Weighed down by the past

Oh my god. This place has made my life a living hell since 2015.

I arrived for eating disorder treatment in January 2015 and stayed for 6 weeks. During my stay, these things happened:

1. An anorexic girl weighing 40 pounds who was attached to an IV and I were made to stand for several hours-for SLEEPING by a nurse named Tai Shelton. When I confronted her about it, she yelled at me until I began sobbing, at which she smiled and walked away (I was on suicide watch at this time. I was also reprimanded by my milieu therapist and both psychiatrists on staff, Dr. Sacco and Dr. Kelly. I later attempted suicide in the facility. The staff never informed my parents.
   
   
2. One of the male staff, Ryan, was extremely flirtatious and inappropriate (I was 14).
   
   
3. Staff members would yell frequently and if they didn't like you, they would put a bad mark on your, "card" for flippant reasons like "You didn't talk enough during lunch". If you got too many bad marks, you were locked in a dark room with literally nothing to do for 12 hours. They withheld therapy and during meals you were made to sit in the corner of the dining room and not make eye contact or speak to anyone but your abusive staff member. When I was placed in that room, they forgot to bring me out to eat meals-three times!
   
   
4. The patients were told that they were not allowed to wear leggings because their legs were "disturbing" to staff. If you can't handle seeing a thin person, maybe you shouldn't work in an eating disorder treatment program?
   
   
5. None of the "milieu therapists" had any kind of degree or certification that pertain to eating disorder treatment. The majority were power-drunk graduate students.
   
   
6. Another staff member, Evan, would often eat candy in front of us during group (NOT mealtimes)-something that triggered many patients-yet would smile and taunt us if we looked at her while she ate it.
   
   
7. The nurses frequently watched us go to the bathroom (claiming to prevent us from purging, even though they were already checking our toilets after we used them) and would roll their eyes and tell us to, "hurry it up!". Many of us had been sexually abused, but they did not care. Once, a staff member, Ashleigh, attempted to watch me even though it wasn't in my treatment plan at that point and refused to let me go to the bathroom until my psychiatrist had to tell her to leave me alone.
   
   
8. The staff often forced us to "ask for support". It didn't matter if you'd finished your meal; you'd get a bad mark if you hadn't asked for support. When you did ask, they would snap at you to do it yourself. When the patients complained, we were lectured about how stupid they were. That is ABSURD.
   
   
9. My parents took plenty of verbal abuse over the phone about how they caused my eating disorder, despite much research at the time indicating GENETICS typically caused eating disorders.
   
   
10. The staff clearly cared more about underweight people and treated those that were at a healthy weight as "whiners". Nevermind that my kidneys, pancreas, liver, and heart were shutting down, right?
    
    
11. I was forced to take laxatives because my psychiatrist threatened to put on my chart that I was, "refusing medication" if I didn't. I lost many hard gained pounds doing that and left with only 0.2 of a pound gained.
    
    

This place did not cure my eating disorder, it made it worse. I can never seek intensive treatment for my ED again because of the trauma I experienced here, even after years of therapy. I still have an eating disorder and have experienced seizures, tooth loss and nightmares because of it.

PLEASE DON'T EVER SEND YOUR CHILD HERE.

Source
The original testimony on Yelp