I worked with emotionally disturbed kids for about, oh, I don't know. 20 years. 25 years. Started out in a wilderness camp for emotionally disturbed teenage girls. Where we were, we were 24/7. Built our own shelters out of trees we cut down and trimmed and skinned and notched and framed up and then stretched tarps over the frames. And we were there 365 days a year.

One of the things you had to do was you had to plan. You had to make goals and plan and write it out. This is what we're going to do. And they had this trip planned all down. And they’d actually managed to make it through long enough to where they were going to be allowed to take this trip to Blue Hole down in Zavala. Everything was going alright. You had to cook your meals over campfires so we, we had chicken soup. Which ended up getting poured over me and the other counselor when we told them that, no, we weren't stopping at the store. We're supposed, this is supposed to be, you know, plan, think, do, you know?

Well, they just started throwing a fit. And, they came up to the counselor and said, well, you know, give us the van keys. And she threw them to me. And they have knives out by this time, and they're like, you know, give us the van keys. I was like, I can’t do that. It’s not my van. I cant hand this over. It's not mine to give you. And then they went and they poured sugar in the gas tank. I was trying to do the restraining and talk through what I could remember of all eight steps. And while I'm holding one down I got another one pulling my hair out. Another one kicking me in the ribs, punching me and it was like - And all I could tell myself was like, you can't get mad. You cannot hit these children. You know?

Take a long story short, they ran off. Finally rounded them up at the sheriff’s house. They hitched a ride over there. Sheriff believed them that we were two lesbians and that we tried to beat them up. And he believed every word. And we kept trying to say, you know, they're in care because they are very good at manipulating and. And I had an eye swollen shut. And it was just, it was just insane.