Discharging From An RTC Before Graduating or Turning 18

The entire time your teen is at residential treatment, as a parent, I would think  about when he would come home and how would we know he is ready. It is inevitable that one day they will return home. There are only a few options, they will do well in the program and graduate, you will run out of money, or they will age out. Aging out for those that don’t know is when a teen turns 18. At 18 they are a legal adult and there are rules for treatment centers combining adults and juveniles. Most Teen RTC’s do not have the facility to combine juveniles and adults.

Every families experience is different and every teen’s diagnosis is different even though we all have so much in common. I belong to a number of forums with parents that have teens either at an RTC or have graduated. Recently there has been some talk about our family and when we chose to discharge our son. Some of the current residents (teens) have been commenting to their parents that we discharged our son because “we loved him and wanted him home” and “his father got tired of Utah”, it is kind of funny how the kids will turn things around to support their cause, which is to get out of treatment. I can remember going through the same scenarios when my son was in the midst of treatment, he would tell us how someone got a home visit when they were a level one. So and so’s parents took them out because they did not like the program and the list goes on. For each of these cases and for good reason we will never know the real story. But I would like to share ours with you.

First the timeline:
3/2007 – 15 years old my son was hospitalized for an eating disorder for 30 days.
4/2007 – he is discharged and admitted to a PHP (partial hospitalization program)
5/2007 – completes PHP and the public schools put him in a joke of an education program to finish out the school year. He is hospitalized again almost every other week and is using drugs heavily.
(At this time we learn that the kids are doing drugs while they are hospitalized.)
6/2007 – He goes to Wilderness (at last recovery!)
9/2007 – Starts Residential treatment
6/2009 – 17 years old, he leaves Residential Treatment, does not graduate but from the beginning of the timeline has come a long way.

Why would we remove him from an RTC without graduating from the program when we thought the world of the facility and his therapist?  Not to mention he could have  graduated from high school early 10/2009 if he stayed.  Personally I would have liked to seen him get his high school diploma, but my husband felt strongly that he wanted him home before he turned 18 so that we would have some time with him to make a positive influence on his life and for him to once again integrate back into our family.

My son was institutionalized for over two years, it was time for him to rejoin society. Institutionalization is good and it saved my sons life in many ways, I will never regret making this choice. He had the opportunity to develop for the past couple of years with a clean and sober brain. He was in a loving environment that was able to deal with his symptoms.  He learned a lot about himself. He is no longer taking any medication, which he worked on with a doctor while at the treatment center.

He was not a stellar client, he ran a number of times, but now that he is home I can see why my husband wanted him out before he turned 18. He has made a couple of big mistakes in the past 6 weeks that have involved the police. He is learning about the real world and has better tools to deal with these consequences than he did over two years ago. While all this is going on, we have some control, we are attending family therapy, he is attending NA meetings on a weekly basis. He  has a job and he is going to school and he is not completely on his own.

When they get out of treatment it takes time for them to figure out where they fit in socially, this is very important for them at this age. We can still make an impression on him and who he chooses for his friends. They feel like they have lost their teen age years and I can see how he is trying to make up for lost time. My hope his landing will be softer coming home now rather than when he is 18. The next steps are up to him. No one knows what the future will hold and fear based thinking will not help. Would a few more months at an RTC have made a big difference in the choices he is making? I really do not think so.

I guess my point is, every families story is a little bit different and I don’t think we are the ones to judge what is right for every family. These are not cookie cutter kids that follow the easiest paths. I have always said my son marches to a different drummer.  Hopefully this drummer will begin to lead him in a positive direction.

OBTW, yes we do love our son and no we are not tired of Utah. In fact my brother and his kids all have families in Utah. So it has been fun getting reacquainted with them on our visits.