What happens after the psych ward—when the doors don’t unlock, they just change location?

In this episode of The Truth About Trauma, I talk about being transferred from a psychiatric hospital to a residential facility in the middle of rural Kentucky—forty acres of woods, buildings, and silence. No gas stations. No neighbors. No easy way out. Just distance, rules, and a system that calls isolation “treatment.”

This is the truth about residential care that rarely gets discussed:

• How being far from everything can feel more threatening than being locked in

• Why “step-down care” doesn’t always feel like progress

• How staff power, shift changes, and unspoken rules shaped daily survival

• The difference between structure and control

• What it’s like to be placed near a sibling—but kept just out of reach

• Why familiarity, even when it’s painful, can feel safer than the unknown

This episode doesn’t romanticize treatment or demonize every staff member. It tells the uncomfortable truth: that compliance is often rewarded more than healing, and quiet kids are mistaken for healthy ones.

If you’ve ever worked in residential care, lived in it, or trusted the system to protect a child—this episode may challenge what you think you know.

Some stories are hard to hear.

Some truths are harder to accept.

But they still need to be told.