you're going to the penitentiary or you're going to end up dead. >> let me hear you! >> it was pitched to be like, hey, find out god's calling on your life, and i was, like, i want to know if god's calling on my life. upon. >> there's no religion in the world that talks about changing someone's heart. only jesus did and only jesus can. >> down! >> let's go. you know you like it. >> parents that are sending their kids to these retreats have no idea what is actually going in those woods back there. >> basically, if you're not beating your body and making it

your slave you're not a good christian. >> by that time my body, i believe had begun to shut down and i wouldn't have survived if i had stayed. >> whoever speaks up most gets to shape the culture! >> i feel like a bullfighter. like i'm out there with the red thing and my goal is to jerk that out so when they come, they run right into jesus. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i had heard about teen mania when i was in high school. i think it was even upon in junior high when i first started

to hear about their youth conferences. as a teenager i was intrigued by the choir of fires and by the battle cries. i just found the congregation of people to be really intense and really powerful. there was always lots of lighting and lots of sound and lots of music. looking back, it was almost trancelike, it was an almost out of body experience and that was framed in the way that it was spiritual and a religious experience. the honor academy is a year-long program here at the ministry of teen mania ministries and it's dined for young people to take a year of their life mainly between high school and college and press to knowing jesus better and deeper and building on the foundation they've got and growing deep in their christian faith and learning some personal discipline. >> good evening and welcome.

i commend you for your courage tonight to present yourselves on this field. i would remind you, as you experience emotional, mental or physical pain, the pain is simply weakness leaving your body. we are not going to feel sorry for you. please do not feel sorry for yourself. you won't last long if you start feeling sorry for yourself. ♪ ♪ >> this was the first time that she had seen me in a couple of months and she realized that there was something really wrong. >> down! >> by that time my body, i believe, had begun to shut down and she decided to take me to the doctor and the doctors that i saw spent a huge amount of time with me and she just asked me if i wanted -- if i wanted to

go back and i said i don't want to go back. i wouldn't have survived if i had stayed. >> we know that people do their best learning not in a classroom, but actually get out of the classroom and go experience real life. we want them to have non-traditional learning experiences. they have a lot of traditional learning experiences as well in lecture, but we want them to also get out and learn some things about themselves that are not normally things you would experience. >> i'm not very good with being in yoga. i tend to shake and quiver and i fear if i do that -- they will make me do push-ups. >> you are a loser! >> the generation's lost some of the fight that previous generation his to have even to make this nation what it is. and so, events like easel help to reinstate some of that. you can give more than you think

you can give especially when you're relying on the strength of the lord. >> are you the standard? >> serious. >> i guess it is the standard to be afraid. the standard needs some help here. are you going to help the standard? >> no. maybe you can grab it. >> once you get in, you can take him off, but, can you ring the bell? >> you need to ring the bell. >> we need you in that hole now. once you get in there, take him off, but don't hurt him. >> when i got back from texas, i couldn't leave the house, and i couldn't wash dishes, and i remember looking down into the sink of silverware and thinking i can't do this. . for such a long time i think, just make it through the day and i had this panic rising mainly because i was trying to remember who i was before teen mania, and i just couldn't. i think that was a defining point for me when i realized

that a lot of things had changed. >> anxiety has a way of generalizing and spreading when it's out of control so if a person doesn't know what may set them off any time so they begin avoiding everything. ♪ ♪ you don't know what quite to expect when you go to texas. it's what other people experience. >> is there anything about it that particularly makes you nervous? >> yeah, a lot of things. it's the idea like they, manipulated me the first time around any kind of were able to surpass my ability to think and reason that scares me the most. ♪ ♪ >> my thoughts about going back to texas are that she would almost feel compelled at some point to do it in order to prove to herself that she could master

it. i think it's normal that she would have some doubts and reservations. >> let me hear your battle cry tonight! >> it was like a drug. i was hooked.. new regenerist wrinkle revolution... relaxes the look of wrinkles instantly, and the look of deep wrinkles in 14 days. ready, set, smooth... regenerist. from olay. it's all crossed out... it's 'cause i got everything on it. boom! thank you! [ male announcer ] black friday continues on saturday. get great deals throughout the store on christmas decorations. the only place to go black friday weekend. walmart. get great deals throughout the store on christmas decorations. ♪ ♪ ♪ when the things that you need ♪ ♪ come at just the right speed, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ medicine that can't wait legal briefs there by eight, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪

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how are you? >> i'm good. how are you? >> are you doing okay in. >> so far so good. >> i left teen mania, and the first six or seven years out of teen mania there was a lot of turmoil, a lot of confusion and condemnation and i started to get in therapy after a couple of years, and i started to work through the issues and really dig and go through the recovery process. in the last five years or so i haven't thought about teen mania all that much. i was living my life and i got

married and a friend of a friend invited me to go to a cult seminar and how cults work and i thought i'll go listen and i was surprised what they were describing in the seminar was what i had experienced and the recovery process and the symptoms of coming out of cult life were all things that i had gone through and that was a real light bulb moment for me. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> learning to live in the real world again is so hard. >> it is hard. >> at least i did, i kept trying to make everyone informed to my way of living to what i thought christianity was and i thought they're lazy and i'm not really saved and i thought i'm the only one that's really saved around here. i was in the choir at 18 and i didn't know what god was. i was just going to church as more of a social thing at the time. i didn't really care about my relationship with the lord, but once i experienced, it was like

a drug. i was hooked. it was amazing. it definitely was life changing. upon. >> let me hear your battle cry tonig tonight! ♪ ♪ >> whoever speaks up most gets to shape the culture. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i'm looking at a whole army of young people who want to speak out! >> the acquire the fire event is 27 hours. it starts friday, all day saturday, saturday night. it's a weekend event where you kind of get detoxed from all the messaging that's crammed down your throat with the media that most kids are watching and submerged in, and extract them away from that long enough and give them a chance to hear the message of the bible in a way that's culturally relevant to

them. lord jesus, tonight, i turn away from the world. garbage has destroyed me. i turn away from sin. i come to you. >> this year we had almost 13,000 people together in an arena just worshipping the lord, and it's like a sound that i've never heard where you walk in any see thousands of teenagers that are really caught up in different things, just saying no to those things and really turning to the lord. so it was an awe m experience for me. upon. >> it was just a really life-changing experience because i've never heard god's word intensely and i was sitting down and having fun with it and the group and stuff, and i really heard god speak to me and said i want you to go here and i'm, like, okay. >> what if you were the enraising that by using your

voice -- >> there's data out that show, the more likely they are to respond. so i thought i want to get to people when they're most likely, we hume arngs we think we're smart until we get 20, 21 or 25 and we don't want to change our minds even if the logic is right there. >> so i have a question for you tonight. do you have a voice? >> i've done everything i know to do with a pure heart to commemorate the message. look, they're responding to give their heart to the lord. >> i turned in and i saw the behind the scenes and it became very fake because it was all planned and it was all very much staged and it lost this sense of honesty and this enwin feeling

that i had thought as a participant. >> honestly, i feel like a bullfighter like i'm out there with the red thing and my goal is to jerk that out so when they come, they run right into jesus because jesus changed my life when i was 16, and i prayed 1,000 times, lord, whatever you did to me when i was 16 to me, the lord that you did inside this broken, messed up kid, just do it to them. if you can change them the way you changed me their life will be a million percent better. ♪ ♪ educating people is the first step on the road to recovery, learning how this happened, you know, how they did it and that's the first part of it.

♪ ♪ ♪ how old were you when you first heard about teen mania? >> first i was 18 and i actually got saved. that's pretty much the classic age for recruitment into groups like this because, you know, it's right at that -- on the cusp of about to go out on my own. >> how did you become involved in it? how did you hear about it? >> acquire the fire. i went with my youth group from the time i was a sophomore through senior year. so i was used to it, and i looked forward to it every year, and i would wear my wristband for months afterward. >> i was with atf since i was 13 and i didn't think of it until i went to an atf until my senior year and that's when i heard about the honor academy in a more personal life and it was

pitched like, find out god's calling on your life, and i was, like, i want to know god's calling on my life. >> the first time i had just started the school of worship, and i, i played guitar and i sack and i was, like, it's perfect and so it was a combination of a lot of things. honestly, everything looked appealing about it. >> right. >> i went to my first acquire the fire when i was 15 and i was in the ninth grade. i just wanted to do something with my life, for it to have meaning and the honor academy seemed like that fit the bill. i was going work in this christian ministry and i was going to be learning about god and doing these things that counted for eternity. that's why i went there and of course, it didn't end up being anything like what i was expecting. >> he talked me into it and made me feel guilty. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesn't treat that. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms,

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>> why are you crying? what are you scared of? are you the standard? >> it's pretty small.

>> you want a ring in. >> sir, no, sir. >> you want to use the wipeout card? as of now you are wimping out. time to climb back out. you wimped out. >> he saw which stance of the emotionally stretching opportunity of a life time is the lt in the honor academy. >> for me, the beginning of the end was easel. i guess i was able to take the abuse myself, but to see other people having to take it as well, i just -- i just couldn't deal with that. and then that was kind of the epitome of all the emotional abuse coming to the surface as well. that just really opened my eyes to what was happening. i remember we got to sleep on the pavement for, like, an hour and they would wake you up and make you go jump in the lake or wake you up and make you go get in a pool filled with ice cold

water. >> everyone was really cold and we were all wet and stuff and we were shivering to the point that our teeth were chattering and it was like the introduction where they would get up. it was the first time we had seen him, and i remember he said stop shivering. you sound disgusting and it's -- it's dark and it's just a scary environment. ♪ ♪ >> okay. we're going keep it moving now. so as soon as your team is done. >> you will have just as much more. don't bother spitting it up. you'll get even more. swallowing is much easier. >> let's go. >> you know you like it. let's go. >> come on now. let's go.

let's go. we're not having social intrakz here. >> you could say "fear factor" meets navy s.e.a.l.s training. they don't know how it will unfold or what the next exercise is and that kind of thing meets navy s.e.a.l.s training where it is really intense, it's like navy s.e.a.l.s training to requires you to give more than you think you can give and it creates a surreal environment where you discover things in you that you didn't know were there. i'm a quitter, i shouldn't be or i can give more than i thought, with the hope that they can reach deeper and trusting the lord more than they thought. so you take a surreal environment like that and hopefully get an eternal change in their life. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i didn't want to do esoal and

then heath talked me into it and made me feel guilty and made me feel like crap and i thought -- no, god will carry you through. you need to do esoal and i'm, like, i don't think i can. they basically forced me into doing it by making me feel really bad and when i was in esoal. there were many points when i was hysterical and crying and, like, the leaders, they weren't being encouraging and you're going to leave your company out here? is that what you're going to do when things get hard with your relationship with the lord? you're just going to ring out of it, but they were very emotionally abusive and this was like when i have to know and i have to get out of here. >> with us, i know, we had to go to work the next day if we rung out at a certain time. there was no rest or recovery unless you finished esoal. so it was almost like you were doubly punished for -- for

quitting. ♪ ♪ >> when they get a commitment one of the churches say they're coming and they get to ring the gong and everybody cheers for them, you know? so that might mean 15 or 20 kids are coming from that youth group and they'll have a chance to have their life changed and they see this picture of 36,000 people. about 15 of these guys put all of those guys in the seats. so if you're an 18-year-old and you walk in and you go god just used me to get these 60,000 people here or whatever, wow! all of the ministry that happens. so it is teen mania. it's teenagers being used to whether it's change the world on mission trips or change their generation here in america. >> there's a shift any b shift for the ministry placements and a shift is 9:00 in the morning

to dinner time and then b shift is after lunch to, like, 10:00 at night. >> dave has pulled all of the graduate interns together to have a meeting because there weren't enough calls being made in global exp/eedings to get teens down on the missions field so we're moving all of the man power to ge. >> it's like that in all of the call center. acquire the fire, and the ge call center. that's all they care about and they'll tell you if you're not meeting your goals, you're not praying enough, you're not being spiritual enough. you're not working at this hard enough because you're not reaching this goal. >> my goal is september 11th when we had a huge mass exodus of kids that were in global expeditions and they were going to go on mission trips that summer and completely backed out. they did this whole oh, we're in a war. this is wartime. >> what? >> which means we were working overtime. so we were given new schedule it

is, completely new schedules and we were working ten-hour shifts instead of eight-hour shifts and we didn't have to fill out our accountability cards anymore. >> you didn't have class either, did you? >> yeah. we didn't have class. we didn't have to fill out the accountability cards because we were aren't accountable for going to church or reading our bibles. >> wow! >> let me see if i can understand something. you paid to be there each month and you worked? >> you would work ten hours a day. >> yeah. and you had to volunteer to work those extra hours, but of course, everyone did it because you were -- you were required to volunteer and you were -- when we first started out we were required to make 90 calls a night. upon. >> it's like a business. >> it sounds like a business. but the business treats their employees better. i mean, you know, require all that overtime and oppress people

like that. >> it was like even like to go to the bathroom. >> i had to ask to go to the bathroom. >> ask if i could go to the bathroom like i was a kid in school. >> this is the opportunity to do something different in the summer? ? >> when we were working we wouldn't have air-conditioning on very high. it would probably be -- it would be, like, 85 in the building. it would be very hot and there would be 100 people on the second floor in a small -- in a workplace, but a small workplace. it was -- i felt like it was overcrowded, and that was a normal day, but for a tour, the air-conditioning would be on. all of the cubicles would be cleaned. fans would go away. when we had campus visits i felt like we just would lie. >> not everything in the culture would be good for me. it's like canned we poison in it. it really looks good, but it's going to kill you. the hole-drillers, and the get-it-done machines all cost less.

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>> i'm milissa rehberger.

here's what's happening. pakistan is reportedly demanding that u.s. forces leave an air force base in the part of the country this after 24 pakistani soldiers died when nato helicopters and jets allegedly attacked two army posts. nato plans to fully investigate. nba players and owners have finally reached a tentative agreement to end the 149-day lockout and delayed season will begin with the triple head or christmas day. now back to "mind over mania." ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i have learned a lot of things with my walk with the lord. i learned not to be in fear of man, just getting to got over different stumbling blocks in my life and getting rid of things in my past and be able to grow closer to him. >> honestly, the only thing i can think of emulating is jesus christ. there aren't, you know. i think there are skills that we can pull from people. stills that we see, i want to grow in that area, but in my

perspective i feel like those people are following hard after jesus, quite honestly. there are many things that don't represent the teachings of jesus and the bible and if we're going to call on the fathers of christ who are identified with him then we need to be able to go, you know what? not everything in this culture is going to be good for me and it's like canned we poison in it. it really looks good, but it's going to kill you. >> robert lipton wrote really the basic book and in that book he described the eight conditions of the fault reform environment and we're going to look any we're going to see if, you know, if teen mania fit those conditions at all. if it did, then you've been through a process of thought reform. you can call it cult, not a cult, i don't care what you call

it. you've been through thought reform. you've had that done to you. ♪ ♪ >> geographical distance is a huge one. it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere. it's not by any significant city. it's 20, 30 minutes away. there's nothing right around the campus. so right there you're isolated. >> communication. >> yeah. huge. >> i didn't talk to my sister the whole -- she thought i didn't want to talk to her and part of it was that i just didn't have the time. you had the 19-minute rule and the only film i could use or that i had access to was in the middle of the hallway and the dorm so i couldn't openly speak to my parents and tell them how i was feeling or what was going on. ♪ ♪ >> you step out of your own reality and the western mind set of reality and really just experience the realities of the

rest of the world, you know what i mean? just taking away simple things like commodity, american electronics and whatever and getting that out of the way and seeing what really does matter. ♪ ♪ they actively promote the idea that ron and dave are this magically anointed, you know, dave would tell the story as soon as interns arrive, this elaborate story where he almost died in africa and this woman prophesied to him that he was going to miraculously recover and that his job was to sweep the aisles out of the lives of young people. whatever he says is automatically credible and, you know, and the same thing with ron. there's this mystical thing around them that you just automatically believe whatever they say. >> i never ask people to become christians. i ask them to consider becoming followers of christ.

people who would want to be known as christians ought to be people following christ with all of our heart and when that happens we ask him to forgive us and a miracle happens. you can't describe it with words. it's not just about going to church and it's not just about saying a chant and it starts with an encounter where you invite him to take over your life and the bible calls it being born again. you get a new heart. you can't even explain it. you can try, but it's a miracle. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i feel like they're trying to teach you to be perfect, you know? >> right. >> there's nothing wrong with accountability because i think we all need that in our lives, but they take it to an extreme. >> ron tells interns that you should always be fasting something. >> oh, wow! >> because that will help you keep your flesh in check. whether you fast food for a while and fast movies or fast

talking, you should always be fafrting something. >> when we set apart three days just to fast from food and really pursue what the lord is doing in our lives and just kind of spend that time doing what he's calling us in hearing sessions from speakers that come to us and that in the end we break together and just talk about what the lord did in our lives over that time. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you do have to have an accountability partner, like, it's a requirement and you're supposed to practice confession with them. >> they would say to us, even if you have the thought of doing something you need to tell somebody right away. even just the thought, and i thought that's kind of weird. just because it's a thought doesn't mean i'll act upon it. if you do have a concern it's

immediately shut down instead of saying this is the answer to that and instead of let's approach this genuinely. >> so they have stock answers for everything. >> yeah. ♪ ♪ >> i was willing to believe anything they said because they were obviously more spiritual than i was. i didn't know how to hear god's voice. >> anybody else? that's pretty strong right there. >> he gives this definition of honor as the total conglomeration, he basically says the whole bible and jeesz us is summed up in honor. like, the honor academy. we have the honor academy and the honor code and the honor ring and this whole, you can't even question what it's all about honor? what about, i don't know, love? >> so here we are in texas, in the rain in camouflage ponchos carrying a cross down the side of the road. but with advair, i'm breathing better so now i can take the lead on a science adventure.

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did they have the thing that made you guys watch on the freeway. basically what happened was they would wake you up really early in the morning, blindfold you, put you on the bus, not allowed to talk. of course, you can't see anything and after several hours they would drop different people off at different looks in groups was six, seven or eight. our first year we got dropped off in oklahoma and the rules are can't have a watch, can't have money and you cannot ask any questions. and you can only take a ride for 20 miles at a time. we went to this church and it was raining and of course, we had to walk and so they gave us

these ponchos and they gave us camouflage pofrn os and here we are in texas in the rain in camouflage ponchos on the side of the road. if that doesn't look like a cult i don't know what does. >> this is where we basically get separated into two groups, we're missionaries and tribal people and so the tribal people, we have the big campus out in the back of 400 acres and so the tribal people all go out there and as the missionaries we get the opportunity to kind of role play and try and reach them with the gospel. it's so much fun even though we know them. >> they have this refugee camp up in the woods that we're supposed to go to. and they were able to drag us to the jail which was the shower house and these are, like, tiny-ass showers and you had to sleep on the floor and you

didn't have blankets, of course, because it was jail. how long were you there? i was in jail like, 12-ish hour, i think, because i went to jail like 4:00 in the morning or something like that? you were in the shower stall jail for 12 hours? >> i'm sorry that that happened to you. >> it was horrible. horrible. >> that's really abusive. at the time i thought it was great. >> did you really? >> uh-huh. i was, like, i'm spending time with jesus. and i thought it was hard core sounding to think i spent my birthday in jail. >> what strikes me as when you all tell this you kind of laugh and it seems light hearted. >> you sort of smile, like, no big deal and i'm sitting here horrified. parents that are sending their kids to these fun-sounding retreats have no idea what is actually going on in those woods back there. >> yeah.

>> this is -- this is abusive behavior. >> extremely. >> you know? no parent, no normal, healthy parent would want their child to do that. >> did any of you tell your parents this story? >> i just started telling my parents about the internship after reading mica's blog. >> you know, a lot of people have told me that they don't want to tell their parents what happened because they don't want their parents to feel guilty for sending them there or for not -- they just don't -- they just don't want their parents to know what they went through because it's too heart wrenching and i think that's why i write the blog there because there are a lot of stephanies out there and a lot of hollies and a lot of mica's. none of us deserved to be treated that way. >> i understand some people have felt really hurt. there's a negative experience and because they so desperately don't want an in your face

challenge. that's negative, why would you ask me to do that or that kind of thing? it's not for everybody. ♪ ♪ >> treating your body according to teen mania would be ignore any discomfort from exercise. basically if you're not beating your body and making it your slave you're not a good christian. >> all of that stops you from critically thinking from what are really my needs, what are my desires and what does god want from me in that situation? >> you have to think critically. think critically and he was always stressed. so it was very confusing and conflicting. >> be a critical thinker, but follow our rules. >> don't question anything. >> we're trying to train young people to think critically, and some of the ways that we do that, for example, any time i teach i tell the young people don't just listen to what i say and think that it's true. you need to think about what i'm saying and you have need to see

is it in the bible what i'm saying? does it prove true in life experience what i'm saying? don't just walk out here and say dave haas said this so that's true. ♪ ♪ >> basically, i felt like they didn't want us to have emotions and they didn't want us to be happy people all of the time and they didn't care what was going on inside of us all of the time. >> a lot of christians do this, but especially teen mania and they associate what is a normal, human emotion or devotion as worldly so then you have to abstain from it and they categorize everything and even like a normal, healthy development, basically robbing you of humanity. >> they just call it a high, moral standard here and it's all biblical. it's excellent and discipline. see? i mean, it's, these are what

they're struggling with and they adequately deal with these cases with the counseling program and the mentorship program and put them on the growth plan and just different issues that they're struggling with. so -- ♪ ♪ >> you're really not allowed to have an opinion that's not held with the majority of the group. >> because what would happen if you do have your own opinion, if you voiced your own opinion? >> the most minor thing that would happen is you might be just judged by your peers or looked down upon, but if it got all of the way back up, if it it was a serious enough disagreement. >> the fix-all solution was to just tell them to leave. >> so we can stop the questions? >> exactly. >> let's engage in critical thinking and look at the issues and decide for ourselves. >> you can't have any of that. >> there was no sense of who i

was. i had completely lost anything and everything that was my identity. >> what do you mean? >> i had no needs or wants or desires or goals outside of what teen mania told me that i had and -- i guess a good way to put it would just be soul murder? i think that might be extreme, but that's a way of defining it. ♪ ♪ >> when i think about who i was in high school and before teen mania it's -- it's it's almost like i'm in mourning and that's been a huge part of my own sort of recovery processes, this idea of grieving for who i was because so much of who i was i feel was taken away from me or in some cases suffocated to the

point where i just didn't think that that part of who i am was ever going to come back. >> we're not doing things that will cause people to have problems. >> that was ten years of my life, you know? all of my 20s. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy? of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust. take away the singing animals, and the storybook narrator... [ man ] you're left with more electric trucks. more recycled shipping materials... and a growing number of lower emissions planes...

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>> after people have been through a thought reform process, sometimes they'll have outbreaks of crying, of panic even, suicidal thoughts. >> ten years ago, this is a description of my college years. >> this whole thing? >> this whole page, you know? avoiding things, being incredibly irritable. having intense feelings, being numb, finding it hard to trust people, feeling detached, losing

interest, always on guard -- always. yeah. absolutely. >> i just had a lot of avoiding symptoms, really. i can't stomach a worship service anymore just because of the dha. it's not necessarily that anything bad happened in worship, and it just reminds me of that and i can't stomach it. >> i'm looking at the checklist and thinking i do have some of these symptoms which i just never thought about. i think it's the whole avoiding the thoughts, like even the thought of teen mania. yeah. i think i'm just now realizing that that that's what it was. >> the purpose of esoal is to train in an environment that's safe and pushes people beyond where they've gone before and we're not doing things that will cause people to have problems

after esoal. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> in terms of the process of thought reform, it looks like lifton's criteria were active and are active at teen mania. >> great. >> it pisses me off that it happened. >> yeah. is that your fault? >> no. >> no, it's not. >> i really think that the only thing we're all guilty of is wanting to be good people, wanting to be good christians and wanting to help other people. >> yeah. that's what we're guilty of. they took that and they used it against us and there's no reason for us to feel bad about that. >> exactly. we were just kids. >> it's just hard to, like. >> this is a lot to swallow,

isn't it? >> yeah. >> what they did, but it wasn't your fault. >> the honor academy is not for everyone. and if you don't want that challenge, it's probably not a good place for you to come. we want you to rise up and become leaders of your generation. in order to be a leader you have to rise up to challenges in intense situations. >> that's taken me a decade to get to that point where i have -- i'm opening up and i'm having friends because even two years ago i didn't have a social life. i didn't socialize. that was just something i warrant comfortable doing yet. >> you feel so alone and you feel like nobody else had that experience. you were the only one -- >> yeah. the experience has changed you forever and beginning to accept that and being okay with it and

being okay with who you are now, that's another way that you'll be dealing with the loss. >> it wasn't until just a few months ago that i realized that i'm allowed to enjoy my life. and -- i'm not angry about what happened to me for those years that i was at teen mania, but i'm angry about the last, the ten years following that that i didn't think i could enjoy my life and all of the crushing guilt, the condemnation that i lived with, you know? that's ten years of my life, you know? all of my 20s. >> yeah. getting through this experience and healing, everybody's recovery will be different. there's no cookie cutter way to do it. >> now i don't even want to go home because this has been so helpful. i feel like when i go back home

i'm going to be, like, stuck or, like, i'm going backpedal, you know? >> think the reality is that's part of the isolation that you feel coming out of -- i mean, i was so lonely my first year out of the honor academy, so lonely because nobody could relate to what i was going through and it's hard. it's not easy. ♪ ♪ >> all right. >> i think the weekend went really well, giving me ideas of things that i need to be aware of in my life in terms of recovery, and i think it was encouraging to see the girls being able to talk freely about things that they've -- maybe they haven't been able to share with other people before, so that was really good, and i think we had a really good camaraderie together, and i think that's always really healing when you can be around people that are supportive and affirm you and what the

experience that you had was. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this weekend was really good because it was of a safe environment and i can talk about my experience at the honor academy, and i didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable or that people were judging me or not understanding. i think that's the kind of environment i need to be in in order to really recover. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> when we were at dinner, when we were talking about putting your story up on the blog and what that meant to you and i -- even when that happened which was a couple of months ago it -- for me it warrant a question of -- of if it happened or not. it was more a question of is is someone going to validate my experience? am i going to gain more confidence sharing my story? ♪