Eight Months Down the Road

My daughter has been in residential treatment for almost eight months now. She is doing very well. Her grades are very good and she is putting out a lot of effort in school. Her behavior is good in the house and she doesn’t lose control of herself often (rarely).

The only problem is, she’s holding on so tight and trying to hard to “be good” that she isn’t letting out real, authentic feelings. Thankfully the staff understands this and continues to push her to be “real” with her feelings.

We see her just about every month and our visits have been very fruitful. We have been able to spend good time together, enjoying each other as well as spend time in therapy working on the hard stuff. The last visit I went alone, both of us nervous to be together after 7 months never being alone with each other. Things turned out quite well thanks to her brave therapist who insisted I come even when I was scared, and pushed us to do some good, deep mother/daughter work. I’m really glad I went; it was well worth the time and effort it took to get over my concerns.

She is learning to rope and ride on a horse! She is studying much of what we studied last year at home so she’s a bit ahead in school of some kids and probably behind in others. I have been impressed with her ability transition into a more mainstream type of school from homeschooling and do well. She takes tests and does homework and puts out a lot of effort.

At home, well, we are finding that not all our problems were because of her issues, but perhaps many of our personal and couple problems that are raising their heads are due to all the years to dealing with her first, who knows. But my husband and I are working on ourselves in therapy and making strides. We hope to be as healthy as her by the time she comes home.