Bridging the Gap - Eight

                                    

There are several reasons why I haven’t said much about what brought our daughter into wilderness therapy. The short answer is that her story is hers to tell and while I hope that she may choose someday to share some of her story here, I will not share specifics.  The longer answer is that although you may be curious and you may feel a need to compare your situation with mine, I don’t think the particulars matter so much in this instance.  From what I have learned the individual details of the problems these young people have experienced is not the primary focus of wilderness therapy.  The focus is on how these young people have responded to their problems.  These responses have a universal quality and while they might palliate they don’t work.  

What do I mean?  Retreat, anger, acting out, addictions.  These are strategies to alleviate pain. The pain is caused by a gap between native intelligence and the ability to turn incoming information into usable form.  For some the issues are academic, for others, social.  Most adolescents experience emotional extremes, but this group is off the charts.  What you get is a young person unable to move forward as they find themselves in an impossible bind.  How, if I’m so smart, can I be such an effing disaster?   

You know all the labels already anyway: Asperger’s, mood disorders, ADD and ADHD, addictions (including gaming, spending money wildly and so forth).  Almost all adolescents struggle, but most are able to work through challenges, learn useful strategies, and move on.  

Anyway, that’s the gap—and even if the cognitive and emotional issues are not too severe, that becomes irrelevant as the young person experiences trauma from the repeated experience of failure to conform, to keep up, to read social cues, or, in general, deliver in the ways they believe they should be able to. The idea of being a failure becomes deeply embedded and they begin to believe they can’t succeed no matter how hard they try.  As this takes hold the gap become wider and deeper and things can get very very scary.  I understand now that this, more or less, is what my daughter was experiencing through high school and the first two years of college.  She was valiant but eventually she was overwhelmed.  In her unhappiness she isolated and alienated (and frightened) her friends, and stayed indoors glued to media of one kind or another, cutting herself off from social interactions and the natural world, both essential to a balanced self.  

Wilderness therapy created room in our daughter’s mind that she did have the strength to endure difficulties and to succeed.  That she could renew her connection with the natural world and learn to be part of a community. The tasks she had to do from making fires from scratch to making shelters helped enormously.  Working in the small groups too, she had to learn to ask for and give help, a connection I know she longed for but always eluded her.  She didn’t do this perfectly but she made progress.  In wilderness, ideally, the young person can built a first bridge, no matter how humble and rickety, over the gap.  

No matter what else might or might not happen in the family workshop, it is a window through which the parents can get a glimpse of that process.  

My daughter has said to me that one the most healing aspects of wilderness for her was being outside all day every day and into the dark where she learned to love staring at the stars wheel through the sky. So fellow parents, don’t get wound out about the cold (the equipment is amazing) or ticks in summer (they take good precautions).  If your child is like mine was, they have isolated inside, looking at a glowing screen or listening to music, checked out.  Outdoor time is a need for humans, one of the best cures for whatever ails you.  There is a growing consensus that simply being outside is good for your psyche and I know my daughter would now heartily agree.      

So. Wilderness therapy is a method for getting unstuck. That’s the good news.  I suppose it doesn’t always work but there are ways we, as parents, can help even from afar.  One way is to notice when you resist what a therapist asks of you and then question yourself why you are resisting.  I would hazard that 99 times out of 100 the resistance involves guilt and shame and anger.  Clinging to these will not help our children. I can say this bluntly because over and over again in this process that has been my experience.     

That’s another reason why I chose this image of a small bridge.  The thing about a bridge is that your journey doesn’t end on the other side; the bridge is an aid to help you get over an obstacle so you can keep moving quickly and safely to wherever you are going. 

Taking the Long Way Around, the title of this blog, describes not only the longer journey our daughter is taking towards adulthood, but reminds us that our journeys rarely go in a straight line and definitely we encounter obstacles.  

Certainly when our daughter started wilderness therapy neither my husband nor I had any idea that there would be more to do afterwards.  (And I’m fairly sure our daughter thought the same.)  Naively I saw this as a helpful experience after which our daughter would pick up her life  (and her kitten) and go on as before only far more able to cope.

Wilderness therapy is a powerful beginning. When successful, room is made for change and growth.  After wilderness comes the time to begin lasting change--if the young person is willing to commit fully to becoming self aware, strategic and responsible about managing themselves.  This requires making a full commitment to the process no matter how long it takes. And that includes you and me.  And yes, I am preparing you for what comes after wilderness therapy.  It was not what I expected and I struggled with the next decisions that began to face us as she passed the halfway point at wilderness.