This is the first time I went to GBS.

            Things were happening at home that I didn't agree with, and I guess I felt like I needed out. My parents were letting things go that shouldn't just go and when I told the police my parents acted like I betrayed them when in full reality they should have been on my side. Anyhow after I went to the police everyone in my family walked around me like I wasn't even there and to say the least I felt like I was completly worthless.

About a month after everything happened I met this guy, Brian, and I fell in love with him, but my parents hated him. It just seemed kind of stupid that they wanted to protect me from someone I trusted when they wouldn't try to protect me, or even side with me when I was being abused in their own house.

Anyhow my parents did everything to make me break up with Brian, but I wasn't going to do it. On March 23, 2003, My dad told Brian he was going to put a bullet in his head and when we told the cops he lied and said he never said that. It's kind of weird...My dad can yell, scream at, and try to kill, but when he gets involved with the law he acts so well mannered then you look stupid.

Well one day I was sitting on the couch talking to Brian, and my mom came up to me and started yelling at me to get off the phone. I didn't really see any real reason to get off so I told her that trying to make me break up with Brian is stupid, and she needs to get over the fact that I'm happy and she doesn't want me to be. My mom took the phone out of my hands and broke it up against the wall, then hit me I didn't want to take all that bull shit so I left. I went and got a ride down to the theater, and Brian's best friend Sal picked me up. I lived at Sal's house for a week then my teacher forced my parents to report me as a runaway.

It's interesting how they didn't want to even look for me until they found out that it was against the law not to. They looked for me and found me then I moved in with my uncle... that went well for about a month or so until my dad started talking trash about my boyfriend to my uncle. He ended up throwing all my stuff out on the street, and then that's when I started living with my boyfriend and his parents. I started going to the high school that my boyfriend went to, and everything seemed to be wonderful.

About two weeks into school is when everything happened. I was spending the night at Sal's house with Brian, eating pizza, and watching a movie everything seemed fine. Then in the morning Brian's dad called and said that my parents were at the house and they were going to send me to a private school. I didn't really want to deal with my parents, but I decided to go back to the house with Brian anyways. When we got to the house my parents sitting in Brian's kitchen, and there were two other people that I didn't know (escorts). The escorts told me they needed to talk to me outside so not knowing any better I walked outside. They told me that my parents were going to send me to a local private school, and that I needed to go home right away. I refused to and started walking back into the house when I grabbed the handle to the door the escorts grabbed me. I had just woken up and my first thought was that it was illegal for someone to grab me like that...I started screaming for help, but they told me if I didn't calm down I wouldn't ever be able to see my boyfriend again so I calmed down.

After about an hour of driving I asked my escorts where the local private school was and they said Mexico. That is when I flipped I started banging on the windows and I was about to break them when they told me once more that if I didn't stop I wouldn't be able to see my boyfriend then they told me that I'd see my parents, my boyfriend, and his parents the following Monday. Then once again I calmed down.

As we were driving I kept hearing more and more details regarding the boarding school and with each thing they told me I began to get sick. The school was supposed to be impossible to escape from, so, when they told me that I was determined to look for weak spots.

We arrived at the school, and about four or five girls came to the car. I was taken into the bathroom where they told me to shower with lice shampoo (I didn't have lice). So after I got out of the shower they looked at my body for scars, bruises, and tattoos, then my clothes were taken, and I was given an ugly jumper with a bright yellow shirt.

Life was pretty depressing...I was told all the rules, and from the begining it just seemed so unreal. I was there for about a week then early on Friday at 3am I busted out. I broke out the window, drove down to the boarder in some guy's car, and used my sister's name to cross. (I wasn't 18 so I couldn't use my name.)

Well I wound up taking the trolley down to Oceanside then I walked a good couple of hours to my boyfriend's house. No one was home so I squeezed myself through the back door, got some normal clothes, and washed my face. I got tired of waiting, so I went for a quick walk to go use the phone I called my dad from a pay phone, and he told me he was sorry and wanted me back...that was a lie. I hung up on my dad then I went back to Brian's house, and his car was parked out front. I walked in the front door then over to his room it was weird seeing him again I mean we didn't even get to say goodbye, and I never thought we'd see each other ever again, and when we did see each other we just said goodbye because I couldn't stay with him, and my dad was putting a restraining order on his whole family.

I was pretty angry at my parents I hated them. They lied to me they told me they wouldn't send me back when I called them then they traced my phone call from my friend Jessie's house the police picked me up and I was labeled a druggie because GBS is a drug rehab center in the computer when it isn't, and I wasn't a druggie. Even if I was a drug user I should have been treated as a normal person but being a teenager I have no rights and if someone thinks I use drugs then I'm even more worthless.

The police didn't do anything I was hugging a fire hydrant for my dear life as the escorts were trying to take me away. Right when I got there the staff zip tied my ankles together and tied me to my bed...I don't know if people consider that humane or not, but if you ask me it isn't...and it defiantly shouldn't be done to teenage girls. They cut the ends of the zip ties so they were sharp and they cut into my ankles...I still have scars...that aren't going to be going away.

All the girls there that spend enough time there all think the same...it was weird...they all seem to be little robots. The whole process at Genesis seems like a brainwashing process...to get the desired little teenager every parent dreams of.  But, they're way of getting it is unhealthy.

I tried to commit suicide there, they didn't offer me counseling all they did was make fun of me. They preach Christianity, but Christianity is supposed to be all about love, and that program is about fear. 

About three minutes after I tried to commit suicide they stood me up against the wall in chapel and Mr. Russell stood up at the pulpit and mocked me for my pain.

There was this one  day at Genesis that I just couldn't take it anymore...I couldn't stand being there. So...I did what the staff would call "the ragdoll". I didn't move...and if anyone tried to stand me to my feet I just fell right to the floor. It didn't hurt me one bit until Mrs. Russell came...she lifted me up by my hair and when she did that I tried to stand, but she pushed my feet from under me and dragged me from the sanctuary to the bathroom. They threw me in a cold shower then they took me over to breakfast.

After breakfast they dragged me out of the dinning hall face down across the campus up to the new dorm. I have scars all over my legs from what happened that day...I don't care what people may  say good about that place. The parents should take charge of the leadership that God gave them and not give it over to people that are going to abuse girls in the name of God.

Everything that is going on in that school is wrong. Everyone that sends their girls there claim to love them, but do they love them enough to give them their own choice, or do they send them there to become the ideal little girl you've always wanted? The whole process brainwashes you into thinking you're something you aren't. I do agree that there are some things that are morally right, but the way they try to make you listen is wrong. (Food is good for you, but if someone contaminates it with poison it can kill you.)