On 2005-01-24 00:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"My daughter was turned down for Provo Canyon School because of her aggressiveness. She is 13 with bipolar disorder among other things and is currently in another rtc.
Does anyone know of any treatment facilities that are actually safe and GOOD?"
For bipolar disorder (which I have, and have a bunch of family members who also have it, including my 9 y.o. daughter), I would *NOT* choose the behavior modification facility model. Period.
Your child *may* face a life situation on total disability drawing social security. That's my cousin's situation. When she starts to feel she's getting too unstable, she goes down and checks herself into the mental hospital so they can restabilize her on medication and they call her mother to tell her she's in the hospital again.
She sleeps on the couch with the television on to drown out the voices.
Her doctors know about the voices, it's just that with all the different medications that are out there, they can't get a combination that stabilizes her and stops them.
Then I'm at the other end of the spectrum of outcomes. I'm a good medication responder (not due to any merit of my own, just "lucky" biology) and am very high function. I'm a New York Times bestselling author.
I still have to take my meds and see my doc and periodically something changes and my doctor has to adjust my meds.
Bipolar disorder is a major, lifelong disability.
Don't expect your daughter to function like a person with no disabilities anymore than you'd expect a paraplegic kid to hit the top buttons on the elevator panel.
You're *more likely* to get a high-function outcome like mine if you try to keep your daughter stabilized to the point of not being actively dangerous and treat actual achievements as gravy.
That way she's not all knotted up and angsty inside feeling like she's expected to meet an impossible goal---being perfectly normal.
Not being angsty over impossible expectations *may* free her up to excel at the creative work that bipolars are so often *better* at than "normal" people.
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I wouldn't have her in an RTC at all.
NIMH, the National Institutes of Mental Health, has openly stated that RTCs or bootcamps that place mentally ill kids (and they specifically mention bipolars) alongside juvenile delinquents DON'T WORK and are actually HARMFUL.
If you do have to put her in *short term* drug treatment for addiction problems, pick one with no boot camp characteristics that doesn't also accept juvenile delinquents.
If she's actively unstable, use a conventional mental hospital to get her restabilized as much as possible on medication.
If she's not a medication responder and is violent, she *may* have to stay involuntarily committed to a mental hospital until the drug companies develop a new drug or drugs that will work to stabilize her.
If you've run out of as much inpatient mental hospital care as your insurance allows, and you can manage her at night, see if you can find a day hospitalization program in your area.
If you listen to all this and still think you just really need to use an RTC, pick one that accepts as few juvenile delinquents (unless they're also mentally ill) and has as few bootcamp features as possible. Also *insist* that you or a child advocate frequently visits your child to check on her welfare.
Do *NOT* use any facility that won't allow either you or a neutral representative appointed or hired or whatever to look out for the interests of your child to visit your child and make welfare checks.
And thank your lucky stars that PCS turned you down! Far too many survivors have come out of that place with tales of permanent physical injuries from mistreatment.
Timoclea
