Continuing the Conversation

NetFlix’s Outer banks season 3

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Season 3 has not disappointed. I still love the Goonie-esq vibe the show’s creator has instilled… pause…wait for it….there is a “but” coming……BUT, I am perturbed…Like season 2, the creators have written into the script the suggestion that Kiera’s parents have had it with her and are suggesting she go away to a wilderness “camp”. This season isn’t any better than last in representing wilderness therapy. It is shows like this that haven’t done their research or if they have, they portray only one side, which is the side that shows these long term programs in an abusive light. Look, I do not discount that abuses have happened in years past. There have been known conversion or boot-camp type programs. Those programs are shut down now or are few and far between. This is why I recommend Educational Consultants who have vetted programs, but more importantly the families need to do their own research. From our experience there are many versions of the story. There are the parent’s perspective, the adolescent’s perspective and then there is the onlooker’s perspective who has no experience in any of what is going on in that family but feels the need to pick a side. Let’s break it down a bit, shall we?…….. Since I am a parent of a child who has struggled and has left his home so that he would not die, let’s start with the parent’s point of view…..In regards to the show Outer Banks, Kiera’s parents were “Freaking Out!!!” Over the past 3 seasons, they have seen Kiera change friend groups from Kooks to Pogues, she has been participating in underage drinking, she has not come home at night, she has skipped school or refused to go, and as season 3 starts we find out the teens have been missing for over a month! What parent wouldn’t be besides themselves?!?! Seriously, our job as a parent is to keep our kids alive. It is the natural order of things. When your kid starts engaging in riskier behavior and stretches boundaries beyond the normal teenage rebellion, Parents Will Freak Out! The parents themselves will become irrational. They will make decisions that could be rash. It’s not out of hate, but out of love…..all to save their child. In the show, we don’t see any other previous interventions to help Kiera. We only see that the parents went from 0-100. They got out the “big guns”….They “gooned” their child. They had people come take Kiera away against her will. Let’s switch and look at this from Kiera’s view point, now. Kiera knows she has pushed the boundaries to the breaking point. She has rebelled to the point that she can’t see the difference between risk and reward. I am not blaming her because that is what teens do….They live in their 6 inch bubble and can’t rationalize how their actions could affect others and that they themselves could be hurt or die. Their need to be with their friends outweighs any consequence. In the scene where Kiera is “gooned”, she stands in the driveway talking to herself as she figures out how to tell her parents that she needs to leave again and go to South America to help her friends. A truck from the “program” pulls up and 2 men manhandle her into the truck and take her away. Can you say Traumatized with a capital T?!?! At this point, I turned Netflix off and thought about canceling my membership….! I know….I know…. I am exaggerating. I won’t cancel Netflix! Do you see what I am trying to get at? In today’s climate of being able to say, do or portray anything on TV, movies, social media etc., just know that what you see is not always the truth… it’s an exaggeration. Why would anyone do that? not represent the truth? Well….probably to be more dramatic so that you can be sucked in to believing what you are seeing or reading. Did Netflix and the creators of Outer Banks intend to throw the adolescent/young adult therapeutic programs under the bus and make something that saved my son’s life seem seedy???? I don’t know….Maybe if they were to actually have a movie, series or documentary depicting the real truth than maybe we would know the answer. So Netflix……call me….I have a real, very gritty and truthful story about the “Troubled Teen” industry that saved my kid’s life!

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To Love or Not to love?

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  In my certification course to become a Family Recovery Coach, part of my homework was to reflect on how I/we added love (or if we did) in contributing to Carson’s recovery. Wow! Well, yes….duh! Right?! I’m his mom, Sloan is his dad, of course we loved him! After, reading through the chapter from the book Balm: The Loving Path to Family Recovery (which my course work is through), I meditated and reflected on what was really being asked. Below is how I chose to answer. It was quite a revelation. ANSWER: When our son’s started experimenting in their teen years, I/we still had the idea that it was bad choices on their part because they were teenagers and that is what teens do, they rebel and push the envelope. As one son’s experimentation turned into regular use, I/we still felt he could ”control” it. He could choose to drink or drug. So we disciplined as though that were the case. Bad kid, Bad choices v/s Good kid, Good choices. After his first stay in an adolescent inpatient program, we learned that addiction is a brain disorder/disease/mental health disorder. When we came to that realization, we looked at his behavior as a symptom not a malicious intent. This really helped me change my attitude from angry and frustrated to being more loving and kinder. I believed he couldn’t help it. That he wasn’t doing it on purpose. Especially when we started catching him high or trying to get high more often. We started to see a pattern of “abstinence (baseball season), purchase just a little something (reward for being abstinent), to full on bender where we constantly chased him or ran interference (3 weeks usually), to crisis (catastrophic behavior, jail, overdose), finally rehab. Each time he went into rehab it was for a longer stay but never enough till we moved him out of state. I think we, as a society, do not want to embark on a loving path to help our struggling loved one  because of generations of being told that love is enabling. “If we love, it will encourage his use.” “If we punish then we are not contributing, we are setting boundaries.” “If we take our love away then they will want to get sober, right?” NOOOOOOOOO!….Just writing that last sentence and reading it back sounded ludicrous! Substance Use Disorder has a lot of shame and stigma around it….The user feels so bad for using because it is bad for them and they know it so they say, “I am going to stop!” “I’ll never drink or drug again!” Until, 2 to 24hrs or weeks of rehab go by and they lose their resolve which then they slip/relapse. When they wake up from that they feel like shit physically and emotionally and the cycle starts again. It’s maddening! Sooo, what if we change our attitude on how to relate to someone with a Substance Use Disorder? What if by looking at them through the lens of love, we then develop compassion, empathy and grace which then when projected on to our loved one or someone afflicted they feel that love?…..Then maybe just maybe there will be a shift and they will feel worthy of getting sober? Did we love him into recovery? Yes! Absolutely! Was it always “rainbows and skittles” (to quote Carson)? Nope! Is loving someone with the disease of addiction easy? Nope! Is it worth it? Yep!:)

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Troubled Teen v/s Youth in Crisis

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Many would agree that language is huge when deciding if something is bad or good. If the language surrounding a person or illness sounds negative in nature, then we most likely assume that the person or illness is bad. This inturn causes us to have judgement. For example viewing the terms above….what are you thinking? How does each statement make you feel? In the world of addictions and mental health, whether for adolescent or adult, negative words, positive words or neutral words can be the difference between shame and stigma or not. I have been seeing the words “troubled teen” a lot lately. Even the programs/industries that are trying to change verbage around youth in crisis have to use “troubled teen” to get hits on the internet. I’ll even need to use the term to get leads to this blog post. I feel sad about that. To me seeing or hearing the words “troubled teen” makes me think those kids had a choice. They had a choice to be bad or good. Did they? Same goes for “drug addict”, did they have a choice to become addicted? Sure, they had a choice in using a substance. As an adolescent, that is their job….to try things. They don’t know if they will be come addicted or not. It doesn’t even cross their mind. Their frontal lobe is still yet to develop their rationalization thoughts/skills. There is always a back story…most likely when a youth is in crisis, it is because they have had some sort of trauma. Trauma with a capital T or with a lower case t. Another term is ACEs or Adverse Childhood Experiences. The CDC defines ACEs as potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples would be but not limited to: experiencing violence, abuse or neglect, witnessing violence….A child’s environment could be impacted by safety and stability due to substance use or mental health problems by the care giver. ACEs are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness and substance use problems. A youth in crisis does not have to have had such extreme traumas to be in crisis. Today, adolescents are dealing with the pressures of their generation. Internet, social media, drugs, parents divorcing, Covid, political unrest, divisiveness…..and the list goes on…… When it all builds up and their minds and body’s can’t handle it all, they become “out of control”. They make bad choices, do horrible things, use drugs. They are just trying to survive. We as adults have to have compassion and empathy to help them, guide them….save them. So the next time we use/read words that are negative in describing someone or their illness….. stop! Think it through….that child, adolescent, young adult and adult all have a back story. I invite you to watch the trailer; Gabor Mate’ in the Wisdom of Trauma. https://youtu.be/70HNmSsJvVU

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Let’s continue the conversation….

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With the release and the reading of my book Chasing Carson: A Family’s Journey through Adolescence, Addiction and Recovery, I am quite sure there will be questions and comments. I encourage you all to ask away. Our story is gritty…substance use is not pretty and those afflicted with the disease of addiction are not usually liked very well. Oh, and let’s add in adolescence which during those years some teens can be hard to live with, just ask my parents. My dad made my stepmom quit her job one summer to babysit me…..No Lie! Let’s get real…Let’s talk about the grit…Let’s talk about our messy lives…Why?! Because not talking about it is killing our kids (fentanyl poisoning) or at the very least leaving them hearing impaired (Carson) or schizophrenic ( 2 of our family friend’s kids), homeless or in jail. Teen experimentation is dangerous these days. The education on drugs and the brain has got to catch up in our homes and in our schools. This is a community crisis!

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