KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — If you or someone you know may be considering suicide—help is available. Speak with someone today by calling the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Recently, one East Tennessee mother had to take extreme measures to make sure her daughter was not a danger to herself and it took a real toll on her family.
This mother does not want to be identified to protect her daughter's privacy.
One Knoxville teenager struggled with anxiety since the age of four and as she entered her freshman year of high school—the situation worsened.
"It fell off the rails—in a drastic downturn—in her willingness to want to do anything, willingness to take care of herself, to enjoy time with a family to go anywhere to engage in any activities. COVID pushed her underwater," the mother said.
Her daughter started having thoughts of suicide.
"Throughout that summer, she would make comments about wanting to kill herself, not wanting to live," the mother said. "Every morning I'm waking up thinking, oh gosh, I hope she's alive. Just opening her bedroom door and just praying that I was going to see her breathing is all I wanted."
During one family therapy appointment, the teenage girl became unpredictable and her parents decided she needed special treatment.
They enlisted the help of a professional who could find her the right facility which turned out to be a wilderness camp in Idaho—a unique approach to therapy.
"There's no electricity. There's no bathrooms. There's no showers. There's no laundry service, but they're there to figure out how to survive them for themselves. But they have guides. They have therapists in the field. They have other peers that are in the program that they team up with," the mother said. "This program takes all those distractions out and you are pretty much forced to sit and feel the feelings and work through the things, but you're supported by other peers that are dealing with the same issues."
Through weekly calls, they finally started seeing improvement in their daughter's mental state.
"This is an emotional burnout because there's no close to the cycle of emotions," the teen's mom said. "There were days I would just be so grateful that she was at a place where she was safe and was so sad that she wasn't here."
These treatment centers come with a hefty price tag and while this family has the means to pay for them, many others do not.
"I'm extremely grateful that we have those resources, but I'm an anomaly. Everyone needs to be keenly aware and say, 'Hey, this is a huge problem in our community.' We need to get out and talk about it," the mother said.
The teen left the wilderness camp and went into a residential treatment school. She just graduated from that program and is now in a boarding school with a therapy component. Her mom says she is doing much better, but it's still a delicate situation.
For a list of mental health resources, click here.