I COMPLETELY agree with these posts on the abuses of Teen Challenge of New Mexico.
I never finished because apparently I couldn’t be saved, God just gave up on me, and so I was made to leave. My schooling for the entire year was for nothing – my high school transcript is blank my junior year, and I had to work twice as hard as the other seniors just to graduate on time because of it. I was like a zombie when I left there. I was brainwashed, even my faithful Christian parents thought I was a little “cult-like”. When I was there, I was constantly “in trouble” for ridiculous things, and was one of the girls in the dumpster-cleaning group. Of course, back then, I felt really guilty about my “sins”. I could never measure up.
If you were in trouble, you couldn’t receive the Christmas gifts you’d been given because of your behavior, so, needless to say, I never saw mine!(not that it matters now 🙂 I made a close friend there, and we were made to separate houses and couldn’t even be in the same room together (not to mention ever talk!). This was because some attention-hungry other girl wrongfully accused us of kissing! The thing I’ve been sad for most of the whole experience was losing that friend – I’ve been looking for her ever since. She was from Seattle, or maybe it was Tacoma. Anyhow…..Teen Challenge of New Mexico drastically altered my life. When I was far away from there, several months down the road, and I started thinking like a normal person again, I became so angry. I still am, but I have to tell myself that maybe all of us girls, or the ones that realized what happened to us – maybe we’re better people now for experiencing it.
If everyone is saying NOT to let one experience with one Teen Challenge affect how we look at all of them – well maybe this one shouldn’t be carrying the “Teen Challenge” name then…
Sources:
When far from home 