We are on the second to the last day of a 5 day home visit, and an amazing visit it has been. Sometimes I have to pinch myself I cannot believe the positive changes my son has made and that he has come back to life, earth, this planet. Which he was not part of before he left, I have repeated this before and heard it from many families that have gone before us, but we truly have gotten our son back. He has had two home visits since he first left 15 months ago. What is so different from this visit vs. the last visit?
- He really seems to be more comfortable with himself. More self confident and have a reason for living. Before he left there was no direction or purpose to his life.
- He is happier, he smiles, he laughs and he enjoys being with us. He can carry on a conversation. They say there is a honeymoon phase and we might be in that, but I can tell the smiles are coming from the inside shining out.
- He is not trying to hide anything from us. On his last visit (which was 6 months ago) it felt a bit like having a sneaky cat. What can I get away with and he was testing the waters. I don’t feel that he is testing the waters with us. He doesn’t appear to need to do this.
- Drugs, cigarettes, friends that are bad influences have not come up as much. He has mentioned a few of his “past friends” but hasn’t had this burning desire to contact them like he has in the past.
Off the cuff these are a few of my observations. Sometimes I feel like I am in a dream world. Past memories begin to arise, I get anxious, and I want to get my guard up. But he is proving that he can be trustworthy. We have allowed him to be out of our site, dropped him off with his brother to go skate boarding. At first I was reluctant, but now it is comfortable and I don’t think about him making bad choices.
I know we still have work to do, but we could not have done this on our own and all those months, I cried, beat myself up for sending him to treatment, asking myself “do we even know this is going to work?” are paying off for us and I will forever be grateful. “One day at a time”, there will be slip ups, but any normal teen has slip ups and that is what we have to remember. Right when life gets calm, a new fork in the road comes up before expected. Yesterday we received a phone call that the step down program (or group home) has a space coming up in the next week and I was just getting comfortable with where we are.
Like sending your teen off to Wilderness, it happens so quickly. One day you’re in turmoil trying to figure out what to do, and the next day you need to get the paperwork in so that your kid can be escorted to wilderness. What happened to planned adolescents? Now, sooner than I had expected we make plans for our son to come back to California. This next stage is really exciting and scary. The best part about it, he is part of the decision making process for his future. That is when real change begins to take place.
As a post script, I want to add for those of you reading this blog for the first time, I am sharing our families current experience with you. This is an honest account of what I am currently experiencing. No one is paying me to paint a positive picture of residential treatment. In fact, it has not all been rosie, a little over one year ago our son was “kicked out” of one RTC. I thought that was impossible, but it happens if they don’t feel they can keep your teen safe. Luckily Heritage Schools opened their arms and hearts to us and took my son under their wing.
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