I've sent a kid off to boot camp. I've kissed my kid goodbye as she hauled off to France completely on her own. I've sent a kid off to Mexico on a mission for two years. But by far and away, the hardest parental task I have ever had to do is to leave my kid in a residential psychiatric treatment facility. The day you first lay eyes on your perfect baby, you never, ever envision that eventuality. But after 10 days on the inpatient behavioral health unit, that is exactly where we found ourselves. Medications were not working, She was worse than when she got there. She was not ready to come home. She didn't want to come home. I couldn't stand the thought of her not being in my care. But we had to get her out of the hospital. She was getting worse by the day there. After 10 days, it was to the point that almost anything would be better than laying in that hospital room another day. I worried about what kinds of kids she would be exposed to in a residntial setting. I worried about what would happen to her, and above all, if she really would be safer there than at home. Looking at different treatment options was scary and confusing. But the bottom line, in the end, was her safety. We were not set up to watch her 24 hours a day to keep her safe from herself, and that is what she needed, nothing less.
We were fortunate that she was still 17 when we started this whole process. We had access to her doctors and were included in all the planning for those first few months. It was a gentler way to break into this world than if she had already been an adult, and we would have had no access to her treatment plans. Also, because she was still in high school, her treatment center was essentially set up like a boarding high school, only with all sorts of protections in place for various behavior issues. It was a tough place, with tough kids. At least she could finish her schooling there, and she would be busy during the day with classes. The staff were basically good, but there was a high turnover rate, and terrible, terrible communication. Her therapist was good, but was left out of the loop on the residential side and as a result, Audrey was sent to a level of care that was very restrictive and punishing, and was not at all what she needed. As a result of this, she, and we, lost a lot of trust in this place almost from the start, especially since we all knew going in that she would only be there until her 18th birthday.
I was so naive. When we first took her to the hospital, I assumed she would be there a few days and then come home, stabilized and ready to go. Then, when that didn't happen, I assumed she would go to treatment for a few weeks, and be home well before her 18th birthday in March. I never ever in my wildest nightmares imagined that she would be there longer than that.
For two months, we drove to Provo at least twice a week for visits and family therapy. Every week it seemed like she was worse than the week before. Nothing that was supposed to work for her was working. Nobody could figure out what was wrong or why this had happened to this bright beautiful girl. Every person who worked with her loved her. "So smart," "so insightful" "so much potential", "so talented", "such a great girl" were comments we heard from everyone. Only nobody could figure out how to help her. The other girls there had long histories of mental illness, family abuse, drug abuse, chaos, and dysfunction. Audrey was not the type of kid they were used to seeing there. In typical Audrey fashion, she made fast friends and found some small hope in comforting other girls there. Wherever Audrey goes, she attracts friends and people love her and are drawn to her.
But she wasn't seeing that. She was so busy hating herself.
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