“
HOPE IS PASSION
FOR THE POSSIBLE”
A
– SOREN KIERKEGAARD
ccepting the concept that hope is possible is a first step toward having it. For teens who have mental or emotional disabilities, hope is a critically important factor in the recovery process. It’s fueled by the notion that a teen with a mental or emotional disability wants to get better and believes he or she can.
at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, majoring in Feminist Philosophy. She attended Charlton for her Junior and Senior year of high school. After that, she was home 6 months and then went on to Sienna College, where she graduated four years later with a triple major and minor, as well as a research certificate.
“The journey of recovery is an ongoing, personal process, which aims to allow a person to have a satisfying life despite the limitations posed by their condition. Several factors are important in permitting it, ranging from learning how to manage one’s condition, to improving self-esteem. However, the central tenet in recovery is hope.” 1
The student had a history of difficulties with separation anxiety and parting issues from an early age. She was very bright and had many friends. She graduated middle school as Valedictorian and attended a prestigious accelerated high school in NYC. Always an overachiever, her clinical symptoms worsened under the pressure. By October of freshman year, she was calling the suicide hotline for help.
Our fourth family in this editorial series tells of a student who has been successful in navigating her way along the path of recovery to a bright future. She is presently attending the Ph.D. program
30 | SARATOGA FAMILY | FALL 2021
After seeing a therapist for a number of years for anxiety, the student was later labeled with depression, generalized anxiety disorder and suicide ideation. She was hospitalized, and then attended the Restart Program, followed by a roller coaster series of additional hospitalizations. She made a couple of serious attempts to take her own life, being saved by strangers who were on the scene. The mother kept asking the doctors and therapists about residential treatment and was told to wait. She was advised to seek residential treatment as a “last resort” instead of seeing it as a middle-line choice for treatment. The mother described it as a “fight” to get her medical advisors to approve of a residential therapeutic facility. Instead, it was suggested to go the route of “lockdown” in the hospital because of her daughter’s “high risk” factor.
saratogaTODAYnewspaper.com
