what to do anymore," she sobbed, sitting on the sofa. Her mother had already tried shoving another school down Annabellas throat, but it wasn't like any other. It was a Therapeutic Boarding School in Upstate New York, that specialised in helping troubled teens that suffered from a range of mental health disorders; ranging from anxiety and #depression, to alcoholism and drug addiction. "I want to go to America Mum, there's nothing left for me here anymore." She said. "Ok" her mother responded, and within the next two days she has already arranged and booked a flight from Heathrow to Newark. Anna Bella had always dreamed of visiting America for as long as she could remember.