Autism and Addiction
A person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis struggling with Addiction is the hardest population to treat. And with this population growing, there is a higher need for support now, more than ever. Professionals working with this population cannot make a recommendation solely to a program that supports clients with ASD, and you cannot solely focus on the addiction. It’s a conundrum, and a gap in the treatment industry.
You cannot make a recommendation to just any addiction recovery program. Although they might tell you that they can support someone with an ASD diagnosis, you learn that the program has an aggressive 12-step model and does a lot of groups. For someone with social anxiety, rigidity in thinking, or who struggles with nonverbal cues, placing them in a group could be harmful. Their anxiety can play out looking like anger outbursts, leaving the room during groups, or breaking rules, which can be viewed as non-compliance from a program perspective. For a program that says they can work with someone with an ASD diagnosis will learn very quickly that this profile of a person can be disruptive to the overall community and thus, will ask the client to leave.
You cannot make a recommendation to a program that works with adults with ASD, specifically focused on their launching into adulthood. Although they might say during an admission call that they could work with this client, once the client arrives and is substance-seeking, the program will quickly discharge the client to a higher level of care. Their structure was not tight enough, and although they could work with the client’s potential rigidity, the program either does not understand addiction or is not willing to work with this client profile. With this, we are back to square one.
This conundrum exists at the residential-level of care, as well as extended-care levels. Families are left scrambling to find treatment that will work after failed attempts with treatment programs; programs that said “absolutely we can help your adult child!” on the front end without truly understanding the depth of their neurodiversity, or addiction. Don’t be fooled by an approachable Admissions representative. For this particular client profile, you will most definitely need to work with a professional to help filter through programs and supports that can truly help your young adult. It’s not easy, and it definitely won’t be cheap. If you want your young adult to get the help they truly need, it’s important to have a professional by your side.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
Whatever you do, Don't hit Delete!
Whatever you do, do not hit delete. This message is brought you to courtesy of all those who wish they had been given this advice! This topic is specifically regarding texting or social media and is approved by your future attorney. As a parent, if you have not talked with your college kid yet about this, the time to talk to them about it is now.
We all know that when something ends up in the cloud, it can forever be accessed. Hitting delete does nothing. If you do not delete though, it provides you with all the information you may need in a future case. Evidence to prove you were innocent, or evidence to be used against a plaintiff. A college student may not think about the long-term consequence of hitting delete, and in the moment just want that person or those texts to disappear. Tell your kid, “don’t delete!”
This can be extremely valuable information in regard to a Title IX allegation on campus. No one thinks about or wants to go through a Title IX allegation and yet it is happening on college campuses across the nation, daily. Do not delete social media connections. Do not delete any screenshots. Do not delete any texts. Tell your kid to go ahead and block someone temporarily so that they aren’t harassed, however they need to save all the tech exchanges that exist. It could be the difference in being innocent and proven guilty, on or off-campus.
This also relates to revenge porn. Not sure what that is, read more about it here. Whether you kid is the one posting, or they are the target of someone sharing explicit content without the consent of your kid. All you want to do is protect your kid! Pull them from college immediately if it means life or death for your adult child. And during this process, make sure that they do not hit delete, as much as they want to erase that person, or those people, from their memory in order to move on.
In talking about this with your college student, they will most likely think you are nuts for discussing this. But for any parent who is navigating any allegation with their adult child, they wished they’d thought about this sooner. Do yourself and your kid a favor and considering talking about the importance of not hitting delete.
If you find yourself dealing with on-campus allegations, it’s important to lawyer up. You need to find an Attorney who knows how to successfully navigate the higher education judicial systems. Additionally, think about the mental health of your young adult. Most likely they are experiencing a civil death. It’s important to get them removed from the college campus and into a safe environment for them to begin to heal. Hire a professional to help you and your college student navigate this process.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
When to Return to College after Treatment
Often parents are quick to talk timeline - getting their adult child back into college. If they took a break from college to seek treatment, the pressure of returning to school to ensure they do not fall behind their peers can feel crushing. College is not going anywhere, and it will certainly be there when the young adult is healthy enough to return. But how do you know when it is time? That is a great question we want to explore.
To make sure it is clearly stated, treatment is not a quick fix. Whether we are talking about mental health, substance abuse, or both, it is important to mention that it takes awhile to for the mind and body to heal. Although the young adult or parents may be beyond eager to get them back onto campus, doing it prematurely invites failure. If the young adult is driving the return to college, the parent needs to listen to the mental health professionals in the recommended timeline. By holding the boundary of telling them they cannot go back to college, it forces the young adult to slow down. This allows them to build the strength and resilience needed to be successful when returning to campus.
Stability in recovery takes time. The stabilization period can be between three to six months. From the addiction treatment lens, that will encompass three months in a residential level of care, and three subsequent months starting off in extended care. From a mental health recovery lens, that encompasses three months in a residential level of care, and then three subsequent months starting off in a step-down or transitional level of mental health care. Notice that neither of these options mention a drop-off in care or returning immediately to campus with outpatient services. Why? Because they do not work. It is like going straight from learning to swim with floaties in the shallow end to immediately diving off the deep-end unsupervised. It is too much, too soon.
Another way to identify if your loved one is ready to return to college is if they are too ill to volunteer or have a job. During their extended care or transitional care placement, if they are still struggling to participate in that capacity there is no way they would be able to successfully complete college coursework. With the start of each passing semester and the ability to watch their peers having the time of their life on social media, it will pull hard on the heartstrings to get the young person back on campus. Post addiction treatment, returning to the same campus with the same friends still around opens the door to relapse. Looking at transferring and finding a collegiate recovery program could be the difference between sobriety and recovery.
Lastly, for chronic mental health, it can’t be said enough that taking time away from college takes precedence over achieving the college diploma before the age of 21. If your loved one is diagnosed Bipolar and just experienced their first manic episode, the next twelve months will be filled with a ton of ups and downs. Between stabilization, medication, therapy, and learning to live with a lifelong diagnosis, this is not an ideal time to be in college. Show support for your adult child by letting them know that college will be there when they are healthy enough to show up.
No timeline will be the same for a young adult. Regardless, it’s safe to say that a minimum of six months is necessary between leaving college and getting treatment and then returning to campus. The ideal separation includes a full twelve months through a continuum of care. If you push the college timeline, you jeopardize the health of your adult child. Adding to their mental health by factoring in acute stress related to school failure will only stretch out the recovery process. Think about the mental health over timeline for college diploma.
To navigate this process of knowing where to look for stabilization, or where to enroll for extended care, hire a professional. This is not a journey you want to navigate alone, and you will want someone in your corner to ensure you understand the “why” behind the clinical recommendations and timeline.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
Treatment in Metaphors
When talking about the pace of treatment in real-time versus the pace of treatment that a young adult and their parents want, there is a gap between reality and expectations. When those expectations are driven by finances, ulterior agendas, or the need to be “back on track,” we lose sight of the importance of going to treatment in the first place: lasting change. To help families align their expectations with the pace of that lasting change, it helps to describe this process in metaphors.
One example is learning to swim. When reflecting on how a person truly learns to swim, it was not by pushing them off a diving board into the deep end to see if they sink or swim. What is most common is a young person dipping their toes into the shallow end with their floaties on, under the supervision of a lifeguard. Once they get comfortable in the shallow end, then they can start to test themselves, going into deeper water. Additionally, they are now taking swimming lessons, so they know the strokes to swim without the safety net of the floaties. This part takes time. Everyone is different in how quickly they learn and how quickly they feel comfortable trusting themselves. At the end of this continuum will be the art of diving off the diving board into the deep end without supervision knowing they will survive.
To compare this to treatment, the floaties and shallow end is when they are in a residential level of care. Once they are starting to get comfortable and learning to take swim lessons, this is when they are in extended care. By the time they are diving off the diving board into the deep-end unsupervised, this is when they have been in sober living or independent living for long enough to be graduating to complete independence from the treatment umbrella. How does this usually look in terms of the treatment world? Realistically from Residential to Extended Care to Sober Living, we are looking at least 12 months.
For those reading that love to bake, another metaphor for treatment will be in baking bread. If you are familiar with making break from scratch, it is not a completely easy process. Additionally, if you don’t let the bread rise before putting it in the oven, or if you take it out of the oven before it is completely baked, you have a loaf of bread that is practically inedible. To get the bread one wants, someone would have to start from scratch all over again. From the treatment lens, there are two negative aspects to this. First, you lose a lot of money when you pull a loved one out prematurely. Additionally, they will most-likely not have enough time to rewire their brain and heal, to which it will sadly be only a matter of time before they relapse.
The last metaphor comes in with a medical lens. Residential treatment is seen as entering an Emergency Room. It is meant to be a short-term, highly supervised and monitored stay. From there, someone is quickly patched up and given recommendations for how to heal. Following through with those recommendations is equivalent to doing physical therapy for months. You don’t go straight from surgery to running. The patient needs to relearn to use their body; they must retrain and strengthen their body. If you have had surgery before, you totally get this. Physical therapy is extended care. After months of physical therapy, then the patient can start to live their life practically pain-free. They will still have occasional follow-up appointments, but for the most part they are paying attention to their body as they independently continue to get healthier.
If you or your adult child ended treatment prematurely and you are looking for assistance in finding those swim lessons, or physical therapy (aka the extended care level of support), hire a professional to help you navigate where to go! If you are exploring the first steps in getting your adult child into treatment, be ready to tackle this year-long (or more) journey through healing. The more you anticipate this being a long-game, the more likely you are to support your loved one living a life of recovery.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
Revenge Porn
Revenge porn is a real thing, and if you are a parent, you need to know about this. You also will want to talk with your adult child about this, as it could get them in trouble. In the 21st century, sexting is a common way for young people to communicate. Sending scandalous or nude photos or videos is not unusual, especially within a relationship. But what happens when that relationship ends abruptly? Insert: revenge porn.
For a developing brain standpoint, impulsivity reigns true after a painful breakup. Whether it was someone’s first true love, or the person they lost their virginity with, the infatuation of that relationship can be intoxicating. More importantly, the desperation of reconciliation after a broken heart can include doing things a young person will quickly regret.
Is Revenge Porn Legal?
If their partner cheated on them, revenge could help ease the broken heart if only temporarily. To make oneself feel better, there have been far too many revenge porn posts to showcase how unworthy their now-ex is. And depending on when and how this is blasted, a young adult could be looking at some serious legal consequences. If your child did this impulsively and you do not yet have an attorney, you will want to immediately remedy that. Especially if this was done on a college campus, it is prudent that your young adult not say a word. What they posted online cannot be deleted and yet, if they wait to speak until they have legal representation, there is a chance that the legal hammer will not come down quite so hard.
To ensure the reader understands the definition of revenge porn, let me clarify. This is the sharing of explicit content without the consent of the owner. This could be sent via text within a group chat or it could be posted on social media for the world to see. Due to the highly sensitive nature of this as well as the frequency of these cases, nearly all 50 states in the US now have their own revenge porn laws. Not familiar with what the law is in your state or the state where your college student resides? It is time to educate yourself.
It gets worse if your adult child is 18 and was dating someone under the age of 18. If that under-18-year-old was the one who originally sent the explicit material, and your legal adult shares it without their consent, that is child pornography. It does not matter if it was consensual within that state for their relationship to happen, as they are now not an item. That’s quite the legal consequence to naturally deal with after sending out revenge porn as a way to feel better about the breakup.
If this is your adult child right now, you need a hire a professional to help them learn to be less impulsive and to understand healthier relationships. This is not something you will want to sit back and wait for them to grow up about. If anything, it will be several more years before their brain fully develops and at that point, they might have done even more impulsive things!
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
On Campus, the Truth Shall Not Set You Free
The last thing parents may think to talk with their young adult about before they go to college is “what happens if” they get in trouble. Parents do not think to discuss the distinction of speaking with on-campus police versus off-campus police, or the Student Conduct Office, for that matter. Parents also may not think to discuss what common infractions college students can get. If this is something you overlooked before they enrolled in classes, it is not too late to talk now!
First and foremost, it is imperative to mention that this is not something that parents can make disappear. Families can hire an attorney or pay exorbitant fees, but it may still be on their adult child’s record. To guide your child to not incriminate themselves, encourage them to always be cautious on a college campus. Additionally, if they are speaking with police or representatives from the Student Conduct, tell them they need to have a lawyer present. This request could be the difference between months, if not years, of a painful Conduct process.
I have heard of situations where students have been cornered into admitting a crime on-campus to make it “go away.” Those types of situations include taking advantage of an impulsive, developing mind by not alerting parents to avoid scrutiny, embarrassment, or shame. Although college students are adults legally, it is abhorrent for a Student Conduct Officer to get a young adult to agree to a lifetime on the sex-offender registry in exchange for a case to immediately go away and not have their parents involved. Without understanding the depth of that consequence, that is a life sentence.
The truth shall not set a college student free!
The discussion you need to have with your adult child includes the following:
Parents clued into what is going, immediately.
Students do need legal representation.
To be frank, the college is looking out for its reputation. If making an example out of your child helps their reputation, they will do it. Even if they are a third-generation legacy student and your family has donated millions.
Higher Education tends to operate in its own siloed environment, which includes its own law & order. What happens on-campus though can forever haunt a young person off-campus. Whether it’s a Minor in Possession (MIP), Indecent Exposure (i.e. peeing in public), Driving Under the Influence (DUI), Hazing, Title IX allegation, or Academic Dishonesty, it’s imperative that you talk about this with your child before any of these situations arise. It’s better to be prepared and not have to deal with any of this, than to learn that your adult child incriminated themselves and there is nothing you can do as a parent to save them from the legal consequences they will now face.
If your adult child has already landed in this predicament, know that there are resources available to help you, and help them. You can find a shark of an attorney who will help your adult child fight their college’s legal system. You can hire a professional to get your adult child connected to confidential mental health resources as they are most-likely now struggling with anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, and acute stress related to relationships, sex, or college in general. And lastly, if they are wanting to transfer, there are professionals available to help one navigate a transfer application process understanding how the Admissions essay can be the difference between a fresh start, and a continued life sentence.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.