What It’s Like to Go to a Wilderness Camp for “Troubled Teens” — Brief Account
Trekking through the wilderness for four months as a teenager changed my life forever.
When I was fifteen, in early 2005, I was awoken in the middle of the night by the arrival of two large men known as “goons.” They took me against my will to another state to spend several weeks trekking the desert. My parents paid for this to happen.
So began the single most transformative period of my life.
My parents struggled with that decision for quite a while, but it was honestly the absolute best thing they could do for me at the time. Family life was disintegrating, and I was in the raging eye of a storm that began forming long before my birth. My parents blamed me for their failing marriage, my sister’s eating disorder and generally destroying the family, though all of these things were symptoms of deeper issues.
My parents and I expected a lot out of me, but I didn’t seem to be able to cope with my life. I was experimenting with drugs, getting into trouble and struggling in school. I was equipped with all of the external resources, I was in a college prep school with enough intelligence to really do well if only my emotional turmoil wasn’t grinding the hope out of my life.
