When I was 11, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. It quickly became clear that medication alone wouldn’t control my seizures. After months of testing, doctors determined I was a candidate for brain surgery. At first, the procedure seemed successful; I was seizure-free for two and a half years. But then the seizures returned. My seizures…
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My biggest challenges before coming to Skyland Trail were motivation, hygiene, and cognitive distortions. I still struggle with them all of course, but I’ve improved so much. Living in a group with other kids who are also doing their best to get better really helped my motivation. I took showers pretty much everyday and was…
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When I first began writing this, I had no clue if the vast majority of it would ever see the light of day. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if any of it would be shared at all. I’d say that the notion of anyone ever actually reading it wasn’t really a concern to me, yet I’ve…
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Atlas, graduate of the Skyland Trail adolescent program, shares her story in the 2023 issue of Journeys Magazine My anxiety has kind of always been there. And then things started to ramp up around early high school. I had lost people close to me, and I had several traumatic experiences. I faced a lot of…
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Jessica, the mother of an adolescent client graduate, shares her story in the 2023 issue of Journeys Magazine. When Atlas was about 9, we started noticing severe anxiety and panic attacks. Atlas was throwing up every day at school and asking to go home. After an evaluation, she was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, and…
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Beth, mother of an adolescent program graduate I finally understood that my daughter’s mental illness was not something that my husband and I could fix after she attempted suicide by overdosing on her medication. The experience was nothing short of traumatizing, and I felt powerless in that moment. It has been more than a year…
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Parents of an adolescent program graduate and financial aid award recipients Our daughter needed help. But where we live in North Florida, there are only stabilization options for adolescent treatment. We were always stuck in a loop, doing emergency room stabilization and then they’d send her home. Outpatient doctors and therapists seemed to “pass her…
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Because of Skyland Trail, my son is alive today. When my teenage son began to struggle with his mental health, we had a difficult time locating a residential treatment center that provided private bedrooms and bathrooms, which was an important consideration for us because he is transgender. As we searched for places that provided these…
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We are parents of a Skyland Trail adolescent graduate. Although going through this experience with our daughter was traumatic, exhausting, scary and just plain awful, Skyland Trail was amazing. Let’s start from the beginning. Our daughter, 13 years old at the time, was a happy, extroverted, well-rounded, thriving kid. She had a million friends, was…
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I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but Josh and I feel very strongly that our daughter’s time spent at Skyland Trail literally saved her life. We will forever be grateful for the ways in which the Lord used each and every staff member at Skyland Trail to accomplish just that. When we arrived…
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