How the Billion Dollar “Troubled Teen” Industry Scams & Profits From Parents’ Desperation
Cults to Consciousness
Shelise Ann Sola, Jonathan C Rosales
4.8 • 574 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alexandra struggled with her parents’ treatment of her, as well as suffering SA which led to a deterioration of her mental health. Her parents then took drastic measures by paying for her to be kidnapped and taken to a wilderness camp in the dead of Utah winter. They were forced to hike every other day further into the mountains carrying a 60 pound backpack with very little food and warmth for 13 weeks straight. When hazardous conditions resulted in sores on their bodies, they would be asked to strip down in a tent where photos would be taken and sent off.
Alexandra will share the detrimental effects during college while deconstructing her total of 9 months in the TT industry and we will further discuss better alternatives. Now, Alexandra is a Youth Rights Activist who advocates about the troubled-teen system— typically residential treatment centers, wilderness-therapy programs, “boot camps,” and therapeutic boarding schools aimed at adolescents deemed “at risk,” “troubled,” or having behavioral, emotional, substance-use, or academic issues. She calls for awareness and reform speaking out about her time in TTI on social media. Less than a week ago (after 4 years) she has unmasked.
Click here to watch on YouTube
Watch Alexandra's initial interview
Follow Alexandra on social media!
Instagram: IG @trail.seasoning
TikTok: @trailseasoning
Subscribe to our C2C "CLIPS" Channel!
Support C2C - Any donations are welcome and appreciated to support the making of this podcast.
Find our FULL (uncensored) merch store here!
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cultstoconsciousness
Venmo @sheliseann
Find us on Social media!
Instagram @cultstoconsciousness
Host Instagram @sheliseann
Co Producer / Host @jonathan.rosales_
TikTok @cults.to.consciousness
Twitter @cultstocon
**Disclaimer: Thanks for joining us at Cults to Consciousness. This storytelling podcast is meant to be for entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for medical advice. We may discuss triggering topics and we ask that you make your personal mental health a priority. Lastly, the opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host.**
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Colts to Consciousness. My name is Shalise Ansela, your host. And today we are doing a follow-up, but don't worry if you haven't seen the previous episode, stick around. You can go back and get more details later. Today we are talking about the Trouble Teen Industry, specifically this wilderness camp where our guest today was forced to go there and hike and on barely any |
| 0:23.1 | calories in the Utah winter mountains for 13 weeks and how these troubled teen industries are |
| 0:30.0 | making billions of dollars really just exploiting and taking advantage of desperate parents. So |
| 0:36.2 | thanks for joining us back again, Alexandra, |
| 0:38.9 | with trail seasoning. Thank you so much for having me. Is this the part where I do the intro? |
| 0:45.1 | Yeah. So I'll just give everyone a little update of what we've been talking about already. |
| 0:50.7 | So in our previous interview, our long-form interview, you gave us a full |
| 0:56.2 | lowdown of your entire story as far as what landed you there, the mental health things that you |
| 1:02.1 | were going through, and how this was really just a band-ed-on-a-broken arm. And it really did nothing |
| 1:07.0 | but make symptoms worse, especially once you left the group and started realizing |
| 1:11.5 | how harmful it was through TikTok videos. And then you eventually started your own channel. So I wanted |
| 1:17.5 | just, I mean, I already kind of gave a nutshell version, but I want to hear from you sort of the |
| 1:22.1 | main points as to what landed us here. And then we'll talk about some of the more difficult parts of your |
| 1:28.5 | journey in wilderness camp how you were able to really realize what was going on in your |
| 1:34.1 | college years how it affected you and better alternatives for parents who are seeking ways to |
| 1:40.1 | help their quote troubled teens so So give you the floor. |
| 1:47.5 | So I was born and raised in Kentucky. I, all the way up to being sent, I was a straight A student. |
| 1:51.3 | I was struggling with my mental health, especially through high school it got worse. |
| 1:56.7 | I became very shy and anxious. |
| 2:00.2 | My senior year, my parents, without consulting my psychiatrist or my |
| 2:04.9 | therapist, hired someone called an educational consultant. And she, without ever having met me, |
| 2:11.2 | decided that the only course of action was for my parents to pay tens of thousands of dollars |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Shelise Ann Sola, Jonathan C Rosales, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Shelise Ann Sola, Jonathan C Rosales and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.