In 2017 I met a charming man on Tinder. We connected easily and deeply right away. He promised me he'd take care of me. He told me he loved me on the second date. He was spicy and handsome and took 10 years off his age on his profile. Why? I asked him when I found out. Well, you wouldn't have gone out with me if I had told the truth, he said. Well, yes and there's a reason for that, I thought, but at that point I was too far in, and reason flew out the window. I'm a successful executive coach. I am well-known in my field as a neuroscience expert. I have been exploring and working on my own spiritual development since I was 18 years old. I am well-informed, very smart, and nobody's fool.

Or so I thought.

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About a month after my 13th birthday, I was sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Oregon.

I was in the midst of depression when I arrived there; several life-altering experiences happened to me in 1989 that would send any prepubescent girl into depression, including being molested by a family member for 10 years and not being believed, moving several times, usually in the middle of a school year, before I was 12, feelings of having no roots because of my adoption, having to quit competitive figure skating due to a move, finding out that my birth mother died 3 years prior and realizing that I would never be able to meet her.

I was also having a very hard time going through puberty, including having severe, hemorrhaging menstrual periods. It became too much for me. I was full of rage. Finally, in 7th grade, I refused to go to school.

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Every minute of my days was spent waiting on him to tell me I had value. As if, without him I was nothing. As if, he held the key to my happiness. As if, I had never known happiness before and as if I would never know it again.

Seeing that I was the one that had much to offer took time. It didn’t happen overnight. I had to work as hard as I did to love him to understand and acknowledge my own value.

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I got out of an online-based Taoist cult.

In roughly 3 months, I became acquainted with the Taoist master's teachings by watching his videos on YouTube, got initiated, then ordained and ready to dedicate the rest of my life to burning from 6 to 30 incense sticks every single day… And I HATE incense!

I was also dedicating an increasing amount of time to many different rites - always growing in number, frequency, length and complexity; in front of an altar that was supposed to keep growing in size, and amount of statues and other holy instruments.

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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.

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The Troubled Teen Industry: My story

Before I start, I really want to say I don’t blame the 80% of direct care staff. They were told to do things by people with a higher degree and the ability to fire them if they didn’t comply. They were overworked, underpaid, and undertrained. A handful of them follow me on Instagram, and I consider them people who helped me along the way. My problem is with the industry as a whole.

The troubled teen industry (TTI) refers to a network of private youth programs, therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, religious academies, wilderness programs, and drug rehabilitation centers and it dates back at least 50 years.

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I got out of a lifetime of HEAVY mask wearing, and shape shifting to survive and conform to the numerous systems of control & abuse. Systems whose main goal was to BREAK ME, and make me lose, ME. Systematically. Tragically, I let them have me. And use me. And confuse me.

I’ll never forget the day when all of the dots started to connect. I was standing in a room, filled with empty boxes. I was getting ready to embark on helping my brother pack up his partners things. She had been murdered (*allegedly*) by her narcissist ex-husband, in broad daylight. Execution style. As she went to pick up her two young children from summer visitation. She did everything right and was still a statistic. Another victim to another system.

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In April 2003 after living in Colorado for almost 8 years, I ended up moving back east to live with my parents after a tough break up with my boyfriend. I ended up getting a job there and working for a few months while trying to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I then decided that I wasn’t happy living on the east coast and that I missed Colorado, the mountains, and the sun. I also wanted to find a job that was more fulfilling to me, something where I could make an impact by helping others.

I had always been into nature and the outdoors (although being allergic to everything made it a bit harder for me to enjoy sometimes) and had heard about programs like “Outward Bound” and “NOLS” where kids were taken into nature to build confidence and learn survival skills as a way to break the unhealthy habits that they may have been getting into as teens due to more rebellious behaviors and actions.

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In the spring of 1998, at age 12, I was sent to be evaluated by a therapist with supposed expertise in substance use problems after my mom found something written in my diary about drug use and was understandably concerned. I was never told the reason for the evaluation or asked about what I wrote, but rather was interrogated with questions about my drug use and, when I answered honestly, she continued to interrogate me like she thought I was lying.

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Between the years 2011 – 2019, I worked for various children/teenage treatment centers in three different states in various capacities – as a behavioral health associate, a mental health technician, and most frequently as a case manager.

One of the organizations for which I worked was an agency that served as an umbrella for several different services, all of which I dipped my hand in – including school-based services, ECS, emergency shelter, therapeutic foster care, and behavioral health/drug rehabilitation centers; it was in this facility in which I was a case manager. I worked as a mental health technician in another facility for teenagers with mental health issues.

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I got out of a high control, pagan-druidic group after 21 years involvement.

The group, at times called ‘Circle’ or ‘The Sisterhood’, focused on the eight festivals of the Celtic year. from Samhain to Beltaine, Equinox and Solstices and the cross quarter festivals of Lammas and Imbolc. We met every Monday evening to light our altars and honour the goddess, celebrated every full and dark moon by fasting and holding ceremonies late into the night in fields, woodland or back yards.

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I got out of toxic shit.
Destructive shit.
Shit that felt so good in the beginning, but hollowed me out by the end.

It took vulnerable people, young hopeful people, sick desperate people, and turned us into robots, or shells.

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are these thoughts my own
or have they been falsified by
a linguistic virus

can they read my mind?
has my autonomy been shanghaied by these parasitic.. illusionists
They feed on my family’s freedom

each morning I step into the lion’s den
each evening I return to a spider’s web
at least each pneumonia that floods my lungs keeps me cozy and feverish in bed

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not once in my life have i ever felt a sense of shame towards my body for having a birth defect & being an amputee.

truly, not once.

the one part of my body that was deformed &
disabled & needed lots of extra help from prosthetics & orthopedists to thrive—i owned it completely.

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I got out of a spiritual community where I had lived for six years. The community was led by Joseph R. (not his real name), who was a teacher of A Course Miracles. I had always been impressed by Joseph's ability to hear Jesus and the Holy Spirit. His knowledge of the 1200 pages of A Course in Miracles, and his ability to quote it, was extraordinary.

My job was to edit videos of Joseph’s talks, edit his work into books, and spread the course and Joseph’s teachings to both live and virtual groups.

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I was dealing with some past and recent traumas (PTSD) and other mental health issues when I began looking for a support group or a group where I could feel welcome, my issues or myself wouldn’t be judged, but a place where I could have deeper, meaningful conversations and support from others.

I found a group of men who masked/presented themselves as a group of “conscious” men who had these deeper conversations and meetups that wouldn’t take much of my time but held space for me to speak and be heard.

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“Religious Trauma is Trauma” is a fine art photo series bringing awareness to the psychological and emotional effects of toxic religion. This issue has affected me personally and countless others. Many people have suffered in silence afraid to speak out against religious institutions. Marlene Winell a psychologist coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome in 2011, but the topic is finally becoming more popular recently.

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When I was 29, in 1997, I met a group of Sufis in a small town in the Midwest. They were loving. They were radical. They had an organic farm and values that I loved. I wasn’t looking for a guru, but I loved the people surrounding him, so I quit my Ph.D. program and moved to be with them. Finally, I had found people who were willing to do literally anything to help the world heal. These were my people, for sure.

I had been an “out” gay man since I was a teenager, but somehow the environment led me to marry a young, beautiful woman. That is such a long story. But I’m grateful that we were together because we had a child who is now 20.

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I got out of a family that wasn’t mine.

I got out of a power dynamic that preyed on my desperate need for connection and acceptance. That preyed on my need to please others and show myself approved. My need for meaning and order and stability and love. And I think, weirdly, my need for the approval of powerful men. A patriarchy.

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I Got Out

I got out of a highly controlled spiritualistic cult. I was born into this group and was taught that it was absolute truth. I lived and embodied the teachings as best I could.

The leader of the group, “Sri,” was a self-proclaimed channel and identified herself as a direct conduit for God himself. I was taught that the being speaking through her was “the same that spoke to Moses.” In other words, we were speaking directly to the god of the Old Testament. We were chosen. We were the Children of Light.

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