“When is my next home visit?”

That’s the first thing Tim asks when we talk on the phone nightly.  Even the night of the afternoon Tom dropped him back at RTC after his holiday home visit, the first question was about when he could come home again.  And we’re working on the plan to start much more frequent home visits, more than the once a month he’s home now, as the transition to him coming home permanently.

I have to admit, I’m both excited and nervous about the prospect of finally bringing Tim home to stay.  Checking him into residential treatment, three and a half years ago, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  It’s a complex web of sorrow over my child being away from me, guilt that I couldn’t figure out how to get him stable at home, and relief that there may be a solution to the nightmare that was all our lives the previous years.  I want him home, though. We want him home.  He wants to be home.  I’m just afraid of the lingering things we still need to work on, the things he’s picked up in residential, and a back-of-the-mind fear that he could lose his stability and we’d be back in the hell of 2009.

Tim’s never been able to handle family therapy.  He was admitted to the hospital once from a family therapy session because he melts down into a violent, depressed, whirling cyclone when we talk about him in front of him.  He can barely hang on during IEP meetings.  I’d like to start family  therapy as part of the transition, I’m just not sure if it will do more harm than good.