North Star Behavioral Health

They locked up my deceased friends child for years. I just listened to the reveal podcast and her story is similar but worse. I’m glad somebody finally did a story on the legal procedures and money grad. This company is doing and the damage to our youth. She was kept there for years, they wouldn’t give her proper clothing. The first time I visited her. Her clothes were two sizes too small. They overmedicated her, she basically spent all of her 10 years there, and was released upon her 18th birthday, without a bank account, without a high school education, without any formal place to move to, when the paychecks stopped, she was out. What happened to her inside? Those walls is even worse.

This place is horrible. When I was told my sister died I was expected to join group art activities they did not let me take my own time. And when I said no and pulled my arm away from a female staff two full grown men pinned me to the ground pulled my pants down and injected my butt with a sedative because I refused to enter a group activity 3 minutes after finding out my sister is dead.

My time at North Star was one of the most outright bizarre experiences of my life. I was sent here after a failed suicide attempt, involving a bunch of antidepressants. I was initially supposed to go to Discovery, but for reasons I’m not aware of I was rejected. The only place that was willing to take me was North Star. I was horrified at first, for my entire life being sent here was used as a threat. A buzz word to hold over kid’s heads to keep them in line. I had heard horror stories from dozens of friends of mine about how terrible it was. However, according to the staff members, all of the less desirable staff had been supposedly fired, and they had apparently changed a large portion of their treatment process. This had eased my worry a little bit, but I still had my reservations. After about two weeks in the hospital, I had finally been transferred, so, was it any good?

It’s a really hard question to answer. Maybe I’m just overly optimistic, but I made friends and got along with almost everyone there. Some kids were insufferable but most of them were extremely down to Earth and chill. I sang with them, played games, talked about life, and just generally had a good time with all of them. The staff were almost all calm and chill across the board, with all of them having their own fascinating experiences and stories to tell. Staff such as Jaelyn, Joe, Yang, Stephen, Lina, and Michelle were all great people and made my stay a lot more enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised! The people there were most definitely the best part and it took me by complete surprise.

The conditions are where we run into some problems however.
North Star was extremely dirty, to a point where I refused to go near certain areas of my unit in order to avoid all the slime and grime on the floors or walls. I was under the impression that nobody cleaned at all at this place. There was graffiti littered all over the rooms, wrappers and trash was everywhere constantly, and the bathrooms were horrible. The beds were incredibly uncomfortable and miserable, the seating was torturous, and all around the place definitely gave off a cheap feel.

Activities weren’t too bad. I had a lot of fun drawing and coloring with the friends I had made and loved basketball and dodgeball with everyone. One thing that particularly annoyed however was our inability to go outdoors. During my month-long entire stay at North Star I only stepped outside once, and it was for 2 minutes to grab a basketball. The reason for this was because two patients had previously escaped over the fence, which I suppose is fair enough, but just because two people abused our privileges doesn’t mean that everyone else should have their right to get some fresh air stripped away.

I think the reason that a lot of people have bad experiences here is because they don’t try to make friends or get along with anyone. I get it, some of you patients can be having your own problems and not have any desire to, but if you want to make the experience bearable you might as well just bite the bullet and do it. Don’t be like a certain individual I know who went there who was completely insufferable the entire time she was there. Treat the staff and other patients with respect and you will get respect back 9 times out of 10.

I will say that the experience itself, minus all the cool people I met, was definitely lukewarm. Stephen was far and away the best psychologist there and made me do some considerable retrospection, but the other psychologists were mediocre (no offense intended, most of them were very sweet). The food was tolerable, sleeping was near impossible, activities became monotonous and extremely dull after awhile, yada yada you get the point. It was all-around fine at first but a complete nightmare around the final week once most of my friends had discharged.

Oh yeah, last detail, but there were fights like every other day. Also a lot of self harming. Take that as you will.

I would recommend other places, but this one isn’t so bad. Definitely gotten better over the years by the looks of it.

I've been there multiple times, all the times I've experienced there, they were really nice, no signs of abuse I've been to treatment centers out of state, and I saw a lot of abuse, but never at Northstar