The Next Step

Into the Wilderness: Story 11

Our SUV bumped back down the mountain after our evening in the woods with Catina. In the review mirror, she receded farther and farther away until she wasn’t there anymore. Leaving your child behind is one of the most challenging feats of parenting. It’s as if you leave a necessary part of yourself- an arm or a leg- in the woods. You hobble around feeling as if the phantom part is still there.

After the visit and parents’ workshop, we began the next phase of our journey: determining Catina’s treatment after wilderness. Several weeks before, her therapist had recommended aftercare. We didn’t even know what that was.

As I’ve shared before, parents often see wilderness as an ending rather than a beginning. Wilderness with its intensive therapy and behavior modification is enormously effective at resetting a troubled teen. In the woods, they reconnect with who they are, with who they want to be and they begin dealing with the issues that brought them there.

But, to cement this progress, which requires no less than rewiring the brain, additional support is needed. A number of therapeutic options are available. Therapeutic day schools allow a child to live at home while attending a school with therapists, psychiatrists and counselors on site. This is often a pre-wilderness step. Coming out of wilderness, teens are well ahead of what can be offered at these schools. This is not a criticism. Many good day schools exist. Wilderness with its jumpstart, however, means that continued progress will require an ongoing intensity these schools cannot offer.

And that’s where therapeutic boarding schools (TBS) and residential treatment centers (RTC) come in. Both provide small-class and rigorous education while enveloping a teen in a therapeutic milieu. In addition to regular therapy, the child has access to other modalities such as art therapy, expressive movement, group therapy, and relationship dynamics. Both types of schools often have academic recovery programs for teens that have fallen behind or have been struggling in school. They also have access to 12-step programs and other groups that aid in healing. And finally, both options often specialize in helping with certain issues such as PTSD, trauma, addiction, learning disorders, anxiety and depression. The difference between the two is largely therapeutic intensity. Boarding schools are usually more academic in nature with strong therapy components. Residential treatment centers are usually more therapeutic in nature with academics included. Your child’s therapist, as well as an educational consultant, can help you find which environment, and which school, is best for your child.

Now, you may wonder if your child can come directly home after wilderness, especially if specific supports are put in place. We desperately wanted to bring Catina home. The additional cost of treatment was overwhelming and made us wonder how we could do what was best for her. All I can say is: listen to your therapist. For every one success story of a teen coming straight home from wilderness and doing well, I can share a dozen stories of kids coming directly home from wilderness and regressing almost immediately. Kids reconnecting with old friends who were bad influences, returning to drugs and alcohol, engaging in illegal and risky behavior. One story sticks with me: a daughter returned home from wilderness and within two weeks had run away with her older boyfriend. It took over six months to find her in another state.

With this awareness, we quickly accepted that Catina would need additional intensive treatment. In the throes of healing from trauma and with severe PTSD, she could no longer learn in a public school environment. That’s when we discovered FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). At the advice of Catina’s pre-wilderness therapist who said “before you do anything,” we hired an educational attorney. And I am glad we did. State laws are incredibly complex, and missteps are far too easy.

Our educational consultant provided a list of four RTCs that were a good fit for Catina and that would accept her if we applied. Because we had little time between completing wilderness and RTC, we had to move quickly. I researched each one online, read every review I could find, talked to parents in Facebook groups, discussed with new friends whose teens had also been in wilderness and, then, selected a school. I did not visit a single one.

I never regretted my choice. Catina went to La Europa Academy, a residential treatment center in Murray, Utah, that uses the arts as an integral part of healing. With Catina’s talent with music and art, this was an ideal fit for her. Not only did she receive nearly nine hours of various kinds of therapies a week, but also, for the first time in her life, she learned to enjoy school.

At this point, however, we still had weeks to go before finalizing our decision and transferring Catina from wilderness in Georgia to RTC in Utah. We had to figure out how to pay for the significant cost. Sending a child to RTC for 12 months is nearly equivalent to four years of university. For us, the college fund was rerouted, savings depleted, investments liquidated- all so our daughter could get the help she needed.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. This is what it takes to save a life, and we never doubted that we were saving our daughter. While these decisions financially hurt, we would do it again. I’ve noted before that we are fortunate that we could take actions to make it work. I think continually about the families who cannot. I fantasize one day- if I ever win the lottery or make it big somehow- about setting up a nonprofit to help kids at all economic levels access the incredible treatment our daughter was able to get. As I write this, it dawns on me that perhaps I don’t need to hit the jackpot to do this.

Catina also had to get used to the idea of RTC. As August- and her 9th week in wilderness- came to a close, she wrote in her letters that she knew she needed more help. She was afraid of being assaulted again, of falling back into old patterns, of not being able to survive.

Choosing RTC as a next step also started another lesson: how to live away from our child for an indefinite amount of time. A child under 18 should be at home. Accepting that Catina would do best away from home was akin to deciding that hunger is better than satiation. Having her away gnawed at me, a continual gap I wanted to fill.

And so it is with this journey. Hardship and growth. Sadness and joy. Regression and progress. It’s Newton’s law in action: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A pair of actions are always in play. The challenge is to choose the right one. For us, this amalgamation of opposing forces in the end- is there ever an end?- created renewed lives. Not just for Catina, but for her mom as well.