As parents of a Colorado Recovery community member living with serious mental illness, we understand first hand the level of emotional pain, sadness, confusion, frustration, and feelings of isolation experienced by families like ours as we try to navigate a broken mental health system in the face of stigma, lack of understanding and unanswered questions in trying to find help for our loved one.
Please allow us to share our story with you and to listen to your concerns with the sincere hope that it will enable you to help your loved one get on the right path to living a meaningful life with the right balance of independence and support.
Simply ask our Intake Coordinator to connect you with a Colorado Recovery parent. We will likely understand what you’ve been through, be able to offer compassionate support and perhaps some useful advice based on our own experience and help you to find some light during this difficult time. Supporting each other can feel like a lifeline of connection and hope.
Please reach out… we would like to help!
Thank you for your coordinated efforts to help my son become the new person that he is today. When he first arrived at Balsam House, he resisted all the opportunities offered to him. He was convinced that he did not need any treatment, he was afraid, and he was withdrawn into himself. This afternoon I was delighted to find him relaxed and confident. He made some friends at Balsam House and told me how he liked the staff. He will remember being there as a positive experience. Thank you also for all your help with this transition period. I imagine there will be some ups and downs, but I am optimistic. I especially enjoyed visiting with various residents out on the Balsam House patio. Over a period of time I saw them transformed from being cautious, nervous, stressed, and withdrawn to becoming friendly and interested in life again. You are doing amazing work, changing lives, and I am grateful that my son was able to be a part of your program.
The staff of Balsam House have become family to us. Our son muddled through four or five notable programs across the country for years without any improvement. In fact, his symptoms were getting worse. Each program seemed to reinvent the wheel – wasting valuable time and re-trying medications that had been ineffective – because there was no continuity of care and the consulting psychiatrist seemed unavailable to us when we tried to provide him with background information. Our son was really struggling and we were really distraught. Families who have been through this painful journey know what it feels like to be helpless and desperate to find help for their loved one. It wasn’t until we discovered Colorado Recovery through word-of-mouth that we finally had a real partner in his recovery and he had real hope to find stability with the guidance of Dr. Graybill and the experienced, warm and caring professionals in this program.
Afraid to stay in your own community? Feeling rejected by those around you? Having many sleepless nights? Not sure which voice inside your head will take you in the right direction? Colorado Recovery may be calling your name.
Though the stigma of having a mental illness can prevent optimum treatment protocols and outcomes for many in American society, the successful implementation of medication, therapy, recreation, and social support at Colorado Recovery have enhanced my way of living and support my future aspirations of resuming my teaching career and reunification with my ten and twelve-year-old children in Northern Nevada.
Thank you for all your help and insightful treatment for our son. For the last year he has been so precarious, his future on hold, even his present in doubt. We searched many places but Colorado Recovery just resounded with common sense, accessibility and a commitment to what works. My ex-wife and I have seen numerous examples of our son’s really improved state. He is much happier again, out of the clouds of medication and sensing his possibilities like never before.
I really believe whatever experience you have brought to Colorado Recovery, it has been a perfect fit for a young man like our son, and the DBT work has been a key piece of that. Thank you for all your commitment and your unflagging desire to help him help himself. Your efforts are often in my thoughts so I thought I would let you know.
There is really no other program like this one. Recovery is not always linear, sometimes there are two steps forward and then one step back before moving forward again. Dr. Graybill and the team have been in tune and carefully observant to know when our son has needed a higher level of care and this program actually provides that movement back then forward again with a continuity of care not provided anywhere else we’ve been. It has not been an easy road for our son. But Dr. Graybill never gave up on finding effective ways to address his challenging symptoms. He is knowledgeable and experienced and has gone the extra mile for our son and for our family. As the only psychiatrist to ever call us after hours or over a weekend to touch base, he really cares. He listened to us, responded to emails and crafted a treatment program with the input of the amazing therapists in this program. He also has a strong working relationship with the hospital in Boulder – a relationship which has also been invaluable in helping to move our son forward in his recovery. Dr. Graybill and Colorado Recovery have saved our son’s life and have provided him a vibrant, supportive community where he’s working to create a meaningful independent life we never thought would be possible for him. As a family, we are also comforted to know that support is never too far away if he needs it. We are forever grateful to these special people. There is hope…
“It’s been over a year since my son came home from Balsam House. He has been doing wonderfully, with no psychotic episodes. He feels better and has become so productive. He is able to make and keep his own appointments and take care of himself. He told me that Balsam House was the best place he has every been. I sing your praises. Thank you so very much for giving us back our son. Since being properly diagnosed with fibromyalgia, he now knows that it is not part of his schizophrenia and takes his medication. He and I are trying to help others who have the same problems so that they might not go through the 10 years we went through getting his meds right. I recommend the movie, “The Soloist”, as he and I watched it together. It gave me a concept for the first time of what he actually hears. We were able to talk about the comforting voices, as well as the others. Again, thank you so very much”.
Our son was bright, athletic, thoughtful and good-looking. He attended one of the top boarding schools in the United States with a scholarship from a former president. He was accepted into Rice University, considered the “Harvard of the south” with a running scholarship. Then things became dark. His behavior became erratic with days filled with extreme energy and hope and others with quiet depression. His days and nights became reversed and he became anxious and paranoid. We had counseling, psychiatrists and even hospitalization but his depression worsened and the situation became desperate.
It was our daughter who found via the internet Colorado Recovery center in Boulder, co, a unique residential and outpatient facility that took the patient from a secure, monitored home environment where everyone participated to an open outpatient situation and then helped them to actually move to the “real world” with a job and an apartment. This was not a drug rehabilitation center which had been suggested to us. It was a center focused on individuals who were bipolar and schizophrenic. Drug and alcohol addiction are often side effects of those suffering from mental illness and not the underlying cause—Colorado Recovery properly diagnosed our son as being schizophrenic.
Through Colorado Recovery’s medical experts, consistent and attentive care and diligent support from their fabulous team our son is alive, holding down a job and has dreams for the future. And yes, he is still bright, athletic, thoughtful and good-looking. Colorado Recovery’s vision for how to treat mental illness was and is revolutionary for the USA but as noted in recent weeks a report by the American Journal of Psychiatry, funded by the National Institute of Health, its framework is one of the true paths to take for successful recovery. We hope that if you have a young adult in need that you will seriously consider looking at Colorado Recovery in Boulder. We are truly grateful and know that we are blessed to have found it.
I’d hate to think where my 21-year old son would be if it weren’t for Colorado Recovery. My family and I are finally at peace with my son’s schizophrenia. I firmly believe that the exceptional staff at Colorado Recovery saved my son. He has a life and is on the road towards recovery – something I thought was impossible because he was so severely ill. My son is now able to do the normal, everyday things that we take for granted. Thank you Colorado Recovery.
I am so grateful for all you have done for our son. As a mother I only saw him as my “bouncing baby boy”, the super athlete, next senator…, my dreams and hopes before he was stricken. As a mother I never gave up. You and your team have given him back to us. Doesn’t matter what he does with his life, anything he decides to put his hand to he has the tools to be successful. I am sure you hear this all the time, but you saved his life and for that I will be forever grateful.
We had a truly gifted son with tremendous potential but bizarre behavior began to take hold and we started the search for “why”. The medical system, institutions and doctors left us with only two solution alternatives; hospitalize him or have the police put him in jail. Colorado Recovery and their gifted team got it right and we have our son alive and back on track.
I am the mother of a young man who has endured significant life adjustment difficulties and suffering due to serious mental illness and substance abuse. Balsam House is the only treatment program that has helped him realize success and given him hope. Sadly few programs are truly able to deal with the “whole person” and treat dual diagnosis patients. For the first time, my son’s psychiatric needs have been effectively treated and medicated while his addictions have been simultaneously addressed.
Balsam House has helped him develop the self-control necessary to understand and manage his medical, mental, physical and emotional needs. Their approach includes a supportive community with a family-like atmosphere; Balsam House clients always know that they have a safe haven of support, treatment and acceptance. Following inpatient treatment, my son received intensive outpatient support including management of medications, therapy, vocational counseling and the support needed to integrate into society. I feel so grateful to Colorado Recovery and to the Balsam House staff!
Imagine yourself a successful college student with a bright future ahead of you, and on the day of finals you mentally collapse. The next 3½ years you are mentally challenged daily and no state or county program will provide you any help. You can’t leave your parents’ home and you avoid friends and relatives. Then one New Year’s Eve you wind up in a hospital with a belief there is no hope. This all changed when we learned about the Colorado Recovery program! Colorado Recovery rescued our son that New Year’s Day and promised him he would try to return him to the person he was 5 years ago.
Our son tells everyone Colorado Recovery and the Balsam House saved his life. He not only returned him to the person his was 5 years ago, but to the gymnastics athlete he was 7 years ago! What’s more, the program helped him find an internship position in the music industry, which he loves. It isn’t just the medication that made the difference, it’s the entire program and the most incredible support program designed by Colorado Recovery. The focus on working with our son to socialize again, develop confidence, hike, and implement survival skills like cooking, scheduling, and laundry made the difference.
Below is a short testimonial regarding my stay at Balsam House. It only scratches the surface of how I feel about my experience. I am thankful for all your help and think very highly of Colorado Recovery and its staff.
Balsam House provided me a nurturing home-like setting where the caring and highly skilled staff helped me on a pathway to wellness. Additionally, there was a variety of group classes that were engaging and enjoyable. I am very grateful for my improvement while I was at Balsam House and know it is responsible for my better health.
It is such a joy writing this testimonial. My daughter has regained her life as a result of the care received from the team at Colorado Recovery and Balsam House. From diagnosis to careful monitoring of medication in a safe and nurturing place, she has made great strides in recovering from her illness. With great thanks.
