SUNDOWN
My experience in a rehabilitation center in the middle of nowhere, Texas.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 20% of youth ages 13–18 live with a mental health condition. Warning signs are: Mood swings that cause problems in relationships, difficulty concentrating, failure in school, out-of-control risk-taking behaviors that can cause harm to self or others, and repeated use of drugs or alcohol (among others).
Being alive is confusing, contradictory and painful at times. Especially as a teenager with few resources and coping mechanisms, self care can be almost impossible. This highly impressionable age is made worse by adults who don’t know (or forget) how to address this.
“Kids are experimenting with alcohol at earlier ages than ever before. A national survey found that slightly more than half of young adults in the U.S. between the ages of 12 and 20 have consumed alcohol at least once. Some researchers speculate that teens are more vulnerable to addiction because the pleasure center of the brain matures before the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and executive decision making. In other words, teenagers’ capacity for pleasure reaches adult proportions well before their capacity for sound decision making does.” & “Alcohol problems often go hand in hand with mental health problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia.” helguide.org
Alcoholism: an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency.
Mental illness: disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior (depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors).
Here, alcoholism is defined as causing mental illness. Whereas in the definition of mental illness, addiction is symptomatic. This analysis can result in a dual diagnosis: when someone experiences a mental illness and a substance abuse problem simultaneously.
This is an important point to come back to trough out my story because if the two are interchangeable then treatment centers should focus more on addressing the causes of alcoholism and mental instability in people instead of penalizing those who fall victim to dependency and mental ills, which are more of a societal, than individual problem.
“Drugs are bad”, and treatment for drugs, is sometimes worse. Rehabs have not solved the problem of substance abuse, just like prisons have not solved the problem of crime, murder or rape. These (often exploitative) structures are merely symptoms of and not solutions to the issues at hand.
And why are we punished for our human ails? Punishment does not seem like a sustainable method for change. Instead it reinforces abusive tendencies, and people often come out worse than before.
When I was 16 and living in Houston, TX, I was sent to a rehabilitation facility called Sundown Ranch, a rehab center in Canton, TX.
I was given my sleeping medicine in the morning by my parents (“drugged”) and didn’t wake up until I was four hours out of the city on a freeway road in the middle of nowhere. Trapped, I panicked and locked myself in the bathroom of the next rest stop. Eventually I was forced out and put back in the car. (And this was the nice way, some kids would get kidnapped in the middle of the night by “strangers”and put in a van to get to rehab and would later find out that it was all part of the plan).
Upon arriving to the rehab facilities I was given some adidas flip flops which were 3 sizes too big and assigned to a group with 10 or 15 other misguided teenagers. Im told I have to shadow a counselor for the first few days as a newcomer. (Which means never leaving their site).
But for some reason there were no counselors around. When I realized the coast was clear, my instincts kicked in and I started to run. None of the kids around me seemed to care. I ran as fast as I could down the gravel road through the front gate (which was open because was visiting hours). I flung my oversized flip flops in the air behind me because they were slowing me down and now was running barefoot.
I ran across the street to a paintball field. There was a small house behind the field. The people inside let me use their phone after I told them that my parents and I got in a fight and they dropped me off on the side of the road. (And surprisingly enough, they believed me). I called 2 friends. I tell them where I think I am and they tell me to stay put and that they are going to send someone to get me. I walked to the field next door and waited, hiding in the grass behind some trees.
A german shepherd appeared and hung out with me for a while as I watched sheriffs cars drive by. Hours went by and the darker it got the less hope I had that anyone would find me. I was ready to forfeit myself to whoever I could get to first.
I could see a truck with red sirens approaching. The truck stopped and my friend Bryan was inside. I called out to him, ran into the street and quickly jumped in, relieved and amazed at my friends ability to orchestrate this rescue. I called my mom on private from Bryan’s phone and told her I was alive and safe.
My parents were reasonably upset with me and withheld my sleeping meds (which I was dependent on) and told me I can’t come home until I spend one month at Sundown. I wrote up a contract for my one month stay and we all signed it. Once we got to Sundown my dad tore up the piece of paper.
Upon arrival, the entire staff was standing side by side, army style and ready to take orders to take me down if necessary. I kind of laughed and told them I wasn't going to run again. They told me I was the only person to have escaped in 17 years (probably a lie).
During my stay at sundown I am locked in a room called “the unit” for a week after my counselor Melissa (whom I later had a voodoo doll for) claimed to have heard I was “going to run again”. In reality she knew I had come back willingly and my solitary confinement was punishment and revenge for my actions.
In the unit the walls were painted pink and there was a mattress with no sheets or pillows and a tin bucket for using the restroom. There was a security camera pointed at me which was my only real way of speaking to anyone. People in the other rooms were screaming. (Image is not the actual unit but an image of a pink prison cell I found online, which apparently is supposed to “calm prisoners”).
I had an idea that if I acted crazy enough, they would have to take me out. I was screaming and tearing out my hair until a nurse came and sedated me with tranquilizers.
I was fed 3x a day without utensils. The only materials I was allowed were readings on drug addiction. Melissa would visit me daily and give me new reasons as to why I needed to be in the unit longer and why I couldn’t speak to my family. She told me to admit that I am an alcoholic, which I refused to do. “Okay” she would say, putting her hands up as if she’d had enough and leaving the room.
After a week, I was discharged from the Unit, but the threat of being sent back was constant. I was never allowed to talk to my parents about my stay in the unit as long as I was at Sundown.
Melissa who was probably around 50 with red hair and a southern accent, told me that she was more manipulative than I could ever be. I constantly wanted to punch her in the face, but knew that would mean more time in the unit, so I would grind my teeth while she would feed my parents lies about me; that I was a lesbian and my friends were enablers and my parents should burn all my music and not let me listen to the radio (bc THATS what was making me crazy).
After insurance ran out (which was normally two weeks), it costed $350 per day for patients to be there (over 10k a month). And the clientele were by no means coming from rich backgrounds (I was an exception). This was no elegant, spa rehab (although for the price it should have been). The food was (prison food) injected with hormones which made everyone gain weight. You were literally never alone and had to say your ABC’s out loud if you were in the restroom so a counselor could hear you and make sure you weren’t doing anything else. Many of the clients were from rural towns in TX, sent there by the state, or parents were going into serious debt for believing their children would be somehow cured.
I stayed at Sundown for 3 months. I was put on sedatives and my only therapy was with Melissa whose only treatment goal was to get me to admit that I was an addict (while forcing prescription pills on me) and that I would struggle with this the rest of my life. Even then, as so many other kids who just got caught doing the wrong thing at the wrong time were given this ultimatum and believed it, I knew that this wasn’t true. I was not an addict (and still am not — I hardly drink anymore and the only drug I take is prescription medicine — which is debatable). This simplistic and gross analysis was what Melissa needed me to say in order to feel she had succeeded. Instead of “curing” me or seeing me become a less scared and a more secure and self caring individual —my treatment was centered around her ego, and her ability to be “right” about me.
After I left sundown I had nightmares every single night for the next year, that I was back at sundown and I couldn’t escape. I was lethargic and depressed. I felt I had been through something, but I didn’t feel as though I had deserved it. I don’t want this to come off as a self-pity statement because I know others have been through much worse, and were never able to get out. (My point is that nobody deserves this sort of treatment). I would much rather use my story to expose the injustice and abuse in rehabilitation facilities like sundown which can do more harm than good on a young persons psyche.
In an article published on the smithsonian called The Science of Solitary Confinement : “Research tells us that isolation is an ineffective rehabilitation strategy and leaves lasting psychological damage” , the writer analyzes the dehumanizing role of solitary confinement in prisons. I cannot find anything about solitary confinement being used in rehabilitation centers, but the practice is, essentially the same:“We really are the only country that resorts regularly, and on a long-term basis, to this form of punitive confinement. Ironically, we spend very little time analyzing the effects of it.”
Additionally those with a “criminal history” or mental illness are more likely to be taken advantage of and abused because this makes them “less credible”, and less believable when telling their experiences. This is true for those with disabilities (physical and psychological) who experience sexual abuse, and those within treatment centers or prisons.
Recently, I started to do some research, to find out information on Sundown and if it still exists.
On buzzfile.com, Sundown Ranch is: “an organization which primarily operates in the General Farms, Primarily Animals business / industry within the Agricultural Production — Livestock and Animal Specialties sector.”
???????
It also states that they are dealing with “primarily animals” which is maybe how they get away with treating humans the way they do. (I also never saw one animal)
The description from the official Sundown website: “Sundown Ranch’s primary purpose is to provide quality services to adolescents and young adults. The ranch, 450 acres of rolling hills, lakes and trees, provides a highly structured and individualized program in an environment where young people can learn to live free of drugs and alcohol.”
There is no mention of the unit anywhere on the sundown ranch website. Instead I see this, at the bottom of the rehab’s self assigned description: In combating their dependency, clients develop a sense of personal identity, and strengthen their self-esteem and self-confidence. The open peaceful environment-a contrast to the institutional, hospital-like atmosphere of many rehabilitation facilities is part of the treatment and therapy.
The use of solitary confinement in their facilities is HIGHLY institutional and HIGHLY outdated. I wonder what people would think if they openly advertised the unit as a service on the site.
Two logos at the bottom of their website indicate that they are certified by some mental health associations (which got me wondering if you just pay to be certified because thats how a lot of these certifications work.)
Through the Texas Department of State Health Services (which has certified Sundown) I find a Teen Bill of Rights which catches me off guard from the first paragraph: “While you are in this hospital you have all those rights, but you also have some extra ones.” — Extra rights?? Really?? Never knew about that…
#17 from the “Bill of Rights” :
“You have the right not to be physically restrained (restriction of movement of your body by person or by a device or by being locked in a room alone) unless your doctor says it’s necessary. However, if there is a situation in which staff thinks you may hurt yourself or someone else if you aren’t restrained right away, you can be restrained for up to an hour before the doctor’s permission is gotten. Whenever you are restrained, staff has to tell you why you are being restrained, how long you’ll be restrained, and what you need to do to be removed from restraint sooner.”
I am not sure whether the Unit would qualify within this, however I know that there were never any doctors around giving orders. We had someone who gave us medicine but I don’t remember ever speaking with a doctor. Also, once in the unit, my counselor would manipulate me by not giving me a straight answer as to why I was in there, and when I would be getting out. Each day she had a new excuse as to why I wasn’t allowed out, and mostly it was because I wouldn’t admit to being a drug addict (which seems highly arbitrary anyways…)
It is triggering to know that others went through similar situations, experienced PTSD afterwards, and are still feeling the consequences of time spent there.
Although the site looks as though it has never been updated, a phone call confirms that they are very much open for business. I decide to ask about the unit. After getting hung up on twice, I call a different # and reach a staff member who already has been made aware about someone calling asking this question. She seems flustered and tells me that I will have to call back and speak to administration on Monday. I don’t understand why they cant give me a yes or no answer because they clearly know, and their hesitance in answering leads me to believe it does in fact still exist.
I got a little bit of it on record here:
Although I feel like my stay at sundown was lifetimes ago, I will never forget what I went through. I am 25 now and it wasn’t until one year ago (after a suicide attempt, different (expensive) therapists, a psych ward and sundown) that I received proper medical care for my depression, OCD and anxiety, which I have experienced as long as I can remember. The eery saying on their website “one sundown at a time”, has me dreading the many sundowns ahead where others will have to experience similar trauma.
If I could see something change in my lifetime, aside from war and white supremacy (which I think are all deeply related to this) it would be to end the stigma around mental illness. Treatment centers should not be questionable business practices but accessible spaces of understanding and wellness, reflective of a patients aspirations.
I hope this article raises awareness on the current complexities and detrimental conditions for those seeking (or forced into) treatment. And I hope that this awareness can turn into a dialogue that will work towards holding treatment centers, and our society at large, accountable for improved, humane and ethical treatment standards of those with mental illness.
If people want to help immediately they can call Sundown and ask about the unit: 903 479 3933, or if people know reporters and or lawyers interested in exposing harmful institutions please send my story their way!!
xo
