Commentary : ‘VisionQuest Probably Saved My Life’

As I was growing up, there were always problems in my family life. My mother and father divorced when I was 2 and my brother 4. We were always moving, as my mom was always changing jobs to try to make it better for us.

I guess what really started my defiant attitude was my brother beating up on me all the time. There wasn’t much my mom could do about it because she was usually at work. But I didn’t realize that then. I thought she didn’t care, so I just started running away.

I was getting involved in the teen-age scene and doing all the things teen-agers do. The bad things. I went to parties and got stoned all the time.

Then a few years down the road, punk rock came in style, and “preppies.” I had to get into that, too. But I didn’t have any money for those clothes or quite the body. So I started taking speed to lose weight and stole clothes from stores.

All this time I began getting “superficial” and very insecure. I would do anything to be in with the crowd. I was labeled “incorrigible” and a runaway. I got in trouble for joy riding and petty theft. At 10, I was put into “Oak Glen” school for mentally disturbed girls. Then Juvenile Hall three times and Girls Rehabilitation facility once, as well as a couple of foster homes. On my last time to the hall, I was committed to VisionQuest for a minimum of a year. That’s when my life changed.

You first go to VisionQuest’s New Mexico Wilderness Camp, where your goal is to get strong enough through physical training to go on “Quest.” That is a 21-day survival hike. It is very difficult, as is the physical training.

The physical training was really hard for us to take because we couldn’t realize the reason behind it. But, by God, I wished I had done more in PT when I got out on Quest!

We kids would always complain and say, “I can’t do it” and would get mad at the staff for making us do PT, even to the point where we tried to hit them.

We had a thing called “physicals,” when the staff would hold you down and talk to you to keep you from hurting yourself or other people. The only time they did this was when a kid was swinging at someone. Other than that there was no reason for it.

I was in a couple myself. I was never hurt. I could have hurt myself, but thanks to them, I didn’t. The kind of kids that go there are defiant and undisciplined. They just would try to get us to face up to the jerks we really were and help us to change our bad feelings. That would get us pretty mad. Our tantrums had always been hushed up in other programs.

On my Quest I fell and pretended I hurt my ankle. The other kids carried me eight miles. The staff found out, so I had to complete the Quest again.

I finished Quest on my second attempt with flying colors and felt so good about myself. For once in my life I had accomplished something.

After that, I went to the Wagon Train. It was hard, but that’s the whole idea. Doing things so hard really makes you feel good once you complete them.

Every week we’d have two “down days” when we’d stay in camp and thoroughly clean the tack, the wagons, the animals, our clothes and ourselves. We would also get some free time to write letters. We were allowed phone calls to our parents every two weeks and could write whenever everything was done, any day. Communication with our families was very good, except for those that didn’t have any.

The Wagon Train was a very good experience for me. I got close to a lot of staff and kids. It seems the more I began to like myself, the closer I got to other people.

“Residential” in Tucson was my last VisionQuest stop. There you live in houses and work on the “Direction.” I needed to finish high school and go back home, because I was only 16. So, I earned my way into public school and--except for a D in algebra--got all As and Bs, which was something I’d never done before.

Whenever any one of the girls in my group had a problem or needed to deal with something, we’d all circle up and help her resolve it. Most of the time other people’s feelings would come out too. There were things that all us kids needed to get out that we never could before. Things like being raped or abused or being put aside by our parents.

One thing that was so good about the staff in VQ was that they never gave up on us. Even though we didn’t give a damn about ourselves. They helped me to grow up. I faced a lot of things while I was in there and it hurt sometimes, but that’s the only way you can get rid of bad feelings: Facing them and talking about them. That’s what I was taught there, and it worked.

When I got out, I was two years behind in school but very interested in getting my diploma. I finished it all in time to graduate the year I was supposed to--and worked at a Burger King at the same time.

That was a year and a half ago. Now I’m 18, living on my own and working.

My time at VisionQuest was the best time in my life. Also the hardest. VisionQuest probably saved my life, and I’m glad I was there.

Whatever anybody says about VisionQuest abusing the kids is not true . I was there, and I never saw a kid hurt or heard of it. VisionQuest cares. Every staff member that works there does or they wouldn’t be there.