...I'd be happy to talk with anyone about this situation or
anything else. I've been through it all, and survived. Two and half years ago I
was taken from my home at 4am, by two escorts, put into a car with safety
locks, flown into Missouri and left at Mountain Park Baptist Boarding
Academy.... I stayed at Mountain Park for one month....
...I couldn't talk to most
of the girls because I was new and I "posed a threat" to the other
residents. I couldn't call anyone, my mom was only allowed to write me and call
me after two weeks of living there. It was the worst two weeks of my life. I
had no idea what I was in for. After I talked to my mom for the first time I
told her that I had seen a girl who was beaten up by being paddled, she had
bruises all over her back. She treated it like a joke, that it couldn't happen
with such "loving" people running the school....
...I was told that I wasn't good enough, that I had ruined
my parents life, and how I must feel bad how my poor parents still had to walk
past my room every day and think about how evil I was. I cried every night, I
couldn't eat or sleep. I kept a picture of my family on my desk until a worker
decided that I looked at my family too much and that I was being a baby. She
took the picture away and told me that the next time I cried over my family
that I would be wearing a pacifier and sitting on a stool wherever I went.
The only way I could communicate with any other girls was
if I talked to them through the shower drain. There was only one girl who would
talk to me, and we would cry through the drain, promising each other that if
one of us got out first we would get the other one out too....
...I lost a lot of weight and started to throw up blood
because I was so stressed out. I started bleeding from other orifices of my
body and when my mom called she told me to show someone else. I told (and
showed) it to one of the workers and she told me that it was "all in my head"
and I needed to "knock it off"...
...A suit was brought against the school for eight counts
of medical neglect. The last I know is that the files are sealed and the school
is still open. This has separated my whole family....
...I was always the good kid, I had a 3.5 throughout high
school and wanted to be a doctor. I didn't do bad things. I feel like I didn't
deserve this. And I feel that no one else deserves it. I still have nightmares
about it, and for the first year of being back I slept with my door locked and
shoes on. I am still paranoid that I might be taken away again....
Anne P
UPDATE TO ANNE”S STORY
As of November 2002 I am living in
Turin, Italy, finishing up my double major (Political Science and Italian). I
will return back to New York to graduate in December. In the spring of 2003 I
will be going off to law
school to pursue my JD in international law, with hopes to work in an American
company that has locations in Italy or vice versa. Things in my
life have been looking up since I met my boyfriend of now
over three years, he is Italian; we met in my last year of high school. I spent
one year in San Diego while I studied biology then transferred to my university
in New York to pursue law after deciding that my life calling was not medicine.
I've been living away from my family now for the last 4 years,
which was good for everyone. My mother and stepfather have split up, which is
also better. For me, I have just welcomed my niece (Paolo's sister's baby) who
was born two days ago, and I am flying back to California day after tomorrow to
be the maid of honor in my cousin's wedding. Things for me are going great.
So thanks for all your letters!