Our beautiful girl, Phoebe, has had a hard life. She has experienced more hardship and pain than any kid deserves, spending the first 12 years of her life on a constant rollercoaster of care, often being neglected and abused by people who swore they would never hurt her. She was forced to watch her parents' tumultuous and often violent relationship crumble. She was used as a pawn to exact revenge between members of her family. And when she was 6, she found her baby brother had passed away in his sleep... A trauma she was given only 2 therapy sessions to process. This kid has had it rough.
When I met Phoebe, I knew she was special. We were at a Hibachi restaurant, and she was only 10 years old. She was SO excited by all the tricks the chef did, and it was just delightful to watch her face light up. I told my (then very new) boyfriend, Kyle, that his niece was a cool kid and we decided to spend as much time with her as we could. Over the next two years, I began to realize exactly what was going on in Phoebe's life, and it made my stomach twist into knots. We began asking her father if she could stay with us almost every weekend, often driving her an hour both ways. I found myself worrying about her throughout the week. Was she safe? Was she looked after? And in my heart of hearts, I knew she wasn't. Everything came to a head in September 2019. Phoebe called me after she was physically attacked by her father. She sent me photos of her face that still haunt me. We called her dad and asked for guardianship of Phoebe. He said no. He claimed what happened "wasn't that bad" and "won't happen again." We begged him to reconsider, but he did not. I knew she couldn't stay there. I knew something needed to be done. So, with pterodactyls in my stomach (by now, Kyle and I were engaged, and I was speaking up against his family!), I called CPS. They launched an investigation, and ultimately allowed her father to keep Phoebe... Until December 2, 2019. That day will forever be cemented in my heart. We got a call saying that on a surprise visit, Phoebe's father was caught engaged in drug use.
We had to make a choice: come get Phoebe, or she goes into foster care. We made arrangements and picked her up from school. That was it for her... "Surprise kid! You aren't going to school with your friends anymore. All your stuff is in the trunk, and you live with us now." Talk about trauma after trauma. The first few months were rough. She was hurting. We had her in outpatient therapy continuously from the moment she moved in with us. We have worked with her to find healthy coping skills, and try to process her past... But those wounds run DEEP. She is dealing with tremendous trauma, as well as the stress that comes with being a teenager!
On October 1, 2023, it had all become too much for Phoebe and she overdosed on her anti-anxiety meds. We found her incredibly lethargic in the morning with an empty prescription bottle and a suicide note next to her. We got her to the hospital, and they cleared her to go to inpatient care at Forest View Psychiatric Hospital. She spent 20 days there, and during that time she was put on a new mood stabilizer that proved to be detrimental to her. This medicine skyrocketed her appetite, which led to weight gain, which fed her depression. It was a mess. We switched her to a new therapist, so that she could begin receiving Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). She began DBT in January 2024, however, it was ineffective as she's a teenager and the facility only offered virtual DBT for adolescents. But, it was our only available option, so we marched on.
On March 1, 2024, Phoebe was planning to have a small sleepover with some close friends. She had virtual DBT at 6:00 that evening, but one of her friends came over early. (We love these friends- they're the "walk in the door and open the fridge like you live there" friends!) Phoebe became overwhelmed by an assignment grade and her brain began to spiral. She went up to her room at 5:40 to prepare for DBT. She is always allowed privacy for these sessions. At 5:50, she consumed a near lethal dose of her medications (she had been hoarding them and not taking them). She logged into DBT, told everyone on the call she was having a good day, then flipped her camera to the ceiling and passed out. Her friend found her and alerted us. We found her unresponsive, and called 911.
Phoebe spent three nights in the PICU. The doctors said she got INCREDIBLY lucky as she was likely to have experienced lifelong neurological and respiratory damage. After many painful talks with social workers and psychiatrists, we decided that Phoebe needed intense 24 hour treatment at a Residential Treatment Center.
Enter the insurance mess... Our insurance (Priority Health) is a Michigan based insurance company- but there are no in-network adolescent residential treatment centers in Michigan. Luckily, there was an exception and we could find a place that would take her. We sent her to Long Beach, CA. We have some amazing family near there and the facility was a good fit!
Phoebe was admitted on March 16, with the expectation that she would receive treatment for 60 days. One month later, we were informed that Priority Health decided that she won't be covered past day 36- which was Sunday, April 21. Despite the facility pleading for more time, and numerous calls by me to BEG them to reconsider, Priority Health has determined that she is well enough to come home and try the exact same services that failed her previously. While she IS in a better place emotionally now than she was then, pulling her from a facility that has had success in helping her this early in her path to healing feels just wrong.
We are doing everything we can here to try to make sure she has all the services and support she needs when she comes home. However, ALL of this comes with a huge price tag. We are now responsible for paying a large cash price for every day Phoebe is there past 4/21, and we need to arrange travel and childcare for our son in order to go get her. We already had to purchase last minute flights to get her to California in March, and now we are forced to do it again. In addition, the services we are trying to secure here come with large copay costs.
We don't receive any financial support for Phoebe. Her biological parents are ordered to pay child support, but the payments are scarce and sporadic at best. Because she was never in the foster care system, we don't receive subsidy from the state for her either (something I have been fighting for years). We do our absolute best for her, but things are being pulled awful tight.
We have such an amazing support system in all of you. Just you reading this incredibly long post shows that you care about our family, and we can NOT express how much that means to us. So often people ask how they can help. I hate money, and I hate asking for it, but this is how you can help. I don't want Phoebe's recovery to be impacted by financial hardship any longer.
Please consider making a donation. I promise we will pay it forward. ❤️