Taking the Long Way Around: A Mother's Journey into Wilderness Therapy and Beyond

A few days ago our daughter celebrated her 24th birthday. She’s been living by herself in her college dorm suite for a month, an experience that has had its ups and downs.  Thankfully a friend and former roommate from Dragonfly is moving in this weekend. But that day she was alone.  None of us are big fans of video-conferencing but we stayed lightly linked all day, with a phone call and texts and photographs like the one above of the cake she baked for herself, lemon with lemon-basil icing.  We forbore to ask if she was going to spend any time with anyone non-virtually.   Anyway, what did it really matter?   We were here, she was there.   Last year, having just arrived in Oregon a few days earlier, our daughter was on her own for her birthday in a different way.  Not alone alone as she was this year, but surrounded by people she didn’t know. The year before that she was angry with the world (and me) and moved out of our house and into her...

This essay started out as a celebration of our daughter’s one year anniversary of entering the True North wilderness therapy program, the 23rd of January, 2019.  I began writing a few days before, possibly on the 19th January, 2020, the day the first case of Covid-19 was diagnosed in Washington state.  Our daughter was (and is of this writing) in Oregon as a student in the Dragonfly Transition program and at Southern Oregon University.  Spring break was coming up and she had plane tickets to come home.  After her return in early April, she would be moving into a dorm on the university campus, entering the last phase of the program, a lightly tethered foray into independence.  I didn’t know it yet, but everything was about to change.    For the first week or two I wasn’t overly concerned about the virus.  I had faith that the outbreak would be contained, having no idea how fast the virus would spread or how woefully unprepared governm...

On April 17, 2019 a few days shy of three months in the wilderness program, our daughter having completed all the tasks and requirements, graduated.  In the photograph, taken at the ceremony, she is demonstrating her ability to light a fire from raw materials, blowing the little wisp of smoke in the wood dust wrapped in the birchbark cone into flame.   One other person was graduating.  The two and their fellow students, guides, therapists, and parents, stood together in a big circle outside.  Currents of emotion swept around and through us: excitement, anxiety, some envy, pride, and a bit of awe from everyone as the two demonstrated their skills.  The third skill, using the bow-drill to light a fire, was last and toughest.  Our daughter’s first tries did not take and, frustrated, she retired with her therapist for a few minutes to regroup.  I knew she could do it; I was pretty sure she would do it, but everyone was dead quiet when she r...

Winter is on the wane , snow and ice are melting at last.  With little more than a month left to go our daughter is working through her final tasks, among them starting a fire with a bow-drill.  For my part I’m looking forward to spending some time together again. In our discussions with the therapists talk has been shifting away from examining the past, near and far, in favor of the present and considering the future. Not the near future that I was looking forward to, but the further out future.  We are being asked to think about what we envision as the most helpful next step for our daughter (and by association, ourselves) to take. At that time, now about a year in the past, I wanted to believe that with the right support, our daughter could pick up her cat, find a roommate, and resume her studies at our nearby university.   I wasn't wholly naive, I knew she would need help and to that end I was looking for a good education consultant in the area...

I had planned to write about two books in this space but I couldn’t stop writing about Daring Greatly so that plan has given way.   Of the many helpful books I’ve read this last year Daring Greatly is second only to the The Parallel Process and I wish I had read both long ago, although likely I would not have been ready for the messages contained in them.  Who, other than therapists, read such books unless compelled by a crisis?  And few of us even then, really want to look too hard at ourselves and the roles we play in the problems that arise in our families, much less, change.  From where I sit now, I’m amazed that I believed my own psychic landscape (a minefield) was my problem entirely and shut off from having an effect on my child.  Hah.  Brown trained in social work, but moved toward academic research examining what led people to “connect” (or not) and the effect connection (or lack thereof) has on a person’s sense of w...

                                     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.  ...

The big event we were preparing for almost from the start of wilderness therapy was the workshop  midway through our daughter’s stay.  Much emphasis was placed on this one encounter although I couldn’t imagine how a one-day workshop could make that much difference.  We had little idea about what we would actually do, only that we would be working with another family.  Maybe I can demystify it a little for you.  On workshop day, we, the two sets of parents, met at the central offices of the program. We were joined by the parent therapist (to whom we had only spoken on the telephone) and after a short meeting as a group, we drove over to meet with our children.  When we arrived our children were brought by staff to the small cottage where we would spend the day together.  Although we had begun exchanging letters, we hadn’t seen or talked to our daughter in six weeks, perhaps the longest time with no direct contact in all our liv...

In my last entry I offered a metaphor of my daughter and me walking towards one another from opposite ends of the Appalachian Trail. In this essay I'd like to invite you to walk a little way with me.  Many months since our daughter’s time at wilderness and years beyond the original issues that landed her there, my emotions continue to rise and fall much as the tide does.  I don’t have control over the these feelings and I can be knocked down by a big wave of guilt or shame or anger.  I’ve learned what to do when a big rush of emotion comes on--get somewhere safe and quiet and wait for the feelings to subside.  So far they always have. Sometimes the wave will come out of nowhere when I’m falling asleep or taking a walk.  Usually then, the inner dialogue starts up that I failed as a mother: What did I not do or say?  What could I have done differently? Why didn’t she feel she could tell me what was really going on with her?   ...