Meg Appelgate
speaker
102 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Meg Appelgate’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
In fact, because I have a score over four, my likelihood of developing chronic pulmonary lung disease is up by 390%. Hepatitis, 240%. Depression, 460%. And the chances of me attempting suicide is up a whopping 1,220%.
Great question, and it's one that a lot of people wonder about. The connection between trauma and physical health might not seem obvious at first, but it's all tied to how our bodies respond to stress. When you experience trauma, especially as a kid, your body is constantly in fight or flight mode, and your stress hormones, like cortisol, are working overtime.
This prolonged stress can wreak havoc on your immune system, heart, and even lungs over time. For example, with chronic pulmonary lung disease ongoing stress can cause inflammation and damage to the lungs. As for hepatitis, it's not so much that trauma directly causes the disease
but that the people with high ACEs, or adverse childhood experience scores, might engage in risky behaviors to cope, like substance abuse, which increases the risk of contracting hepatitis. So in short, the stress from trauma messes with your body in ways that make you more vulnerable to a range of health issues later on.
It's like your body ends up paying the price for what your mind had to endure.
Yeah, and the trauma effects don't stop there. Because many survivors experience medical abuse or neglect, many are terrified of doctors and hospitals, which shatters their trust in the healthcare system. I've been there. Anytime I had something wrong with me in those programs, whether it was a nasty, persistent cough,
or being covered in blood after a horrific car crash, I was praised if I didn't seek help or ask for a doctor. No matter what was going on, needing help was seen as being dramatic. Now, as an adult, the mindset has stuck with me. I almost never ask for help, thinking that sitting in pain is somehow better than being a burden by trying to fix it.
Yep. Sounds so crazy, right? One Thanksgiving day, my dad came to visit me in the program. And while I was practicing my driving, since I only had my learner's permit at the time, we ended up getting into a serious car crash. The car rolled multiple times and ended up landing upside down. My hand smashed the windshield and I was a bloody mess.
But my first thought after crawling out through the window was, I have to get to Thanksgiving dinner so I don't get called dramatic for this. People had stopped on the side of the road to help us. I remember them saying they were calling an ambulance, but I told them to stop. I thought that if I could just make it to Thanksgiving dinner, despite everything,
The program owners would be proud of me for being strong enough to not need help. And that is what I did. My dad and I took a taxi because the car was obviously totaled to Thanksgiving. And the owner was extremely proud of me.
I mean, I would say a conservative estimate would be that approximately 120,000 to 200,000 youth are housed in these types of programs every year.
Yeah, awareness is key. The movement to stop institutional child abuse isn't new. For the past 50 years, survivors have been sharing their stories and hoping for change. But there's been a shift in recent years that gives us a real shot of making a difference.
So starting around 2020, high-profile survivors like Paris Hilton, Drew Barrymore, and Kat Von D started speaking out through docu-series, documentaries, podcasts, and news stories. These stories shined a spotlight on the industry and ramped up the pressure.
I know, right? But then there was the tragic death of Cornelius Fredericks in a Michigan facility in April of 2020. Cornelius died after being restrained by several adults for over 10 minutes for throwing a sandwich. His death sparked outrage in the media and highlighted the fact that over 377 youth have died in these programs. The media finally started to pay attention.
And he said, I can't breathe. Yep. But then in May of 2022, the nonprofit I founded, Unsilenced, Paris Hilton, numerous senators and hundreds of advocates went to D.C. to speak to lawmakers about the industry and push for more regulations and reporting requirements.
Yeah. In July of 2022, Senator Wyden and Senator Murray announced a federal investigation into the four largest for profit companies due to long patterns of abuse. And only a few months ago, we saw that come into fruition with the release of a report by the United States Senate Committee on Finance.
The report is literally called Warehouses of Neglect, How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities.
Absolutely disgusting. And it's great because since Unsilenced launched in January of 2022, we've seen 90 programs with a history and pattern of abuse shut down.
Yeah. At Unsilenced, we focus on three main areas, preventing abuse, supporting survivors, and ensuring justice. For prevention, we educate parents and communities about the dangers of the troubled teen industry and the struggles survivors face after leaving these programs.
We also push for transparency with our extensive program archive, which contains over 100,000 documents on over 3,500 different programs. These include DHS reports, news stories, lawsuits, and survivor testimonies, so we can put critical information into the hands of those who really need it.
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