Part 1

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Jim: It's the Buzz on a Wednesday morning July 23rd, 8:38, 22 till 9, and for the third consecutive morning, we are about to begin an interview with a former student of the Hyde School in Bath in the aftermath of the filing the other day of a lawsuit charging the abuse of a number of students. And I will just preface all this by saying that more so than in any time this week so far, you may hear just a very compelling and ear grabbing story about which you may draw your own conclusions. We've talked to two former male students so far this week and for the first time we are going to talk with a female former student of the Hyde School whose name is Megan Elizabeth Price. She's on the phone with us out in Youngstown, Ohio. Megan, good morning.

Megan: Good morning.

Jim: And thanks for doing this on short notice we do appreciate it.

Megan: [inaudible]

Jim: Okay, just I don't know exactly what your phone setup is you're sounding pretty good but just stay as close as you can to that phone and if you can avoid a speaker phone that would be, I don't know if you're on speaker, but just try to be as close to us as you can over the next few minutes. Megan is a native of Northern Virginia but she's in Youngstown, Ohio we'll hear more about that in a moment and she is an active plaintiff in the current lawsuit charging various abuses of students. Says she was sexually assaulted at Hyde. She is a certified mental health first aid responder, she says she lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, and borderline personality disorder, three conditions that are deeply stigmatized, often invisible. She first attended Hyde during the 2003 Summer Challenge program, we'll hear more about that in a moment, then re-enrolled full-time in November 2004. She did not graduate and she is also a writer. She has written and spoken publicly under the name Trauma Barbie. We'll get into that. There is so much to talk about here with Megan Elizabeth Price and Megan first off I want to know, well, talk to me about your young life and talk to me about how you first became aware of Hyde and precisely what led you there in the first place.

Megan: Well I know that it's Summer Challenge, so after Summer Challenge of that the 2002-2003 year was I was actually enrolled there so I just want to clarify that but I like most people that end up in these institutionalized schools although this was considered an elite boarding preparatory school was adopted so that was a huge part of the catalyst of my trajectory in life it started with the trauma of the details surrounding my adoption which were pretty intense and I went through the foster care system for a while. I was actually adopted on Halloween, out of where I live now right around here, more in Ohio.

Jim: Excuse me, excuse me, for one thing Megan I don't want to cramp your style or anything but if you could maybe just slow down–

Megan: Oh, no problem.

Jim: Talk a little more slowly, that would be helpful that would be helpful and tell me at what age you were adopted.

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Megan: Three and a half I went into the system at six months I was adopted at three and a half and that kind of started the spiral process now you said I grew up in Northern Virginia which is correct I actually attended a Catholic school there and my mother found out about Hyde through a family friend who had a child attending Hyde. She actually wrote an op-ed to a letter her name was Mary Moore.

Jim: Okay do you have memories to this day of your adoption at three and a half years old?

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Megan: Honestly I can tell you I don't. I can think about bits and pieces of it and I can see the newspaper where I'm on the front of it but a lot of it I have compartmentalized because of the facts surrounding it just being as dark as they were I guess. I had a very young mother, a lot of genetic and familial issues. She was not prepared to take care of a child so what was supposed to be this loving family was somewhere where, when I went from, like I said, private school at a young age into public school in high school, she just didn't want to deal with me and it was easier to send me to different places.

Jim: Okay now I want to be very clear here, you're talking there about your adoptive mother.

Megan: Yes sir. At this point I–

Jim: Don't call me, sir, my name's Jim. I hate being called sir.

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Megan: It was easier for her to have the facade of a family up close while I wasn't part of it far away.

Jim: Okay so you would say you had a difficult time in your elementary maybe in middle school years?

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Megan: I was very gifted. I was very smart but I would say my home life was like Clueless quoted, it was a full-on Monet. Up close it was beautiful but far away it was a big old mess. Like there was a lot of things that people didn't know going on beneath the surface at home that I was processing as a child, much like my experience of Hyde, processed a lot as a child when I shouldn't have.

Jim: What might have been the most significant thing that you were processing that a lot of people might not have been aware of?

Megan: I would just say feeling like I was always the black sheep, I was never part of my family. I feel like there was almost like a price tag on my head to belong in the first place, you know what I mean, and growing up like that it was always upper echelon everything. I had to excel in everything. I had to have good grades. I had to play sports. I had to MVP everything and it's that type of life for a child, although it's very structured and I can see the benefits, I'm more artistic. I'm more creative. It just, it wasn't me but it was what they wanted me to be.

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Jim: So you're saying your adoptive parents put quite a bit of pressure on you to achieve?

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Megan: Very much so, yes, sir.

Jim: Okay, don't call me sir.

Megan: Oh yeah I'm sorry. Yes, Jim.

Jim: Please don't do that, I just hate that. Anyway, I would assume Megan that all of these factors that you're describing, oriented you in some way toward the Hyde School. How did you happen to become involved with Hyde?

Megan: So again, that transition, going from a very small Catholic preparatory blue ribbon school to, what I fought for was, public high school was a large transition for me, having been so structured and sound in my past. And that adjustment really took a toll on me, so by my sophomore year I was actually enrolled in another private school called the New School of Northern Virginia. It was run like the school without walls in the 80s if people know what I'm talking about. It's very artistic but I kind of fell in with the wrong crowd. I wouldn't say I started partying but my mom didn't like the influences around me and my father wasn't a fan so that's when she reverted to family friends and the pipeline of referrals and had learned about Hyde and thought that it would be a great way to jump start my future and get me into any college that she would want.

Jim: What would you say specifically attracted her about Hyde for you?

Megan: So I can't be sure because she's no longer with us and we've never had this conversation before she expired. However I would assume that it was the dream that they sold that your kid's going to be amazing, your kid's going to learn discipline, your kid's going to become accountable, your kid's going to be the best of the best, that upper one percent and we're going to ensure they have the brightest future possible because that's what I was told going there.

Jim: Okay I want to backtrack here before we get into your time at Hyde. You have said, I believe I mentioned this in my introduction of you, that you live today, do you not with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, and borderline personality disorder? You're still affected by all of those?

Megan: Yeah so the autism was actually linked to believing that when I was younger. I had unmet needs as a child and through adolescence and because those weren't heard it manifested into borderline. I don't know, a lot of these are trauma-based diagnoses and obviously cPTSD, although not recognized by the DSM, I do have PTSD and generalized anxiety it is from trauma and I have gastrointestinal stuff, so a lot of my mental and physical well-being is literally linked to trauma and most of it in childhood. A lot of it in adulthood, as well but it stemmed from childhood, yes sir.

Jim: Don't say sir.

Megan: Yes Jim and I've trained–

Jim: Just don't do it, don't do it. That's the one thing I can't stand, don't call me sir. We're gonna move on we're gonna move on, I don't I don't want to upset you but that's just a bugaboo for me. My name is Jim, think Jim just as I will call you Megan. Okay so you lived with complex PTSD, autism, and borderline personality disorder. You were aware of these conditions at the time that you entered the Hyde school, is that the case?

Megan: So I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder when I went to Hyde.

Jim: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, was that before Hyde or after you got there?

Megan: That was before Hyde I had the ADHD diagnosis.

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Jim: okay and anything else you want to say about that?

Megan: I had an IEP growing up but it never hindered my ability for education. I was always a really smart kid. The only things like the IEP provided were untimed testing or quiet room to do my test. It's never like I needed outside the normal curriculum. I was always a normal curriculum child until Hyde.

Jim: By the way how did you do in school grade-wise, you get good grades for the most part in school?

Megan: So I got really good grades up until high school when that transition happened. I struggled a little bit because when I went into public school I was in AP everything and it was like sensory overload. I didn't do that great my freshman year. I did pretty good my sophomore year at the New School and if you look at my transcript on Hyde which is online, it was like straight Fs because I wasn't in class. I was pretty much on that work crew my whole experience there.

Jim: Okay we're going to talk about that now. So I know your first experience at Hyde was in a summer challenge program. What was that about?

Megan: So I had no clue honestly, going into it, what it was. My parents put me on a plane and said we're going to go do this awesome thing over the summer and I get to Bath, Maine and I basically feel like I'm almost dropped off without hey, we love you, goodbye and then we don't really talk to any of the outside world that we knew before we got there and it puts us through what I would call a beautiful facade, I think is what Duncan used, is the best word of what the facility is. So it seems like this great team building exercise, think of every corporate company that wants to team build. you do trust falls, you go out on rope lines, you do community activities, you learn together, you sing together, you do those types of things. And it's almost like I feel like they're vetting you to see how breakable you are or how moldable you are is what it felt like looking back now. But it was nowhere near as traumatizing as when school started and the facade they sold was over. The parents were gone and the kids were there and it was just us defenseless alone.

Jim: So that's interesting. You're telling me that the summer challenge program went down relatively easily.

Megan: It was digestible, yes.

Jim: Okay digestible, that's a very interesting word. Okay Megan, we are in need of a break here for a couple minutes. That might be comfortable for you too and we're going to break and come back and talk some more about your experience once you got into Hyde on a more permanent basis and did you enter as a sophomore?

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Megan: I entered as I believe it was my junior year.

Jim: Oh okay okay okay okay, entered is it junior year, so you actually spent, it sounds like, less than two years in total there.

Megan: Oh yeah no it was it was from summer challenge up through thanksgiving during in-post when I was kept against my will we'll probably discuss as well.

Jim: Okay so how long in total did you spend at Hyde?

Megan: Summer, August, September, October, November, I'd say roughly four months.

Jim: So you weren't there really that long?

Megan: No but it definitely shaped a lot of–

Jim: oh yeah oh I know it did. You had quite an experience there. We're going to get into that in a moment. Again, we are talking this morning with Megan Elizabeth Price. She is in Youngstown Ohio a native of northern Virginia who ended up as a student at the Hyde School. It's 8:52.

Part 2

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Jim: And just like that, we're back with Megan Elizabeth Price in Youngstown, Ohio, former student at the Hyde School. So Megan, you have told us so far for anybody just joining us that you had what you would describe as a digestible time in the Summer Challenge program, your initial experience at Hyde, but it sounds like when you enrolled there as a junior on a more permanent basis, things got very tough in a hurry.

Megan: Yes.

Jim: Talk about that.

Megan: Yes, Jim. So I've seen a lot of comments and I don't want to like, you know, go into those semantics, but people saying like, why didn't these kids run away? Why didn't they get away? Why didn't they try to leave? Well, I am one of the ones that did that. I tried to run away after spending. I was getting in trouble all the time, even for things I wouldn't do. I know you've touched on Brothers Keeper. Well, part of Brothers Keeper was also used as a military school. Talk, if you're going to refer to Brothers Keeper, we have, you know, some new people who haven't heard the other interviews. One moment. Just briefly explain what the Brothers Keeper program was at Hyde. Of course. So Hyde is a character building, accountability first, preparatory school as people will find out. And one of the biggest things was leaving things better than you found them, making yourself better, being the best version of you is what they tried to portray it as. But really what it was is it was and I've heard the word peer surveillance. I would think that that's a good word, but it's learning to narc on your fellow classmates. And whether it be true or false, if you don't say like, for example, if you saw if you knew someone skipped class or lied about not feeling well, or I've heard someone say smoking cigarettes.

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That was a big one. If you saw someone smoking a cigarette and you didn't do it, but you didn't tell on them for doing it, then you got in trouble when it came to light. Like, oh, well, this person. So people use that also.

Jim: Sorry. Just one thing that occurs to me listening to you talk about that that did not occur to me earlier in the week. There would be a lot of opportunity for false manipulation of a program like that. Would there not? I mean, some somebody could very easily tell a lie about somebody they didn't like. I saw this person smoking, for example, when they really weren't. Did that kind of thing happen?

Megan: That's what I was just going to touch on.

Jim: OK.

Megan: There was also the other darker side of it where people would use it to inflate their accountability record. Let's call it that. That's not a natural Hyde word. But let's get that chart checkmark that I did the right thing and I alleviated my conscience where I don't like this person. So X, Y, Z. There definitely was a level of that going on. I spent my whole time there building a dirt road, which I advocated about about 10 years ago, over a decade almost, when I filmed for 48 hours. They took me back to the campus. It was the first time I had been there.

Jim: And get closer to the phone or something. Now, maybe you're fading a little.

Megan: Yeah, my husband just got home, I apologize. It was the first time I had returned back to the campus. I actually walked that gravel road that I built because I had been on two four the whole time, which is work crew, which is where when you're bad and you violate a rule or an ethics, what they call them, or let's say you don't participate in discovery or you're not doing well in your courses, you might be put on two four for any gamut of reasons.

Jim: I've heard people refer to what they call two for four in the past. Slow down, slow down a little bit. You're rushing. Slow down. You're referring to something very important in the context of all this. The two four program. We're going to need a break here in a moment, but give me about a 30 second explanation of what the two to four program was. And you were penalized in that program, right?

Megan: Yeah. So basically you were put in a separate subsection of the school. You and the students that were on two four, you were running through a different program. You were taking on a lot of classes and you were basically terrorized by staff and older students called proctors.

Jim: OK. And this happened to you. And you're basically telling me that you spent a good part of your short time at Hyde in the two four program.

Megan: And that's why I tried to run away. And that's why everything snowballed. And I was told if I didn't take accountability for everything that happened to me, I wasn't building character. OK. Traumatized me for life.

Jim: You were also sexually assaulted at Hyde. And I know that's a very difficult thing to talk about, but I'm going to ask you when we come. You can stay with us, I hope, for a little while longer. We're going to take about an eight or nine minute break here, cover some news and weather and stuff like that. But just hold on, Megan. You can have some coffee or breakfast or whatever you need to do for about eight to nine minutes. Just be here when we come back to you.

Megan: Okay.

Jim: And you will hear everything that's going on. That OK?

Megan: Sounds perfect.

Jim: OK. Just hang with us. This is most compelling. We will have more with Megan Elizabeth Price in Youngstown, Ohio, former high school graduate. Just after the news on what will be another extended edition this morning, the WCME Midcoast Morning Buzz for the best of reasons. This is a very important local story at the moment. We are coming up on 9:02 now at WCME. Good morning. Custom crafted for the Midcoast ninety nine five WCME. And we are back on an extended edition this morning at the WCME Midcoast Morning Buzz with a most compelling guest. I must say she has already proven herself to be just that. And her name again is Megan. And she is in Youngstown, Ohio. And she is a former student for a short period of time in the very early part of this century at the Hyde School in Bath. And Megan, just if you would, for the benefit of those who are just joining us, we're always taking on new listeners at this time of morning. People tend to listen in a short burst of time. Just give us a quick summary of your four or five months or so at the Hyde School in 2002, 2003. How was that for you?

Megan: So we were getting into like the worst part of it right before this. But like I said, I attended Summer Challenge, which is a known program that they advertise, which is a recruitment type thing. I feel like now, but it's a summer program to gauge your ability to be able to, you know, mold into their character building concepts, I would say. After attending that, I was enrolled full time starting the school year of my junior year. I spent most of my time on work crew, which is that military style 2-4. And I always thought it was 2-4 because it was military style work crew was what we were told, where we're basically supervised by staff and most of the time older students, which are the fifth year seniors, because that's something Hyde pushes, is actually staying five years, or the kids who've been there five years for high school, sorry, second year seniors. And always pushed that it helps them prep for college education. So those were the kids running it, the proctors. And that's about where we left off, that I spent my time in trouble, whether I did it or not. Most of the time not. And that I had a very bad experience and we were getting into the semantics of it.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. And we're going to get into it further here. But it sounds like you're saying you spent maybe more time in the 2-4 disciplinary program in which you were on a work crew.

Megan: Yeah.

Jim: You spent more time there than you did in class. Is that the reality?

Megan: Yes. And the wildest part of it is my parents paid about 40 grand back at the time to send me there for the year, which is astronomical to me now. I don't know why they would have done that. But for me to get this stellar education and I wasn't even in class, I was being traumatized on a field building a dirt road.

Jim: OK. There came a point in time in your life at Hyde when you were sexually assaulted. And again, I just to preface that question, I know that's the most difficult thing to talk about. But I think you have discussed it maybe in some of your writing. What are you comfortable telling us about that?

Megan: I don't know what I'm allowed to say on air. I'll go into all of it. I've gotten to the point where I wouldn't say that I'm fully healed. I'm still very much in my healing redemption arc, but I'm healed enough that I can talk about it. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I don't, but I can get through the tears of it to get the message out.

Jim: I just want to say I'm very happy to hear that. It sounds like you probably did a lot of work on yourself to get to that point.

Megan: Countless, countless, countless amounts of work on myself in every facet you could imagine. So basically somewhere around the October range, I don't remember the exact date. I know it's in the legal filings. But I know the timeframe. I had run away from the school because like I was saying in the previous segment, a lot of people are commenting online things like, well, why don't these kids run away? Why don't they try to escape? Well, because we were in prison and we couldn't. Yes, there might not have been a fence around us with the, what do you call them, to keep the prisoners in, the barbed wire. But we had a beautiful front lawn that had a moat around it. Not that the moat was around the whole school, but it was a picture perfect thing. So in people's minds, why would you run away from it? So we all looked contained, but the truth is it was the fear. So I finally, one of my friends...

Jim: Megan, I want to stop you for just a second, remind you to slow down your speech. You have a tendency to talk fast. This is a very compelling part of your story. It's important that people absorb it. So just slow down, take your time and tell us the story.

Megan: Okay. So, okay. A friend of mine that I had made at Hyde, she was a year, actually two years younger than me, she was a freshman. She was having issues as well with adjusting to the program and being bullied and just being a black sheep, I guess, for no reason other than existing. You know, her breathing was a problem. So we decided we were going to make this plan after we had been fed up with 2-4. We had tried to tell staff, we had tried to come out to our older peers, we had tried to tell everyone, like, this is too much, like, we can't handle this. And we felt like nobody cared, so we ran away. I had made it to Portland when an older gentleman had offered to help us and, unassuming, at 16 years old, and scared for my life, I went back where I was. I felt that that was the lesser of the evils at the time, and it was not. So after it happened, I was immediately sent to a hospital. A rape kit was done. And then I was sent back to the campus in a police escort and paraded from the main building back to my dormitory in the back in a sweatsuit because they didn't even give me a chance to go back. They had given me clothes after the rape kit, and I felt like I was walking through campus with a scarlet letter on me. And I was then mocked, bullied, shamed, slut-shamed, told that if I didn't take accountability for my rape, I wasn't building character, and I was punished because I refused. And so they kept me on in-post. You either get sent, if you're in trouble, out to the island in Maine to run up and down with logs until you puke with no food and no bathroom, or you get put on campus and you don't get to go home for breaks. I didn't get to go home. I didn't get real therapy. I didn't get any real counseling. I didn't get any real help. So I was being watched by proctors in the dormitory, and I tried to overdose and take my own life. And that is the only reason I got out of that school because I was going to die or I was going to die trying.

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Jim: That, I don't know, Megan, I have conducted a lot of interviews in my life with a lot of people who are living on the edge in one way or another. This matches anything I've ever heard. I am just speechless. But I can tell you that one thing I am is empathetic. I am just, I know it's been a lot of years, but I'm very sorry that you had to deal with that. And you probably, I would guess, be dealing with that in some way, shape or form for the rest of your life.

Megan: Oh, for sure. Hyde has affected everything from the custody of my children and the way the fathers portray me to my mental health stigmas to jobs. I mean, I've been an executive assistant in the past. I'm a notary now. So I've still managed to accomplish things, despite what people want to venomously say that I have not. But every success is a struggle on its own and it will never not be.

Jim: One thing I'd just like to pursue right now that's interesting to me. I want to hear from you a little bit more about the precise circumstances that caused you to get out of Hyde. I mean, you've certainly established the rationale for leaving Hyde, but I just want to hear a little bit more about the mechanics of getting out of Hyde. But I'm curious about one thing you referred to a little while ago before the break to a husband, right? Who I believe is there with you right now.

Megan: Yeah, he actually got home and he's getting with me, helping me get through this.

Jim: Well, I'm very glad to hear that. How long have you been married?

Megan: We're coming up on two years. We got married on New Year's Eve, actually.

Jim: So how long have you? I didn't get that. How long have you been married?

Megan: Going on two years. Two years. Almost. Yes, sir.

Jim: OK, I'm just curious about something. I mean, marriage, a lot of people would say even under the best of circumstances is a difficult process. It has a lot of rewards, but it can also be very difficult, even for the best adjusted people. You obviously come into this marriage with some notable emotional issues. How is that working out for you? I guess it sounds like you found the right guy.

Megan: I think that I think that the universe gives you the things that you need most and karma balanced itself from your traumas. I'm going to say specifically in my case where when you're ready to receive what it had in store for you, that it gives you that path. It's just, I had to get a lot of work, do a lot of work to get here. And I have to do a lot of work. Still, I go to therapy every week. I go to med management once a month. I would not be able to function without those things. And I still have moments where I'm not always the person I want to be, but I still make sure to always be the person I strive to be.

Jim: Well, I don't think we can ask much better than that. But it sounds like in spite of all these issues you've had to deal with, you have achieved a sense of normalcy in life. If there is such a thing, would you say that's the case?

Megan: So my older, because shout out, Sylvia, you're amazing to always joke that normal is just a setting on the washing machine. Yeah, I definitely achieved some sense of that.

Jim: That's a good line, Megan. You ought to get that into some of your writing. But you're confirming what I'm saying. I'm saying you have reached a certain sense of, I don't know, call it whatever moderation in your life. Coexistence, I'll say.

Megan: I've learned to balance the bad with the good. But some days, honestly, I'm going to be thirty-nine very soon. And there are days where just getting out of bed is all I can do.

Jim: I can easily understand that. So tell me a little bit more about your rape, when you ran away from school. You were returned to school. You were effectively punished and shamed for that, you say. And just tell me about the actual process of leaving Hyde.

Megan: So I've compartmentalized a lot of that. But I do remember we ran away in the middle of the night. And I stupidly when we made it to the Portland area, I called my mother on a payphone from McDonald's and I told her what I had done. And then next thing I know, there were like police everywhere. So that's when the guy said, what's going on? Do you guys need help? You know what I mean? And that's kind of how all that happened, because they weren't trying to get me to safety. They were trying to get me back to their facilitated trauma factory.

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Jim: OK, when you talk about going to Portland, was that a second time going to Portland?

Megan: No, that was the time. That was the time we ran away. We made it.

Jim: OK. OK. But then you came back to the school and you were disciplined and you were shamed. And how did you actually wind up leaving Hyde?

Megan: So that was when,  like I told you, I tried to take my own life when they kept me there for Thanksgiving, because there was no way to get out of Hyde. There was no way to contact your parents without them knowing. There was no way to send mail without them knowing. There was no way, unless you had a friend in town and you could facilitate getting a phone call with them when you took a day pass and you lied about where you were, you know, you had no way to contact anybody in the outside world.

Jim: So you monitor– just to clarify that you were not allowed to call your parents. So you were, but it was monitored.

Megan: It was like someone was always there. Like you didn't have access to like phones independently. Do you know what I mean? The surveillance that the peers had to do among each other. The staff was trained to do to us as well, because a lot of the staff was former students or family affiliates.

Jim: So just to move this along, I'm still interested in the actual departure from Hyde. What was that like? How did that happen?

Megan: So I actually, that was when I was in the hospital after the overdose. I had to have my stomach pumped. I was kept on a psychiatric hold. My parents had to come up to Maine. Yeah. And during that 72 hour hold, I was under probate and I was telling them everything that happened to me, which are a lot of the records that have been used to get to where I am in my story. I'll just leave it at that. Were then used to corroborate that this was no longer healthy for me. And I don't know if my parents told me, I'm assuming Hyde also said, this is not going to work. But however it worked, people finally realized that that was not a good environment. It was toxic for me and it would be possibly the end of my life. And so I returned home.

Jim: OK. And so I assume you eventually finished high school somewhere else.

Megan: Yeah. So I went through another program actually, which was therapeutic. It was actually therapeutic in nature. It is still on the watch list. It was called Graydon Manor. It is now named Grafton. They actually sent my son there against my will. But I did a program there for 14 months and I actually graduated and I was one of the first people in the 40 years of the program to be mainstream back into public school. I did rotating A and B days one day to 11:30, one day till 12:15. I volunteered an elderly home and the local community center on my evenings, like afternoons from school. And I actually graduated to go on to Marymount University my freshman year of college.

Jim: And how did you do at Marymount University?

Megan: I didn't do well, but I'm getting my degree now. I just have a lot of unprocessed trauma and stuff. I'm one semester away from a criminal justice bachelor's right now. And I'm, you know, like I said, a notary and I got my MFHA and I'm just trying to figure out what my purpose is to have survived this to help future generations avoid it.

Jim: I'm curious, when you came home from Hyde, did you get some empathy from your adoptive parents? Did they fully grasp based on hearing from you what you had been through at Hyde?

Megan: No, I'm going to say no. There was always a weird competition with my mother about things and my father was just very emotionally avoidant. If things got too much pressure for him, he'd, for example, break something and go in the basement to fix it. You know, like just avoidant at its finest.

Jim: Okay, so they never, they never fully understood the need you had to leave Hyde.

Megan: I feel like they understood the need to leave, but I also think that they didn't want to believe, like my friend Kari says, that our parents paid this exorbitant amount of money to eff their kids up, pardon my French.

Jim: Okay.

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Megan: How could someone pay 40 grand and realize that they harmed their child in this way? And then the whole thing is accountability and they can't take accountability. That's why this lawsuit isn't about revenge. It's about what we were taught at Hyde. Let's say that accountability, it's about time that they become accountable.

Jim: Okay, it's 9:26 at WCME. I think this would be a pretty ideal time for one more break. And Megan, I have just a few more questions for you. I want to talk about your writing life. Which, what I get from you is pretty significant. And by the way, I am impressed by the quality of your writing on our Facebook page, which I should tell everybody. That's my kind of entree to Megan. That's how we connected with each other because Megan has written about her time at Hyde on our Facebook page. But I think you have done some very compelling writing there and I'm sure you've done that in other venues. We're going to talk about that when we come back in a pretty short period of time. Okay.

Megan: Sounds good.

Jim: So just hang on, Megan.

Part 3:

[0:00:00]

Jim: 9:27 at WCME. By the way, I haven't said Megan's full name in the last few minutes. It is Megan Elizabeth Price. She is not hiding her identity. We identified her last hour and for whatever reason this half hour I've just referred to her as Megan. It's Megan Elizabeth Price. She is in Youngstown, Ohio, a former student at the Hyde School in Bath where, as you know, if you've heard most of what we've had on the radio with this hour, she had an experience that was nothing less than traumatic and she is still to this day coping with it. Jim Bleikamp on an extended edition of the WCME Midcoast Morning Buzz with Megan Elizabeth Price who's in Youngstown, Ohio this morning, former Hyde School student, did not graduate from Hyde as you have heard her explain and Megan you have embarked on something of a career as a writer and you write, you make it quite clear, you write under a moniker which is Trauma Barbie. That's how you distribute your material, right?

Megan: So yeah, that kind of evolved into its own thing but I fully embrace it now because it started as a platform for, almost, me to get out the safe things but still hold my identity, you know, like not have to necessarily tie it to me but not anonymously either. It gave me the ability to do like my Trauma Barbie debriefs and it's when I bring something to light or my PSAs which are my public service announcements or if I dropped fact-based content against let's say Hyde because in my advocacy work I'll call those my field status operative reports, so it kind of is a fun way to put really hard material out there to circle back to the word to make it digestible or palatable for general audience.

Jim: Okay, I want to ask you something about that. I guess I'm going to ask you to defend that moniker Trauma Barbie. Some people I think would say and I get your explanation you're trying to lighten your load a little bit in the course of getting out some very serious information. Some people might say that's perhaps an overly light way of describing and characterizing some stuff that happened in your life that was very very serious and namely a sexual assault and the reaction of Hyde School to it. What would you say about that?

Megan: I would say that everybody needs to find comfort and safety in their own vices and that things that are healthy can't be detrimental and I found that writing is my healthy outlet. It is my safe source and the name might be funny and cutesy and you know people might be like oh that's cliche or whatever but at the same time like we talked about invisible disabilities I have so many people that say oh well she looks like this oh she talks like this oh she grew up this way and they put me in type of a box so this Barbie isn't in a box. That's the point, like, I don't fit in a box that people want to put me in and I think that this is a way, for me at least, I've found it's healing and that I can get my story out there and if people take the time to read it it's great. you know like you're sitting in an appointment waiting it's a great read but it's also very heavy materials, so there's no way to lighten a load that heavy I think even though I put a play and a twist on it that like I said it just has to make the pain more bearable I guess. My husband just said the word, that's the word I'm looking for, it makes it makes the pain more bearable for the people that are reading it because they shouldn't have to carry my pain. this is just for education, it's so I can save one child from the same fate I had. One parent, I can waken them up, if it's just one, I've done my job.

Jim: So it sounds like you are more than comfortable with the moniker Trauma Barbie

Megan: 100% because it's who I've evolved into. I think right now because I use it to educate too, I use it as a resource to teach, like I do PTSD drops, this is what to look for, these are the signs. I did an autism one and it actually got a lot of traction, like, hey, just because you might not see it doesn't mean it's not there and I try to put my feelings and my emotions and what I survived into words so other people that survive it can feel like they're living as well and they don they can give words to their experiences.

Jim: I'm sure I would think your writing would attract a pretty widespread audience, do you have a website for Trauma Barbie? Is there a place where interested people can access that?

Megan: I do on my debriefs on Facebook but when I write as Megan I won't put Trauma Barbie at the end of it. My Trauma Barbie debriefs will say Trauma Barbie they'll be signed Trauma Barbie and they'll have ribbon but when I sign things and I write things as Megan I'm reaching out as me and the real me so you'll see both across the platform but you'll see the voice and the tone similar.

Jim: Okay again is there like a Trauma Barbie website?

Megan: nope it's just my Facebook as Megan Elizabeth Price.

Jim: Okay okay so there's a Trauma Barbie Facebook page?

[0:05:44.560000]

Megan: There's a Megan [inaudible] but I don't have it. I run it under my own Facebook, the one I commented to you on, is where everything is. I haven't gotten to the point of starting a blog yet.

Jim: Okay one other thing I want to cover before we wind this up and this has been a most compelling presentation you've given us this morning Megan which I appreciate and I think you do very well at talking publicly about some horrendous events in your life. Not everybody can do that and I congratulate you on being able to do it not only to do it well but to do it in quite articulate fashion. I would say by itself that's a major accomplishment just so you know

but I am curious about your involvement in the lawsuit. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, because I know legalities are complicated to begin with but as I understand it there is so far one lawsuit filed by a woman by the name of Jessica Fuller, I believe it is. Are you a party to that lawsuit in some way?

Megan: So this is where it gets fun. This lawsuit has been going on for quite an expensive time to my understanding, that at least I know that I've been a party to it. So around January, Maine rolled back the law that gave survivors of this institutional abuse the right to sue after the 10-year window. the fact that the cases didn't change they just changed the law on us that allowed us to get justice so the statute of limitations is our class plaintiff and I commend her, she's a rock star for using her voice the way she is. I can't say enough amazing things because the courage that she's had is incredible.

[0:07:43.680000]

Jim: Okay and you are charging specifically what in this lawsuit?

[0:07:51.040000]

Megan: Well the facts of the case are there, but at this point if if the lawsuit proceeds, which I hope it does and it gets certified as class action, I would become part of the class due to the law change. Now that is not part of why I'm doing any of this. I've been doing this for years because I've had people that helped me deprogram myself from the brainwashing to realize what I survived around the time of COVID and mind you I did the 48 hours almost a decade ago and I still didn't realize at that point how truly malicious and deep-rooted this was. And this isn't okay and what I survived isn't okay and what they did with the attack therapy isn't okay and the way I was treated. So now I'm on a quest because at the end of the day everyone's like, well, what's your goal with Trauma Barbie, Megan? I'm like, to finally get Hyde close down so no one else suffers in the name of character building.

Jim: Back to the lawsuit for just one moment, the reference that you just made about its pending class action status, but it has not yet, this lawsuit been declared to be a class action? So just want to clarify it sounds like right now officially it is just Jessica Fuller but you are seeking to become a part of this lawsuit eventually would that be accurate?

Megan: so there were a number of us that came forward at the same time yeah working with the firm that presented this case and Jessica Fuller is our lead now yes but right now I just, because of the law change, because it that's–

Jim: I understand that but I just want to clarify right now it's my understanding that it's just Jessica Fuller, the lawsuit was filed formally a few days ago, about a week ago, you are seeking to become a part of it?

Megan: Yes.

Jim: Okay.

Megan: That is where we are after the law change currently yes

Jim: Okay but those are important legal distinctions to make and I just sensed a discrepancy between my knowledge of the lawsuit and what you were saying.

Megan: Well Hyde received a plethora of demand letters from a plethora of plaintiffs which they avoided, they dodged, they denied, which is why I am not under any type of NDA at this point now. When that occurred the law changed and that's how they moved forward with this within the limitations of the law to attempt justice for anyone that has survived Hyde School.

Jim: This I think is going to be the the final question or maybe maybe the second to last question but I'm just curious about your reaction, you have seen on our Facebook page and in other social media I'm sure, it's like two factions have sprung up in regard to this lawsuit and in regard to all that has happened at Hyde. People like yourself who are extremely critical of Hyde School and its practices and others who are very quick to defend it and they say they just didn't see all this abuse and trauma that you described so vividly and I'm just wondering what is your reaction when when you see those thoughts written out on Facebook and in other social media?

[0:11:17.600000]

Megan: I will say that it is disturbing to see it but I have to understand that just like I have my thoughts and my opinions, other people do as well. Hyde is a legacy school, it is deep rooted from I believe 1966 to present, they're going to have people that will defend it just like they will have people that are trying to expose the truth to it in every light. I have to take every circumstance, I'm not going to bash people in any way because like I said this isn't about vengeance but I will try to when I can in comments set the record straight from someone who's not only experienced trauma but educated and literate in trauma from a point of, I understand your take but can't you understand ours. But there's a lot of times too where some comments don't deserve a response because you're not going to sway everyone's opinion. You're not going to change them. You're not going to make people believe what they don't believe. You can just try to educate them and know that you've done everything you can in the situation.

[0:12:19.120000]

Jim: I am no authority, I'm not a psychologist or anything, but I think you've expressed what a lot of people I think just off the cuff would say is a pretty healthy attitude about all this. I will just say I would just like to get this on the record on this program, I have said it on Facebook, my only problem and my central problem with certain people who have posted on our Facebook page are the kind of people who say, who make statements like, to the effect that I was not abused and I know that no one else was abused while I was at at Hyde School. We have had some people, you've probably seen those comments, Megan, we have had certain people make those comments. That is simply absurd. Nobody can make an all-knowing statement like that. You know when you're in a mass atmosphere at any institution you don't know everything that's going on even if you think you do. All you can really do credibly is talk about your own experience and I have urged various people to limit themselves to talking about their own experience and not so vehemently prejudge the experiences of others and I will say that on the whole you know I think we've had a lot of honesty on that page from everybody I think everybody is pretty much giving a true representation of their you know impressions of Hyde School the students who were there at one time and who are now posting and reflecting on their experiences but I have a problem with those who want to speak for a situation that is so widespread they possibly can't know all that happened.

Megan: I think that there's a lot of people are coming to terms or the guilt or the shame or the internal battle that they're having and I respect that because, like I said, it's been many years to get to where I am and just understand what's heard and processing it where I think about it so not everybody's going to have the same reaction when you have to understand [inaudible].

[0:14:38.640000]

Jim: Megan you're kind of fading away from us somehow

Megan: I said, empathy is key, like you said earlier. just having empathy in the situation because despite what I lived through it doesn't mean that that's not someone else's reality but that doesn't diminish my reality either.

Jim: Last question and I guess I'm inclined to end on a somewhat upbeat note but you're giving me the impetus to do that. It sounds, I get a sense that you're reasonably optimistic about your future.

[0:15:15.680000]

Megan: I would say that every day is a struggle but that the path that I'm on now of just leading with light and kindness and empathy and trying to do good back into the world. Like my mental health first aid responder, I ended up using it the second day after I was certified and helping a gentleman. Those are the things that this trauma has created. It has made me someone that wants to understand and help others. So that is the one positive thing like you said and I appreciate you for letting me tell my story .

Jim: Well I appreciate your willingness to tell it. I think you have done it in very articulate fashion and Megan I think you communicate pretty well I would say I think you need I think you need a higher quality cell phone

Megan: Probably.

Jim:  we've had a lot we've had a but that's not your fault we've had a lot of just kind of bumps and burps and stuff like that but we have heard your story I don't want to be misleading about that and I very much appreciate you telling it okay

Megan: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Absolutely, I appreciate everything Jim.

Jim: well you have certainly I think added to our understanding of the situation of at a height and I think you tell your story and I must say very convincing fashion and we will talk again now Megan stay in touch okay

Megan: Thank you, take care.

Jim: that is Megan Elizabeth Price in Youngstown, Ohio who has done us the favor and it's a major favor of joining us in telling her Hyde school story this morning in the aftermath of the filing of the lawsuit, which she hopes will become a class action so that she can become a part of it and she has apparently been active in the preliminaries of that lawsuit for some time.