It seems that a number of former participants are attending these discussions.

I wonder how it had been to return to daily life after having been putted trough some life-changing and for some young people frightening experiences.

In Denmark we are now seeing season 2. Stage 1 of the program, the teenagers was ordered to stay in some stone circles, where they had to sit or stand in without resting. A disposition, which young people would feel as being placed in a stressful position because they could not lay down. In Denmark, we just had a trial against Danish soldiers because they had treated possible terrorist in Iraq like that. Why can teenagers be put trough a treatment that is not allowed against terrorists?

Then there is the amount of food. In Utah, the camps must provide 2000 cal per child every day by law. In Denmark we think that an adult resting all day must eat between 1700-2300 cal per day. Is it not putting the teenagers life at risk? They are not resting. They are walking burning a lot of cal.

Also after the camp, we know from soldiers returning from Bosnia and Iraq that a period of no changes and de-briefing before they can continue with their life. In this case, a period of staying close with the family would repair the mixed feelings of being abandoned the teenagers must deep-down feel. Did you have a kind of de-briefing returning home? Not having them could result in either a need to return to the sub-reality the camp represent or a direct depressed situation resulting in a renewed search for a method of forgetting reality.

It seems that the whole concept is making teens do an adult training. I am a former marathon-runner and Ironman. I can recognize motivated behaviour from forced behaviour.

After being bullied for nearly ten years in public school and experience a suicide nearby by one of the other victims being bullied, I decided to start over working in an other town only staying in my hometown sleeping and training. For nearly three years, I had only a limited contact with people outside my job. I started on a project that could show people, that even an overweight young man like men could become highly trained athlete.

It was hard, sometime during winter storms it was likely unhealthy, but I did it deliberated. I have pictures from Helsinki marathon with my T-shirt covered in blood because of ripped nibbles. I have no pictures from the last 10K in New York Marathon because I somehow ended up in my hotelbed with cramps, because of a wrong intake of water. To this day I don’t know how I got from the finish line to the Hotel. My roommate told me that I did come home with a lot of bottles of water drinking them and then went to sleep with clothes on.

I was very motivated. Most of the time I know when to stop because I knew my body. I had to endure some pain because it was something I wanted. The teenagers in the program are forced and therefore they are at greater risk of being hurt. They would not be able to differ between “healthy” pain and “unhealthy” pain. They would have others things on their mind, like their family relations and their own relation with life.

One of our finest elite soldiers had said. “Without a secure homebase (family) the maximum result would be impossible to archive!” An example would be a sniper ready to take a shot. You can turn of the light and he would still be able to take his shot with an infrared aim. But if you place him on a rocking table, he would fail his shoot.
That why I think boot camps has it risks. That is also why I would like someone to monitor these teenagers for some years to go. To see if there is a long-term result.

the programme was stressful but entirely beneficial and a fantastic experience. the lack of mental stress and paranoia seriously helps your body get through the hard physical bits. the programme is designed for people with emotional and mental issues-usually drug-induced-that would only benefit from physical and mental shock at first. the series you are watching (2) was slightl different, as they were in a different camp, the series that i was on (3) was fantastic. i cannot say that it changed my life, although i am gradually changing, but it gives you knowllege and experience that you cannot aquire anywhere else. it is one of the healthiest things you can do. the programme is physically very healthy (we eat food which is high in fibre and carbs to give us the correct amount of energy for the intense exercise-hiking) and we have emotional therapy which helps your brain and stops it from hurting. all in all, the programme is among one of the healthiest things that a human can do. you dont stay very clean there, but you remain happy. it can disassosciate you from reality though.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Did you receive counselling when returned home or do you have some kind of hotline to phone?

Life at an age like yours was one of the difficult times in my life, as I remember it. School came to an end and at the present time I had not got a plan for what to do after school. I made some errors back then, because I did not follow my instinct. I had never since consumed an amount of alcohol at a single month like I did in the month after the final exam.

By chance my career took the right path. (I was walking trough a mall passing an unknown shop, when I got the idea out of nowhere to go inside and ask for a job. I stayed there for 7 year until I got headhunted to another position.). At the same time, I started to run Marathons and later an Ironman. It was the secure job-situation combined with my training that made me the man I am today.

School is a sub-culture. Brat camp is a sub-culture. Both is in a way shield-off from the general community. Some harsh decisions have to be made, returning to the general community. How did they prepare you for that?

I think that it is very important to have a personal method to escape reality once in a while because reality is stressful. Close family members dies, the children become sick, the job-situation changes etc.

Using drugs is one way but it is a method that means health risk. Alcohol is a little safer due to more control during the fabrication process but it also has its risk. Did they teach you a method to escape reality in order to get time to think things trough?

I use my bike to get my anger out. Time trial done with a computer in order to keep a certain pace is very demanding. Hart psychical work release chemicals in your body, which works like painkillers or even morphine. If I cannot sleep, I release the most powerful natural chemical we have in our body and then I have no trouble sleeping. (Hint: Some experience it when they try to get children).

Life is complex. Especially outside in the general community. And I think that the major risk concerning wilderness therapy is lack of help in the process of adapting skills learn in a protected environment to real life in the general community.