The Breaking Point: A Family's Decision to Seek Residential Treatment
In this powerful episode, a mother named Emily shares her family’s journey through residential treatment, detailing the difficult decision to seek help, navigating various therapeutic programs, and finding hope at Oxbow Academy. She offers a raw and honest look at the breaking point, the importance of professional guidance, and how the entire family's commitment to healing led to transformation. This episode is a message of hope and reassurance that you are not alone.
A Family’s Journey from Crisis to Healing
Welcome to Unlocking Hope, a podcast dedicated to sharing the powerful stories of families who have found healing through residential treatment. In this episode, we talk with Emily, a courageous mother who recounts the emotional and complex journey of her son’s path through multiple programs, including wilderness therapy and therapeutic boarding school, before ultimately finding the right fit at Oxbow Academy. In this episode you will learn:
- How a family reached the point of emotional and physical unsafety at home.
- The valuable role of an educational consultant in a time of crisis.
- The process of a psychosexual evaluation and why it was a critical part of their journey.
- Why it's so important for the entire family to do their own healing work.
If you are a parent feeling isolated or at a crossroads, this episode is a testament that you are not alone and that hope is possible. Listening to Emily’s story can offer you guidance and encouragement. For more information and support, please call 855-676-4272 to learn how we can guide your family toward healing.
Listen To the Podcast:
Introduction to the Podcast and Emily's Story
Tiffany: I'm Tiffany Silva Herlan, a licensed clinical social worker and a therapist who works with families to find healing and growth through challenging times. This podcast explores the powerful stories of families navigating residential treatment.
In this special series, we speak with Emily, a brave mother who faced one of the most difficult decisions a parent can make: seeking residential treatment for her teenage son due to sexual behavioral concerns. This isn't just about a program; it's about a family rebuilding, learning, and growing together.
In this mini-series, we'll talk about the breaking point—how Emily knew it was time to seek help; the experience inside residential treatment for both her son and her family; and life after treatment—what healing looks like when a family leans into the process together.
This conversation is here to reassure parents that you are not alone and that there is hope, even in the most difficult circumstances. Remember, this podcast is not a substitute for personal therapy. Please seek guidance from a licensed mental health professional for your individual situation.
Emily, thank you so much for coming all this way and joining us today.
Emily: You're welcome. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Tiffany: This is such a brave and courageous thing you're doing—to get on here and share your story, especially for parents who really need to hear it.
The Journey of Healing and Growth
Tiffany: It's tough when you're a parent in your specific situation. So, Emily, in this first episode, we're going to dive into what led you to Oxbow Academy. What was your journey like? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your path to Oxbow.
Emily: Our son, who's now 17, was diagnosed with autism at age nine. It's been a journey of dealing with some troubling behaviors for a while. Around the age of 14, the wheels fell off the bus, and that's when we decided, with the guidance of our family therapist, to seek residential treatment for him.
Tiffany: It's my understanding that Oxbow wasn't your first stop.
Emily: Oxbow was not our first stop. We started with wilderness therapy, which was incredibly helpful for both our family and him. It gave us a chance to reset and figure out what was really going on. After that, he went to a therapeutic boarding school on the East Coast. During that time, we found that some troubling behaviors were still happening when he was home for visits. We decided it was best for him to go back to wilderness therapy for another reset.
It was during that second time in wilderness therapy that we learned about Oxbow and decided that it was what we needed. It was what he needed—that sex-specific treatment to really work through some of the issues he was dealing with.
Tiffany: Okay, so it was quite a journey to get to this point.
Emily: Yes.
Tiffany: And he's home now, right?
Emily: He's home now. He was away from home for a total of two and a half years.
Tiffany: That's a long time.
Emily: He left at 14 and came home at 17.
Tiffany: As a therapist who's worked at Oxbow Academy, especially with kids on the spectrum, it feels like their journey often takes a little longer. Because their brains are wired differently and they're neurodiverse, it's going to look a little different for a neurotypical kid.
Emily: Yeah, for sure. It took a little bit longer to figure out where the behaviors were coming from and for him to really own up to those behaviors being a problem. Because of the way his brain works, it just took some time for him to reach that point of acceptance and then to really dig in and do the work.
Tiffany: In my experience working with kids on the spectrum, it takes them a while to get there, but once it clicks, it's locked in.
Emily: Yeah.
Tiffany: They're so black and white and concrete that once they get it, there's no stopping them.
Emily: Yes.
Tiffany: That bus just keeps going.
Emily: Yeah, for sure.
Advantages of Working with an Ed Consultant
Emily: We worked with Ashley Barber from Barber Consulting out of North Carolina, and she really helped guide the entire process. We worked with her for the full two and a half years to find the right wilderness therapy program, a good therapeutic boarding school, and then, eventually, Oxbow. We even went back to the same wilderness therapy we had gone to before, with the same therapist, which was incredibly helpful the second time. Ashley helped the process go smoothly and eased our fears.
Tiffany: For our listeners who don't know what an educational consultant is, could you explain?
Emily: An educational consultant really knows all the programs out there. Ashley actually worked in wilderness therapy early in her career and then transitioned to being a consultant. She really holds your hand through it all. She knows what programs are out there and what to look for. When she gets to know your child, she's able to put the puzzle pieces together to find a good fit.
Emily: There are so many programs out there—so many wilderness programs, so many therapeutic boarding schools. Having an educational consultant who really knows what's what is essential. We found it to be super helpful. I don't think we could have done it without her.
Tiffany: They're so helpful. As you said, they act as a mediator for the family and the program. Their job is to go to all of these different programs, know the therapists, and know the people who work in them. It's so much more in-depth than just looking at a website.
Emily: We never would have—
Tiffany: Yeah.
Emily: We couldn't have done that on our own because we didn't even know that residential treatment existed before going through this process.
Tiffany: I think a lot of parents don't. Outpatient therapy? Maybe. Intensive outpatient therapy? Yes. But when you get to the breaking point where home is no longer safe—emotionally, physically, or sexually—it's a whole new world. It's overwhelming. You're often in a crisis, in a fog. You're experiencing decision fatigue because you're so overwhelmed and traumatized. Having that third-party person come in and really help and guide you is so essential.
Emily: Yes, we could not have done it without her. For sure.
Tiffany: You mentioned that he went to wilderness twice. What was the difference between the first time and the second time that made you realize he needed sex-specific treatment? With a kid on the spectrum, so many things are going on—behavioral themes, emotional themes. It's hard to know what the real underlying issue is.
Emily: He had a wonderful experience at the therapeutic boarding school overall. He had a great experience, and we did, too. But we later learned, when he was coming home for visits, that he was sneaking electronic devices and still accessing pornography. We realized there was a bigger issue that a general therapeutic boarding school was not equipped to handle. We needed to dive deeper into that, so we went back to wilderness a second time as a reset. It gave us time to figure out where to go next because we didn't know. That's when we learned about Oxbow.
Tiffany: And you mentioned, when we were talking before this, that he had a psychosexual evaluation done.
Emily: Yes.
Tiffany: Was it the first time?
Emily: The first time and the second time. Twice.
Tiffany: Okay. For our listeners, you usually get what's called a psychosocial evaluation to see how your child is doing emotionally and find out what diagnoses they may have. A psychosexual evaluation is added to that. They'll look at the risk for sexual issues and determine if they need sex-specific treatment. So you had one done?
Emily: Yes. We had one done the first time he was in wilderness therapy, and it came back as low risk. That's why we ended up at the therapeutic boarding school instead of looking at a place like Oxbow in the beginning. But when we learned on home visits that he was still accessing pornography, we thought, "This is not going away."
Tiffany: Can I ask you a question real quick? Did he exhibit some sexual issues before going to wilderness?
Emily: Yes.
Tiffany: Okay.
Emily: Yes, we knew the issues were there, but there were lots of issues.
A Therapist's Perspective
Emily: It wasn't just that—there were lots of behavior issues that we had, really from age 10 to age 14. He wasn't able to emotionally regulate and had a lot of meltdowns. So there was a lot going on in addition to the pornography piece.
Tiffany: And from my experience, the sexual issues sometimes just peaks its ugly head up. There's a crisis or an event, and then it goes away for a little bit. It's an ebb and flow, so it's not always in your face. It comes up, freaks everyone out, and then slowly goes away until another incident comes up. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yeah, that totally makes sense, and that's what we found. I can definitely relate to that. So he went back to wilderness for the second time as a reset to give us time to figure out what we really needed. That's when our educational consultant made us aware that Oxbow was an option, and we decided it would be the best place.
Tiffany: With the second psychosexual evaluation, what was the difference? Did it come back as...?
Emily: The second one happened while at Oxbow.
Tiffany: Oh, okay.
Emily: So it wasn't at wilderness the second time. Because he was there the second time for only six weeks. He was there for 13 weeks the first time, then at the therapeutic boarding school for about nine months, and then back to wilderness for six weeks. Then he went to Oxbow. So the second psychosexual evaluation didn't happen until he was at Oxbow.
Tiffany: We'll jump into what that looks like in the second episode. But in that time, for our listeners who are wondering, wilderness is usually a short-term program to help stabilize a child before they go somewhere else. So that matches up with what kids typically do.
Emily: Yeah.
Tiffany: So interesting. So he went back to wilderness to reset, get stabilized, and give you guys some time to figure out if he needed sex-specific treatment. Then you guys decided to go to Oxbow. Emily, I love the story and that we've jumped into his journey, but let's take a step back for our listeners and talk about what led you to even decide on wilderness in the first place?
Emily: He had been in therapy since he was about six, when we started occupational therapy. We had done lots of outpatient therapy, regular talk therapy, play therapy—we had done all the things. We weren't really seeing a change in his behaviors. There would be a little bit of a change, but it wasn't sticking. He was getting really good at "therapy speak."
Tiffany: He knew what to say?
Emily: He knew what to say in therapy. Things would go great in his sessions, and then they would fall apart at home. We just knew it wasn't sticking. He was able to say, "Yes, I know I have rigid thinking, and I know I need to be more flexible, and I know I have sticky thinking," or whatever the terms were. But then he would come home, and nothing would change. The meltdowns were still there, the outbursts were still there, and emotional regulation was not there. It really wasn't working.
I'll never forget what the founder of the therapeutic boarding school said the first time we were there. She said something like, "When one member of the family is making it unsafe for the entire family, that person has to go." That was really what it was. We couldn't handle it anymore. We were out of our depth of being able to handle it.
Tiffany: Which is such a difficult place for a parent to be. Would you mind sharing some of the feelings that came up for you?
Moving Past The Breaking Point
Emily: It was awful. Just having to decide that you can't handle it—right? You're taught that as a mom, you're in control and you can do this. You're just going to parent them, and they're going to follow and do all the things they're supposed to do and check all the boxes, and it will all be fine. But it wasn't. It wasn't working. We had spent so much time with it not working, and it was time to try something else that wasn't us.
Tiffany: It sounds like you had reached the point where you had done the best you could with every resource you had.
Emily: Yeah, with the resources we had.
Tiffany: So it's common for some parents to feel a sense of shame, like, "I failed." Did you experience that?
Emily: Oh, yeah, one hundred percent. They're supposed to be safe in your home, and you and your other children are supposed to be safe in your home. When you can't make that happen, you feel like a failure. That's when we knew it was beyond us and that we were out of options.
Tiffany: So you reached that breaking point where there was no longer safety at home, and you and your other siblings didn't feel safe. You had tried everything, and it just wasn't working.
Emily: It wasn't working, yeah.
Tiffany: And that's such a scary, brave, and vulnerable place to be as a parent. The fact that you could see that and take the next step shows how much you love your son. To be able to say, "We don't have what he needs, and I love you so much that I'm going to make this incredibly difficult choice as a mom to send you away." No mom wants to make that choice. You want to keep your kids close.
Emily: Right, exactly.
Tiffany: Yeah. How did you grapple with those difficult feelings of failure and shame?
Emily: I learned that I had to do my own work, and that was the biggest thing for me. I've been in therapy with the same therapist for eight years now and have done a lot of work to combat that shame. It still rears its ugly head, but I know that we did the best we could with the information and resources we had at the time, every step of the way. And that's all we could do.
Tiffany: And that's what any parent can do. It's good that you can get to that point and recognize that, yes, it's still going to rear its ugly head, and you'll still have those feelings of shame, but you can separate yourself from it and be like, "I did the best I could for my child at that time with what I had."
Emily: Yeah.
Tiffany: When you get to that breaking point and have to make the choice to send your child away, the next hard thing is realizing there might not be a resource or a place to send them in-state.
Emily: Right.
Making the Decision to Send Him Away
Tiffany: It's so hard. So what helped you make that choice? Did you send him out of state initially?
Emily: Yes, way out of state. We're in South Carolina, and he went to Utah. We leaned on our educational consultant to find the best fit.
Tiffany: So you were like, "Okay, we're going to put him on a plane, and he's going to be a couple of states away..."
Emily: Yeah. We made the decision, and he went seven days later—I think it was nine days later.
Tiffany: Nine days? That is quick. And probably urgent. Like, you needed him out of the home.
Emily: Urgent. Yeah, it needed to happen. We were falling apart.
Tiffany: Did you take him there yourself?
Emily: We did. We took him there ourselves.
Tiffany: Tell us a little about what that was like.
Emily: He had a job and came home from work on a Sunday evening. We told him, "We're leaving tomorrow at 5:30 in the morning. We're flying to Utah, and you're going to this place that will help you because we can't help you anymore."
Tiffany: Were you worried he was going to run or try to get out of it?
Emily: We were, and we had a backup plan to use transport if needed. But he loves airplanes and loves flying. I'm not even sure he heard the part about us dropping him off somewhere. I think he just heard, "We're going to fly to Utah," so he went willingly.
Emotional Adjustments to Leaving Home
Tiffany: Once you got there, did he try to pull on your heartstrings the second it clicked for him?
Emily: He really didn't. I think, deep down, he knew he needed help. I don't think he really knew what wilderness therapy was, but he was open to it. He didn't fight back or push back.
Tiffany: Okay. And for our listeners, that's not always the case.
Emily: Yes, we were very lucky.
Tiffany: You were super lucky.
Emily: We were very lucky, yes.
Tiffany: Just for our listeners, I’ve worked with a lot of kids who know exactly what buttons to push and what emotional heartstrings to tug on. In those first couple of weeks, they're really good at writing letters home or getting on the phone during a weekend call when no one else is around. They know exactly what to say to set off an alarm: "I'm not getting enough food" or "I'm not safe." That's not to say those concerns aren't valid, but they know how their parents will react and they're trying to get out of where they are.
Emily: Yeah. We had that for sure. The letters weren't great; he was not happy to be there once he got there. He went willingly, but he was not thrilled. But we knew he was safe, and we were safe, and the family was safe, and so it was the best place for him to be.
Tiffany: Tell me a little about that experience. You got to this point where you're like, "We have maxed out everything we've got. We're exhausted. We no longer feel safe, and he's not safe. We feel like we're failing." I've heard parents talk about how you have to put all of that on pause for a minute, get them to safety, and then what comes after that emotionally? I've heard parents talk about this relief-guilt because they've sent their kid away, but then also such relief at the same time, and you can start working on yourself. Tell us about that.
Emily: Yeah. It was definitely hard. One hundred percent there were tears right when we left. Tears from him, tears from us. I was a basket case when we dropped him off and had to drive away back to the airport. I think that guilt and worry were probably there for about a week. But there was great communication from the wilderness therapy program and from our educational consultant the whole time. And there was relief because we could breathe again as a family. We knew that he was safe, and we knew that we were safe.
Family Work Involved With Treatment
Emily: It gave us a chance to work on ourselves while he was doing his work. We could do our work at the same time. The wilderness program provided a reading list, and we went for a parent visit and spent the night in the field with him. At the end of his first time there, we did a family focus session where the whole family spent two nights in the field. It was a time for all of us to do our work while he was doing his.
Tiffany: I love that. Even in that program—and we'll get to what the work looked like at Oxbow in the next episode—it's so important that families are all-in. That the parents, like yourself, are all-in and doing their own work.
Emily: I think it's great for the child to do their own work, but there's so much in the family system that has to change for that child to be able to come back into it. That's the part we didn't know about until we got there, and we knew we had to dive right in.
Tiffany: What helped you dive right in? That's a difficult place to be.
Emily: I don't really know. I think we were so exhausted and at the end of our rope that we were like, "Whatever resources, please tell us what to do." So we read the books, participated in the parent sessions, scheduled the parent visit, and did the whole family focus at the end. It was just about recognizing our part in it. We can't control his behaviors, but we can control how we react to them. As a parent, I had become super enmeshed with my child. For six years, I had been the "fixer," trying to play defense and fix all the things all the time. That wasn't helping me or him.
Tiffany: Which makes sense, because you have a child who's struggling in so many areas, especially being neurodivergent. It's understandable that you would fall into that role and try to fix it. I was talking to another mom on a different podcast, and she used an analogy about a puzzle. Your child is one of the puzzle pieces. When you send them away to therapy, that puzzle piece changes. If he were to come back and try to fit into the old puzzle, he would have to mold back to whatever that piece was to fit into the system. It's imperative that the puzzle itself—all those pieces—change as well so that when he comes back as a new puzzle piece, he can fit in as his new self.
Emily: Exactly.
Tiffany: I just really love that analogy. It's true. The whole system has to change.
Emily: The whole system has to change.
Tiffany: When you knew you needed to go to Oxbow Academy, which was further down the road, did you go visit it?
Visiting Oxbow Academy Campus
Emily: We did. We were basically given two options, as sex-specific treatment options are very limited. We visited two different places and decided on Oxbow. It was just a feeling that it was the right spot.
Tiffany: So was it helpful to go and meet the people versus just looking at the website?
Emily: Yes. We did that for everything except for wilderness. We took him to wilderness so quickly that we obviously didn't visit, but we went to the therapeutic boarding school and Oxbow before we chose them.
Tiffany: Not every family has that luxury of time, but tell our listeners why that was so important to you.
Emily: For me, I wanted to see the space. I knew what my child needed and where he would be more comfortable. Oxbow is out in the country, and there are horses right on campus.
Tiffany: It's beautiful.
Emily: It's a beautiful space. There's a lot of outdoor space—just space in general. Another program we visited didn't have much space. I think they left campus for a lot of activities, but Oxbow just had the space and options we felt really good about. It just felt right.
Tiffany: I think it's important. When I worked at Oxbow, I often told parents, "Please come out, meet the staff, meet the therapist, because you're entrusting us with one of the most precious things in your life. You need to build that trust and know what your son will be living in."
Emily: If it's an option for the family, visiting made a huge difference for me both times—with the therapeutic boarding school and when we chose Oxbow. I just knew.
Tiffany: I love that you guys took the time and effort to do your homework even that far down the journey. Did you have any fears or hesitations about sending him to Oxbow? If so, what were they?
Emily: Yes, one hundred percent. It’s just a very taboo topic. Sex-specific behavior is really scary, and nobody talks about it. You're sending your child to a place where everyone has sexual behavior issues. It's what he needed, but it's scary.
Tiffany: What were your honest concerns?
Emily: I think you just don't know who the other boys are or what they've been through. You don't want to send your kid to a place where he's going to pick up a different behavior. It's scary, but you have to do it. When you're at that point, at the end of that road, and you know this is what he needs, you just do it.
Addressing Sexual Behavioral Concerns
Tiffany: Was there ever a point that you felt like, "Does he really need Oxbow? Are we really going in the right direction?"
Emily: I think you're always questioning, but by the time we got to Oxbow, we had already tried the other things. He needed that.
Tiffany: I only ask that because I've worked with a lot of parents who say, "I don't know if he really needs this." We can talk about the great option that Oxbow offers—that evaluation.
Emily: I was going to say, but...
Tiffany: Go ahead.
Emily: I knew going in that the evaluation period would determine whether Oxbow was where he really needed to be. It was good to know that if he got in there and did that initial evaluation, and it turned out he didn't belong, then we would find something else.
Tiffany: Did it help knowing that Oxbow had a house specifically for neurodivergent kids?
Emily: Yes, one hundred percent. That was very important for us.
Tiffany: Absolutely. I was actually with Oxbow before they had that house and made that split. I got to see that transition and be a therapist at that campus. It really transformed things and allowed the populations to get what they needed in a healthier and safer way. It really met the needs of the boys, especially those on the spectrum. I loved that they made that shift many years ago.
What would you want to tell a parent who is at this crossroads and possibly needs a place like Oxbow Academy? What would you want them to know?
Breaking the Stigma
Emily: That they're not alone, because it feels that way since nobody talks about it. If your child has concerning sexual behaviors, you are not sharing that with your friends.
Tiffany: No.
Emily: You're not talking about it, so you feel really alone. I think it’s important to know that you are not alone and that there are places out there that can help with treatment. I always encourage an educational consultant. I think that's a big piece of it.
Tiffany: I love that you're letting parents know they're not alone, because that’s the biggest message I constantly felt I was saying while at Oxbow: "You are not alone." It feels like you are because you're right, it's a taboo topic.
Emily: Yeah.
Tiffany: No one wants to talk about this. It's not something you bring up in conversation with friends. There's so much shame and secrecy around it for obvious reasons, but it's important to let parents in your shoes know that they're not alone.
Emily: They're not alone.
Tiffany: Thank you for joining us on this episode and talking about your journey leading up to getting help for your son, not only in wilderness and a therapeutic boarding school but eventually at Oxbow. In our next episode, we're going to talk about what it was like once you were there and what your involvement was like. How did the healing journey go for you and your family? So stay tuned, listeners. Thank you again so much for joining us.
Emily: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
You Have Questions, We Have Answers. Your Call is Confidential.
Contact us if you need help with treatment for sexual addiction, sexual abuse, pornography abuse, and other compulsive behavior issues.