Living in a lock down facility

I lived at Casa By the Sea for 29 months. I did not reach levels easily your progress was left in the hands of a bunch of emotionally disabled girls. We all lived in families , I was in the Glory family then the Esteem Family. My family rep read my mail and did not notify me of when I was permitted to go to the doctor or not. So when we did have an ailment it took weeks to get an appointment.It took me 14 months to earn the priveledge of seeing my family and another 16 months till I went home for good and saw them again. My grampa died when I was there and had no professional treatment to overcome it.

It has been almost 3 years since my departure from Casa by the sea and I still have nightmares. I want to write a book about it but want to gather other peoples stories and experiences at that facility first. The education was awful because the teachers did not speak English. Nor did the outside doctors. So to go to a female doctor communication was bad or the wrong thing treated. The seminars for me proved more damaging then beneficial.

The fact that there was not only poor plumbing but poor management. When I was there we had about 3 runaways. Headcounts at 3 in the morning. The upper levels ( I eventually reached level 5) once got woken up by the directors at like 4 in the morning and forced to do exercises . Another time us upper levels were made to go up a hill holding sacks of sand. Then we would write about it as a lesson. Everything was based on a rule a cat 2 you lost 50 points and went to worksheets So it was very stressful you could be level 4 and boom cat 2 and on level 2 probation. The family you lived with had to support you to switch levels and there was a lot of clicks and people who were biast. For example A girl would not support you because she felt you were not open to feedback or didn’t share with the group your problems enough.Its was stressfull that we had to have Permission to sit stand etc and forced to speak a language you don’t yourself understand.

I was there the longest when I departed September 28 2001. ( I had arrived April 4 1999) Once nearly the entire facility caught a virus from the lettuce and everyone was sick. I had a fever of 102 and all they could give us was pedialight and apple juice. I’m not good at typing but anyone can e mail me if they have questions or was at Casa By the sea between april 1999- sept 2001. thanks for reading