When we former troubled Teens finally leave treatment…

It’s not just that we’re so done with therapy.

We’re straight-up ready to enter our villain era 😈

We did villain era a decade before Gen Z named it on TikTok. I know 😱 ICMYI a few years ago, here’s a villain era primer. Spoiler - it’s a positive thing fwiw.

When you’re dropped off at - or gooned and taken to - a wilderness therapy program or a residential treatment center, you’re almost never given an end date for your time there. You’re given the vague timeline of “once you’ve done the work.”

“Bruh okay but like HOW LONG IS THAT?!”

*the maddeningly calm therapy voice* “Well, if you work really hard in therapy, follow all the rules, show consistency, take accountability for why you’re here, and help the other students do the work too, then you’ll leave here when you’re ready.”

Bet.

When we finally do leave treatment, we’ve had to deal with a lot of uncertainty and no guarantees. At some point, we accept that we have to comply with our treatment center’s rules and standards, whether or not we agree with them, often for over a year. In Colin’s and my case, it was more like two years.

We’re so done policing our own behavior according to what our treatment center deems as “working the program.”

This is why many parents tell me and Colin that the “home contract” goes completely out the window almost as soon as their child comes home.

As former troubled teens, this is the least surprising thing we’ve heard in a decade.

Contrary to popular opinion, Colin and I have found that it’s often good for us and our clients not to follow treatment centers’ prescriptions to a T.

We actually encourage clients to lean into their “villain era” after treatment in order to exercise their own agency, learn what behaviors and activities are actually productive vs. net-neutral vs. self-sabotage for themselves specifically, and advocate for them to their parents as long as they’re making progress to their goals.

Why troubled teens enter our villain era after treatment.

Or right after normal high school, even for the best-behaved among us.

Most likely, our number one priority and potentially only goal while we’re in treatment is to get out. This requires a certain level of compliance and suppression of our actual wants, needs, and goals. Sure, we might make a home contract, but if we’re being honest, at that point, we’re going to agree to almost anything.

At my residential treatment center, we had four “phases” we had to move through before getting a graduation date. Each phase had various behavior requirements, most of them subjective, that we had to embody at least 90% of the time.

Here is just some of what was expected from us at my program specifically, at the beginning vs. what we needed to do to graduate. There were categories for general behavior, academics, community, therapy, physical conditioning, family, and the three-day therapeutic seminars we had to complete. It was four pages (single-spaced) of behaviors on which we’d be graded monthly by every staff member assigned to our caseload.

We had to demonstrate all these behaviors 90% of the time in order to “move up” to the next phase 😇

*The first half of the first page of Phase One Requirements from my residential treatment center.*
This was called the “Orientation Phase”. From what I remember, you were on this phase for anywhere from 30 to 90 days, had the fewest privileges and freedoms of any phase, and had to wear a red polo shirt with your school or workout uniform 24/7 besides when you were sleeping. Your parents could visit you on campus after 30 days, and you had supervised calls with your parents once per week.

*The first half of the first page of Phase Four Requirements from my residential treatment center.*
This was called the “Transition Phase.” I remember girls being on this phase anywhere from 4 to 8 months, and you would get your “graduation date” a few months into this phase. You had the most privileges and freedoms of any phase; you only had to wear a white polo shirt with your uniform during school, but you could wear your own (approved) clothes outside of that.
(Phase Two had to wear blue polos, and you could wear your own pants/shorts with the blue polo on the weekends. Phase Three had to wear green polos, and you could wear your own clothes on the weekends).
*You had a flip phone for a few hours a week, could talk to a few approved friends via calls and letters, and had unsupervised time on your home visits.*

To be fair, your girl (me) loves getting good grades. Even in the depths of my troubled teen years. When my therapist, academic advisor, community life directors, and various line staff would fill this out each month, it helped me understand exactly what I needed to at least show people I was doing. It helped me cope with the vague timeline of “when you’ve done the work” graduation date. Even though it was annoying, I personally liked this system.

Almost all of these behaviors were net positive for me to practice, even though some of them were motivated by just being compliant. If you’re in residential treatment long enough and you work to consistently practice these ways of thinking and behaving, even if they’re performative, some of it will inevitably wear off on you. This was great for me and a big reason why I look back on treatment as an overall positive experience.

I say all of this to show parents the level of compliance that’s expected to graduate from programs like the ones Colin and I went to. It takes over a year, sometimes closer to two, of very hard work 24/7. And that’s only after you accept that you’re staying there until you “put in the work.”

This is why we’re so done doing what mental health professionals and our parents are not just expecting but requiring from us once we leave treatment. It’s why, by the end of it, we’re going to say whatever we need to say in our home contracts to get out of there.

It means that the goals we say we have aren’t actually the goals we care about. And most of the “goals” in a home contract are just rules we don’t intend to follow.

This is why Colin and I spend a lot of time with our clients when we first start working with them to help them identify two things in particular: 1) what a great day looks like to them → to commit to a daily routine and habits they actually want to do, and 2) what they want their life to look like in the next few months → to establish a tangible next-step goal that they actually care about achieving.

How to deal with us in our villain era after leaving treatment.

This also applies to entering a villain era post-high school or college, after leaving a job, moving to a new place, etc.

This is the first time, in potentially years, that we don’t have the pressure of acting a certain way to gain our freedom. We can decide what we want to do each day. The rigid schedule, the pre-planned meals, and the hours filled with group therapy are done. We aren’t being supervised 24/7.

The emotional labor we’ve put in to keep our therapists, non-clinical staff, and parents satisfied day in and day out has taken a toll on us. In our villain era, we’re essentially reprioritizing what we spend our time doing based on what we actually want our lives to look like.

In this way, Colin and I fully support young people in their villain era, as long as we’re respectful and don't hurt other people.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that what we want to do is necessarily productive. Colin and I see a lot of friction between our clients and their parents. If their child is engaging in behaviors or activities they said they weren’t going to do after treatment, a parent will call this self-sabotage.

Colin and I don’t necessarily agree.

Here’s how he and I help the young people we work with identify behaviors that are truly self-sabotaging vs. just telling us where our actual goals and priorities lie.

We help them set that tangible next-step goal that they actually care about reaching, and we help them commit to a daily routine that they actually want to do, which supports them in achieving their goal.
We look at the behaviors or activities in question (usually by their parents) and ask if they’re actively keeping them from meeting that goal on the timeline they laid out for themselves
If it’s preventing our clients from getting what they truly want, then, at least to a certain extent, they’re sabotaging their chances at building the life they say they want to live. If it’s preventing them from reaching a goal that their parents or treatment center set for them, they might just not actually care about working towards that. And oftentimes, that’s okay!

If we have that north star goal and a plan to get there, then we (and our parents) can better tell if our behavior is truly “non-working.”

Our villain era is behaving in a way and engaging in activities that other people - usually family members - may not love. Or they’re straight-up uncomfortable with it. However, if we’re not being assholes, hurting other people, or breaking the rules of where we live, and as long the behavior isn’t getting in the way of reaching our goals, then in Colin’s and my view, it’s probably worth considering letting it slide for now.

Self-sabotage, on the other hand, is acting in a certain way that’s preventing you from achieving what you truly want. Especially if you don’t want to be acting that way in the first place or if you know it’s inherently bad for you.

The most important thing we can show clients during their villain era is how to spot the difference between behaviors that are sabotaging our chances of building a life we’re passionate about vs. behaviors that show us we don’t actually care about the “goal” these actions are preventing us from reaching.

Or maybe, based on results, these behaviors aren’t actually getting in the way of our personal goals at all. In which case, if they’re not hurting others, then it’s going to be a losing battle to get us to stop doing it.

Okay yea but like, as a parent, what are we supposed to do.

Here are the top three things we’re telling the parents of our clients right now:

1️⃣ Number one → Consistently show your child how proud you are that they graduated treatment and that you’ll never understand how hard it was or what it was like. The same goes for graduating high school or reaching any other significant milestone if your child didn’t go to treatment.

2️⃣ Number two → Ask them what their actual goals are. What do they want their life to look like and what are they working towards? Getting a job? Going to college? Joining a new community? Figuring out how to just feel better about themselves? Then help them make a plan on how to get there. Better yet, find someone else to help them if you’re struggling to find common ground on which to communicate effectively.

3️⃣ Number three → Come to an agreement that if they consistently work towards what they say they want to do, then you give them that trust and agency to maybe engage in some of the behaviors that you don’t love as long as they’re respectful of you and don’t hurt other people.

Colin said it best to me last week on a call he had with a parent of a client:

“If your child didn’t live with you and you saw them working towards their goals and doing what they said they’d do, you probably wouldn’t even know they were doing these other things (spending too much time playing video games, smoking some weed, partying with their friends, etc). And if they’re reaching their goals, would you actually care that they are doing those things?”

So let us have our villain era. Make sure we have positive influences around us who will help us stay out of the self-sabotaging behavior and start living our lives in a productive way that isn’t catering to how other people are telling us to act. Give us that freedom to do some of those behaviors that, hey, you may not love, but are ultimately a part of growing up and figuring out who we want to be, how we want to act, and who we want to surround ourselves with.

And now……our vibes this week🔮

📚 What we’re reading

The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter (all our wilderness therapy friends will feel validated by this book, if you haven’t read it yet)

The Class That Missed Out on Fun, wsj

🎶 What we’re listening to

The soundtrack to my troubled teen villain era

💡 One last thought

Could watch this type of BTS for hours. Days, even.

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.

Get In Touch

In our troubled teen VILLAIN ERA 😈