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July 22, 2025 51 mins
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of institutional abuse, medical neglect, and trauma experienced by survivors of the troubled teen industry. Please listen with care.

This one’s heavy—but necessary. In this gripping episode, Lyndsay Soprano sits down with Meg Appelgate to expose the disturbing realities of the troubled teen industry—a multi-billion-dollar machine built on silence, shame, and survival.

Meg shares her personal story of being institutionalized as a teenager, detailing the abuse, medical neglect, and psychological control she endured under the guise of “treatment.” From attack therapy to forced circle sessions, this conversation pulls back the curtain on an industry that claims to help struggling youth but often leaves them with deeper wounds.

Lyndsay and Meg dig into the lack of evidence-based practices, the systemic failures that keep these places running, and the long-term physical and emotional toll they take on survivors. They talk about how trauma isn’t just something you move past—it lives in the body, demands attention, and deserves to be addressed with care, not cruelty.

But this isn’t just about exposing what’s broken. It’s about amplifying the voices of survivors and advocating for real change. Meg shares how her organization, Unsilenced, is helping others reclaim their stories, seek justice, and hold the industry accountable.

Tune in if you’re ready to hear the truth behind the troubled teen industry—and why it’s time to stop sending pain away to be fixed behind closed doors.

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

Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:

Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast

Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(01:04) Personal Trauma and Its Impact
(03:45) The Troubled Teen Industry: An Overview
(05:34) Meg's Abduction and Institutionalization
(09:12) The Dark Side of the Troubled Teen Industry
(11:33) The Long-Term Effects of Institutional Abuse
(13:46) Experiences Within the Institutions
(18:44) The Cult-like Environment of Chrysalis
(23:09) The Psychological Manipulation and Control
(28:32) Medical Neglect and Its Consequences
(34:15) Life After Institutionalization
(37:47) Healing and Advocacy
(45:46) Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys and dolls.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we jump into this episode, a note about our
content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We
advise listener discretion, so if you need a breather, take
a break and come back later. This is Your Pain
Game podcast where we talk about the game of living
in and with chronic pain and trauma, getting to the

(00:24):
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 in the chronic pain
and trauma world that we live in. There are times

(00:52):
on this body of mine, this body that lives in
and with chronic pain as we know, just can't make
it to the mic into the studio. When that happens,
I need a sometimes forced rest. So we're going back
to the episodes that matter the most. This isn't a
new drop, It's a replay, but not just any replay.
These are the conversations that hit hardest, healed deepest, and

(01:13):
stayed with you long after the credits rolled. So whether
you're hearing it for the first time or all over again,
this one's worth a listen. Let's kick it back old
school with this episode from season two. When I was
fifteen years old, I had already been sexually assaulted twice.

(01:35):
When I was nineteen, I was gang raked 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,
all of which my parents do not know about.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
To this day.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
They don't listen to this show of mine any reasons
unless I say, hey, listen to this episode. 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

(02:17):
truth of why some of my rebellions started and as
a teenager, and up to this day, I continue to
protect them.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
From what happened to me.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
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. We talk about how these traumas
exercise our demons into chronic illness, chronic pain, syndrome after syndrome.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
After whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
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 those traumas turn into health issues with us. Go forward,
and here I am the forty six years old, closer
to the fifty than I would like to admit, and

(03:20):
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 n
covered 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,

(03:42):
the people we divorce. And you know, I was as
a teenager, I would absolutely compartmentalize myself into being a
troubled teen I was. I was rebellious, Still AM was curious,
Still am I am sad, Still AM depressed, Still AM anxious,

(04:03):
still AM scared working on it, all of those things
I'm working on but today I am hopeful. Now, as
you guys know, this show is about hope, Hopeful that
we that we can help change what happens to us
when we are young and have no control over that,
because now we are in charge, not them.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
So today I would like to talk about the troubled.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Teen industry TTI, because we might say TTI throughout the episode,
just so you know. I'm becoming Unsilenced once and for all.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And I have the most amazing guests today. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Without further ado, I would like to introduce to you
today my guest, Meg Applegate.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Hello, Hello, Hello, thank you for having me. I'm super
excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Oh my goodness, Chrit, superg excited. I mean, we've got
to be excited to talk about trauma, don't we?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Always?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Always yes, never a downer.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
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 (05:31):
Right yep.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
She ended up getting a degree in psychology.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
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, and she has now dedicated herself to empowering

(05:56):
other survivors of institutional abuse amongst men any other things.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
And so here we are today.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Here 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 4 (06:22):
And then let's take it from there, right. We got
to start off with the kidnapping. It's always it's always
the part that everyone knows.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
It's always a little quick beauty folk.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
It's a good hook, isn't it. It's a good hook.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
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 that was my first thought

(06:55):
is I'm going to jail because I had smoked pop
the night before, and I thought, oh god, I'm gonna,
you know, end.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Up in helping exactly.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
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

(07:27):
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

(07:49):
you ever again, 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

(08:09):
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?

Speaker 3 (08:15):
I have no idea, But.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
That was one hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Sorry here, it's like the paper tickets that you had
to get mailed to you. You know, there's no eickets
back then. I couldn't look at it right right, I know.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
And 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 truly
just disassociated and I don't remember anything until I walked
the doors of my first program.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
That is insane.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
And in reading your book, which we'll get into, I
was such a rebellious teenager.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I mean I did all means all. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
we all are.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
But when you talk 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.

Speaker 5 (09:08):
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 going to be
hard for both of us.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
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.

(09:40):
But in your situation, you've got parents that think I've
got this troubled team. 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,

(10:03):
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 (10:11):
Yeah, it's very important.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
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 4 (10:26):
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

(10:47):
a month. So there's no telling really how much has
really gone into this industry.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
We know that we know that they're they're willing to
put money into like buy their kids into USC and yeah, yeah,
that's just get them into a college.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Much less this stuff dearing Lord.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
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.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
We're talking about programs that are nonprofits.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
They're all over the board, but one thing stays the
same and regardless of where the money's coming from, and
that it's not evidence based, and kids are leaving calling
themselves survivors, which should never happen within any healthcare industry.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
It's absurd.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, And in your book you talked about that, about
how people left and they felt like even you to
a certain extent, were like, I made it through.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
I made it.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Through the wilderness us everybody in case you didn't know.
But yeah, like these stories of these people are like
I made it through. I made it through. I made
it through. 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 4 (12:09):
Yeah, And I think that 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

(12:30):
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

(12:51):
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

(13:11):
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

(13:33):
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.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
So it's like it's really.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
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 support them because they've been
really just all left.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, and there's like what like one hundred and like
one hundred and twenty two.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Hundred twenty thousand to two hundred thousand a year, like conservatively.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, that is insane. And that's is that in the
United States or is that globally?

Speaker 4 (14:14):
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 3 (14:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
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
dum up a couple of things, and it will jum
up stuff with me even though it wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
So I'm an EmPATH like nobody's business.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
But I'd like to talk to you a little bit
about a day 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 and the things that you were all kind of
trying to protect each other to a certain extent, but
also fear to try to protect yourself and others as well.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
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

(15:26):
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,

(15:47):
you'll just continue to have that happen week after week
and lose privileges and gain privileges, lose them, really easily
gain them. It's 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,

(16:09):
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

(16:30):
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 yadda,
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

(16:50):
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
in me.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
For once in my life. I'm speechless, So was I like,
she's never speechless.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
That it taught me is to never to just not
speak up is enough.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
To not use your voice.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Don't use your voice too, because you just get in trouble.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
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, it was.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
A fucking prison.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
It was, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
And it made it worse too because we were super medicated.
So they diagnosed me within the first week with bi
polar and I was heavily medicated for that. I don't
have bipolar, so it wreaked havoc on my body. I
ended up gaining sixty pounds in that six months, and
they'd give me copious amounts of antipsychotics and I would

(18:09):
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, when the real coercion

(18:31):
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 (18:49):
Yeah, I don't know how you couldn't have it reminds me.
When I was reading your book, it reminded me of
the movie A Girl Interrupted.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, for sure. Many survivors say.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
That, Yeah, and I have gone through.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
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 in your book and you give
them all kinds of accolades and love and all of that,

(19:25):
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. Yeah, you know, yeah, right,
So you ended up you went to the first one

(19:46):
that was for what was that six That was for
six months, right, the first time for six months, and
then you went for three fucking years.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, chriss, Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
So let's talk about what happened there and the adoption
of what started to happen there, which is a little
bit into the cult and corrosion that night of it.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
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

(20:26):
illusion of like we're a big family. In fact, we
called each other family with all girls. These are our
Chrysalist sisters, and this is our Chrysalis family. It had
very crazy I mean, looking back, it's like, why did
I not see that?

Speaker 3 (20:41):
That's cold? The I have no idea, but I was.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Fifteen, right, so you're fifteen what this is? Yeah? Right?

Speaker 4 (20:47):
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

(21:08):
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,

(21:28):
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

(21:50):
things like attack therapy and which they called circle, which
was their form of group therapy. But it's 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 to the program,

(22:13):
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.

(22:36):
And once you were torn down, that's when they'd swoop
in and help you rebuild, right, like, Okay, now now
we're gonna 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 in
the way that they think you are, and enough of
you know, when you're that young, hearing so many things

(22:58):
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 I'm

(23:19):
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 that

(23:39):
I thought about myself, it was definitely deeply rooted, and
I didn't even know it.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
How could you?

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Right? I mean, so we're babies, right, I mean.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
And we don't even form our brains right until we're
like what twenty four, twenty five years old, where our
brains actually are starting to Actually.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
It's actually what he said to me in the circle
that is actually what he said, he said, Liz, because
that's what I went by in the pogram. Lizzy, 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.

(24:16):
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 2 (24:22):
Yeah, but yess what all of those things that he
said is why you're a gritty, mother fucking baddast Oh.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
I know.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
It was just a strong human growing up into a
strong woman, that's right.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Just you know, I had to work through my stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
I did all that stuff, and I didn't.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Until I actually really truly started this show where I
was having to if I'm going to be if I'm
asking my guests to be open and honest on this
show with me, than 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

(25:10):
parents might listen, And now I've got a whole different
fucking weekend ahead of me.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
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 2 (25:21):
Now well that there's that, and that also might open
up within my parents, Like uh oh okay, all that
makes complaints.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Because 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 uh

(25:52):
you know, classified as a problem behavior or a troubled
team behavior are most commonly covering up prior to 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

(26:15):
the trauma, and these kids that already have established adverse
childhood experiences and a high number of ACES are being
sent to facilities where they receive more ACES, and so
they can go on to have a worse life because
of dealing with health issues and mental health issues.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
That they do.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
And so we really need to get to the root
of the actual I say this very loosely problem behaviors, right,
because usually they're not problem behaviors. They're just they're highlighting
the need for them to address some things.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
So we're asking for help in our own way, right, Yeah,
without us 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.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
We've just kind of.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Been their guardians in 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 need to be addressed that I cannot address
because I'm just they're anti and it's really tough because
I know that they're going to be dealing they're boys,
so it's a little bit different than the girl's side.

(27:19):
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 my goal whenever they're around me to treat women
with respect and also to treat theirselves with respect, because

(27:40):
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, there was there was a father and son
that were on my show episode. I think it was
like in the forties, like forty four or forty five,
Ryan and Delana and his father and mother sent him

(28:03):
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
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, I mean, unfortunately that's why
you're on the show.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, so trigger your away. Welcome to the Paying Game Podcast.
We will trigger you. Yeah, we'll trigger the show at you.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
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, as stick and twists as we are, we
always look at the car accident, we look at the
train wreck, But I want to elevate the abuse that

(28:56):
goes on in these institutions today.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
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,

(29:21):
going to be the 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 had 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

(29:43):
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

(30:03):
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 at Chrysalis,

(30:24):
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 going to the hospital. And the reason

(30:45):
being is because and I remember being in the cab
on the way there, thinking Kenny's going to be so
proud of me. He's going 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

(31:06):
girls to be. 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

(31:28):
that I 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
attack therapy, attack therapy. 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

(31:49):
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, like period of time was my favorite circles
because I would sit and do something during circle and
I'd 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

(32:12):
so 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 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

(32:33):
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 (32:42):
Okay, everybody just take a beat on that.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Please pull over on the side of the road if
you haven't already. What was Yeah, so it was all
girls there.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, it was all girls.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Interesting I'm curious about Okay, fuck Kenny, let's just start there.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
So what the hell was going on with Mary?

Speaker 5 (33:07):
So?

Speaker 4 (33:08):
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 to put it into perspective,
just so people understand that are listening, Like we lived
in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. I
shared a bathroom with my therapists for the first six

(33:30):
months I was there. My bedroom was right next door.
Like think about how un like just so many no's right,
oh my god, so man 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

(33:52):
between who we were supposed to look at as our
therapists and ourselves. 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

(34:14):
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

(34:36):
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

(34:58):
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

(35:19):
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, 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, oh

(35:42):
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 pairing of pain and love was super damaging.
In fact, I think it played like such a huge
part in me and entering like relationship said ended up
being very toxic and abusive. The whole thing was just

(36:04):
so sick in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
In your opinion, yeah, in every single person's opinion.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
That's listening right now, my love, Oh my god, when
what now?

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Now we're getting closer to like now you've got to
get the hell out of here, Like what happens now?

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Now?

Speaker 2 (36:21):
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 (36:28):
I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
Unfortunately I was eighteen and a half when I left,
because I went 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 acquested and finished off my senior year there,
graduated eighteen and a half, and believe it or not,

(36:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
I got all these organs being pulled out.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
I'm like, no, Like my dad jokes like, I'm bionic
at this point, and it's.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Just like funny, you know, called the bionic women in
my family.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Oh really, yeah, that's what they say about me.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
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.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
They're like, are you are you a doctor?

Speaker 4 (37:33):
I'm like, no, I've just had to advocate for myself
for wait till that's you know, honorary doctor right here.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
We all have them by the exactly in our in
our position, I've got so many honorary honorary deed exactly nuts.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Otherwise, how are we going to get help? No one
listens to us.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
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 1 (38:06):
On on my Joby, maybe I don't want to be around.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
A group of 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

(38:29):
they wanted 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 the reason why my body

(38:51):
started failing, 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 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 traumas Viral of
twenty eighteen when I hit a point that is probably

(39:15):
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

(39:38):
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's right when you get to the

(40:01):
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,

(40:22):
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 2 (40:41):
Well that and also you've given your you've become unsilenced,
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.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
And I know that a lot of women, especially well
I'm just gonna speak for myself.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
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 4 (41:13):
Oh for sure. I experienced that when I was fifteen
as well.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Me too.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah yeah, and that's well, you were dressing provocatively or
whatever the exact fuck 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 (41:34):
I got it from whatt Seal.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Okay, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
I got two thousand scrunchies that match my socks. I
legitimately worked at Contempo Casual and wet Seal. I'm not
even kidding. Would you like a scrunchy to match yourself?
That was literally the line when people walked.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Into wet Seal.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Oh my god, maybe that's my trauma.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Maybe maybe that's not thing to do. What is really
what we need to do, is what seal. I've got
some news for you anyways.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
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 in our lives,

(42:32):
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 eating disorders and

(42:56):
alcohol and drugs and all those things.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Those are hard to deal with.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
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.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, we got two boys and two girls.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Baby, and so can we jump into that really quick
about how motherhood is for you within 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

(43:38):
do that. Can you talk a little bit about how
da how hard that's been for you, because you've been
very successful at it.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Oh, well, thank you. I think it's it's really it's twofold, right.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
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
this right, I need to address this, I have to

(44:07):
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

(44:28):
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 have

(44:49):
a parent coach and they're teaching us how to be
better parents to each individual kid, which I think is
really powerful.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, you talk about that in your book. It is. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
So with everything that you've gone through, you've worked in
the nonprofit sector for many, many, many many years, and
within that you.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Started, you know, Unsilenced.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
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 (45:19):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
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 face it doesn't exist,
but in trying to like stop the kids interrupt that

(45:41):
pipeline of kids from communities to these programs through awareness
and education, but also serving, like I said, the 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 pacts, which are
backs that have a laptop, a chock full of resources.

(46:04):
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 connect survivors to be

(46:25):
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 firms that you know,

(46:47):
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 in right, it's really about understanding how
these how these facilities function, but really how they hide

(47:07):
abuse because unless you know behind the scenes how these
programs work, it's really hard to litigate against them, right
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

(47:28):
amount of education that needs to be done is so big,
which is why it's so important that everyone listening takes
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

(47:51):
at this as just a health crisis.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
It really is.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
This whole thing is insane, and you know, I as
a truck quote unquote, 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. I know that
I've gotten myself into icky situations, but nonetheless it doesn't

(48:17):
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
compare yourself to yourself and do what you feel is

(48:38):
right for you, and advocate for yourself, no matter how
scary that might be. I mean, this has just been
incredibly educating and eye opening, and your book is incredible,
and I would like to read something that's at the
end of your book really quick before you hit the
dusty trail.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
So this is from your book.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
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

(49:21):
longer going to be the way people talk about me now.
I know that if I died, it would be doing
something that I love, having.

Speaker 5 (49:28):
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 1 (49:40):
I am unsilenced.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Wow, I haven't heard that, like read aloud when I
wasn't writing it, and it even affected me.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
The one that doesn't cry, yeah, exactly, the one that
doesn't cry just got to cry. Yes, I did it.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
You broke the seal.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well, you're welcome. It's your words, honey. Is there anything
you'd like to leave us before we go here?

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Just thank you for having me, and I am so
glad you enjoyed the book.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Honestly, I love hearing what people think. So means a lot.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, well, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
This has been as incredible 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.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
They're out there.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
But this book becoming Unsilenced, surviving and fighting the troubled
teen industry, and that is what we have been talking
about today and we will 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.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
This has been thank you for having me absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
It has been.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Thank you so much. You are exclusively invited.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
To share this on Silenced Vip Pain Journey Together.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Let's get to the heart of how to heal with
you by my side.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Please follow the Paying 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.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Thanks for listening to my little VIPs.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Catch you on the other side.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.

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24/7 News: The Latest

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