Our beautiful daughter began having problems with controlling her anger at a very early age. When she was six, we enrolled her in a karate class to boost her self esteem and to give her an outlet for her anger. This helped for awhile, but at about age nine she began to loose control again. We tried taking her to a specialist, but the result was disasterous.
As the years past, her anger became more and more of a problem at home but to public eyes she was a well behaved, wonderful child! At age fourteen she turned completely inward and refused to talk with us and family members began to see what we had seen for years; that we had a serious problem! She lied, cheated, and stole to get what she wanted and what she felt she 'deserved'.
She began dating a man that was 11 years older than her when she was 15 and was sneaking out of the house at all hours in order to be with him. Not even restraining orders kept them apart. We looked for help with a family therapist, but getting a black belt to a therapy session she didn't feel was needed proved to be very difficult!
Eventually, she began to threaten us. Life in our household became terrifying. We didn't sleep. Our son was, literally, sick with fear and worry and every day things got worse. We never knew what was going to occur next, and our fear for her and ourselves grew. We had no idea where to turn! A friend at work finally told me to take a look online and see what I could find in the area of behavioral boarding schools. I was a little reluctant at first, but after doing some research, I found Lifelines Family Services. I called and spoke with a wonderful woman who was able to answer most of the questions that we had been struggling with for so long. I brought the information to my husband and he asked me to wait a while longer. We'd put everything we had out on the line to help her, but if we couldn't turn her around ourselves this time, we'd call them back.
After another month our daughter ran away. We realized that there was a chance that we may never see our daughter alive again and it was time to take action. We called Lifelines. They were able to get her into the precise school she needed in order to get the help we all needed. Without Lifelines, I have no doubt that our daughter would be lost to us forever.