i didn't know it was possible to have so much ptsd from one place until it happened...

my name is kennedy peil.

my first mental hospital admission was two years ago.

since then i’ve been admitted into around 7 or 8 psych wards.

i was sent to a mental health rehab facility and boarding school at 15 yrs old.

the entire process was around 9+ months including the first few hospital visits leading up to the treatment center as well.

after 3 months in the hospital and 6 months at rtc, my family decided to pull me from rtc because of all the traumatizing things going on at the facility.

i spent my 16th birthday there.

i missed all of my family’s birthdays.

i missed summer of my sophomore year.

i missed my junior year of high school.

i missed christmas, halloween, thanksgiving, and new year’s.

i missed my brothers high school graduation.

i was traumatized and suffered through so so so many terrible physical interactions there that have caused me a lot of ptsd. i saw things no person should ever have to see.

i was harrassed mentally by my therapist who told me she gave up on me and said that i have no hope. i have never experinced anything worse than those moments in my life.

i have nightmares almost every night about going back there. the head of the school department was eventually fired because of homophobic, racist, sexist, and transphobic facebook posts on her page. eventually most of the staff quit because of how terrible their system was.

there were sexual encounters between the staff and the clients. there were physical restraints to the point where i would have bruises and cuts on my body and i even had a few concussions.

i would get tackled to the floor, sat on, pinned down so hard my hands and feet would start to numb. they would call the bruises i got from the restraints as self harm.

i would be punished by having to deep clean the entire huge maybe 10 to 15 room house.

i would be punished by not being able to have a therapy session, which was only once a week.

i would be punished for telling my parents the truth about the horrible things going on.

i would be punished for taking even a second over 15 minutes when showering and getting ready in the mornings or evening.

i would be punished by having a staff stand an arm’s length away from me through out every second of the day, for days to weeks to months on end.

i would be punished by having to sleep in the hallway on the hard floor with all of the lights on with all of the night staff watching me.

i would be punished by having a staff be required to watch me use the restroom, shower, and change.

i would be punished by not being able to talk to anyone for days, weeks, or months on end.

i would be punished by getting my phones call to my parents or even visits with my parents taken away. we were only allowed to talk to our parents for 15 minutes twice a week plus around 30 minutes in therapy in which i was only allowed to speak on the subject when i was told to talk.

i was punished for crying.

i was punished by having to write pages upon pages of essays about basically how much of a terrible person i am.

we had a paper we had to carry around every single day anywhere we went in which we were given positive points and negative points for our behaviors.

the negative points we always much larger that the positives no matter how small or big.

at the end of the night, if we did not receive the amount of points required for the level we were on, we would have all of our privileges taken away for the following day and would have to do all of the shit work that was not done throughout the day while others lay on the couch and watch tv.

when they declared that me and the only 5 friends i had made, out of the 16 girls i lived with, were not holding appropriate boundaries, we had all connection cut off from each other and would be punished for talking or acknowledging them at all.

a friend of mine was not able to talk to her parents what so ever for a month because she was not having perfect interactions with staff.

some punishments included having to deep clean every single room of the house which was a large mansion.

we had to get up at 6:30am to go out in the freezing cold even when snowing and hailing to trudge through the mud and horse poop to feed the horses.

when i had broken my ankle, they still made me go out there in the ice and snow and mud to feed in a cast which got completely ruined and i also slipped and fell.

when i refused to go the next morning because of what had happened with my ankle in the mud and poop the day before, i got my privileges revoked for 2 days.

while in there, i had many suicide attempts in which i would be terribly punished for instead of getting the help and attention i really needed. after getting out, i continued to have multiple suicide attempts.

the rtc i went to did not help and i wasted half a year of my life there.

nothing came out of it and that hurts me so much.

i have a very high amount of anxiety and i am very sensitive and cautious and have ptsd because of the trauma this place caused me.

i overthink everything and push people away.

i believe i will never get better because that’s what i was told by the staff and therapists.

~kennedy