I made it To A Denny’s in White Fish, Montana

I was 16 the day I arrived. 18 the day I left, almost exactly two years later.

The first thing I saw when we pulled up to the ranch at the end of the long driveway was a group of girls in brightly colored t-shirts (identical but for the colors) holding hands and skipping, leading to my very first utterance in that place: “Bible-thumping clones.”

Clones, maybe. Bible-thumping, no. But it had that culty feeling. I did not want to be a girl in a brightly colored t-shirt holding hands and skipping. Unfortunately, I had no choice.

“You’ll be going to a therapeutic boarding school in Montana,” they said, as if this was a normal and reasonable thing to say. I had just finished a six-week therapeutic program in Bend, Oregon and I was ready to go home, proud of my progress. Then the counselor called my parents and me into her office. The decision had already been made. Behind my back. I crumpled under the weight of their betrayal.

Was this the plan all along? Probably. What I’ve come to understand since then is that the troubled teen industry is exactly that--an industry. There is money to be made off of kids like me. Severely depressed with serious substance abuse issues and parents who were scared and could be manipulated, and oh--wealthy grandparents who could afford to pay the exorbitant tuition.

I cried. Sobbed. Screamed. 

“Please,” I begged, “Please let me go home.”

The answer was no. 

When I had come to some strange version of acceptance, I asked for two things: to go home and say goodbye to my friends, and to be sent to a co-ed school.

I got a no and a no.

So, when I had shed all the tears my eyes could produce, we got into Grandpa’s old motorhome and drove to The Middle of Nowhere, Montana.

That first night at the “therapeutic” boarding school, we sat in a circle in the grass for “group,” the nightly therapy we all endured together. My family sat with me. Thinking about my brother sitting next to me still causes my heart to drop into my stomach in grief and guilt for leaving him. Even 27 years later.

The Headmaster ran group that night. He presented himself as gentle and kind, as monsters often do. He spoke softly when he asked my brother if he was worried about me because of the choices I had been making at home. My brother, a couple months shy of 14, was choked up as he shared that he was worried I would die. I hate thinking about him driving away with my parents that night, suddenly an only child. He has told me since that that was one of the worst days of his life. Same, brother.

Things had been dire. I was in a very dark place and my brother was not the only one afraid that I might die. I knew all of this, but it didn’t change my determination to get the hell out of there.

Four days later, I packed my green Jansport with my teddy bear, Bruno (who still lives with me), a few oranges that I’d been stealing from the kitchen, and some clothes. I waited until I was certain everyone in my cabin was asleep and then I walked out the door. Into the darkness of night. In The Middle of Nowhere, Montana. 

There were no electric fences or steel gates locking us in. No alarm system. There was nowhere to go. The idea of running away was ridiculous. The purveyors of these institutions do this on purpose. Their “therapeutic” boarding schools are built far away from anywhere to run to, one more reminder that your life is entirely under their control.

But I was determined, and brave, and reckless. 

I walked down the long, dark driveway. Walkman on. They had taken my Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction on the day I arrived--these were part of my “image” apparently--so I was probably listening to Tracy Chapman. 

Don’t think about bears. Don’t think about cougars.

I reached the highway and started walking in a direction. Any direction that took me away from there was good enough for me. I walked for a long time. The highway was deserted. And then, finally: Headlights. My beacon of hope! I stuck out my thumb and a white pickup pulled over. It was going the opposite of the direction in which I was walking, but I got in because who cared where we were going? 

I was a 16-year-old girl, alone, in The Middle of Nowhere, in the middle of the night, hitchhiking on a mostly-deserted highway. This was a really fucking dangerous thing to do. But this illustrates two things to me: 

1. I was a total badass.

2. That’s how desperate I was to get out of there. 

I had to get out. I didn’t care about the dangers. I would get… somewhere, and call a friend and they would drive to Montana to pick me up. That’s as far as the plan went. 

Some might say that referring to oneself as “badass” for pulling a stunt like this is the wrong characterization. Some might say the situation I put myself in is more accurately described as stupid. Those people don’t get it, and they definitely have never been in a situation they were desperate to escape. 

Two guys welcomed me into that pickup truck. I sat between them. They smelled like beer. It must have been the cooler of beer behind the seat that they kept reaching into. 

These guys were drunk, and this was the point when the adrenaline that had carried me down the dark road turned to fear. 

“What’s a girl your age doing out here alone in the middle of the night?” 

They repeated the question several times in different ways. I hedged. Gave the impression that I was running away from home. 

We swerved down the highway for a while, heading west (I now know), toward Kalispell. And then, they pulled over. And then, they stood there in the menacing, misty glow of the headlights. Talking. Looking in my direction. Making a plan. Maybe for where they were going to bury my body when they were done with me. 

I sat frozen in terror in the cab. 

Should I run? 

There was nowhere to go. I had no choice but to stay in the truck. 

Eventually they wrapped up their planning session and got back in. The energy in that truck was deeply unsettling. Everything they said felt threatening. My blood was icy and I sat, tense, hoping that by holding my breath and closing my eyes I could wish myself out of the situation I had landed myself in. I had no idea what these two were capable of. They were clearly dipshits, but outsmarting them wouldn’t be the problem.

Miraculously (and I really do believe that it’s fucking miraculous), they did not bury me in The Middle of Nowhere, nor did they touch me. 

We arrived in White Fish, Montana and pulled into a Denny’s parking lot. The guys ordered food and I went to make a phone call on the pay phone because this was 1994. That was as far as my plan went, remember? Call a friend, then wait for them to drive from Olympia, Washington to White Fish, Montana. It would take 12 hours-ish. 

But I picked up that pay phone and I didn’t call a friend. I called my mom. 

This was one of those Sliding Doors moments in my life. I had a choice. Had I called a friend, my life from that point on would likely have looked drastically different. Instead, I am eternally yelling at my teenage self: What the hell are you doing? This is not the plan! Nooooo!

My mom got me a hotel room for the night, at a place next to Denny’s. The drunks ate and left without paying. Of course they did. Our parting was without emotion. I thanked them and walked away, praying they didn’t follow me. They didn’t.

My mom showed up the next morning with one of the founders of the school I had just fled. I sobbed, screamed, and begged again, trying to convince my mom to take me home. But as if my daring adventure the night before had never happened, they took me back to the school/ranch, and time was reset. I was there for the next two years. 

There are hundreds of individual stories to tell about that experience--the trauma, the psychological abuse and manipulation, the moments of strength and brilliance. But when I think about that night on the highway--just me, my Walkman and Bruno--I’m reminded of what I have survived. What I survived that night and many nights before, what I survived in the following two years, and what I’ve survived every day since. 

I survived, and every day I’m battling the depression that tried to take me down then. Only now, it’s compounded by the trauma of those two years. But it’s no match for me. Because at heart I am still that brave, badass, reckless girl, still not sure which direction to go, but sure she has to keep going.

Jen is a writer, podcaster, mother, and total jackass living in Olympia, Washington. She writes personal essays and humor/satire. You can find her work in McSweeney's, The Offing, The Belladonna, Points in Case, and many more, and learn more at jenfreymond.com.