Unsettling Phone Conference with RTC

This morning we had our weekly phone conference with Bill and I, Caroline, her psychologist at Meridell, and her new psychologist here (her therapist of seven years is on maternity leave). We were five minutes late to the meeting, and we had not met her new psychologist until this morning, so we had to do some getting-to-know-you time before we could talk to her psychologist at Meridell. Unfortunately, the Meridell tdoc (therapy doc) was on the line already and was kept waiting for about 10 minutes while we tried to cover some ground quickly with Caroline's tdoc here. When we finally picked up the phone, I thought that the Meridell psychologist sounded a little annoyed since we were fifteen minutes late starting the phone appointment. So we rushed through the initial update and questions we had, trying to give our psychologist here some talk time with the Meridell tdoc. It felt a little less friendly than the other times we had spoken with her. I explained to her Meridell therapist I wasn't fond of the points and rewards system they had there, because there can be a lot of frustration for those whose problems are still medication related. Maybe we sounded critical and that put her on edge. She brought Caroline in for a rushed talk with her. I could tell immediately that, compared to our last conversation, she was down and emotional. She sounded like she was tired and basically cried and complained about everything the whole time, about how she isn't getting outside time because the other girls vote on staying in the gym, or she can't watch her favorite TV shows on Sat. morning, because the majority want to watch something else, and how she is getting no alone time at all, having group therapy three times a day with major drama ensuing each tie that she just wants to avoid. We felt pained listening to her as she went into a downward spiral. Her Meridell tdoc tried to get her to problem solve on all of these issues right then, but Carolien was in the "tornado"we call it, and we knew that trying to get her to reason would be futile until she was calmer. So we asked to just let her vent, which did help. She needed to feel heard, not to be fixed.

After the conversation ended, Bill and I both wondered if we had put her in the right place. She is an introvert who truly needs down time, away from others, and they won't let her color in her room, which is very calming to her, only in the noisy great room, and won't let her go running around the campus when she needs to exercise. This is a girl for whom exercise is hugely therapeutic. So with no alone time and no running time, she is hurting. The other RTC in Georgia had many planned outdoor activities every week, like canoeing, exploring caves, fishing, track and field, hiking, and a great ropes course, and horses. Bill wanted Meridell because he was so impressed with the neuropsych stuff, but I was leaning toward Inner Harbour in Georgia because I thought it would be a better fit, and still had the neuro psych approach. We won't do a knee jerk reaction, but if the structure is working against her rather than for her, we may need to change course. We'll see. And sometimes it is hard to know if what she is telling us is 100% truth, or perhaps her skewed view of things, which looks like paranoia and "everyone hates me." When we see her in two weeks, I hope we will get a better feel for how she is doing there and if it is a good fit.