I’m O.D.D., okay?! 🙃 Get over it.
Over the last two weeks, we talked about two of the most important pillars upon which a successful transition into young adulthood is built, especially for those of us who have been in residential treatment or wilderness.
To recap, the first two pillars of a successful transition are:
But there are a few more things we wish our parents knew to help us with when we left treatment and became adults. Up next……
I’m O.D.D., okay?! 🙃 Get over it.
As someone who was diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) before my parents had me gooned and sent me to wilderness and residential treatment for my last two years of high school, freedom - or personal agency - has been the number one thing I’ve valued for as long as I can remember.
Every decision I’ve made since leaving treatment and becoming an adult has been driven by prioritizing personal agency and optionality. I will choose whatever gives me the most freedom in the future every time, almost especially when the path I choose is clearly the hardest choice out of all the options in front of me. And especially when people tell me I can’t do it.
Want to get me to do anything? Tell me I can’t.
Let’s recap some of my most important life decisions, which to many people at the time, oftentimes including my parents, seemed illogical, random, and sure to set me up for failure:
Fit in with my peers?? OR stay sober throughout college AND have the freedom to make sure my mental health stays intact……stay sober 🚫🍸
Major in something fun that I thoroughly enjoyed?? OR choose the major with the highest average starting salary and one of the widest ranges of job applicability, which I also enjoyed, but to a lesser extent because it was so much harder……study chemical engineering 👩🔬🧪
Stay at the college I loved with my supportive friends and boyfriend, where I had a huge scholarship?? OR move across the country to a much harder school with no scholarship in one of the toughest cities in the world where I knew no one, AND have the expanded opportunities that come with getting an engineering degree from a name-brand school……move across the country to the harder, more expensive school 🏫🗽
Follow the traditional path for my chosen degree, make money in the short term, and have a clear career trajectory for the rest of my life?? OR completely change course, become a data scientist, shift gears AGAIN and teach an afterschool STEM program for high schoolers, AND work with some of the smartest, most successful entrepreneurs, build my network, and learn business and brand-building skills you can’t learn in school……completely switch careers three times in as many years 🔁💼
Play it safe, wait until it was “my turn” and others told me I had enough experience to start my own thing?? OR take a huge bet on myself, raise millions of dollars to start a company when I had no product and no team, take a huge personal risk financially and reputationally, and risk a very public failure, AND be my own boss, hire a team of people I love working with, and use my personal story to build the mental health platform for young women that I needed as a teenager……bet on myself and start my own company 👩💼🚀
I know you’re thinking…
“Okay, Hayley, enough with the shameless, not-even-trying-to-be-humble brag. What’s your point?? My children (or my clients, or my patients) will never get to the point where they can make these types of decisions. Or even if they do, they’ll never think about it in the same way you do.”
✅ My point is this:
Transitioning into young adulthood is the first time in your life that you’ve had true personal agency. There is a path for every young person, whether or not they’ve struggled with their mental health, to learn to take these bets on themself and build the life they are passionate about living.
To develop the ability to make big decisions in a way that aligns with their values and to follow through on their goals, young people need to start with small steps that build trust and self-esteem.
Remember that both Colin and I were once troubled teens too who have been in and out of treatment and psych wards. We struggled with substance abuse, addiction, suicide attempts, and self-harm. We both had to start extremely small.
We’ve struggled and failed many times. But fast-forward 12 years, and we’ve built a successful business together, helping young people start small like we did.
Giving young people a path to personal agency 🚀
1️⃣ Step One
Colin and I start by asking the young people we work with, “What do you want?” Not what’s on your home contract, not what your parents want, not what you see all your friends doing who haven’t been to treatment or who haven’t struggled as much as you. But what do you want?
What are you doing, how are you feeling, and who are you spending time with, in the best version of your life?
These seem like simple questions, but it’s usually not something we’ve been asked by our therapists or our parents while we’ve been in treatment for however many months or years.
2️⃣ Step Two
Because we’ve been in their shoes, we give them the cheat codes 🎮 to get from where they are now to where they want to be.
Two things are critical in taking those first steps towards figuring out what they value and building trust with themselves:
Identifying and practicing realistic, simple healthy habits of their choosing
Setting and working towards a tangible, short-term goal of their choosing
Why habits?
Having a baseline of regular self-care provides a strong foundation for their mental health and a level of resiliency even on their worst days
Following through on simple commitments they made to themself on a daily and weekly basis builds self-esteem.
Why a tangible, short-term goal?
Taking advantage of the forward momentum they have after leaving treatment, or when they’re entering adulthood in general, makes it more likely they’ll achieve a short-term, realistic goal
Prioritizing what’s genuinely important to them, for what might be the first time in their life without technically needing anyone's permission, is incredibly empowering and also builds self-esteem
📝 Note:
For those of us who have been in treatment, our highest priority is almost always just to leave treatment. It’s hard to see beyond the bubble of treatment and look at what our life might look like in the real world. Post-treatment life can be very different than what we remember or expect. It’s especially important for us former troubled teens to make our own choice about a goal that’s important to us right out of the gate and receive the proper guidance from someone whose advice we trust.
3️⃣ Step Three
We then help them identify realistic monthly milestones, which, if they meet, will lead them to accomplish their goal.
Then, Colin and I help them break it down further into daily and weekly action items that move them toward those monthly milestones. Healthy habits of their choosing can be part of the action items.
4️⃣ Step Four
The final step is to hold a young person accountable for completing the action items they commit to doing so that they actually move towards their goal in a tangible way.
This is why one of the most important parts of our work is providing daily accountability, encouragement, and availability to help young people tackle obstacles in the moment.
—————
Our experience taught us that when transitioning into young adulthood, especially after leaving treatment, young adults need to be given the freedom and personal agency to decide for themselves what those 2-3 habits and that next-step goal should be, even if it’s different from what parents want.
“But wait, aren’t they going to make all the wrong decisions?? They were just in treatment and/or they were just a child not too long ago!”
Parents need to give them a chance. Our parents gave us the freedom to prioritize goals that were important to us immediately upon leaving treatment. They also made it clear that while we can always go to them for emotional support, they aren’t going to bail us out if we don’t like the consequences of our decisions.
As a result, the one thing Colin and I trust about ourselves, without any doubt, is that we can figure out how to make it through anything life throws at us.
Over the years, this led us to look back on being in treatment as an empowering experience from which we learned how to be independent, rather than an experience that held us back.
—————
🔑 Help young adults successfully transition into the next stage of their lives by giving them the freedom and personal agency to make their own decisions based on what they value. Give them the opportunity to both reap the rewards of success and figure out how to handle the consequences.
🔑 To set them up for success, empower them to 1) identify 2-3 simple healthy habits they want to practice, and 2) work towards a tangible, short-term goal that’s important to them.
🔑 This empowers parents to help young adults actually solve their own problems, rather than policing them.
The earlier parents and mentors do this and hold their children accountable to what they say they’re going to do, the earlier young adults can start building the life they want and are excited about living.
And now……our vibes this week🔮
📚 What we’re reading
Meet the 'disconnected youth': A growing group of Gen Zers who aren't working or going to school, businessinsider
Elite college admissions have turned students into brands, nyt
🎶 What we’re listening to
Might Delete Later, J Cole
💡 One last thought
THANKS FOR READING!
If you found this valuable, this is your sign✌️ to send this to parents or young people who can relate to the feelings we’re having this week so we can make sure they know they’re not alone. Sharing is caring 😎
We’re in this to collaborate and support. Please feel free to reach out to us:
If you’re a parent who has a child in treatment, we’re happy to answer any of your burning questions and share our experience in treatment and with transitioning out!
If you’re passionate about changing the narrative in the therapeutic program industry.