(Not So) Fun Times

Day to Day Life:

• They make you write down all your faults and all the reasons you’re there, and if they don’t think it’s “deep enough” they point out even more of your flaws. They also have you make long term goals immediately after getting there. It’s all part of your orientation book.

• Staff would try to read the imprint on notebooks/papers to try and find anything they could accuse you of. SORRY, sorry, I mean so they could maintain the safety of all students.. My bad.

• They have baby monitors in the bedrooms and closets so they can listen to whatever’s going on/ to make sure no one talks.

• At NLA, you pray 4 times a day. The first is at breakfast. There’s a list that goes through every student, and whoever’s turn it is picks a paper out of the jar and reads it to everyone. It’s a cringy positive quote or something religious. It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or atheist or just anxious, you must read the quote because it’s “disrespectful to god” if you don’t. The second time is at lunch. I forgot what it was but it’s 30 seconds where you have to hold hands with the people at your table and sing. The third one is at dinner. It’s thankfully short and again, you must hold hands. The final one is right after last light. Everyone holds hands, someone volunteers to start, and then there’s a 15-20 second thing that they say. You don't have to say them with everyone, but if you don’t a certain amount of times, Susan brings you into the office and talks about how your lack of participation insinuates disrespect, so you’re getting an LO. You do however have to hold hands. If not, you get an LO.

Personal Experiences:

• One of the teachers, K****, told me that I brought Covid to NLA… I got there nearly a year before Covid happened and I'm not even Chinese (stereotype). (F-11)

• S**** told me to kill myself. It wasn't as direct as "kill yourself", but I know 100% that's what she meant. (F-11)

(Web host's note: this isn't to be taken lightly, what S**** said had the same inclination as someone saying "if you can't do it right then why're you even alive?") 

• When I was in tumbleweed I was constantly cornered by staff, left out, screamed at, I was dragged by staff who didn’t like me, and there was a staff who used to watch us get changed. I can never stop replaying that one night in my head, C ran away and M ran the other direction. I hid behind the sagebrush bunny barn terrified. I watch A*** tackle C and I watched as she screamed in pain on the hard concrete and I panicked and ran. C went all the way to the road and sat there trying to get hit and I couldn’t help her. The cops came and took her to the mental hospital and everyone said she’d come back but she never did. Me and A*** were close but after that I was scared of her. M*** left then I was moved the sagebrush. I slept in that 1 morning… then went to breakfast. I came back and everyone was yelling about their stuff being destroyed in the bathrooms. Everyone started saying it was me. I knew it wasn’t. I knew I would never. I went to S**** to tell her I didn’t and she said since she didn’t see it and I was the only one here it was me. I was put in the HHC for 2 weeks not allowed to talk to anyone. Only time I could move was for the groups where everyone would say I was awful and terrible and I wasn’t allowed to defend myself. I remember that one night I was finally allowed to call my mom. I called her screaming and crying in more pain than I have ever been in my life, begging for her to come get me and telling her I didn’t do it. She heard me and saw my pain. I was pulled out because I couldn’t do it anymore. And when I left S**** laughed at me. She told me I was being kicked out and that it was because of what I did. But, I owned my shit and I knew I never went in either of those bathrooms. (C-11)