Interview—"A 12-Year-Old Girl Was Raped" and "It Was 100 Percent Trails’ Fault"
Trails Carolina Attendee Tells Story of Medical Neglect, Soiled Underwear & Kids Carrying Used T.P. In Their Pockets For Days
This report discusses child sexual abuse and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is unsure whether to file an abuse report or just need support, contact the National Children's Alliance at www.nca-online.org or 1-800-239-9950. If you or anyone you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for 24-hour support.
Trails Carolina, the controversial “troubled-teen industry” wilderness program where two children have died and others have claimed sexual abuses, faces another rape allegation. MartyG Reports interviewed Christina Barnett, who, in summer 2009, attended the Lake Toxaway, North Carolina program.
For background on Trails Carolina and the hot water in which it sits, see MartyG Reports’ coverage yesterday, embedded below.
Introduction
Now in her early thirties, Barnett provided MartyG Reports her perspective from her experiences at Trails Carolina more than a decade ago. Those experiences, she says, continue to affect her mental health today.
The Interview
MartyG Reports: Can you tell me when you were at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: Summer 2009
MartyG Reports: And how old were you then?
Barnett: 16
MartyG Reports: When you were there, did they ever keep you or anyone you knew in a tarp at night with a movement alarm on it?
Barnett: Not a movement alarm. The guides slept on the tarp to keep the girl inside the burrito from moving.
MartyG Reports: So they wrapped you in it and then slept on the flaps to seal you in?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: I’m sorry to hear that. And they called it a “burrito”?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: Was that the staffs’ term for it, or the kids’ nickname for it?
Barnett: Staff’s term
MartyG Reports: Did the staffers ever put their hands on you, or did you ever see them put hands on another kid, as a form of physical restraint?
Barnett: I don’t remember for sure if it happened to me, but it happened a lot with one of the girls I was there with. It happened once a day or almost once [a day] for a few weeks straight.
MartyG Reports: In your opinion, was it necessary? Like, was she a threat to herself or others?
Barnett: In my opinion, de-escalation would’ve been effective, and it wasn’t even attempted before they restrained her. And it wasn’t a smart approach, because she was bigger than all of them anyway, and reasoning with her would’ve been way easier than restraining her.
MartyG Reports: Were the staffers restraining her males, females or a mix?
Barnett: Both.
MartyG Reports: Did the staffers use restrains as a form of punishment?
Barnett: No.
MartyG Reports: Just gratuitously?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: Did you ever see any form of corporal punishment at Trails?
Barnett: They never hit us.
MartyG Reports: OK. I’m going to ask some questions now that are potentially a lot more uncomfortable—not that the questions so far have necessarily been easy, I know. If you wish not to answer just tell me. I’ll understand. OK?
Barnett: OK.
MartyG Reports: Did you ever see any sexual abuse at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: I did not see it, but a 12-year-old girl was raped by a boy while I was there and it was 100 percent Trails’ fault. They put her in with the boys group because she had trouble getting along with the rest of the girls who were a lot older than she was.
MartyG Reports: Was it a single incident or a recurring issue?
Barnett: It was a single incident as far as I know. She came back to base camp and we knew she had been at the hospital the night before, but the staff wouldn’t tell us why until someone managed to get a moment alone with her to find out what happened to her.
MartyG Reports: Did you ever speak directly with her about it?
Barnett: I offered support, but didn’t have any conversations that directly referenced it because staff was always nearby. […] I never learned her last name. I’ve wanted to find her for a while to see if she’s even still alive but I couldn’t look her up without her last name. I’m not even sure what state she’s from.
MartyG Reports: Did you ever see anyone get physically injured at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: No injuries, but they refused me necessary medical care until it became emergent, and even at that point they only stopped refusing because they had gotten in contact with my mother and she made them take me to the hospital.
MartyG Reports: What was happening with your medical care? What did they wait to have treated?
Barnett: I passed at least one kidney stone while hiking and was in excruciating pain for two weeks before the U.T.I. that had been caused by the stone(s) turned into a kidney infection.
MartyG Reports: What did the doctors tell you at the hospital?
Barnett: They found three stones in my kidneys and said that it was very likely I had passed a kidney stone, and that I needed to take antibiotics for a kidney infection. They barely said anything to me or around me. Most of the talking was between the medical personnel and the staff.
MartyG Reports: Passing kidney stones is known to be excruciating.
Barnett: The staff thought I was faking it. They didn’t believe me about having had two procedures done in the past 18 months to remove kidney stones that had gotten stuck.
MartyG Reports: So it was a preexisting condition?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: Do you know if it was documented in your records at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: They had my full medical history.
MartyG Reports: So, safe to say they knew about it?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: How long were you at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: Three months
MartyG Reports: What did you do for education at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: We got an English credit for writing weekly letters and doing short journal topics every day. We got a P.E. credit because of the hiking. And we got an art credit because we had art sessions a few times when we were on base.
MartyG Reports: No math, science, history or social studies?
Barnett: No.
MartyG Reports: Do you feel you became a better writer at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: I learned to write in paragraphs instead of just writing one big paragraph.
MartyG Reports: The staffers taught you that?
Barnett: They had a teacher on base and he pointed out that when he was scanning my letter to email it to my parents, he noticed that I had just written a several-page long paragraph. He didn’t actually teach us anything other than how to make bread.
MartyG Reports: Do you remember his name?
Barnett: Al
MartyG Reports: Any surname?
Barnett: We never learned any last names.
MartyG Reports: You just described some of this, but what were your communications options to the outside world?
Barnett: We wrote a letter to our parents each week and they sent basically template letters back to us. Trails [Carolina] told them what to say in their letters back to us.
MartyG Reports: Any phone calls?
Barnett: I got to call my parents a week or two before I graduated because I chose to not have them at my graduation.
MartyG Reports: Was there a time limit on the call?
Barnett: The therapist was with me and the time limit they gave me going into the call was basically until I got emotional, which meant that it would last as long as I was hiding my emotions and staying happy, fake and positive.
MartyG Reports: That was your only opportunity for a phone call for three months?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: Did you have any option to contact anyone on the outside besides your parents?
Barnett: No.
MartyG Reports: What did Trails Carolina do for discipline?
Barnett: A lot of the punishment was shame-based. They screamed at us. They made fun of us. They made us do stuff like pushups sometimes (mostly when Dana was around, because he had been in the military). They made us write about our bad behaviors with a focus on how this behavior was proof that we were absolutely awful kids in need of punishment. If they didn’t like something we were doing, they kept us from moving to the next level until we had consistently not done that behavior for a certain number of days in a row.
MartyG Reports: How many levels in the Trails Carolina level system?
Barnett: Five
MartyG Reports: What happened to the kids who couldn’t make it through level V?
Barnett: They stayed until they did. Not everyone finished the entire fifth level due to scheduling graduations and transportation plans to their next programs. Most girls got picked up despite still having one or two activities in their berring (fifth level) booklet. I was the only girl from my group who completed all of the activities because they didn’t have to factor in my parents flying out for my graduation when they scheduled it.
The only girl who left before being nearly all the way through berring was the girl who spent at least half her nights there in the burrito, and they transferred her to a boarding school because she was too much of a liability in their program.
She was in level three.
MartyG Reports: Thank you. What was the food like?
Barnett: Breakfast was usually grits or oats, with minimal if any seasonings. Thursdays we got bagels because it was our resupply day. Thursdays we also got pita with hummus for lunch. Other lunches were either tortillas with PB&J or tuna. Dinners most nights were rice and lentils or chili. Thursday nights it was shells and powdered cheese. Each week we got a baggie of trail mix, a string cheese, an apple and an orange. Each lunch we got either an apple or an orange.
MartyG Reports: Did a lot of kids lose weight at Trails Carolina?
Barnett: Most people gained weight. I barely ate and I gained 10 pounds.
MartyG Reports: Why do you think that was? It doesn’t seem like you were well fed.
Barnett: We were under a lot of stress and all had hormonal problems from the stress. I got my period shortly after getting there and didn’t have another period for five months because my body was under so much stress and just trying to survive.
MartyG Reports: Were the kids physically active during the program?
Barnett: We hiked six days a week for around six to eight miles when we were on expedition. On base, we still accumulated a few miles of up- and downhill throughout the day, but usually without the 50-pound packs on our backs.
They set a limit on the food while I was there because the girls were all gaining weight but the boys weren’t.
We had to eat at least half a “cup” of food and no more than one “cup.” Each [“]cup[”] was a camping mug.
MartyG Reports: How big is a camping mug?
Barnett: Based on Google, it was 12 ounces.
MartyG Reports: OK. Thanks. Is there anything else about the program’s usual operations you’d like to mention?
Barnett: We got to take a total of about five showers while we were there, and there was a two-minute limit. We also weren’t given enough underwear[ or] opportunities to wash our underwear, and had to re-wear them for days without showering.
MartyG Reports: Thank you. I would not have thought to ask about that. Given your experience at Trails Carolina 15 years ago, does it surprise you that two kids died there? If so, why? And, if not, why not?
Barnett: I’m surprised it took as long as it did. Based on the callous and cruel approaches they took with situations like suicide prevention and medical needs back when I was there, I’m surprised no one died sooner.
MartyG Reports: Can you detail the insufficiency of Trails Carolina’s suicide prevention?
Barnett: The burrito was basically their only suicide-prevention method. They didn’t try to help the suicidal girls, they just made sure they couldn’t kill themselves by not allowing them out of their sight and by wrapping them in the burrito overnight. They also shamed us and made fun of us for feeling suicidal and for self-harming.
MartyG Reports: You mentioned a therapist. Was there only one for the whole program?
Barnett: There were three. Most of our group had the same one. One girl had a different one because she was transferred from another group. And there was a third one for the third group of kids.
Our therapist was so kind that she victim-blamed some of us who were victims of sexual assaults.
MartyG Reports: How often was “therapy” and how long was each appointment?
Barnett: We met with our therapist once a week, and she basically met with us for as long as it took to tell us what we were doing wrong. We weren’t allowed to know what the time was at any point from the moment we got there until we left, so it’s tough to estimate time.
MartyG Reports: Under an hour?
Barnett: Yes.
MartyG Reports: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Barnett: To add onto the hygiene part, when we were on expedition, we had to keep our used toilet paper in our pockets until the next time we had a fire and could burn them. Because I was there during the summer, we didn’t regularly light fires, and it could be several days before we had the chance to dispose of the feces-covered toilet paper in our pockets.
MartyG Reports: Do you happen to know if that’s normal for wilderness programs, or was that unique to Trails Carolina?
Barnett: I think the toilet-paper part was normal, but I don’t know if other programs let kids light fires regularly during the summer.
MartyG Reports: I’ll ask around. Anything else you’d like to mention?
Barnett: They withheld dinner if we hadn’t had enough water yet. We had to get it marked-off in our journals when we filled our bottles and when we finished them. If we hadn’t finished and properly documented 2.5 liters of water, we couldn’t eat until we chugged enough water.
At one point, I forgot to get my waters marked off in my journal, despite drinking them, and they had seen me drinking water throughout the day, but they still made me chug 1.5 liters of water before they gave me food. I threw it up and probably ended up more dehydrated than before I drank it, but all that mattered to them was getting the water down, even if it came back up.
MartyG Reports: Did they ever have you hiking in extreme heat or cold? Did anyone ever pass out or get hypothermia?
Barnett: It was in the 90s most of the time I was there. They had a thermometer on the shady side of the main cabin on base and, using the temperature readings I noticed while on base, the overall average highs during expedition were most likely somewhere in the 90s and the lows overnight were probably in the 40s[or ] 50s on the coldest nights. No one ever passed out.
MartyG Reports: May I ask why you were sent to Trails Carolina? What was it supposed to treat?
Barnett: I was suicidal 24/7.
It was somehow supposed to make me not feel suicidal anymore.
MartyG Reports: Where did you go after Trails Carolina?
Barnett: Montcalm School for Girls, which was a part of the Starr Commonwealth.
MartyG Reports: And how long were you there?
Barnett: A year
MartyG Reports: Did either wilderness or Montcalm improve your mental health?
Barnett: No, but on the surface it changed things.
We were put through literal brainwashing, more so at Montcalm than at Trails Carolina, and, in my case, it helped me compartmentalize my trauma better.
I had undiagnosed [complex post-traumatic stress disorder] already because my parents had pretty seriously abused and neglected me my entire life, and the brainwashing helped box all of that trauma up and hide it away with a bunch of denial.
It still caused a lot of problems, but it occurred more beneath the surface because I learned to keep it to myself as much as possible. Doing this meant I had fewer conflicts with my parents because I stopped trying to defend myself or be my own person in any way, and it lessened the abuse I experienced from them, which, in turn, slightly improved my mental health.
MartyG Reports: Was the slight improvement worth it?
Barnett: Not even close. The added trauma from Trails Carolina and Montcalm compounded all of my existing traumas and after a few years, I couldn’t keep compartmentalizing it anymore, and not having that added trauma would’ve been a lot better than having that little improvement in my mental health.
Even just the kidnapping alone has affected me to the point where I can’t sleep in a bedroom because I have to be able to see the entryway from where I sleep. I also have to take at least two sleep aids every night and I have to have a familiar TV show playing in the background to keep my brain occupied while the meds kick in because without the TV on, I get repeated flashbacks from being kidnapped.
MartyG Reports: Have you been able to find any help as an adult to start addressing those long-term issues?
Barnett: I’ve been in and out of various forms of treatment over the years and I’ve made a ton of improvement regarding the [troubled-teen-industry] trauma, but one of the biggest things it caused was a terrifying fear of mental-health treatment. I’ve encountered a lot of mental health professionals outside of those programs that were just as bad as the ones at the programs were, and even though I’ve found a few good mental-health professionals over the years, the trauma from the [troubled-teen-industry] programs created a huge barrier for me in regards to seeking out legitimately helpful forms of mental-health treatment.
I have panic attacks and flashbacks when I try to do things like finding an E.M.D.R. [(eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing)] therapist. My [troubled-teen-industry] P.T.S.D. symptoms have been keeping me from trying E.M.D.R. for about six years now because I’m terrified of trying new forms of treatment and even more terrified of finding new mental-health professionals. I’ll get around to it when I’m ready, but those programs directly created huge barriers between me and genuinely helpful mental-health treatment.
More Information
MartyG Reports emailed Trails Carolina and its state licensor, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (D.H.H.S.), for comment on Barnett’s answers an hour before publication. Neither responded.
Trails Carolina had previously issued a statement on the two deaths in its program: “We are still waiting for the medical examiner’s report on what may have caused the unexpected death of a 12 year old boy on Feb. 3. Our hearts and prayers are with his family for this unfathomable loss. We have always had a good working relationship with DHHS and we will continue cooperating with them to satisfy their concerns so that we may continue providing compassionate, quality care to children and families.”
At the time of publication, a Change.org petition to close Trails Carolina has received 828 signatures here.
This is SO HEINOUS!!! SHUT IT DOWN!!!
Incredible bravery on the part of Christina Barnett!! The detail is gripping.
I have no idea how this place stays open with all these allegations and deaths. This one really doesn't need anymore thought. Pull the plug and block any rebrand attempt.