Sunday, June 12, 2022

Lexi M. at Trinity Teen Solutions

This testimony was found on Yelp. It was made by Lexi M.


So today I decided to stop caring and post an honest review of this business. I was sent here in 2016, and I can easily say this made that the worst year of my entire life. This place changed my life in the worst way possible, causing me trauma and PTSD. This place is not what it seems. It's built on child labor and abuse. If you don't believe me, read all the other reviews, or simply research this place and read about how they are in court for this.

I can truthfully say that I would have rather gone to a prison than here. At least in prison, your allowed to make eye contact with and communicate with inmates. That's right, at Trinity you received physical punishment (example, 25 push ups) for making eye contact with a girl or talking to her without ASKING PERMISSION. You actually received physical punishment for the dumbest reasons; once, I had to do 50 step-ups because I mentioned that I missed Krispy Kreme donuts. Yep. And there reasoning was, "Your not in the here and now." You also could not stand up or sit down from your chair without asking permission. If you did on accident? 25 push ups, or 50, or whatever they felt like that day.

I was forced to eat food even though I was sick and this caused me to become more sick. I had woken up the night before with my stomach in intense pain. I received no medical assistance, and was sent back to bed. The next morning I still felt the same way and refused breakfast. They told me I had to eat and if i didn't, at the next meal I'd have to eat the meal I missed and the new meal. (if you refused many meals, as a punishment they made you eat a mix of cold kidney beans and cold black olives) So I ate the meal, and then projective vomited it outside the schoolhouse. Also, I should mention I never had control of any of the food I ate, and each girl had to eat the same amount of food, despite them all being different ages (youngest girl when I was there was 13, oldest was 19) I remember one girl, who was much younger than me, got so full from her dinner (she had already eaten most of it)and they forced her to eat it as she sobbed, telling them she felt ill.

I was assigned to take care of this horned goat, named Franny. So each night I had to take the goat off her leash/cable tie and put her in a pen, One night I got yelled at for putting her dinner in there so she would walk inside. A staff member decided to watch me to make sure I put her back correctly. The goat became angered with me, and head butted me repeatedly, until i fell to the ground. (The goat had head butted me in the past, which was always scary, but no one ever bothered to help me.) I became tangled in her cable tie, and it wrapped around my leg. The goat trampled me, then started running. When the goat would run, this would cause the cable to become taut around my leg. I don't know the name for it but it was like a piece of wire coated in plastic or rubber of some kind. So when she ran the wire tightened around my ankle, causing me intense pain. It also raised my ankle of the ground so I couldn't get up to free myself. I screamed for help, asking the staff member to help me. She stood there and told me to free/untangle myself so I could stand. I couldn't, I was too tangled, and each time I would try to get up the goat would run again causing even more pain and restriction. I just keep screaming for her to help, but she just hovered above me, watching. Finally after she watched me a bit longer, and the wire had tightened several more times, the staff member unclipped the tie from the goats neck. My ankle was in intense pain, swollen and deeply bruised. The next day, I asked to be opted out of the run (we have to run from the living cabins to the schoolhouse, about 0.5 mile)since I was limping, my leg was swollen so it was hard to put in my boot, and I was in pain. They said no, you have to run. they told me I would be fine, since "it was just bruising and my actual leg was fine." Meanwhile, a girl with blisters didn't have to run.

Overall outside of these events this place is just bad all over. The "staff", who watch you at every hour of the day, have no licensing and often just a college degree. You see a licensed therapist for one hour once a week, sometimes twice. You participate in "Holy Cowgirl" meetings, which is where everyone sits in a circle and comments about how you did since the last meeting, including negative comments. It was really unhealthy. I would get super anxious leading up to the meetings, knowing I was going to be analyzed and picked apart. They also didn't let you look in the mirror, or talk about your experiences, which makes you feel like you have no identity.

I saw Angie, the owner, ONCE the whole time I was there. She doesn't care about the trauma she has caused and is causing to so many of these girls. She actually thinks people are suing Trinity for the sake of money, and not for the fact that she changed their lives in the worst way possible.


Source
The original testimony on Yelp

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