One Month Milestone, Will My Family Ever Be Normal?
image credit lake.side
It has been four weeks since our son moved into a group home or step down program from residential treatment in Provo, Utah. This is proof that the process continues, the transition has been an adjustment for everyone. What is different now than when he was in Utah?
Before my son went to Wilderness and then RTC my life was in constant turmoil and I really did not realize it at the time. But once they are gone I realized what a strain it had been on me even though the daily turmoil goes away, there remains this unbalance at home because a big part of my family was missing. Now I have more time for myself and I can once again focus on the other members of my family and my work. Life returns to a new level of normalcy.
Time passes families begin to change, siblings grow older and as healing begins to take place our family takes a new form, one less person at the dinner table, one less person to get to school in the morning and one less person to smother with compassion every day.
Fast forward 17 months and our son is rejoining our family. He is no longer institutionalized 24×7, going out to dinner at restaurants, skating at the skate park, looking for CD’s at the store, sharing popcorn at a movie; all the things that we take for granite, but were taken away from him. This might be an easy transition for some, but now I am realizing that it is a big adjustment for everyone in my family. Especially now that everyone is grown, my youngest is 14 a freshman in high school. Relationships have changed, the boys don’t “play” together anymore and I really cannot expect them to. My husband has certain expectations of how everyone should relate and if things don’t happen promptly he gets impatient. Everyone needs time, it is not easy living under one roof, sometimes I feel like we are missing a big chunk of what our family should have been like.
Now I am realizing this is another stream of consciousness and a process that will take its own form. Dang! The patience, I ran out of those a while ago, the real reunion will take time. I cannot imagine what a transition it would be to go straight from a level 14 RTC to home, even thought my son complains about the group home, I think he gets more support and structure than we could ever provide for him at home. He wants things to go back to the way they were, but the reality for all of us is our family will never be the same. Then again isn’t that what families are about? They are always moving and changing, if my world stops changing then I know my family is not growing. I wouldn’t trade my family in for anything.
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Your son sounds like he is doing really well. I have to agree that all families grow and change and that can be hard even in the best of circumstances.