Lessons from Three Springs
A Story of Survival & the Reality of the Troubled Teen Industry
On November 18, 1998, two strangers woke me up in the middle of the night and told me I had to come with them and not resist or they would put me in handcuffs. They took me on a plane and then drove me for three hours to a scary place called Three Springs: Paint Rock Valley outside of Huntsville, Alabama. It was in the middle of nowhere with a couple of buildings and a horse farm. When I arrived, I was stripped down and searched to make sure I had nothing on me, and then they gave me my new identity. JH459. I was the 459th girl admitted to what they called an “outdoor therapeutic treatment center.” Then, I was given one phone call to my parents. Before I could finish telling them I wanted to go home, the staff took the phone and hung up on them. I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to say that. I was only 14 years old. I thought I was in a nightmare.
I still don’t remember all the details of my first few weeks in “treatment,” except I lived with around 12 to 14 girls in a cabin in the woods up a mile hill that we hiked at least twice a day. I carried 50-pound water jugs, 40 pounds of roof shingles, entire floorboards, and everything you can think of up that mile hill. I weighed 97 pounds when I went in. You couldn’t refuse. You had to do it, or you would be punished, or worse, the staff would keep you there longer. Everyone wanted to get out, and it became survival of the fittest.
We woke up every morning at 6am to clean our cabin and walk down the hill to eat breakfast. There were four groups of girls each morning that lined up outside the food hall. No one could talk to each other. We had to be on “noncom” (no communication or silence). There was no communication allowed between you and girls from other groups, even if you knew each other. You were only allowed to talk to your group. To get out of the program, we had to earn stages. Once you reached “Senior Group Leader,” you were able to graduate. However, most people did not reach the highest level in the program. Staff would lie to parents to keep children under their care and to profit. The staff adopted Native American traditions with intermittent Alcoholics Anonymous lingo and turned it into cult-like group therapy. After each day of hard labor, we walked back up the mile hill for another form of therapy where everyone had to speak and denounce each other’s actions for the day. We couldn’t go to sleep until everyone spoke. Let’s just say, I became accustomed to sleep deprivation. I could literally fall asleep with my eyelids open by the end of it.
Harsh punishments were given out to girls who disrupted the daily routine. If someone tried to escape, the group was put on “rope,” which is when we all had to hold onto a rope for an entire week, except to sleep. If someone had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, we all had to get up and go. The most extreme punishment was called, “trek,” where the group or individual girls had to walk all day for almost a week straight around a grass field the size of a football stadium in extremely hot or cold weather. The staff forced them to carry everything they needed to survive, including food, cooking supplies, tent, and sleeping bag. They would check the girls' feet after each day for blisters to make sure they could keep walking the next day. We were all young, between the ages of 14 and 18, and most of us spent a year of our lives wondering what we had done to deserve such torture. The staff did not trust any of us. We were constantly told we were manipulative and 'bad' children who couldn't be trusted; in reality, we were just normal kids whose 'acting out' was a plea for help. I watched many young people be physically restrained by adult staff members who lacked any professional mental health background. No child should be treated the way we were at Three Springs, regardless of why we were 'sent away.'
After 28 years, I came to understand that my experience aligns with what is now often referred to as the “Troubled Teen Industry” (TTI) — a loosely defined network of private programs serving youth with behavioral and mental health challenges.
These programs are typically marketed to parents seeking help for concerns such as defiance, depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder, or autism. While some programs aim to provide meaningful support, there is significant variability in quality, oversight, and clinical standards across the field.
According to the American Bar Association, many of these behavioral modification programs operate as private, for-profit entities, with funding that may include Medicaid, Medicare, and a range of federal, state, and local sources. Estimates suggest that between 120,000 and 200,000 youth reside each year in settings such as group homes, residential treatment centers, boot camps, or correctional facilities. In some cases, the cost of enrollment can reach up to $10,000 per month (source: American Bar Association, “Five Facts About the Troubled Teen Industry”).
At the same time, concerns have been raised — particularly by survivors and investigative reporting — about programs that are unaccredited, insufficiently regulated, or that do not employ licensed mental health professionals with training in adolescent development and evidence-based care. In these settings, youth may be placed in restrictive environments such as residential treatment centers, group homes, or behavioral programs, sometimes for extended periods.
In some cases, former participants have reported experiences of emotional or physical harm, coercive practices, or treatment approaches that do not align with accepted mental health standards. These experiences can have lasting psychological effects.
A key issue is that oversight varies widely by state, and families may not always have clear, transparent information when making decisions. This creates risk — particularly when programs rely heavily on behavioral control models rather than developmentally informed, trauma-informed, and clinically supervised care.
For families seeking support, it is critical to ensure that any program:
is properly accredited and regulated
employs licensed clinicians with expertise in adolescent mental health
uses evidence-based, ethical treatment approaches
provides transparency about practices, duration of care, and outcomes
I didn’t earn all the stages to get out. The staff lied to my mother to keep me there longer. They told her I wasn’t ready to follow the rules at home and needed to finish the program. After 15 months in the wilderness, my mother had enough and pulled me from the program. I was told not to talk about it afterwards and to move on. I didn’t even know the other girls’ full names. I went directly into boarding school and then to college. What did I learn from this experience? I learned how to hide my feelings well, maintain a smile despite the pain that I had inside, and I hated myself for years. I became a perfectionist. If I wasn’t perfect, I thought I would be sent back. I had to prove to everyone that I am a good person, despite feeling like the worst human in the world. I kept this all a secret for years because I was ashamed of what I had been through.
Because of my experience, I always felt different from other students in high school and college. People were afraid of me at first. I have always been told how I intimidate people. Over time, I felt supported by friends, and they made me laugh all the time. Laughter slowly eroded the hard feelings I had about this difficult time. I couldn’t have made it through without all the good people that made me see a different life. A life with pain, but filled with laughter. If you can’t make fun of the crappy situation you are going through, it can take a toll on you. Despite the hard times, I always felt like I couldn’t give up, and humor was the way I dealt with things. My advice for those who go through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or complex trauma is to find your community and find your humor. If you can’t fix the situation, why not make fun of it?
I am writing this story so children don’t have to go through what I went through as a kid. I want to make sure parents/caregivers are sending their children to real, accredited therapeutic centers that actually do help children manage common mental health conditions with licensed psychiatrists and counselors/psychologists. There are warning signs of TTI centers that parents and caregivers need to be aware of when considering a residential treatment center for their child. I encourage parents and caregivers to check out the fact and warning sheet from The Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic, and Appropriate use of Residential Treatment (A START) at the University of South Florida or visit Unsilenced: The Voice of Youth Rights website on “Red Flags.” Please do your research and visit the place you are considering sending your child. Don’t just take the staff at their word. Visible red flags—including harsh discipline, censored mail, and restricted family contact—can cause lifelong trauma. I urge parents to resist the pressure to 'act now' and instead take the time to truly listen to their children before sending them to a distant facility where they may be isolated from support (in my case it was Alabama).
Written by JHM, a mental health advocate and nonprofit professional