Roxanne's MacLaren Hall Story

My name is Roxanne, I spent many years in MacLaren Hall throughout the 70's. I was a ward of the state of California until emancipated at 16 years old, I am now 45 years old. I have never really recovered. What has affected me most of all; I can never control the nightmares, they truly haunt now matter how well my life may be or seem to be, they are always there. The solitary confinement, with blaring recordings of the Lords Prayer, lasting all through the nite. The constant threat of being beaten up by older kids, BEING beaten up too. With years of experience there, I have stories, painfull to hear, for everyone who listens, I have tried to move on so others would be more comfortable in my presence, wouln't feel uncomfortable for not being tortured in there childhood, but ultimately the insecurities it created in me ends up between me and so many of the important people who I lost along the way.

30 years is a long time, I don't feel sorry for myself....but I know the place changed me and i had to take a lifetime to find my self and to start to grow up. I have lived like a runaway kid alot of my life, always avoiding anything official...took till I was 33 to get my drivers license; i was scared of DMV office...i cried the first 5 -6 times i tried to go in. Tried to go to collage,a number of times and had panic attacks, broke down in tears at registration, even last year.

I never filed for a tax return untill 33 either, because I was just plain scared of the government, thought if i paid um off they'd leave me alone. This is just the tip of the iceburg,just those few things affected so many other things that held me back in life, just think of how living like that is.

You can join the MacLaren Hall Survivors Email List/Community, called "MacHallSurvivors" by going to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/machallsurvivors.

Thank you to Resist.ca for hosting this website!

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