Suspended Sentence by Janice Morgan

Author:Janice Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2019-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

During the weeks of Dylan’s incarceration, Mike and I researched possibilities for a residential school that he could attend and found a program that we thought could work. It would be hugely expensive, but my parents agreed to help out. We discussed it and agreed that each of us would pay a third of the total expenses. It was a tough decision, but at the time, Mike and I were too exhausted and frightened to consider any other possibility. We hoped that when Dr. Barnard’s report was given to Judge Cassidy in January, along with our proposal to enroll our son in a residential program, she would agree to release him to do this.

Dr. Barnard had made it clear that Dylan needed to have some kind of medication to modulate his symptoms. He wrote about that in the report, too, mentioning lithium, but there were others as well, such as Depakote or Lamictal, for example. He said it might take some experimentation with a trained psychiatrist to find the right medication or combination of meds that would work for him. We made sure the school had a psychiatrist who could prescribe these. When I told Dr. Barnard that we were thinking of sending our son to a residential school, he remained pensive for a moment. He said that generally, it was better to keep the child in his familiar home environment and work with him or her through counseling. “But,” he added diplomatically, “an appropriate residential program could be a good solution, too.” After all, considering Dylan’s emotional conflicts within the family, he had suggested that alternate sources of emotional support from adults (foster parent, teacher, other relative, friend’s parent) might be explored.

When presented with the report and our plan, the juvenile court judge agreed to permit Dylan to be released. It was January 5, a new year, and hopefully a new chapter opening in all our lives. Sending our son away from home to a residential school may not have been the wisest thing to do, but it felt like the only viable option at the time. Initially, Dylan experienced more stress, I know. It was yet another huge change for him to adapt to.

Back in that cold January when Dylan was sixteen, we parents had a diagnosis and a plan, but we had no idea how much more there was to learn about our son’s mood disorder. We were only at the edge of that mysterious territory we would all have to cross.

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