If you know Liam, you know he has a great heart and a truly wonderful, goofy, loving spirit. You may also know that he has had his own unique struggles with mental health within the Griffin family's more public battle with obtaining services and supports for their daughter's health and education. This spring everything fell apart.

In March, things reached a critical point, and it became clear that Liam was no longer safe in the home. He had had trouble at school with a bully again, and we found a Wilderness Therapy Program that would accept him, help him to get stabilized, and provide a much-needed updated assessment, as well as medication management and a chance to make some changes.

For several years at home, we were struggling to get our doctors to try a new medication regime, and had begged for a new psychiatrist to take us on. Liam’s outbursts at home and acute panic attacks made him a challenging case to take on. And one that only private ($$$) psychiatrists would consider. There really is hostility and a chance to be nickel-and-dimed at every turn on the path to try and help someone who is genuinely wanting to feel better. It’s so discouraging.

We have long ago crossed the bridge from getting what we need covered by Medicaid. And there are often limited means to access what we feel Liam needs, or might benefit from, even if we had the money.

Fortunately, the good people at Blue Ridge Wilderness Therapy were incredibly good at what they do. We came away with answers, and a plan to support Liam. Now we can shore up areas where he has been struggling academically, so that school won’t be a chaotic nightmare that causes outbursts after prolonged suppression. Now, he can learn some of the things that his brain needs help processing and integrating.

Everyone deserves this, and actually every child in America is entitled to a Free Accessible Public Eduction.

Liam is stable, and we are beyond blessed and grateful to report that we have been able to get the treatment we need after years of suffering and searching everywhere. Unfortunately, none of this is was easy to obtain. Finding intensive mental health interventions and psychiatrists who will listen to parents is, in our experience, almost impossible. Getting insurance to approve medications can be a months-long process of jumping through hoops, and even then, denials. And that's if you can get someone to believe that you are experiencing the level of chaos, violence and distress that your child's dysregulation is causing within the home in the first place, which is rare.

Getting a proper diagnosis can take years and cost thousands of dollars.

Having two kids with disabilities means not only that it is harder to keep both parents employed consistently, but that it is impossible to save for the endless future of caring for them that we know is coming.

In Liam's case, everyone has been telling us that things were not as serious as we feared for many years.

Now that we know that he will need intensive residential treatment for a minimum of 18 to 24 months, we are scrambling (once again) to accommodate rapidly ballooning needs for funds. The future is yet-again less certain than it once was, and though we are hopeful, we know that out of pocket costs for therapeutic boarding school is actually significantly higher than even out of state private college tuition.

Until we can reach an agreement with Liam’s home school district, we are on the hook for $17,000 a month for Liam’s room, board, coaches, therapy, and everything else. And that’s just tuition.

At present, we are UNDERemployed, and neither child is able to access medicaid due to new regulations imposed by the Trump regime’s increasingly hostile policies for the disabled.

This means we are not only paying out of pocket for Liam’s medications, but shipping them across state lines. Costs on costs on costs.

Liam needs to know that we can come visit him at his new school. He needs to be able to come back to his house when he is done with school. He needs to see that his parents are okay when we have our weekly half hour zoom, and our hourly therapy sessions.

And in order to keep things going, we need way more help from our Village. Because flights and hotels and rental cars are expensive. And we never traveled before all this!

If Liam ever made you laugh, if he ever sang at the school Band concert and impressed you, if he ever broke your heart being thoughtful out of nowhere, or if you ever saw him truly in distress and thought, "Man, that kid really has some stuff going on..." please make a donation or check out the requests on our CaringBridge. We also need help watching our pets when we go to see him and his sister, and just learning to be human again after the past few years. If you are a close friend, please reach out. And if you read this far, thank you.

Please, if you don’t have the means to donate, just continue to stay informed about the changes in policy that are being made. Advocate for young people. For families. For mental health. And for the disabled.

We love you, and we thank you.