Unsilenced: Meg Appelgate on the Troubled Teen Industry

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

As a teen, Meg Appelgate was gooned – that is, legally kidnapped – from her home in the middle of the night and taken to a lockdown facility in Idaho, then shipped to Montana where isolation, chemical sedation, and brainwashing were the norm…for a day of underage drinking. She survived and went on to develop and recruit for similar organizations. Then she woke up and channeled her indignation toward making positive change.

Right now, anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 or more young people are institutionalized as private equity firms rake in tens of billions of dollars from the “Troubled Teen Industry.” Meg Appelgate shares her story and how Unsilenced, the organization she founded, can help.

Note:

Meg Appelgate is a survivor determined to empower other survivors of institutional child abuse. She’s founder and CEO of Unsilenced, a non-profit org serving victims caught in the web of the Troubled Teen Industry. She’s also VP, Trustee, and Managing Director of the Gochnauer Family Foundation that provides financial help for families and children. She serves on the boards of a domestic violence shelter and a therapeutic riding center. When she’s not funding and implementing new ideas to help people thrive, Meg loves to explore new places with her husband and four children.

You can find her on the medes: Personal Instagram, Unsilenced Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter.

And, for more on the Troubled Teen Industry, check out the Season 2 episode featuring Elizabeth Gilpin here.

Also…

Let it be known far and wide, loud and clear that…

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical or mental health advice.
0:05.6	The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast
0:10.3	and are not intended to malign any religion group, club organization, business, individual, anyone or anything.
0:25.1	I'm Sarah Edminson.
0:26.2	And I'm Anthony Airquotes Nippy Ames.
0:29.0	And this is a little bit culty.
0:32.4	A podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
0:36.4	Every week we chat with survivors, experts and whistleblowers for real cult stories told directly by the people who live through them.
0:43.2	Because we want you to learn a few things we've had to learn the hard way.
0:46.7	Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you're already prime recruitment material.
0:52.8	You might even already be an occult.
0:54.4	Oops, you better keep listening to find out.
0:57.1	Welcome to season six of a little bit culty.
1:18.0	Hello everybody and welcome back to this week's episode of a little bit culty.
1:21.6	You're back Sarah.
1:23.5	We are back.
1:24.5	And in the second season, many, many moons ago of a little bit culty,
1:28.5	we featured Elizabeth Gilpin, who was taken from her bed in the middle of the night,
1:33.5	left in the woods for three months of forced camping with 12 other girls,
1:37.5	then remanded to a prison-like boarding school where she and so-called other troubled teens were subjected to nightmarish conditions and psychological abuse.
1:46.0	Check that episode out if you want to be horrified and pissed off.
1:50.0	And we're not going to lie because we were chapped from the very beginning of reading about our next guest story.
	...

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