Our Story

I struggled with writing this section because any family’s story is extremely difficult to simplify into a few short paragraphs.  Nevertheless, as I understand that it is important for all family members not to feel alone in this journey, please find below a synopsis of our story.

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Most children have nightmares at some point in their lives.  In our youngest daughter’s case, her nightmares continued past when most children’s usually do.  Because of this, we contacted our pediatrician who gave us the name of a therapist who specialized in working with children.  We contacted this therapist and she started working with our daughter when she was about 9 or 10 years old.  Her assessment was that our daughter struggled with a tendency towards anxiety.  Our daughter saw this therapist regularly for a while and later our daughter sought therapy as she or we felt was needed.

Then came middle school and hormonal changes.  Unbeknownst to us (looking back we were probably in denial), while in middle school our daughter started experimenting with alcohol and drugs and started cutting herself.  Sadly, shortly before our daughter completed middle school, our daughter was in such despair that she attempted suicide.

With the help of a team of caring individuals including; a therapist, an educational lawyer, and incredible family support, we then created a program with our daughter that enabled our daughter to stay with us rather than sending her to a therapeutic program (which had been the recommendation of the educational consultant we had hired).    Our family’s program included:

For our daughter -

• Educationally – Independent study, establishing an Individual Education Plan for special needs, changing schools within the school district, and re-immersion into a local high school.

• Therapeutically – Weekly individual and group therapy, family therapy with us, and additional therapy appointed by the school district.

For us, the parents:

• Educationally -Parenting classes given by the local school district and becoming educated by reading multiple books.
• Therapeutically – We participated in family therapy with our daughter and also opted to go to couples therapy to support our relationship through the stress.

This program was in place for a little over a year and a half.  Unfortunately, during the fall semester of her sophomore year many of the patterns that we had seen in middle school began again – working with our local care team was probing not to be enough to support her needs.  We got back in touch with the educational consulting firm we had worked with previously and after meeting with our daughter, once again they recommended that she attend a treatment center.  We then spoke with our daughter and agreed that the next step was for her to attend a wilderness program with the goal of the wilderness program being was to conduct a further assessment of her needs.  Shortly after the New Year, my daughter and I flew to the state where the wilderness camp was located.  We didn’t understand at that time that for the next 20 months, except for short visits, our family would be separated.

During this twenty-month period, with the support of educational consultants making program recommendations, our daughter attended a therapeutic boarding school/emotional growth school, a residential treatment center, and went through wilderness therapy twice.  As a family (siblings, grandparents, etc.) we flew to the states where these programs were located and, with time, our daughter began coming home for visits before she transitioned home.

Did transitioning her to these programs mean that everything went smoothly?  No, in our case we had to change programs.  The first program we selected, a therapeutic/emotional growth boarding school, turned out not to be able to adequately meet our daughters needs.  In fact, within six months this environment turned out not to be conducive to her growth, but rather, brought our daughter back into deep despair.  After some chaos, we switched our daughter to a small all-girl residential treatment center much better suited to meet her needs.  With this program change, our daughter was able to work through deep issues while continuing her education.

During the time our daughter was away, our daughter did tremendous work and even though we participated (family therapy, phone calls, etc.) her focus was absolute.  During this time, at a minimum our daughter participated in individual therapy, equine therapy, peer group therapy, and family therapy – most of these at least once a week when she switched to the residential treatment center.  Academically, she continued to focus on her schoolwork, participated in choir, did community service, and developed some deep relationship with some of her peers.  On our end as parents, we also participated in family therapy, continued couples therapy as needed, kept reading/learning, attended support meetings as needed, flew out to parents weekends, etc..

I am happy to say that our daughter has been home with us since late last summer.  Fast forward to today and our daughter has completed high school and is now in college.  Does this mean that everything went as we thought it would?  No, but we are much better equipped than we were before to support our daughter and ourselves.  In our case, we opted to set up a structure to support us for the early transition home – this definitely helped all of us.  Above all, we have love.

To be clear, as noted above, this only a part of our story and it is only our story, your story may be very different.   Every family has a personal history impacted by things such as parents’ experiences/cultures, siblings, peers, etc. so to really tell any family’s story you have to delve much deeper.  But for now, my hope is that this short version serves to demonstrate that we have travelled down this road and that you are not alone.

I sincerely hope that our lessons serve to make your journey a little easier.

Liz

04/2009

I’ve been asked several times what my family and specially my daughter thinks about sharing our family’s story through this blog.   Please know that I received my family’s agreement and support, including my daughter, before starting this blog.   My families hope was, and continues to be, that this blog and the information provided will support families now struggling.  I am thankful that they feel this way.

02/2010

Fast forward to May 2011, our youngest daughter is no longer a teen and is working and going to school.  As far as my long term partner and myself, well – we married last summer and our youngest daughter was the maid of honor.   In addition, to try to give back all we’ve been given, I’ve joined the Board of Directors of a grass-roots organization whose goal it is to financially support families afford the therapeutic care that their son or daughter may need.  Even more exciting is that my daughter is an advisor to this board and can share with us what she has learned through this process.

Does this all mean that we will never have any future challenges?  No, undoubtedly there are things that we still need to learn but what I can say is that we keep trying to make strides forward.

05/2011