Unsilenced: The Troubled Teen Industry

In this powerful episode, Lyndsay Soprano and Meg Appelgate, co-founder and CEO of Unsilenced, confront the hidden atrocities of the troubled teen industry (TTI). Lyndsay courageously shares her own scars from trauma and abuse, setting a raw and unfiltered tone for the conversation. Meg then opens up about her own nightmare—being kidnapped at 15 and subjected to years of relentless psychological abuse within TTI programs.

This episode pulls back the curtain on a $23 billion industry that thrives on the suffering of vulnerable children, exposing the shocking truths that have been kept in the shadows for far too long. It’s a conversation that resonates deeply with anyone who has felt the sting of trauma or stands beside someone who has. 

Meg's journey from a victim to a fierce advocate is nothing short of inspiring. Her relentless pursuit of justice through Unsilenced offers not just hope, but a roadmap for reclaiming one's life after trauma. This episode is a rallying cry for change, urging us all to listen, act, and support those working to dismantle a broken system and protect future generations.

Find Meg Appelgate Online Here:
Instagram: @megappelgate
Facebook: Meg Appelgate
LinkedIn: Meg Appelgate
Website: megappelgate.com
TikTok: @megappelgate

Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast

Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to The Pain Game Podcast
(02:15) Lyndsay's personal trauma and its impact
(10:40) Introduction of Meg Applegate and her work with Unsilenced
(15:30) Meg's abduction and initial experiences in TTI programs
(25:45) The psychological and emotional abuse within TTI
(35:20) The financial and political aspects of the troubled teen industry
(45:10) Meg's journey to becoming unsilenced and advocating for others
(55:30) The importance of addressing trauma and mental health
(01:05:00) Resources and support for survivors of TTI
(01:10:00) Final thoughts and words of encouragement for listeners

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and
trauma get into the heart of how to heal. I
am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan
on discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard

(00:26):
in the chronic pain and trauma world that we live in.
When I was fifteen years old, I had already been
sexually assaulted twice. When I was nineteen, I was gang

(00:46):
raped by more people than I could keep count of.
When I was married to my ex husband, I lived
with marital rape as well as massive amounts of emotional
and physical abuse, of which my parents do not know
about to this day. They don't listen to this show
of mine for many reasons unless I say, hey, listen.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
To this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
But I feel like they just might know that horrible
things have happened to me, but they didn't want to
face them. And I still feel like, especially my mother,
that they don't want to face. She doesn't want to
face the truth of why some of my rebellions started.
And as a teenager and up to this day, I

(01:34):
continue to protect them from what happened to me. And
you know, if you've listened to the show for even
you know, an episode or two, you know that I
constantly talk about how the body keeps the score. That's
a book that we've always talked about, and it is true.
We talk about how our traumas are stored within our bods, right.

(01:56):
We talk about how these traumas exercise our das into
chronic illness, chronic pain, syndrome after syndrome, after whatever, and
we go to our doctors and we're like, here are
all the things that we are feeling. And they don't
believe us, especially us women, but they don't understand that

(02:17):
those traumas turn into health issues with us. Go forward
and here I am forty six years old, closer to
the fifty than I would like to admit, and we
have more health issues and more health issues. And before
I started the show, I had no idea why that
shit was happening to me. And as I've then covered

(02:39):
with every episode on the show, how trauma informs our pain,
How trauma informs the decisions we make, the people we
bring into our lives, the people we marry, the people
we divorce.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
And you know I was as a teenager.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I would absolutely compartmentalize myself into being a troubled teen.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I was.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I was rebellious, Still am was curious, Still am am sad,
Still AM depressed, Still AM anxious, still AM scared, working
on it, all of those things I'm working on. But
today I am hopeful. Now, as you guys know, the
show is about hope. Hopeful that we that we can

(03:25):
help change what happens to us when we are young
and have no control over that, because now we are
in charge, not them. So today I would like to
talk about the troubled teen industry TTI because we might
say TTI throughout the episode, just so you know. I'm
becoming unsilenced once and for all.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
And I have the most amazing guests today. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Without further ado, I would like to introduce to you
today my guest, Met Applegate.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Hello, Hello, my starling, Hello.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Oh my goodness, super excited. I mean, we've got to
be excited to talk about trauma, don't we wait?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Always always, it's.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Never a downer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Meg is the co founder and CEO of Unsilenced, a
nonprofit aimed at stopping institutional child abuse within the troubled
teen industry that TTI mentioned earlier. She's a survivor of
two TTI programs, where she spent three and a half
years of her teen years locked in institutional quote unquote programs.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Right yep.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
She ended up getting a degree in psychology. She spent
over seventeen plus years in various nonprofit boards focusing on
board development, recruitment, and fundraising. But it wasn't until later
in her career that she recognized the abuse that she
endured and its impact on her adulthood. My lord right,

(05:02):
and she has now dedicated herself to empowering other survivors
of institutional abuse, amongst many other things.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
And so here we are today, we are here.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
We are so all right, I am rolling out the
red carpet for you, babe, And I would like to
just jump in, like nobody's business, about the day that
you were abducted from your bedroom bias stranger, thrown into
an suv and set into your first institution.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
And then let's take it from there.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Right, We got to start off with the kidnapping. It's always,
it's always the part that everyone.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Always a little quick beauty fuls A good hook, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's a good hook. Fifteen. I was kidnapped in the
middle of the night by two strangers, you know, And
that's and that's the truth. Yeah, I mean it was.
It was about two am, and these two strangers came
into my room. They woke me up and said, you're
coming with me, and I remember thinking like, hella, and
come with you, and like, I don't know who you are,
and I thought I was going to be arrested. Like

(06:02):
that was my first thought is I'm going to jail
because I had smoked pop the night before, and I thought,
oh god, I'm going to end up in California.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I'm going to jail exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
But immediately I could see my parents at the door
watching and knew that this is obviously something that they
signed on to. And the two people basically said we
can do this the easy way or the hard way,
and alluded to the hard way being handcuffed, and yeah, exactly.
So I just went along with what they were saying,
but I was super upset, and I remember asking them

(06:35):
to go to the bathroom. They said they had to
watch me get dressed. They said that they had to
watch me do that too. And I remember the last
question I asked was can I at least pack a bag?
And they responded with your parents already did. And that's
when I flipped out. And I remember screaming at the door,
I fucking hate you so much. I'm never talking to

(06:58):
you ever again, and and I just remember being so angry.
And that's really when the switch flipped and I just
started disassociating, and I remember they just dragged me out
of the house, put me into the back of an sub,
locked the doors, and we were off to Lax Airport,
and I remember they had to face me away from

(07:18):
the gate. I wasn't allowed to know where I was going.
I couldn't look at my ticket, like I didn't have
a cell phone. So it's like, what would I have done?
I have no idea, But.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
That's one hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Here. It's like the paper tickets that you had to
get mailed to you. You know, there's no eed to
gets back then. I couldn't look at it right, right,
I know. But I remember I got on the plane
and I didn't know where I was going until the
captain came on and mentioned Boise Idaho, And as soon
as we took off, they handed me two letters, one
from my mom and my dad. And that's when I

(07:50):
truly just disassociated and I don't remember anything until I
walked the doors of my first program.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
That is insane reading your book, which we'll get into.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
I was such a rebellious teenager.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I mean I did all means we are, yeah, I mean, yeah,
we all are. But when you taught when I when
I opened up with what I opened up with, I've
never said at all to anybody what I opened up
the show with. Oh wow, So today was a hard
episode for me. Start right, Yeah, Hi, thank you. I
told you before we started the episode that this was

(08:25):
gonna be hard.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
For both of us.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
But when you feel abducted versus being abducted, like I
remember feeling like I was trapped in a place with
my parents that they were trying to lock me down
as hard as they could from rebellion because I was
trying to protect them from what had happened to me.

(08:49):
But in your situation, you've got parents that think I've
got this troubled teen yeah, and they were cursed into
You've got to bring your your kid into this institution,
I want to talk instantly about the institutionalism and the
political part of it, and the money making side of it,

(09:12):
and all of that right out of the gates before
we get into the rest of this, because that is
incredibly interesting to me.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, it's very important.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, all the dark and twisty, all these rich, wealthy
people and the things that they do. It's like eyes
wide shut. That's the first thing I thought about when
I was reading your book was eyes wide shut exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
I Mean, we're talking about a twenty three billion dollar
of public funds industry, twenty three billion, three billion, and
that's conservative, and that's conservative. That's really we can't count
the private funds. We have no way of knowing how
much parents are funneling into these facilities, but we know
that they cost anywhere from five to thirty thousand dollars

(09:56):
a month. So there's no telling really how much has
really on into this industry we're talking.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
We know that we know that they're willing to put
money into like buy their kids into USC and yeah, yeah,
so that's just to get them into a college, much
less this stuff, dear lord.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Right, and we're talking about like tax payer dollars here
we're talking about school funds and special education IEP plans
of sending kids out of these school districts into these
programs to be abused. And we're also talking about programs
that are backed by private equity. We're talking about programs
that are nonprofits. They're all over the board, but one

(10:34):
thing stays the same, and regardless of where the money
is coming from, and that it's not evidence based. And
kids are leaving calling themselves survivors, which should never happen
within any healthcare industry. It's absurd.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, And in your book you talked about that about
how people left and they felt like even you to
a certain extent, were.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Like I made it through. I made it through the world,
and the for us everybody in case you didn't know.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
But yeah, like these stories of these people are like
I made it through.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
I made it through. I made it through.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
But then they didn't make it through and so many
of these people, as you mentioned in your book, about
how a lot of them started to die.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, And I think that that's that's the really hard
thing is when you're so young, you look at a
hurdle as like I just got to get through this, right,
I just I got to get through. And that's even
if you know it's a hurdle at the time. I
was brainwashed, so I didn't know it was a hurdle
at the time. But even if you know that it's
something that is hard for you, you just look at it
as as long as I can get over this. But
people don't realize that when survivors are going through what

(11:39):
they're going through in these programs, it's just the beginning.
Getting through that hard part was just the beginning. Because
all of the things that are infinitely more likely to
happen because of that abuse later in life is so crazy.
We're talking about substance use, We're talking about future domestic
violence situations and more likely to be in them. We're

(11:59):
talking about hindered education. We're talking about physical health issues
and autoimmune disorders and obesity and higher rates of suicide.
So we're talking about overall health and mental health. That
these survivors are leaving these programs thinking, oh, thank god,
I'm out, and really it's just begun because it's set

(12:20):
them up for just failure in life. And it's really
sad because many times these survivors don't know where to
go to for help. Because many times they were abused
by their therapists, and so that's the one thing you do, right,
you need help, you go to a therapist. Well, if
you were abused by one, it's really hard to make
that decision. So a lot of us are just left
to our own devices to figure things out. We don't

(12:42):
have any help reintegrating back into society. Many of us
are doing that at eighteen with zero idea how to
do normal things in life because the programs didn't teach us.
So it's like it's really important for us to realize,
not only do we need to stop sending these kids
to these programs obviously, we need to focus on the
survivors that are unfortunately already survivors and how we can

(13:05):
support them because they've been really just all left.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, and there's like what like one hundred and like
one hundred and twenty two.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Hundred twenty to two hundred thousand a year conservatively.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, that is insane. And that's is that in the
United States or is that globally?

Speaker 3 (13:23):
So that would be just the United States for now.
There was very many programs throughout even outside of the
United States, but many of them have been closed.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, So and I know that you you're an advocate
for all of this, and we're going to get into
that a little bit later, but i'd like to talk
about your actual experience now. And I know that it
might jump up a couple of things, and it will
jump up stuff with me even though it wasn't there.
So I'm an EmPATH, like nobody's business. But I'd like
to talk to you a little bit about a day

(13:54):
in of what you were experiencing, like when you got there,
and then what your life was and what you witnessed,
because the things that you were witnessing, the things that
you were all kind of trying to protect each other
to a certain extent, but also fearful to try to
protect yourself and others as well.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Right, So it depends on the program, because you know,
the first program I went to is a lockdown facility,
just extremely rigid. Every single second of your day is scheduled,
and it leaves little room for any kind of wiggling, right,
so highly highly controlling environment. And so with a day
in the life of that is just basically you just

(14:35):
you get up and you do the same thing. You
have the same expectations. You have to make sure your
room is tidy in the exact same way. You have
so many rules that you can't fit them into your
brain and you were never pulled them, so you have
to memorize them as you go. But you aren't given leniency.
So if you forget one, you can like lose a
level in a day, And if you don't learn quick enough,

(14:55):
you'll just continue to have that happen week after week
and lose privilege and gain privileges, lose them, really easily
gain them. It's really hard to do. So it's just
it's a constant up and down roller coaster of emotions
without any support. So with me, they really heavily focused
on removing all control. They thought I had control issues,

(15:18):
and they wanted to make sure that I know I
have no control over my life, and they wanted to
make sure that I was beaten down enough, so to speak,
that I gave in to other people. Basically I was
too strong willed, and so they were trying to break me,
is really what they were doing. So for many months
I spent my day at a desk where I would

(15:39):
like from the normal hours of like nine to five,
I'd be at a desk writing assignments. And if I
wanted to be allowed to go with my peers or
go to the cafeterior, go to therapy, or YadA, YadA, YadA,
I'd have to pick out of a bag a yes
or a no. And there was ten pieces of paper
with one yes and nine no's. So almost always I

(15:59):
didn't get to go with my peers, And so that
bag was there. It's called random draw And that was
their idea of trying to take away all decision making
so that I learned how to not try to take
control of my life, which I don't know why that's
a bad thing, but they really wanted to break that.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
In me for once in my life. I'm speechless. I like,
she's never speechless.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, that it taught me is to never to just
not speak up.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Is enough, to not use your voice, don't use your too,
because you just get in trouble. Yeah, because in your
book you talked about that it was it's almost like
it was like a demerit plus like like it's almost
like every day that you were there, you were like
earning money to go into a bank. Almost like felt
like it was a prison, right, Oh for sure, my bad,

(16:52):
It was a fucking prison.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
It was, yeah, exactly, and it made it worse too
because we were super medicated. So they diagnosed me within
the first week with bipolar, and I was heavily medicated
for that. I don't have bipolar, so it rereaped havoc
on my body. I ended up gaining sixty pounds in
that six months, and they'd give me copious amounts of

(17:16):
antipsychotics and I would get tired and like fall asleep
while I was writing in my journal and I couldn't
help it, but they would punish me for it. But
I had no choice but to take my meds. So
it's like an endless loop of getting in trouble, but
there's nothing I can do about it because they're making
me get in trouble. So it was just this feeling
of helplessness. But it really wasn't until my second program,

(17:38):
when the real coercion and control came in, that I
really finally reached that point of just learned helplessness where
I just gave up on being who I am and
gave in to just letting people tell me who I
am so I can just have it easier in life
because I just fully gave up.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, I don't know how you couldn't have. It reminds me.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
When I was reading your book, it reminded me of
the movie A Girl Interrupted.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, for sure. Many survivors say.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
That, Yeah, and I have.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Gone through I went through a really weird stage in
my world with abuse and all of the stuff that
my parents weren't sure what was wrong with me, And
what was wrong with me was the trauma that happened
that I didn't share with them, so to their merit, Like,
you talk about your parents and your book and you
give them all kinds of accolades and love and all

(18:33):
of that, your adopted parents, and I think that that's
really wonderful for you to do that. But at that time,
when you're in your life where you're like, what the
hell did I do wrong? Yeah to get this kind
of treatment, I'm like, dude, I was just smoking pot.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah you know.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, right, So you ended up you went to the
first one that was for what was that six that
was for six months, right, the first time for six months,
and you went for three fucking years.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yep. So let's talk about what happened there and the
indoctrination of what started to happen there, which is a
little bit into the the cult and corrosion that night
of it.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it's very It was very different.
You know, in the first program, everyone treats you the same,
which is kind of mandated by it, and it's not great, right,
but there's little variation. There's no like variations really, you know,
more of a hospital field. But Chrysalis, it gives this

(19:35):
illusion of like we're a big family. In fact, we
called each other family. It was also these are our
Chrysalis sisters, and this is our Chrysalis family. It had
very crazy I mean, looking back, it's like, why did
I not see that? That's cold? I have no idea,
but I was fifteen.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Right, so you're fifteen to what this is?

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Right, But it gives this illusion of safety which is family, right,
and this familial unit that takes care of each other
and we hold each other accountable and we're just one big,
happy family. You're not like it's you know, yes, I
made great friends while I was there, and I met
some amazing people, like the other girls that I've kept

(20:16):
in contact with TILT today. But the way that the
program was run was not okay, and there were many
staff that probably saved my life from just being really
really good humans and showing love and care and compassion
and forcing them to take us to the doctor when
we really needed the doctor. And those people are like,

(20:37):
thank god they were there. But the two people marrying
Kenny that owned Chrysalis at the time really damaged me,
really damaged me. And you know, anecdotally from other people
as well, is what I've heard, and their tactics just
it was very antiquated and non evidence based and utilized

(20:59):
things like attack the therapy and which they called circle,
which was their form of group therapy, but it's a
it's based on principles that are rooted in a cult
called Synanon. They had something called the Game, which is
where they sit in a circle and just publicly braid
and you know, tear down other members until they acquiesced

(21:21):
to the program, which is exactly what they did to us.
And I would go through I don't know, like eight
to sixteen hours of that every week. So it acted
as a way to tear down your confidence, tear down
your certainty, keep you on your toes, make sure you know,
don't ever feel comfortable enough to like let your guard down,

(21:45):
and once you were torn down, that's when they'd swoop
in and help you rebuild, right, like okay, now now
we're going to work the program right. And then they'd
come in with their with their version of who you,
who you're supposed to be, and then they rebuild you
and the way that they think you are and enough
of you know, when you're that young, hearing so many

(22:07):
things wrong with you constantly, you just reached this point
of like, you know, you mentioned like what did I
do to get to this point? No, it's you, you know,
it's who you are. It's not what you did. It's
that you're being told that it is because of you,
because of who you are. Even your parents think that
that's why you're here. It's so much deeper of a

(22:27):
I'm internally flawed, and I was told that by them
that if I don't change who I am, I will
never be loved, I will never be accepted, I will
always be a pariah and never have friends. Like they
told me these things, And so that became. Even if
it wasn't conscious, like to myself every day, the way

(22:48):
that I thought about myself, it was definitely deeply rooted,
and I didn't even know it.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
How could you?

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Right, I mean, so we're babies, right, So, I mean,
and we don't even form our brains right until we're
like what twenty four, twenty five years old, where brains
actually are starting to Actually.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
It's actually what he said to me in the circle.
That is actually what he said. He said, Lizzie, because
that's what I went by in the poom. Lizzie, you
have time still. You're only fifteen. It was almost sixteen.
Then you're only sixteen, and your brain doesn't fully form
until you're twenty five. And you still have time because
if you don't do it, you're never going to be accepted.

(23:24):
You're prickly, you push people away, you're intrusive. You know,
they say all these bad things, but that's what he quoted.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, but yes, what all of those things that he
said is why you're a gritty, mother fucking badass.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Oh, I know.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
It was just a strong human growing up into a
strong woman, that's right, And just you know, I had
to work through my stuff.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I identify with it. You know, I
absolutely understand rebellion. I absolutely understand abuse and drug abuse
and alcohol and all of the things I did all
that stuff, and I didn't until I actually really truly
started this show where I was having to if I'm

(24:04):
going to be if I'm asking my guests to be
open and honest on this show with me, then I
have to do the same, which is why I opened
the way that I did today. And that was a
hard thing for me to do, and it was something
that I had to decide that I was going to
do today for sure maybe my parents might listen, And
now I've.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Got a whole different fucking weekend ahead of me.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, well, I am proud of you because there's going
to be that part of you that just opened up,
that little box that's going to start to heal.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Now well that there's that, and that also might open
up within my parents, Like uh oh makes complaint.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Because you bring up, you bring up, You brought up
something that's really important, and that is you could have
been easily a tt I survivor, right, you know. And
the reason why is because if you look at the
behaviors that are sending these kids away, even like smoking pot, right,
something like that is oftentimes or you know, what's you know,

(25:02):
classified as a problem behavior or a troubled team behavior
are most commonly covering up prior trauma. And so that's
the issue, is that these kids that seem troubled are
actually really going through something that need to be addressed,
but we're not addressing the trauma. In fact, we are
sending them to places that are actually compounding the trauma.

(25:25):
And these kids that already have established adverse childhood experiences
and a high number of ACES are being sent to
facilities where they perceive more ACES, and so they can
go on to have a worse life because of dealing
with health issues and mental health issues that they do.
And so we really need to get to the root
of the actual I say this very loosely problem behaviors, right,

(25:49):
because usually they're not problem behaviors. They're just they're highlighting
the need for them to address some things.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
We're asking for help in our own way, right, Yeah,
knowing that we're doing that, And like my nephews have
been hanging out with us for the past couple of
months in our house, we've just kind of been their
guardians and their behavior is not like how I would
raise them, and I feel like there are so many
things that are going on with them that I know

(26:17):
need to be addressed. That I cannot address because I'm
just their anti and it's really tough because I know
that they're going to be dealing their boys, so it's
a little bit different than their girl's side, so I
can like kind of dabble in the boy world. I'm like,
boys are just sticky. You guys are just sticky. But
trying to help them be really, really wonderful men is

(26:41):
my goal whenever they're around me to treat women with
respect and also to treat theirselves with respect, because I
think that we end up getting into the whole me
too thing that it's all about women. Yes, of course
girls and women are definitely more affected by this, but
there are boys that are going through the same shit.
In fact, they're as There was a father and son

(27:02):
that were on my show episode. I think it was
like in the forties, like forty four or forty five,
Ryan and Rob Delana and his father and mother sent
him to a tti like you, and he talked about
his restraints and all the things that went on with him,
the shoulder, the knee, and the shoulder blade like you

(27:23):
mentioned in your book, like somebody leaning on you. Can
you talk just a little bit And I don't want
to trigger you at all, but I mean, unfortunately that's
why you're on the show. Yeah, so trigger you're away,
Welcome to the Paying Game Podcast.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
We will trigger you'll trigger. Yeah, we'll trigger the show
at you.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
But can you just briefly talk about, like if you've
got a moment or two that really stands out to
you about the abuse that you went through, because that
to me a stick and twists as we are. We
always look at the car accident, we look at the
train wreck, but I want to e eight the abuse

(28:05):
that goes on in these institutions today.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, I think that the one that comes to mind.
So Chrysalis is where I experienced like a very heavy
dose of psychological and emotional abuse, a very fair amount
of medical neglect in my opinion as well. But I
think the story that really highlights not the actual abuse happening,
but the effect of the abuse is in my mind,

(28:30):
going to be most powerful. And that's when my dad
came to visit me for Thanksgiving and he rented a
car and we were driving from Kallis Bell to Eureka, Montana,
which was I don't know, like sixty miles something like that.
And I have a permit, and so I couldn't drive
without him in the car, and he was letting me,
and so I was driving and we got into this

(28:51):
massive car wreck where the car literally flipped over I
don't know, like six times. We took out like small
trees and we landed upside down, and you know, my
hand actually broke the windshield and my head broke the
side window and we landed upside down and we had
to crawl out of the windows right. And it was

(29:12):
on Thanksgiving Day and we were on our way to
Thanksgiving dinner with Kenny and Mary and all the girls.
And my first thought was I'm going to get in trouble.
I am going to get in a lot of trouble.
And people stopped behind us and they were like, I'm
going to call you an ambulance. I blood all over
me and I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no ambulance because I had been labeled as dramatic by Chrysalis,

(29:33):
and I said, no ambulance. I had I have a
huge scar in my hand here and it had broken
the skin, there was glass in it and everything, and
he's like, you need to get seen, and I was like, no,
I don't want to and I convinced my dad to
take a taxi to Thanksgiving dinner to show up on
time instead of go to the hospital. And the reason

(29:54):
being is because and I remember being in the cab
on the way there, thinking, Kenny's gonn be so proud
of me, because to be so proud that I didn't
need a doctor. And then I'm not being dramatic and
I'm not talking about how it hurts and how I
want to cry, and I'm not crying. And it perfectly
highlighted the way that they wanted Chris Bliss girls to be.

(30:16):
They wanted us to fall in line. They wanted us
to not create extra work, which would be going to
the hospital or going to the doctor, and they wanted
us to not talk about the bad things or the
way that we feel if it's going to be negative,
you know what I mean. Like it was, it perfectly
highlights just how brainwashed I was into believing that I

(30:38):
didn't like. And I remember those circles I was talking
about that that attack therapy. I remember a couple months
later because I never went to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Attack therapy, attack therapy.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
I remember during these circles, I know, during these circles
I would, you know, when I wasn't being attacked, I
would look down at my hand and it started to hurt,
and so I started to massage it in these circles.
And three months after the accident, I started noticing glass
coming out, and I would pick glass out during circle.
And I remember it was the circle that that like
period of time was my favorite circles because I would

(31:10):
sit and do something during circle and I would pick
glass out of my cut that never got washed out,
And it was like my favorite circles because I just
sat there with something to do and it's it's so
fucked up that I'm like that. It made it fun
just because I didn't have to focus on all the
shit going on around me. And yeah, but the medical

(31:31):
neglect was bad. Anytime you were sick, you you just
don't talk about it. You don't ask to go to
the doctor. You don't because Kenny gets mad. He says,
you don't go to the doctor unless it's a broken bone.
Even when it's a broken bone, you barely get to
go with the doctor. So that was really just perfectly
highlighted it for me.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Okay, everybody just take a beat on that. Yeah, exactly,
Please pull over on the side of the road if
you haven't all read listening.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
To the Yeah, so it was all girls there.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, it was all girls.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Interesting m h, I'm curious about Okay, fuck Kenny, let's
just start there.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
So, what the hell was going on with Mary?

Speaker 1 (32:18):
So?

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Mary is an interesting character because she was my actual therapist,
like on paper, even though Kenny Kenny, they were married
and we all lived together in a log cabin in
the middle of the woods. And just put it into perspective,
just so people understand that A're listening, Like we lived
in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. I
shared a bathroom with my therapists for the first six

(32:41):
months I was there. My bedroom was right next door.
Like think about how on Like just so many no's, right,
oh my god, so many knows. And just to put
in perspective, like we are all this big family. Kenny
would wrestle us, like, which is so weird. You would
have wrestling matches, you know, just very inappropriate relational dynamics

(33:02):
between who we were supposed to look at as our
therapists and ourselfs. So but Mary kind of you know,
she had this soft side every now and then where
she would like when you had gotten to a certain point,
she'd like come up with a cute nickname for you,
and that meant that she liked you, and she had
that softer side. Kenny was a big presence, so like

(33:24):
you know, when you see them together, like Kenny almost
always took the seat, if that makes sense. But I
had like good experiences with Mary, and I also had
I didn't the bad experiences that I had. I don't
think I realized at the time were bad experiences. It
was so looking back, I'm like, man, why didn't you know?
The problem I have with her is that I have

(33:47):
like eight journals full of me complaining about the mistreatment
from Kenny, her husband, and it was never addressed like ever.
Like I remember writing in my journal saying, I'm really
sad and I feel bad about myself right now because
at breakfast I accidentally got syrup on the place Matt
and Kenny called me a pig, and never once was

(34:08):
it addressed like so. And I would say things like
I just want to be loved, And here my therapist
is reading this and she's in control of like that
relationship dynamic, and it should have been addressed. And it's
very sad. But Kenny he had favorites. He picked his favorites,
and if you weren't Kenny's favorite, you wanted to be

(34:30):
because you got the good Like you got the good
things in life, right, he'd be more likely to give
you the front seat instead of sitting in the back
of the van, like you would get good things. And
but he paired him being like you being in his
good graces for that moment with pain, so like you
would come up behind you and grab the back of
your neck and squeeze, and I remember that feeling of,

(34:53):
oh my god, this hurts, but I'm so happy because
it means I'm Kenny's I'm in like I'm Kenny's favorite
right now. And that piring of pain and love was
super damaging. In fact, I think it played like such
a huge part in me and entering like relationships that
ended up being very toxic and abusive. The whole thing

(35:14):
was just so sick in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
In your opinion, yeah, in every single person's opinion.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's listening right now, my love, Oh my god, when
what now?

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Now we're getting closer to like now you've got to
get the hell out of here, Like what happens now
now I've like, you've been in there for how long
until you decided I got to get the fuck out
of here?

Speaker 3 (35:39):
I didn't. I didn't. Unfortunately I was eighteen and a
half when I left, because I fifteen. I went in
at fifteen, and I had effectively became a people pleaser,
and my parents didn't think I should come home for
senior year, and so I just acquiesceed and finished off
my senior year there, graduateday teen and a half, and

(36:01):
believe it or not, looked at it as the best
thing that happened to me and saved my life until
I was like in my mid thirties, and it didn't
really start to hit me until then. And I also
didn't realize, you know, I was having so many issues.
I kept having organs removed because I.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Got all these organs being pulled out.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
I'm like, I know, like my dad jokes like I'm
bionic at this point, and it's.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Just like, you know, called the bionic women in my family.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Oh really, yeah, that's what they say about me. And
it's just like and they also say that I'm the
doctor of the family because I've had so many medical
issues my entire life that I like every doctor I
walk into, they're like, are you Are you a doctor?
I'm like no, I've just had to advocate for myself
for wait time. That's why, you know, honorary doctor right here. Yeah,
we all have them by exactly in our position.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
I've got so many honorary deed exactly nuts.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Otherwise how are we gonna get help? No one listens
to us, So it's yeah, we're the zebras, you know, like, yeah,
we're not horses or zebras. So I think that I
think that, you know, it took a really long time
for me to realize that. You know, the reason why
I developed agoraphobia was potentially because of the shit that
I had going.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
On on my joby maybe I don't want to be around
a group of yees.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, And to be honest, you know, I think a
big part of it also, like another waking up period,
even after I realized it was it was abuse that
I went through, was when I got diagnosed with autisms.
I went through a whole new wake up period of
holy shit, I was abused because I'm autistic all of
the things. Thinking back to the circles, everything they wanted

(37:40):
to change about me, They were my autistic traits. They
were just a part of who I was. And what
it taught me to do was always mask. Never trust
people are going to like who you are. You're not
good enough the way that you are. And I got
really good at pretending I am not neurodivergent and I'm neurotypical,
and so I I The reason why my body started failing,

(38:02):
in my opinion, is I was spending so much in
my career going to board meetings and like doing all
these things appearing as a neurotypical, and it was it
was killing myself. I was completely ignoring who I was,
and you know, the body keeps the score, as you're saying,
and it took I call it the Trauma s Viral
of twenty eighteen, when I hit a point that is

(38:25):
probably you know, I talk about it as being even
scarier than the TTI. Those two weeks of constant panic
attacks from the CPTSD being triggered and realizing, oh my god,
something's going on, and that was really the bottom for me.
And then the next bottom happened when I watched Paris
Hilton's documentary and realized, oh shit, the goons that took

(38:49):
her said the exact same thing when they kidnapped me, Like,
how is that possible they were different people. Well, it's
an industry and there's like a whole community of survivors
that have been through this. So these different waking up
periods is really what led me to where I am now.
And it's funny as soon as you get it's not funny,
but you know, trauma, right when you get to the

(39:12):
point of like realizing, oh my god, my body is fine. Now,
I'm stopping having so many issues. I'm not continuously getting
diagnosed with things. The things I'm diagnosed with hurt less.
When I start working on the mental pain, and it's
so wild when you realize, oh my god, it's all connected,

(39:33):
Like you have to treat the mental pain, you have
to treat the trauma before the gut problems get better,
you know what I mean. It's all intertwined. And I'm
finally just healthier all around because I've been awakened to
what I really went through when I was fifteen.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Well that and also you've given your you've become on
silence right exactly, And when you start to open your
mouth and you start to address the stuff that happened
to you. Whatever you experience, the way you experience something
is for is your truth. And I know that a
lot of women, especially well, I'm just gonna speak for myself.

(40:14):
I know that if when we talk about rape, for example,
and sexual abuse, women are always looked at and young
girls are always looked at like we brought it on ourselves.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Oh for sure, I experienced that when I was fifteen
as well in me too.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah yeah, and that's well, you were dressing provocatively or
whatever the exactly it is. I'm like, I went to
Contempo casuals. That was what I was wearing at the time. Okay,
don't blame me for fashion like trends.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
I got it from what Seal.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Okay, yeah, exactly, I got two thousand scrunchies that match
my socks. I legitimately worked at Contempo casual and what Seal,
I'm not even kidding. Would you like a scrunchheet to
match yourself? That was literally the line when people walked.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Into wet Seal.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Oh my god, Maybe that's my trauma.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Maybe maybe has nothing to do with.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
What's really what we need to do?

Speaker 2 (41:14):
What Seal, I've got some news for you.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Anyways, I just find that, you know, we we we're
faced with so many things in our lives and so
many challenges, and we can approach them in different ways.
But when you're young, young young ladies or young men,
we do not know what we're being faced with. We
have no idea how that is going to affect us
later in our lives. But now that we're here later

(41:42):
in our lives, we can take our control back, right.
And that's something that I've had to learn because I
let go. Even though I'm a control freak, I control
things that I know I can control because all of
the other crazy shit that's happened to me in my
life and my brain and my noodle and my emotions
and my sadness and depression and anxiety and panic and

(42:05):
eating disorders and alcohol and drugs and all those things,
those are hard.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
To deal with.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
But man, oh man, I have confronted them all now
without restraint, right, And that is something that I'm very,
very proud of. And I know for you, you have
a family of four children. Yeah, you got two balls
and two girls, baby, and so can we jump into
that really quick about how motherhood is for you within

(42:36):
this well, actually just you and your husband like how
you guys have raised kids together under this, because I
know that you talked about you know, it's difficult for
you with kids, like they act in a certain way
and you're like, WHOA, I don't want to do that,
but I need to do that. Can you talk a
little bit about how, yeah, how hard that's been for you,
because you've been very successful at it.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Oh, well, thank you. I think it's it's really it's twofold, right.
We have inborn in us the way that we were parented,
so we're battling that. And then for myself, I have
the way that I was treated right in my programs,
and so I'm battling that. So whenever there's something that
happens that triggers something that oh I need to parent

(43:16):
this right, I need to address this, I have to
go through those two filters of you know, there are
things that my mom and dad did absolutely correctly, and
then there's things that I just choose to do differently,
not based on it being wrong or bad, but really
just it works for me and maybe research supports it now,
you know, And I think that it's hard to choose

(43:39):
to behave differently than your instincts. And I think that
the best thing I ever did was just go out
and learn and have someone teach you. The best thing
I ever did was hiring a parent coach and having
them coach me through some really difficult parts of parenting.
And it's all behind the kids back right. They're not labeled,
they're not stigmatized, they have no idea that we a

(44:00):
parent coach, and they're teaching us how to be better
parents to each individual kid, which I think is really powerful.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, you talk about that in your book. It is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
So with everything that you've gone through, you've worked in
the nonprofit sector for many, many, many many years, and
within that.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
You started you know, Unsilenced.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Can you speak a little bit about what you're doing
in regards to your organization and justice and justice for
the troubled team industry.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah. I mean Unsilenced is you know, a
nonprofit that really focuses on empowering self advocates to promote
lasting social change. So we really focus on not only
creating awareness and transparency into an industry that, let's let's
face it doesn't exist, but in trying to like stop

(44:51):
the kids, interrupt that pipeline of kids from communities to
these programs through awareness and education, but also serving like
I said, this survivors that are already there and some
of the ways that we serve them and empower them
as you know, creating resources for them. We send out
independence packs, which are backpacks that have a laptop, a

(45:13):
chock full of resources. It's got you know, gift cards
and essential tools and items for survivors who are aging
out of programs and battling homelessness. So you know, we
ship those all over the country. We also offer free
support groups to survivors, and we also are trying to

(45:35):
connect survivors to be able to have access to justice,
and that is one of the biggest initiatives that we
have right now. And we've developed relationships with attorneys and
law firms throughout the entire country and we are actually
launching very soon in the next couple of days, our
Attorney Directory, which is going to help connect survivors to
law firms all over the country. And these are law

(45:57):
firms that you know, at least you know in the beginning,
we're going to be sure that we have relationships with
We know that they understand the TTI, which is really
important and you know, being able to make sure that
you know this isn't just standard personal injury, right, It's
really about understanding how these how these facilities function, but

(46:17):
really how they hide abuse. Because unless you know behind
the scenes how these programs work, it's really hard to
litigate against them.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Right.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
So it's really important that we continue to educate and
work with the legal community, and also, like you said,
with all the other systems that are leading into this industry,
foster care, juvenile justice, the amount of awareness and the
amount of education that needs to be done is so big,
which is why it's so important that everyone listening takes

(46:47):
it as something that they need to do is just
talk about it, right, talk to people about it, because
chances are there's someone you know who has been to
a program and you know, if you bring it up,
maybe they needed to talk about it and they didn't
think they could. And it's really important that we look
at this as just a health crisis. It really is.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
This whole thing is insane.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
And you know, I as a trump quote unquote troubled team,
which I one hundred percent know that I was, and
that to a certain extent, I still kind of am
starting to advocate for myself and starting to use my
own voice for the things that have happened to me,
some of them.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
I know that I've.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Gotten myself into icky situations, but nonetheless it doesn't mean
that I should have gone through the things that had
happened to me right, and so on and so forth.
But we all suffer in our own ways. We have
all been through a lot of stuff in our lives. Guys,
you know some worse than others. So don't compare yourself
to Meg today. Don't compare yourself to me today. Only

(47:46):
compare yourself to yourself and do what you feel is
right for you, and advocate for yourself, no matter how
scary that might be. I mean, this has just been
incredibly educating and I opening and your book is incredible,
and I would like to read something that's at the

(48:07):
end of your book really quick before you hit the
dusty trail.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
So this is from her book.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
I am now daily living a life that I had
accepted I would probably never have. There was such a
long period of my life when if I had died
at that point, people would have said things about me
like she had a really sad life, she was in
a lot of pain, she suffered a lot. I think
That was my worst fear back then, but that's no

(48:32):
longer going to be the way people talk about me now.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
I know that if I died.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
It would be doing something that I love, having an
impact on people, and being part of a movement that
has helped hundreds of kids and families. Now, whenever that
time comes, I will die being proud of who I am.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
I am unsilenced.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Wow, I haven't heard that, like read aloud when I
wasn't writing it, and it even affected me.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
The one that doesn't cry, yeah, exactly, the one that
doesn't cry just got to cry. Yes, I did it.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
You broke the seal.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well, you're welcome. It's your words, honey. So is there
anything you'd like to leave us before we go here?

Speaker 3 (49:17):
I don't think so. Just thank you for having me,
and I am so glad you enjoyed the book. Honestly,
I love hearing what people think. So means a lot.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. This
has been incredible.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
And we are behind you on advocacy. I will put
everything up in show notes. You can find her everywhere
at Megapplegate dot com and also Unsilenced dot org. She
is on Facebook and Twitter and all the things, all
the places will put there out there, but this book
becoming Unsilenced, surviving and fighting the troubled teen industry. And

(49:57):
that is what we have been talking about today and
we will can continue to do so to support her
and others that have been through it. So thank you
so much for your time with us today. This has
been Thank you for having me, absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
It has been.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Thank you so much. You are exclusively invited.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
To share this on Silenced Vip Pain Journey Together. Let's
get to the heart of how to heal with you
by my side. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever
you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit
us at the paygamepodcast dot com and follow us on
all the socials. Thanks for listening, my little VIPs. Catch

(50:34):
you on the other side.