Story: Relapse is Part of Recovery

"Mom, I am suicidal and think I need to go to the hospital because I don’t feel safe.” My heart lurched and my jaw dropped. We were in the therapist’s office and made a plan. Even though there were many signs that our child was struggling, we had no idea she was in crisis. 

Our child always felt they were different. We knew they were brilliant, dramatic, and that being young is hard. We found therapy initially through a school counselor and then online during the pandemic. When our child began having medical issues that affected school attendance, we connected with in-person therapy. We did not see or understand the deeper struggles and the real unraveling started when our child’s Instagram account was hacked and sent an embarrassing request for money to every contact. This was the final straw. 

We took our child to the ED and they opened up with the crisis Social Worker and shared their fears and their suicide plans. This led to a psychiatric hospitalization to stabilize them and turned into a loop of trips to the ED and psychiatric hospitalizations that sent our child deeper into crisis. 

It was terrifying.

We live in a remote area in the Midwest – a healthcare and mental health desert. Any real intensive help (e.g. psychiatric hospital, day programs) with a full day’s travel away and we realized our child needed more. Fortunately, I have an incredible group of well-connected friends who helped me feel less alone and connected us with an Education Consultant. The ED interviewed us multiple times and helped us find the best, most appropriate residential placement available. It was across the country. We picked up our child from their 6th psychiatric hospitalization, drove to the airport, and dropped our child off thousands of miles away from home. (The ED helped us at no cost initially and we eventually paid them $5000 for their service with no extra strings attached. 

Also, we discussed the necessity of residential treatment with our child prior to their final hospitalization. Each psychiatric placement just spiraled our child more and more and there was NOTHING available in our area, region, state or the Midwest that met the needs of our family.

Heartbreaking.

Our child spent 3 months in a residential placement and another month in a partial hospitalization program (PHP day program) before coming home. It was awful to know our child was struggling and we could not be their to support them. The program was wonderful and rich with programming (individual, group, family therapy and enrichment like animal-therapy, yoga, outings). We felt incredibly well-supported and saw great improvement in our child and family dynamics. Our child finally completed the program – early – because insurance quit covering services. They were not ready. We were not ready. And, we picked up our child and brought them home.

It took a month to connect with our local community mental health and we bridged services by paying out of pocket for therapy via the PHP. In their first week home, our child found a razor that was well-hidden and self-harmed. I cleaned the wounds with her, asked the question, “are you suicidal?” and we moved on from the setback. We are now 6 months out of final cross-country placement (PHP). Through our CMH, our family attends a weekly DBT session, our child sees an excellent therapist weekly, I see my therapist weekly and we do our work every single day. Our child feels like they are working there way through the trauma of residential placement - and they are doing so well in so many ways. We all understand this is a journey and the small wins are big wins and our child talks about their future goals and desires .

 This is beautiful.

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