Recently, I was watching some clips of Dr. Phil on YouTube where he offered families that were troubled on the show the opportunity to separate the families by sending the troubled youth to treatment, whether that was a therapeutic center, ranch, or wilderness camp. The youth were often resistant and defiant and sometimes they had to go with transporters under the night sky. I am grateful that I agreeably went to residential treatment on my own as there was a professional and my parents fought tooth and nail to get me a placement close to home, so I knew it was best to just comply and make the best of it.

The summer of 2000 was one summer that I knew too well. I did not leave school on a good note that year as I had gone straight to the psychiatric hospital. I would be in one hospital a total of three times that summer including my fifteenth birthday and signing myself out as in the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Mental Health consent is at 14. That decision is something that I still live with to this day as my parents had to take legal action to prevent it from happening again.

But one August morning, I was at the psychiatrist office, and I had a meltdown in the waiting room shouting excessive vulgarities. It was determined that I would need to go to the psychiatric hospital, although this was a different facility on a larger scale at a large university. Little did I know that this hospitalization would be the one where my parents would put their feet down and state that I would not be coming home until I got more intense treatment to address the constant behavior that was putting them at wit’s end.

So, I was there for an extended period on a unit with developmentally disabled youth. Compared to the other hospital that I was in that summer where my parents visited me several times a week and brought me Wendy’s, this was not the case this time. The hospital visits were far and few between and the facility was very unpleasant. However, my mother and a professional were working in earnest to find me a decent placement where I could get things straightened out and return home with my family.

My county’s behavioral health office was searching for other options. Some of them included going to Connecticut and the other side of Pennsylvania. To my parents, this was not an option and through the work of my mother and a professional, they sought out the residential facility that I would attend. The late professional was quoted with saying “what do we need to have him here?” And by golly, it was discovered. I was even told that staff went floor to floor in the entity’s headquarters to locate the director of the facility to secure placement.

When that time came, I remember the social worker approaching me on the unit telling me where I was going. I did not argue as I had the belief at the time that it had to be better than where I was. I remember my parents picking me up, us going out on the parking deck and it being so bright because I had been indoors for three weeks at the hospital. We did stop at a Wendy’s on the way where I ate without a fuss. Now I realize that they did not have to did that, but I guess that was showing their love one last time before getting me treatment.

When we arrived at the facility, my parents and I went to the Conference room that was in the basement of the facility where the intake was completed. After that, I said my goodbyes and was escorted to my room at the facility where it was quiet time, and I remember laying on the bed crying.

It was my initial thought that I would be there two to three months. I was wrong. There were several issues besides the medication that needed to be addressed. I had an impressive therapist / liaison that was just as good as my therapist today. Quite frankly, they were the only two therapists I ever had in my life and that is a rarity. They were able to see through my smoke and mirrors and see where my problems were in life and what needed to be addressed. Therapy was comprehensive there. It included individual, group, and family therapies.

The hardest part of being there was that it split my parents up because of the differences they had about what should happen to me. I was very abusive with my mother because I knew I was stronger than her and she could not tolerate any more. My dad was the one who knew I could come back home with the right tools and support. Regardless, they loved me despite their struggles in their relationship and even as I was discharged after nine months of being in the residential treatment facility, there was a belief that I could succeed at home, given the right number of tools and support. They were just as much as a collaborator as I was, and I knew I had to do what I had to do.

Although it was not totally a success and I resented my family later for placing me there, it was what had saved me from being placed in a worse situation. It has always been my parents that have always been there for me at the drop of a hat. Now as I am mature over two decades later, they are teaching me to be more of an adult and do what I know I need to and can do, and I support them whenever I can because they have and still support me.

It is my responsibility to be the adult that I have always known that I can be and do the right thing. It may be hard and sacrificial, but there are things that need to be done because our parents are family, and they brought me into this world. They have always been there for me, and it is now time for me to be there for me in the way they have always been there for me.