I don't want to send my kid away.

But we're out of options.

(Names have been changed to protect my kids’ privacy.)

We’ve hit the breaking point and must do the one thing no parent wants to do.

I write this as we sit on hotel beds more than one hundred miles away. The news is playing on the TV. Or maybe Friends. But the air is heavy because in one hour Dan and I take our thirteen-year-old son to a residential treatment center.

My heart is breaking.

My husband Dan’s hand in mine helps a little–we’re in this together–but my anxiety is spiking. My stomach twists in knots and my pulse quickens because as soon as I squeeze my baby tight and tell him how much I love him, I won’t see him for a long time. I don’t know when I’ll talk to him next. I don’t know when I’ll get to hug him again.

I actually had to stop writing this because he moved from his double bed and crawled in between us lying facedown. I spent the next thirty minutes gently stroking his freshly clean hair, mindlessly watching the TV as the three of us lay in silence.

Cole* rarely lets me hug him these days, let alone cuddle long enough to fall asleep for a brief moment. He’s usually busy riding one of the many “project” bikes he’s found thrown away or bought at a thrift store and fixed up, or he’s working on a broken lawnmower in the garage–he’s a genius with small motors, or meeting up with friends.

Or getting into trouble.

Cole’s younger brother and sister are rule followers. They wonder why he makes the choices he makes. We wonder too. They’re spending a few nights with grandparents while we do this hard thing. They already said their goodbyes to Cole and got their even rarer hugs.

Taking our impossible, wonderful kid to the treatment center will be Hard, but he needs it. He’ll probably hate us, but he needs it. We will miss him terribly, but HE NEEDS IT.

We adopted Cole at birth. He was diagnosed with ADHD, ODD, anxiety, and sensory processing disorder at four. When he started punching holes in walls at ten, he went to a day treatment program. During that time we finally got his autism diagnosis.

But the school suspensions began in sixth grade. By seventh, we had dealings with the juvenile court. Last summer he started vaping and got more criminal charges for graffiti. Disappearing for hours without telling us where he was going or answering his phone became a regular occurrence. I spent many panic-filled hours driving through the neighborhood in search of him.

In the fall we started having regular meetings with the school principal about weapons and blades and lighters in his backpack. One meeting was about the threats he’d made against the school. His attendance was horrible, his grades were even worse.

Cole’s response? “I’ll just drop out. Maybe get my GED.” He’s only thirteen and was already giving up.

The straw broke the camel one morning when he refused to go to school and became aggressive. We’d also been hearing a broken-record saying from everyone around him trying to help, “I just can’t get through to him. I don’t know what else to do.”

Neither did we.

After we’d made the hard decision to get Cole some help, spending weeks making phone calls, researching facilities, and fighting with our health insurance to help pay for it (they won’t), the police knocked on our door the day before we left. Cole had more charges for starting a small fire on city property.

I keep telling myself that fire refines. That it turns us into gold. Right now it just burns.

*NOTE: I’ve changed my kids’ names to protect their privacy. Cole’s story is real. Everything else is too.

Not the most fabulous picture of us. Me lying next to Dan on the bed, with Cole lying between us. My fingers running through his freshly washed curls.