Anonymous Letter #1:

I to was a resident at Mountain Park. I was there for a year and eight months... I saw literally hundreds of girls be brutalized and broken into submission....

I made a promise to myself years ago that these words would never be written down. That the faces that have haunted my past and present would forever be a secret even to myself...

...My parents felt it best if I were drugged for the...trip to Missouri. I was unconscious for nearly 10 hours and I awoke in a freezing cold shower completely naked and chilled to the bone. I struggled to get on my feet in a fruitless attempt to protect myself only to be kicked twice in my stomach making me through up all over the tile flooring. I asked what I had done and their only was response was that I was dirty. I was 14 at the time.

I don't know if you remember them; Mrs. Debbie, Mrs. Wills (the girls so delusionally called her Mama), Miss. Kim, Brother Sam. They still come back to haunt me from time to time. I still sometimes feel like I am dreaming, that my freedom is yet another one of my fantasies that I conjured up while protected by my covers on the top bunk... I still have that fear that someday I will wake up and realize that the nightmare is not over. That I still have to live day to day in fear of Mrs. Wills and her paddle or being put on silence where you were not allowed to talk to ANYONE even the staff for weeks at a time.

I remember one day I had done something wrong and I was taken into Mrs. Will's office and beaten with her huge yellow wooden paddle once again. When it was all over she told me even though it was painful it was God's will. How could you say that to a child? How could you be so cruel?

When I got out I didn't know how to live anymore. I heard of a girl that had been there at the same time as me and had just gotten out and I could not wait to meet her. I knew that she would understand what I was going through. I inquired about her when I got home only to find that she had committed suicide just a few weeks after being released.

I consumed myself with drug and alcohol for about a year and finally landed in a psychiatric unit. I tried going to therapy but when it got to the point of talking about the missing year and eight months of my youth I would just stop going. Now that I have said all of this I want to assure you that my life is not a senseless tragedy. I sobered up and have been that way ever sense....

My life has gotten better with time but I will admit I still sleep with my light on and with the exception [of] one person no one in my life now knows what occurred so many years ago. My silence has never been broken except for today. I don't know why I just told you all of that.... Maybe it is time to break my silence.