Former students speak out about their RGA experiences
THE SPEECH TIFFANY GAVE AT PARENT WEEKEND X:
In Life… as we all come to know, and many of us here have learned the hard way; Life… is a journey full of choices and consequences… The choices we make every day do and will always have a consequence… And whether or not that consequence is pleasant or not… it is also a LESSON.
RGA is not a punishment, in any way, but a consequence of the poor choices we made… and in that, RGA became an amazing learning experience, and an opportunity for me to become someone I’d dreamed of all along, even in my darkest days. A smarter, stronger, healthier and a happier individual…
THIS became my opportunity to change what was becoming a TRAGEDY into a SUCCESS STORY…
I came here on the night of the 14th Novemember 2006… I was only 14 years old…and at that time everyday, I was slipping further away and into an addiction that will haunt me for the rest of my life… I was starting my freshman year in High School… And I was truant and failing all of my classes… I had very poor self image, and the friends I hung around were not really friends at all… My relationship with my family had sadly become nonexistent in my mind… I was a stranger in my family and to myself, I had become a very different person compared to the little girl I used to be…
I was angry and depressed, as all students are when they first get here, but after a few weeks I forgave my parents and really started to show my problems, it took me a few months to truly get into the program and put more effort into fixing my relationship with my parents…
After a few months I started working the program with the support of my squad and my family… and then I really started to see a change, and understood the reasoning behind bringing me here… it was a chance to save myself from the destructive path I was on… My squad really understood me, and seeing the change in them, and how they seemed so different compared to the things they had told me about themselves and how the program had helped them… it really motivated me to change and work the program…
My mom and Dad, and all of their emails really helped me open my eyes and see that they were there and that they truly loved me and wanted to help me all along. We had good visits and our relationship became stronger than ever before… And without their support and unending patience and love I wouldn’t be where I am today…
After months of hard work and hard times, and all of the good times I and my squad had had… I was ready for the final steps in this program… So after I had been here about 11 months I finally got on Transition… I knew I had worked hard to get where I was… I had become a leader and a role model in my squad just like the girls I looked up to when I first got here…
When I proposed to Graduate, and was told that I had been approved… I had never felt so great, I was so happy… My parents were so proud of me, it was like a moment in a movie, I just thought to myself as I cried that ‘I did it…
So I graduated the program On November 4th 2007and finally went home for good, it was the best day of my life so far… When I walked across that stage I knew that everything was worth it…
I went back home to Delta Co. my home town… Delta is a small town, so I had grown up and gone to school with almost all of my peers… So they had all heard about everything I had done wrong before I came to RGA, and knew me, Tiffany Schwinn, as the blue haired punk I used to be. Knowing that, I was already worried about going back and seeing everyone but at the time I was so confident, I believed that after this program that I would not have any problem with the peer pressure or have the same problems I had had before… I felt invincible, and I truly believed I was prepared to go back to public high school… After I had been home for about a week I enrolled back into School as a junior… Because Being at RGA for a year, I was able to get caught up and also get two years ahead in my academics… School was really awkward for me at first, because I felt unaccepted by my peers and the only people who really seemed interested in me or where I went were the negative friends I wanted nothing to do with… I joined a youth group to try and meet more positive friends and hopefully some more kids who were on my level in a way, but even there, they knew who I was, and what I had done, and seemed to really distance themselves from me…So my self image started to diminish as the days went by… I was so confused; I couldn’t understand why no one wanted to get to know the New me… I had changed my style, I didn’t have blue hair and I was nice and positive, I had a new light to me and I thought it was clear for everyone to see, and I can’t even describe how different I was and how different I looked, you could just see the change… But although I knew I was different and I knew I could be better, My self image had gotten so low that I just wanted to be accepted, So after I had been home for a month or two I started drifting back to the old friends, and becoming very lonely, because I couldn’t find the friends like the girls I had in my squad…
So after a while, I started to fall back into some of the same behavior… my family and I still had a good relationship, but my step mom and I have never have gotten a long so I didn’t see my dad as often as I like, and my mom travels a lot for her career, so I was on my own again in a way, and I was too embarrassed to admit that I was slipping again… I wanted help and I wanted to do some kind of follow up therapy or some kind of meetings like A.A, but my mom believed that I didn’t and wouldn’t need it… and those kind of meetings were not available in Delta, and I didn’t have a permit or anyway to get to Grand Junction… And because I was only 15 there weren’t jobs available for me… but my only option was joining a youth group, and that wasn’t working, so I stopped going… My grades in school were slipping again, and without details and all the stories of the other things that were really going on I can just say that I was really having a hard time, and I didn’t have someone I felt comfortable talking to…
So, in that, I became frustrated and depressed, because I was so disappointed in myself, and disappointed in the fact that, no matter how badly I wished to be what I thought of as a “normal” but good teenager and do the things I wanted, and meet friends at the same level, but still have fun and do the right thing and stay clean, seemed impossible in my situation, so I let go of that but I knew that if I went on hanging out with the wrong crowd and all of my old friends… that I would fall completely under and back into the same behavior and ultimately… that would come to the point of me dropping out of school and going down a dead end road…
That’s when I came to the conclusion, that coming back to RGA to finish School would be the absolute best thing for me. So I talked with my mom, and she knew that finishing school was what I needed, and since there were no other available alternative schools, and I had done so well in this environment before we decided that RGA was the best option... and although as much as her and I both wanted to go on and try and continue our life in the same house and trying to be happy and believe that everything will work out in time... it was unlikely for me to be successful and happy in the same environment that had gotten me into such a nightmarish life style… After my mom and I talked we knew as hard as it was to be away from each other and have to live this way it was what was best fro me. So I came back to RGA to finish high school, So that I could graduate and move on into an early transition into a better, adult, life… I was considered a student for a few days but they moved me up to be Junior Staff because I still knew the program and as Junior Staff I am happy to still be able to help with the students and being a previous graduate of the p.p.c. program and knowing what it is like to go home, I feel that I can try to help prepare the students a little more for when they go home and that I can also help try and motivate and encourage how important caring about yourself and your future is… and I also really want to emphasize how important it is to know the difference of what you want, and what is best for you… And although after graduating and finishing this program, the problems and pressures are still out there and will always be, but hopefully we, the students, and staff here at RGA can come up with more solutions and find a better life after RGA.
THE SPEECH NICOLE GAVE AT PARENT WEEKEND IX:
Reader Comments