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Substance Abuse
My 13 daughter is in boarding school and not sure what else to do
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<blockquote data-quote="recovering doormat" data-source="post: 258944" data-attributes="member: 5941"><p>My heart goes out to you, because my two older kids have had a lot of the same issues as your daughter. My 18 yr old was cutting herself for months before I found out about it, around the same time she discovered marijuana as the perfect antidote to the stress of her parents' divorce and the first year of high school in a large, urban public school. She had also been diagnosis'd with major depression the year before, at 13. So I can identify with a lot of your problems.</p><p> </p><p>I think trying to find a residential program or school for a struggling child is the most difficult task. I've been trying to find an appropriate place for my 16 yr old son, and I hired an ed consultant for $1000. to help me find a place. Basically, all he could suggest were expensive wilderness programs and therapeutic type boarding schools, one of which was Christian-based (he knew of good outcomes for some kids there), one was a working horse farm with a school, and the third was part of a well-known chain of for-profit schools that use a lot of peer pressure and counseling to change behavior. We ended up sending him for six weeks to a clinical place in Penn. where he was diagnosed and given a battery of tests. He is anxious, mildly depressed, but not sufficient at this time to warrant going back on medications (we were never able to find a drug that controlled his anxiety without making him so blotto he couldn't keep his eyes opened in school). He is home now but I'm not sure how much longer we can keep him, because he is not cooperating and he's figured out how much weed he can smoke without triggering a positive on the drug testing he is getting.</p><p> </p><p>I would be very concerned about having a child who may be bipolar at a facility that frowns on psychiatric medication. I've never heard of anyone with bipolar who did well unmedicated, and I've seen plenty of dysfunctional families who walked on eggshells around an unmedicated bipolar member, to their detriment. I can relate to the expense problem (the diagnostic program cost us $750 per day, insurance refused to cover more than 11 of 45 days, and it is coming out of our retirement plans with enormous taxes and penalties). Some states, like Penn., have programs for state residents to help with residential expenses, my state does not, but if you explain your situation to the facility they might be able to point you to sources of funding. Perhaps a therapeutic boarding school with a clinical approach (one-on-one psychotherapy at least once a week and weekly check ins with a psychiatrist) would help stabilize her.</p><p> </p><p>If you must bring her home, you need to set up wraparound services for her, weekly or more frequent therapy, psychiatrist, a therapeutic half-day program for summer and afterschool program starting in the fall.</p><p> </p><p>Bless you, I will keep you in my prayers. This struggle is exhausting and you are doing it by yourself, it sounds like. You sound like a loving mother and I think that one day all your efforts will be rewarded.</p><p> </p><p>Keep us posted on how you are all doing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recovering doormat, post: 258944, member: 5941"] My heart goes out to you, because my two older kids have had a lot of the same issues as your daughter. My 18 yr old was cutting herself for months before I found out about it, around the same time she discovered marijuana as the perfect antidote to the stress of her parents' divorce and the first year of high school in a large, urban public school. She had also been diagnosis'd with major depression the year before, at 13. So I can identify with a lot of your problems. I think trying to find a residential program or school for a struggling child is the most difficult task. I've been trying to find an appropriate place for my 16 yr old son, and I hired an ed consultant for $1000. to help me find a place. Basically, all he could suggest were expensive wilderness programs and therapeutic type boarding schools, one of which was Christian-based (he knew of good outcomes for some kids there), one was a working horse farm with a school, and the third was part of a well-known chain of for-profit schools that use a lot of peer pressure and counseling to change behavior. We ended up sending him for six weeks to a clinical place in Penn. where he was diagnosed and given a battery of tests. He is anxious, mildly depressed, but not sufficient at this time to warrant going back on medications (we were never able to find a drug that controlled his anxiety without making him so blotto he couldn't keep his eyes opened in school). He is home now but I'm not sure how much longer we can keep him, because he is not cooperating and he's figured out how much weed he can smoke without triggering a positive on the drug testing he is getting. I would be very concerned about having a child who may be bipolar at a facility that frowns on psychiatric medication. I've never heard of anyone with bipolar who did well unmedicated, and I've seen plenty of dysfunctional families who walked on eggshells around an unmedicated bipolar member, to their detriment. I can relate to the expense problem (the diagnostic program cost us $750 per day, insurance refused to cover more than 11 of 45 days, and it is coming out of our retirement plans with enormous taxes and penalties). Some states, like Penn., have programs for state residents to help with residential expenses, my state does not, but if you explain your situation to the facility they might be able to point you to sources of funding. Perhaps a therapeutic boarding school with a clinical approach (one-on-one psychotherapy at least once a week and weekly check ins with a psychiatrist) would help stabilize her. If you must bring her home, you need to set up wraparound services for her, weekly or more frequent therapy, psychiatrist, a therapeutic half-day program for summer and afterschool program starting in the fall. Bless you, I will keep you in my prayers. This struggle is exhausting and you are doing it by yourself, it sounds like. You sound like a loving mother and I think that one day all your efforts will be rewarded. Keep us posted on how you are all doing. [/QUOTE]
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My 13 daughter is in boarding school and not sure what else to do
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