introducing…Not your therapist
Welcome to the first edition of Not Your Therapist - Colin’s and Hayley’s (it’s me, hi 👋) weekly blog & newsletter containing personal stories, musings, and our POV on all things topical around youth mental health, therapeutic programs, TikTok trends, mental health resources, and coaching strategies we’ve developed through our lived experience and working with our Gen Z clients.
We started this blog to share our perspective on and experience with all of the above through our unique lens of being young people who spent their teenage years in psych wards, wilderness programs, and residential treatment.
🚨 DISCLAIMER
Both Colin and I had a positive experience overall in our programs.
We’re extremely grateful for the foundational support that catalyzed our process of building fulfilling lives that we love living.
Was that where we wanted to spend our last few years of high school? Not at all. Did we love every second of it? Absolutely not. But we wouldn’t be where we are today - living lives we love and doing work we’re passionate about - if our parents hadn’t decided to send us to programs. We have great relationships with our families now, and some of our best friends to this day are those we met in residential treatment.
We embrace both the positive outcomes and the less enjoyable memories as our authentic experiences as alumni. We’ve always been transparent sharing both sides of that coin, and we’ll continue to do so.
So yes, sometimes what we have to say might be a little controversial. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind 🧠 because:
We’re just sharing our experience.
We want to actively encourage discourse, and we want to hear your perspective - especially if it’s different than ours!
Our intention is to be helpful to parents, therapists, educational consultants, therapeutic program owners and employees, school counselors, and anyone else who wants to improve young people’s experience in therapeutic programs and the larger mental healthcare system as a whole.
Okay wow…not me starting our first-ever newsletter with a classic overshare without providing any context. Let me back up a little bit.
If you’re new here, Colin and I (Hayley) are the co-founders of Not Therapy. We provide real-world coaching rooted in lived experience to young people who are transitioning out of programs as well as those for whom therapy just hasn’t been the right fit.
We’re not therapists, and that’s by design. We are uplifting and relatable mentors who foster authentic connections and daily self-improvement because we have been in our clients’ shoes.
We’re experimenting with the format, content categories, features, and style of this blog & newsletter over the coming weeks. For example, this week is more long form, and next week will be shorter. Please respond with your feedback and tell us what else you want to hear about! 🙏
Alright…let’s dive in.
the text we all got from our friends this month 💬
“omg 😱 was this the wilderness camp your parents sent you to???”
All former troubled teens are used to being the friend in the group chat to whom everyone sends any news story, documentary, or TikTok they see about the “troubled teen industry,” asking “is this like the place you went?!”
Ask any wilderness alumni - we all received texts about the tragic death of the 12-year-old boy at Trails earlier this month.
In the following days, statements were released by Trails Carolina. Former Trails students were interviewed by local and national news outlets. Hundreds of #tti #trailscarolina TikToks were made with millions of views. Discussions are still ongoing in the numerous TTI Discord servers and subreddits.
The death of the young boy is horrible, and of course, the online discourse is going to skew negative. On the other hand, Colin and I have multiple friends from residential treatment who went to Trails, most of whom said they had an overall positive experience in our troubled teen group chats earlier this month.
Even more recently, we saw the news of Open Sky’s closure due to continuously dropping enrollment. Their closure announcement was filled with more positive things that former students, parents, and staff had to say.
We collaborate with educational consultants and therapeutic programs through Not Therapy. In the last few weeks, Colin and I have been asked this question on the majority of our calls:
“Why don’t the alumni who had positive experiences in therapeutic programs come forward and share their side of the story??”
There’s literally no incentive for us to do so (right now).
I only shared my story online to promote my last business - a free online mental health platform for Gen Z. I made many videos talking about my positive outcomes and the behavior that got me there. I always stated that I hadn’t experienced or witnessed any abuse. And yet, you can read tens of thousands of comments saying how my parents are abusive, how I must be a really bad kid and I deserved to be abused, etc. Colin also started sharing his story more openly as we launched Not Therapy. It’s not something we talk to people who haven’t been through programs because it’s shocking, unrelatable, and often tied to feelings of shame for our families.
But there is a solution to this.
“We believe that the negative narrative online and in the media would shift if alumni had positive experiences after leaving their programs.”
The months leading up to and after our transition back to the real world is an overlooked part of the troubled teen experience that begins to feel more traumatic for us than actually being in a program.
In our experience, most programs do not provide adequate ongoing support, community, or even basic check-ins for their alumni after graduation.
Almost all of us who feel healthy and empowered upon graduating feel extremely isolated and lonely as soon as we leave. If we have no peers to talk to about the unique, life-changing experience who can relate, we keep it private.
Going from 24/7 support to once-a-week therapy is jarring, and integrating new behaviors outside of the bubble of treatment is not straightforward, especially being a young adult in today’s world.
Colin and I are working to change this. We know what a good transition looks like because we’ve been there.
We’re excited to connect with any programs, educational consultants, and parents who want to change the negative narrative too 🙏 Please reach out with your thoughts!
And now….our vibes this week 🔮
What we’re reading:
Unlearning loneliness: How TikTok is rewriting the rules of connection, mashable
These Teenagers Know More About Investing Than You Do, wsj
Toxic Beauty Standards Can Be Passed Down, nyt
Schools Let AI Spy on Kids Who May Be Considering Suicide. But at What Cost?, time
What we’re listening to:
Lofi Girl - beats to relax/study to
One last thought:
thank you.
We hope you found this valuable. Send to a friend if you did, or share on social so we can reach more program alumni and make sure they know they’re not alone. Sharing is caring 😎
We’re in this to collaborate and support. Please feel free to book a call with us if:
If you’re passionate about changing the narrative in the industry.
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!
About Not Therapy
Not Therapy is your one-stop-shop mental wellness concierge for teens and young adults who feel like therapy hasn’t been the right fit or who are transitioning out of therapeutic programs back into the real world. As young people who have been in our clients’ shoes, our approach to mentorship is rooted in personal expertise and empowers young people with relatable support and actionable tools, 7 days a week, to build a life they’re excited about living. Don’t just take our word for it - see what our clients and their parents have to say at nottherapycoaching.com