What does the school mean to me today?

When I came to Ivy Ridge a year ago I didn’t think this school could help me at all.  I thought it was a waste of my time, and then I went through seminars.  As much as I wanted to deny that this place had a purpose for me, over the course of the year I came to see how I changed.  Today it’s made me a better person then when I first stepped through these doors.  I’ve had many struggles here, in which at times I didn’t want to pick myself back up and try again. These obstacles have taught me to become persistant and strive for my dreams because I’m worth it.  Whatever doesn’t bill me makes me stronger.  Another great lesson I have I learned here was that I’m the only one I have in life and if I don’t change it for the better then I’m never going to do anything different.  I can now say I’m glad I came here when I did because it saved me from a lot of things and it gave me a second chance at life, not a lot of people have that.  I also condsidered myself lucky, because one day when I leave I will have all the secrets to life.  I have also come to realize what was truly important to me and how to prioritize.  Staying here I came to love and appricate people and things.   I have never thought I would.  I ‘ve aquired many skills on how to read people and how to communicate.  The biggest lessons I have learned here was not to react to life’s struggles but to respond to them.  It really is worth living your life for the better and I’m not going to let the world mold me into it’s cast.  I am a spontaneious, Forgiving, Vibrant and Creative young WOMEN!!!

What does the program mean to me today as compared to when I first entered it?

After being here for fifteen months the program means a great difference to me from when I first entered. At first it was just a place for parents to drop their kids off hoping that they could be fixed. I didn’t realize until months later that this hell hole was my second chance at life.  I hated everyone, especially my parents, and I hated my life. The program wasn’t a place where I could just run away when things get tuff or try to drink my problems away. After getting cat fours and fives shorlty after being here I learned that I couldn’t fake my way out of here.  I had to get my priorities straight, find my values I truely honored, and apply them to my everyday life.  I was a sixteen year old girl who thought she knew everything in life, always had to have the last word, attitude toward everyone, selfish, inconsiderate of the people around me, and gang affiliated.  Thinking that through a gang is the only to get somewhere in life because I felt that was the only place I was respected and was in control of how much respect I had.  My family at home was always there for me I just pushed them away because I was afraid of being hurt, when in doing that I was only causing myself more pain.  I didn’t miss my family because I didn’t understand what family  meant.  It wasn’t until having PC1 with my mom and her girlfriend, my other mom, six and a half months into my program that i became homesick along with starting to love myself again I slowly started to love my mom again.  I wasn’t cursing her out in every letter but expressing how I felt about things in a  respectful way.  Another two months later I had PC1 with my dad and went to focus.  Focus was the biggest slap in the face to reality for me after going through and graduating three long, emotional, and exciting days in focus I didn’t understand how anyone could break a rule or not appreciate their family.  I was flying through my program after that.  I got level three and a month later I got level four.  Along the journey I learned more about myself, got closer to my parents, and realized where I wanted to go in my life.  After my off grounds I lost sight of the real reason I was working and I ended up dropping for cheating in school.  Straight back to old patterns of being in my image, thinking I wasn’t good enough, and blamed everything on my mom.  I sat in my crap for a couple of months and being in denial about thinking that doing nothing might get me home, I began to work again.  And ever since I’ve dropped I hate seeing situations where girls are about to flip out and lose everything that they have.  Whether I am close to the person or not I take it personal because I don’t want to see someone lose their level when they are just thinking irrational in the moment.  They don’t realize what could potentically be losing.  It’s more than a level, it’s what you’ve worked for, for months, trust, respect, pride, dignity, knowing that someone else is proud of you too and you gain guilt, pain, regret, sorrow, and shame.  Those arent’ things you want to gain, it’s all not work it in the end.  This program has taught me to appreciate the little things in life but most of all my life and my family.  I can actually hold a conversation with my parents.  I don’t let other people determine my self worth, I do with the confidence this program has helped me build.  I am able to pick myself up when I fall and keep going, I don’t give up on myself like I did at home.  It taught me responsibility and that I am accountable for every action I do or do not take.  Here I think are the realest people because we go through and learn more than 40 year old adults have learned their whole life.  It’s more than just a program it’s the toast to life.  Without this program I was well on my way to just becoming another teenage statistic in our society.  Now I am a goofy, powerful, forgiving, compassionate and pure young woman and determinded to make my dreams to reality.