Success Stories
Turning the Corner:
Laura's Story
In high school, Laura's painful struggle with mental illness put her in a constant battle with suicidal thoughts. Most days, she wanted nothing more than to end her life. After being in and out of treatment facilities without success, she came to Boys Town. Her stay in Boys Town's Residential Treatment Center was different. It was the first time she felt that someone truly cared about her. It was exactly what she needed to turn the corner and get healthy. Laura is now a sophomore in college and well on her way to reaching her goal of being a clinical psychologist.
Watch Laura's Story
In high school, Laura's painful struggle with mental illness put her in a constant battle with suicidal thoughts. Most days, she wanted nothing more than to end her life. After being in and out of treatment facilities without success, she came to Boys Town. Her stay in Boys Town's Residential Treatment Center was different. It was the first time she felt that someone truly cared about her. It was exactly what she needed to turn the corner and get healthy. Laura is now a sophomore in college and well on her way to reaching her goal of being a clinical psychologist.
Laura: If I had not come to Boys Town I definitely wouldn't be alive. I was at the breaking point before I came. I had gotten to the highest point of pills I'd ever taken, which was...it was close to 100 and I almost couldn't stop taking them. It was every day, it was all the time, it was all I thought about, it's all I wanted was to not be here anymore.
Laura: I was hospitalized six different times just at a psychiatric ward. So I was in and out of hospitals all of high school until I came to the RTC.
Laura: I was talking to one of the therapists and I had said, you know...she was listing a bunch of things that she noticed I did in the initial interview, and that kind of thing, like picking at my fingernails and stuff like that. And I'd said to her, you know, "Why did you notice that?" or, "How did you notice that? You know, no one's ever said anything like this to me." And she said that, "Well, I guess that's Boys Town. We notice. We care." I had never had before. Nothing like that. Here, there were people, countless people in my corner.
Peg: Our kids come in, they have these severe issues, a lot of trauma, a lot of mental health and behavioral disorder issues. And our focus is to be able to help them cope and learn different ways to deal with those things.
Laura: I had a really hard time expressing any kind of emotion. So they really helped me express how I was feeling and who I was. With the self-harm and suicidal stuff by just keeping me safe in general. They really helped me turn a corner and I'll always appreciate that.
Becky: Laura now is an amazing young woman. She is much more self-secure. She is confident. She knows what she wants. She is just amazing. We're so proud of her. She's doing so well in school. She's involved in her sorority. She is just a wonderful representative of Boys Town and of herself everywhere that she goes.
Laura: Boys Town is a place where you can truly be yourself, you can grow, and you can learn to love.
