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.