Like virtually every kid that goes to these places is basically kidnapped. So there's like a legal kidnapping services where these very large gentlemen are hired to wake you up in the middle of the night and take you against your will. It's like you have no right to your own thoughts anymore because at any point they can just be like, they can basically demand to have access to what you're thinking.

And again, any reaction to this, to what you're experiencing as serious abuse is treated as pathological. Hi, everyone. So I'm very pleased to introduce to you all Nick Tabor.

So Nick, just to start us off, could you just give a bit of a brief introduction about who you are, where you're from and your background, et cetera? Yeah, of course. Thank you, Daniel, for this opportunity. I'm Nick.

I'm from California and I basically help people coming out of authoritarian environments to heal and grow and sort of develop themselves in all ways. Intellectually, emotionally, creatively, physically. And because of my own background, I'm largely lately focused on that as it relates to authoritarian families, schools and mental health institutions.

And my background is in international political economy with sort of international economic policy with a focus on China and other authoritarian systems of political economy. So just to start us off with, Nick, what was your life like before you came in contact with the mental health system or the troubled teen industry anyway? Yeah, well, in some ways, I was kind of, you could say, your typical kid that gets referred into the mental health system. I mean, to the degree that you have a typical kid, maybe you don't have one.

But in some ways, I think that's a good way to look at it. I was very much at odds with my school environment and somewhat at odds with my family environments as well. And I was basically treated like there was something wrong with me for that.

And it was all seen from the standpoint of like, Nick has a problem. Nick is noncompliant. Nick is irritable or something like that.

But in terms of what my life was like, in a lot of ways, it was really good. So what was your first contact with the system like? You know, you've given the background. So how did you first interact with the system? If I were to guess, maybe when I was around like seven or eight, maybe even six, I was probably taken to a psychiatrist.

And I think it was mostly around my irritability. So I was kind of labeled as being irritable and sort of having behavior problems. And then I was like put on psychiatric medication.

And then when I became a teenager, I started to get more bold, I would say, and more kind of more actively rebellious. And I think a lot of what was happening was I was having sort of more clarity around what was happening. And then just as things escalated further, then eventually, my parents just figured that they had to do this really drastic option.

So I was sent to a wilderness program. And basically what happened was I got kidnapped in the middle of the night by these men. It was like a legal kidnapping service that my parents hired and basically was dragged away from my home against my will, literally dragged through the dirt by these men and sent off to this like kind of program in Utah. And that was like the beginning of my experience with these facilities.

And then I went from there to a program in Montana that was supposed to be like a transitionary program. And then after that, I went to this program called Spring Ridge Academy in Arizona, which is a sort of long-term, locked down psychiatric institution in Arizona. And I was there for about two years.

And all of that happened without my consent and with very little explanation. Wow. So I know obviously there's a lot more details, you know, with what happened during your time there. But if you could sort of summarize, what were the kind of messages and values that you were kind of taught during your time in those institutions?

What were the key takeaways that you had in that time, do you think? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, in some ways, the big thing is compliance. So compliance is like the master value that sort of governs everything.

So everything that you experience is seen through that lens. So if you're compliant, then that's good. And then if you're noncompliant, then you're bad and you get punished and you're kind of, you're sort of degraded. I would say there's a lot of degrading and sort of dehumanization of the people that are there.

And it's very much about power. So it's about, you know, we have power over you and you just have to accept that. And if you don't accept that, then you're going to be punished and you're going to be humiliated. And so there's a lot of kind of like emotional violence and sort of psychological abuse that takes place. And then that's often kind of euphemized as therapy or as like emotional growth or personal growth or things like that.

So it really like, it really makes it hard to have a kind of a clear sense of what's happening because everything is kind of framed in a way that's very disorienting. So when you came out of that experience, what was life like immediately after leaving those institutions?

What was the kind of short-term impact on your mental health and your life in general? Yeah, I mean, it was devastating. I would say that I was really in shock. I was probably in a state of, you know, trauma for several years afterwards.

And I didn't really understand what had happened. And I was really struggling to kind of reintegrate into society. And I had a very hard time trusting people and a very hard time kind of understanding what had happened. And so it was like a long process of kind of deprogramming and kind of unlearning the things that I had been taught and kind of trying to find a way back to myself and back to kind of a sense of agency and a sense of autonomy and a sense of dignity. And that took a long time.

And that took a long time. And it took a lot of work. And it took a lot of kind of unlearning and a lot of trying to understand what had happened. And a lot of kind of trying to reclaim my story and reclaim my voice and reclaim my sense of self.

What helped the most in starting to reconnect with yourself or even realize how deeply you had been affected? I think that, for me, one of the big things was just finding language. Finding language to describe what had happened. Because I think one of the big things that happens in these programs is that your experience is invalidated. So you're told that what you think and what you feel is not true or is not valid or is not real. And so you're kind of cut off from your own experience.

And so part of what was helpful was just finding people who had had similar experiences and who had words to describe it and who had a way of kind of making sense of it. And then I started reading and I started writing and I started kind of learning more about trauma and about institutionalization and about power and about all of these things. And that started to give me a sense of kind of orientation and a sense of grounding. And then I could start to kind of process what had happened and start to move through it.

What were some of the risks of institutionalization that you feel like people really don’t understand? I think one of the big things is the kind of loss of agency and the loss of voice. I think that's huge. I think that when you're in these places, you're basically taught not to trust yourself. And that has very long-term impacts. Because then you go through your life and you're constantly second-guessing yourself and you're constantly wondering, am I allowed to feel this? Am I allowed to think this? Is this okay?

And that really limits your capacity to live fully and to live freely. And so I think that's one of the biggest things is that you learn not to trust yourself and you learn not to speak up and you learn not to kind of advocate for yourself. And that is a huge, huge loss. And it takes a long time to recover from that.

And I think the other thing is that a lot of people don’t understand just how normalized it is in these places to use control and coercion and fear as therapeutic tools. So people will say, “Oh, well, they probably meant well,” or, “They were trying to help you.” And it's like, maybe, but the methods were harmful. And when the methods are harmful, the intention doesn’t matter that much. Because you’re still hurt. You’re still impacted. And I think that gets really overlooked.

One of the things I also hear in your story is that when you were most vulnerable, you had nowhere to turn. The people who were supposed to help you were part of the system causing harm. Yeah. And I think that’s something that’s very common in these situations—because it’s not just one person. It’s not just one bad apple. It’s a whole system. So you go to your therapist, and they’re in on it. You go to your parents, and they’re in on it. You go to the school, and they’re in on it. You go to the doctor, and they’re in on it.

And so you have no safe space. You have no one to turn to. And that’s a really devastating place to be. Because it makes you feel like maybe you are the problem. Because everyone else is saying that this is what you need. So if it doesn’t feel right to you, then maybe something is wrong with you. And that’s a really dangerous place to be.

When you say that people told you this was for your own good, but it didn’t feel like that… Can you speak more to what it felt like? It felt like being silenced. It felt like being erased. It felt like being told that who I was wasn’t okay. And that if I just became something else, then everything would be fine. And so I tried to become something else. I tried to be what they wanted me to be. I tried to be good. I tried to be compliant. I tried to be normal. And I lost myself in that process.

And so the healing has been about finding myself again. And about realizing that I wasn’t the problem. And that I never was. And that the things that I was feeling and the things that I was experiencing were valid. And that I deserved to be heard. And I deserved to be supported. And I deserved to be safe. And that’s a really big thing to come to after so many years of believing that you didn’t deserve those things.

And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about this work now. Because I know what it’s like to feel alone. I know what it’s like to feel broken. I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong anywhere. And I don’t want anyone else to feel that way if I can help it.

I think what you're naming is so important—because it’s not just about recovering from what happened. It’s about rebuilding that inner sense of self that got taken away. Absolutely. And for a lot of us, it’s not just about healing from trauma. It’s about deprogramming from these systems of control. It’s about learning to trust yourself again. To listen to your own inner compass. And to realize that your feelings, your thoughts, your experiences are valid. Even if the system told you otherwise.

So when people say things like, “Oh, but they meant well,” or, “It wasn’t that bad,” they’re missing the point. They’re missing the harm. Because it’s not about whether someone had good intentions. It’s about what actually happened. It’s about the impact. And for so many of us, that impact was profound. It shaped our lives in really deep ways.

I appreciate you sharing all of this, Nick. It’s vulnerable and generous. And I think it’s going to help a lot of people feel less alone in what they’ve gone through. Thank you. That’s the hope. That’s why I share it. Because I think we need more truth. We need more stories. We need more spaces where people can be real about what happened to them—and what healing can look like.

Because we need to reclaim our narratives. We need to reclaim our agency. And we need to stop pretending that control is care. Because it’s not. And the more we name that, the more we can build systems that actually support healing, that actually respect people’s humanity.

Beautifully said. Thank you, Nick. Thank you for the space and the thoughtful conversation. It means a lot.