Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings

I recently had an article published about my memoir, Smoking in Garages: A Survivor’s Story of Trauma and Resilience. The writer was kind, genuinely enthusiastic about my book, and I’m deeply grateful for the attention it’s receiving. But as I read through the article, I found myself pausing—because somewhere along the way, my story seemed to take a backseat to the one part of my past that tends to grab the most attention: the troubled teen industry.

I get it. The troubled teen industry is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. Survivors are coming forward, Hollywood is shining a light, and advocates are working tirelessly to push for legislation that should have existed decades ago. I fully support these efforts. But here’s the thing—while that chapter of my life was traumatic, it’s not the story.

My story is about something much bigger than the place I was sent. It’s about what led me there in the first place. It’s about what happens to kids like me when we grow up. It’s about how childhood trauma shapes every aspect of adulthood and how, even after escaping the systems that harmed us, the fight to heal is far from over.

The Troubled Teen Industry Wasn’t the Beginning—Or the End

The media often simplifies stories like mine down to: teen acts out, parents send them away, program abuses them, end scene. But my reality was far more complicated. I wasn’t just some “troubled teen” making bad choices—I was a traumatized child whose father didn’t want to deal. He had other options. There were family members who would have helped. But he took the easiest route, the one where he wouldn’t have to face the weight of what I had been through.

He never asked what I survived before that place. And two decades later, he still hasn’t asked what happened to me there.

This isn’t about throwing my father under the bus. It’s about illustrating how trauma gets ignored, misunderstood, and mishandled—not just by institutions, but by the very people who were supposed to protect us. That’s the real issue. Not just what happens inside these programs, but what allows kids to end up there in the first place.

The Real Danger of Sensationalizing Survivors

I worry that, in the rush to expose these programs, the media is missing the bigger picture. The troubled teen industry is a symptom of a much larger problem—a society that does not understand, or even want to deal with, childhood trauma.

The problem isn’t just that these programs exist. The problem is that we, as a culture, have made it easier to send kids away than to address why they’re struggling in the first place. We throw medication at trauma symptoms. We label kids “difficult” instead of asking why they’re hurting. We force children into compliance rather than giving them the tools to heal.

It’s not enough to expose the abuse of these programs. We have to start asking: Why were these kids sent away in the first place? What would have helped them stay home? What happens to them as adults when their trauma is ignored?

If we only focus on the immediate horrors of these places, we miss the chance to address the larger, more systemic failures that created them.

The Story I’m Actually Trying to Tell

My memoir isn’t just about surviving a program. It’s about surviving everything that came before and after. It’s about how high Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scores shape the rest of our lives—our health, our relationships, our ability to trust, our very biology.

It’s about the fact that I was misdiagnosed for years because no one thought to ask about my trauma. It’s about how, even after escaping the program, I found myself in a medical system that failed me in eerily similar ways—disbelieved, dismissed, gaslit into thinking my suffering was in my head.

It’s about how healing is not just about what happened to us, but about how we navigate the world with a nervous system that never learned to feel safe. It’s about breaking cycles—so that my daughters don’t have to carry the same weight I have.

The Bigger Conversation We Need to Have

I’ll always support the fight against the troubled teen industry. But I want to have an even bigger conversation. One about:

• How childhood trauma doesn’t end when we turn 18.
• How the medical system is failing survivors by treating their symptoms instead of their root causes.
• How we stop mistaking compliance for healing.
• How we create a world where kids don’t have to be sent away in the first place.

If we don’t address these issues, we’re not solving anything. We’re just treating symptoms and ignoring the disease.

If You Want the Full Story—It’s in My Memoir

Smoking in Garages isn’t just about what happened to me inside a program. It’s about what happened before, what happened after, and what I had to go through to finally begin healing. It’s about the real, messy, painful work of breaking cycles and rebuilding a life that never should have been stolen from me in the first place.

If you’re ready for that conversation, I hope you’ll read my book. Because while the troubled teen industry is one part of my story, the truth is, it’s only the beginning.