Penny's Story

At the age of 9 our son was sexually abused by a close relative over the course of a week. We
discovered what happened a couple of months later. Prior to the sexual abuse, our son had been in
counseling because we were struggling with some behavioral issues. He’d been diagnosed with
anxiety, but we’d been pursing further diagnoses, suspecting Autism. He would fixate on things,
struggled with emotional regulation, self-deprecation and was anxious. After the sexual abuse
occurred, he began to be fixated on pornographic images. We talked with him about how those
images are inappropriate and how they can harm his brain etc. No reasoning worked. We put filters
on our internet and tried to be as vigilant as possible around technology. We took him to
counseling, but the counselor at the time didn’t seem to want to discuss the topic at length with
him. It wasn’t really her field and ultimately, we began seeing a different counselor. At the age of 11
he was finally diagnosed with Autism. Even during the testing though, he was highly upset because
he was having inappropriate sexual thoughts. After 5th grade, we pulled him out of school because
he'd been able to access pornographic material on school computers. He began a program for his
anxiety during the beginning of his 6th grade year. His homeschooling was all online, and even
though we’d locked down the computer, he’d found a way to VPN tunnel around our security
settings, still accessing porn. He even factory-reset my husband’s work laptop to bypass security
settings. Our TV’s still to this day have a 2-layer passcode system. He began trying to make home-
made sex toys as well and even though the TV had passcodes on it, he found a way around it to
purchase sex items off of Amazon. When we would go his grandmother’s house, we’d have to sleep
in front of door to keep him from trying to access her cell-phone at night. We had cameras all over
our house. At youth group, we had a small team of people who knew the situation and was tasked
with keeping an eye on him. We were exhausting ourselves to no end. We were living in ways no one
should have to live. Until you’re in a nightmare like this, you can’t ever fully understand. The last
straw came at the age of 14 when he would leave home and go to CVS and try to steal sex items. He
got away with it once and the second time our pastors from church went looking for him, found him
and stopped him. It was at that point that we knew something had to change. We’d been through
sex specific counseling at the age of 14 as well…no change. He needed something more. No
cameras, filters, no punishments were going to change this behavior. I’d begun researching
different types of therapy and called a lady that I’d found through a Facebook therapy group. She’d
sent her son to Wilderness therapy and I wanted to make sure our son would be safe. We made the
very difficult decision to send him to a Wilderness therapy treatment program in Utah. We knew
we’d made the right decision as soon as we got there. As difficult as it was to send him, he needed
more help than we could give him. Our son spent 5.5 months in the Utah Wilderness, we missed his
15th birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s etc. He graduated on Valentine’s day and we
spent a night with him in the wilderness. We noticed a massive difference in him. He’d really done
the hard work and he wanted to change. He knew he needed to change but he didn’t know how.
Wilderness was like hitting a reset button for him. The staff was phenomenal and his therapist was
incredible. We never once feared for his safety. The staff was well-trained and safety was their top
priority. Afterwards he spent 6.5 months at a residential treatment facility b/c we’d been advised to
go from Wilderness to home would have been a hard transition. The facility he went to was very,
very good. In fact, they got him a ski pass and they allowed the kids in their care out in the
community to learn to re-integrate. He had therapy and school, it was a clean facility that genuinely
cared about him AND our family. They had parent weekends where we’d do therapy together as a
family. We had weekly therapy zoom calls as well. When our son came home, he was far and away
better for the treatment. In fact, he was very excited to go BACK to the Wilderness Therapy program
to visit before we came back home after his residential treatment. Everyone there was thrilled to
see him and to see how well he was doing. While we know there are programs that aren’t good…not
all programs are alike. Many of the good programs are being lumped in with the bad. I recall one
time where one the kids in our son’s residential program became violent. Our son told us that they
moved all of the boys into one of the larger rooms to sleep in order to protect them. He always felt
safe in both of the programs. Many of these kids have mental and behavioral issues that go beyond
what a parent can manage. Do we need safe places? Absolutely. But don’t judge every place the
same. In fact, I’d say a bigger issue is that many families are going broke trying to afford the good
places. We had to take out a HELOC that we’ll be paying back for years to come. We’re living pay-
check to pay-check and barely getting by. Insurance only paid a small portion of treatment and they
thought best to determine what care our son needed. Maybe, that should be looked into. Maybe
insurance should consider treatment for those with mental and behavioral health issues as serious
as they would take a person with diabetes or heart problems. Thankfully, our son IS Thriving now.
He’s far and away better than when we sent him to treatment. We’re forever grateful for the team of
people who cared for him and loved him well while in treatment. We’re forever grateful that there
were safe places to send him for treatment.