SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Paris Hilton testified about abuse she says she suffered years ago at a boarding school in Utah, as she lobbied Monday for a bill seeking to regulate the states troubled teen industry.

Hilton was sent to Provo Canyon School for 11 months at age 17 where she says she was abused mentally and physically, recalling that staff members would beat her, force her to take unknown pills, watch her shower and send her to solitary confinement without clothes as punishment. The socialite and reality TV star also spoke about the abuse in a documentary titled This is Paris that was released this fall.

Hilton testified at a state Senate committee hearing at the Utah Capitol in favor of the bill that would require more government oversight of youth residential treatment centers and require them to document when they use restraints. The measure passed unanimously following emotional testimony from Hilton and several other survivors.

Talking about something so personal was and is still terrifying, Hilton told the committee. But I can not go to sleep at night knowing that there are children that are experiencing the same abuse that I and so many others went through, and neither should you.

The 39-year-old Hilton said the treatment was so traumatizing that she has suffered nightmares and insomnia for years.