Over the years, I’ve shared bits and pieces of what happened; mostly in quiet, fragmented ways. But the older I get, the less I care about appearances or impressing anyone. I care about what’s right. I care about truth. And this is what self-advocacy looks like...for me, it’s coming late, but it’s coming all the same.
While the rest of the world was building careers and milestones, I spent my twenties and early thirties trying to crawl out of a fog—recovering not just from an eating disorder, but from the compounded trauma of seeking help and finding harm. Again and again, I turned to systems that promised healing, only to discover how deeply toxic many of them were—especially when it came to substance use, mental health, or just being vulnerable.
Whether it was John Volken Academy in 2016 or Williamsville Wellness in 2019, I learned that questioning the system was treated as instability. That control was mistaken for care. And that dissent (especially from someone who didn’t “fit the mold) was seen as dangerous but also easy to dismiss and write off as mental hysteria that was totally unfounded if not "made up".
Every ignored red flag, every gaslit experience, and every deposit taken without accountability became another message to myself: You’re not worth fighting for. That’s what long-term erosion looks like, not just in systems, but in people.
Everyone says “let it go.” But I don’t believe silence is healing. Silence is how abusers (individuals and institutions) continue harming others.
I recently spoke with a lawyer at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal Clinic, who acknowledged the difficulty of pursuing a case this far out (nearly 10 years), but also validated my story. They said the trauma I experienced could help explain the delay, and confirmed that religious discrimination and mistreatment connected to mental health/addiction are protected categories in BC. That conversation was the first time I truly felt seen. Until then, I’d always believed it wasn’t “bad enough” to matter.
Here’s a breakdown of the fallacies and flawed reasoning involved in that kind of dismissal based on assumptions I've received simply because I am a woman, and gasp, happen to be caucasian, based on some comments I've received when trying to bring this topic up, hence why I'm sharing these...not to be a jerk:
❌ 1. Whataboutism / Relative Privation
Fallacy: Dismissing one issue by pointing to another that seems worse.
“Why care about this one woman’s assault when people are dying in Palestine?”
This implies only the worst suffering is worth caring about, which is morally and logically flawed. It's perfectly valid—and human—to care about multiple injustices simultaneously.
❌ 2. False Dichotomy
Fallacy: Presenting two options as if they are mutually exclusive.
“Either you care about privileged victims or oppressed populations.”
This ignores that people can (and should) care about both. Justice doesn’t operate on a single track. Also, let's not forget privilege is often used as a dagger to tear down or gaslight people based on assumptions about their status in life. Abuse can happen regardless of socioeconomic status, skin color, gender and is especially more prevalent in populations with health issues, including mental health ones, often, ironically, stemming from abuse.
❌ 3. Appeal to Identity / Privilege Fallacy
(Not a formal fallacy, but a flawed moral judgment often rooted in identity politics)
“She’s white/wealthy/Western—so her suffering doesn’t count as much.”
This reasoning equates social identity with moral worth, which is dangerous. Being privileged doesn’t cancel out one’s capacity to be harmed or deserve justice. Privilege is also a spectrum and moral relativism, people today seem hellbent on categorizing people because they assume something about their access to resources, income level or background. The truth is, most of the people there were not actually privileged and the ones who were certainly didn't let you know.
❌ 4. Moral Licensing / Reverse Oppression Logic
Fallacy: Suggesting that because someone belongs to a dominant or historically advantaged group, they’re less deserving of empathy or fairness.
“She’s part of a privileged group, so it's not as bad when violence happens to her.”
This is a kind of moral rationalization that justifies harm or indifference based on perceived systemic power. Just as I would be very concerned about anyone being targeted by racism or religious discrimination based on identity, I would hope the same would be held for me at the hand of abusive and coercive practices.
❌ 5. Dehumanization via Abstraction
Fallacy: Reducing people to symbols of their group or political identity.
“This case is just another white woman crying / Western distraction.”
This strips people of their individuality and humanity, turning them into avatars in a political argument.
❌ 6. Strawman / Misrepresentation
Fallacy: Misrepresenting someone’s concern for a victim as being ignorant or dismissive of larger issues.
“You only care about this because she’s white—you don’t care about real suffering.”
This attacks a distorted version of someone's concern, rather than the actual substance. Furthermore, this facility has locations all over the U.S., not all residents there, either for a few weeks or years, were "white".
❌ 7. Performative Radicalism
(Not a traditional logical fallacy, but an ideological pitfall)
“Only victims of structural oppression deserve attention; others are distractions.”
This is more of a purity test or ideological rigidity than a sound ethical framework. It assumes moral superiority by filtering all empathy through the lens of political struggle.
✅ The Ethical Counterpoint:Empathy and justice are not zero-sum. Caring about Palestinian or Israeli lives lost during the recent wars doesn't mean ignoring victims of assault in the West—or vice versa. When people start ranking suffering by identity, it becomes a kind of competitive victimhood that undermines shared humanity. "Dismissing violence against someone because of their identity is just a quieter form of violence."
Let's stop with:
🔹 1. Hasty Generalizations
Definition: Making a broad claim based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence.
Example from this scenario:
"Violence will only be seen in terms of affiliations... not individuals."
This assumes everyone will interpret violence through broad group identities rather than individual humanity, without sufficient support.
🔹 2. Dehumanization / Abstraction Fallacy (less formal, but conceptually important)
This isn't a traditional logical fallacy but a cognitive bias or rhetorical move where people:
Reduce individuals to numbers, labels, or group affiliations.
Dismiss the personal reality or suffering of individuals.
Implication:
"They’re just a number/statistic/part of a group—why care about one?"
This abstraction allows for moral disengagement and is often used to justify indifference or injustice.
🔹 3. Whataboutism / Relative Privation
Definition: Dismissing one issue by pointing to another, supposedly more important one.
Example:
“How can you care about this one person when so many others are dying?”
This shifts the focus away from legitimate concern by pointing to larger tragedies, implying the smaller one doesn’t matter—which is logically flawed. Human concern is not a zero-sum game.
🔹 4. False Dichotomy
Definition: Presenting two options as the only possibilities when others exist.
Example:
"Either you care about the mass suffering, or you care about this one individual."
This ignores the possibility that someone can care about both the individual and the collective suffering.
🔹 5. Appeal to the Masses / Bandwagon (ad populum)
Sometimes these arguments imply:
“Everyone is viewing things in terms of affiliations, so that’s the valid or correct way.”
That’s an appeal to popular belief, not logical reasoning.
Alas, I digress. Not here to give a repetitive philosophy lesson.
The situation at some of these treatment centers? Abhorrent.
It was bad enough to care, even ten+ years later.
I’ve written extensively about my experience at JVA, being locked in a room for 18 hours just for trying to leave. Having my personal items confiscated. Being silenced. Being told I was a fraud for wanting to pursue a creative career. Watching religious favoritism go unchecked while other residents were emotionally punished or forgotten. I’ve also written about Williamsville Wellness, where I was ignored after reporting inappropriate conduct by a staff member, despite glowing progress reports and full participation in therapy I was conveniently "expelled". I still have the internal reports. I still have the phone recording. All they said was: “We’re sorry.” And then..nothing.
I've personally experienced the weight of legal consequences when I've made mistakes—so why do others seem to walk away untouched? How does a man who stalked a woman for years (nearly decades) even after assaulting her, continue to live his life without accountability? Why is this behavior met with indifference? It feels deeply unjust, and not just along racial lines, but in ways that marginalize people based on religion and mental health.
If anything, much of what’s been labeled as my “mental illness” is actually a spiritual wound—born from being treated like garbage during my lowest moments. I tried to do the responsible thing: seek help, address the symptoms. But instead of healing, I often found more harm—more dysfunction—coming from the very people and systems meant to help. The vulnerable are so often dismissed, their pain minimized or catastrophized as unimportant compared to so-called larger global issues. And this includes the damage done by businesses and cult-like organizations hiding behind the mask of treatment and care.
I’m done with silence.
I’m not “crazy.” I’m a thoughtful, intelligent person who used cannabis and prescription meds in her early twenties to cope with undiagnosed trauma. I was told to get professional help. This is what I get for listening to "experts".
I’m 34 now. I’m sober. I still can’t sleep most nights. I still have panic attacks. And still, the institutions responsible for this damage remain silent, while my inbox stays empty.
This post isn’t for pity. It’s for justice. If anyone sees this and wants to connect, collaborate, or join the call for accountability, please reach out to me: ultra.elevens0i@icloud.com
Taking a huge risk here rerouting potentially interested people to a monitored inbox. So if you try to prank or sabotage this situation with fake testimonies, there will be consequences.
🙏
🔗 Google Drive links for documentation (screenshots, letters, and evidence):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Citv2Yp2ZFTYSnTGG7P8FSdA0TEhVjt21ODtwQJG8kg/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C44RSe0Lbv3tjEy5f8PMmeqhQjchsz5s/view
🔗 Yelp Review
What I’ve Learned:
These programs don’t rehabilitate people...they exploit their vulnerability.
You can’t force people to “heal” from trauma in places that inflict more of it.
Sometimes, “concern” is really just control.
When you speak out, that’s when people start watching you. But rarely to hold the institutions accountable, just to monitor you.
The truth is unsettling. It doesn’t come with a perfect narrative arc or a happy ending. But it deserves to be heard.
If you’ve been harmed by John Volken Academy, Williamsville, or any facility like them, please speak up. Even if it’s just a sentence. Even if it’s anonymous. You are not alone.
This petition is part of a larger reckoning that needs to happen. Because I promise you—if you feel like it was “just you”… it wasn’t.
#StopRehabAbuse #MentalHealthMatters #JohnVolkenAcademy #WilliamsvilleWellness #SpeakTruth #TraumaRecovery #AdvocacyNotSilence