In seventh grade, she dealt with being bullied at school by secretly cutting her body.
I thought, This is what the bullies do to me, why dont I do it to myself? said Sarah Boyer, now 17. She spoke last weekend while on leave from the state-run Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., where she has been getting psychiatric treatment since March.
Last month she and others at Cottonwood got the news that the youth psychiatric facility will close because of state budget cuts.
Those who track the mental health care industry in Missouri said the closure of the state facility is yet another blow for the mentally ill in Missouri, who are being squeezed out of critical services.
Boyer says Cottonwood needs to be saved so it can save kids like her.
Her descent into mental illness happened rapidly. At first, Boyer said, the cutting relaxed her. Then she began cutting deeper. That scared her. It made her realize that killing herself could be easy. Yet she kept it a secret. It led to clinical depression and thoughts of suicide.
In eighth grade, she let the truth slip. When her parents intervened, she became violent. Her mother, Donna Boyer, said she feared she would have to give up her daughter to the state because she could not control her. Or that her daughter might end up in a juvenile detention facility after harming someone else.
We were in a horrible, vicious circle, Donna Boyer said. We could not keep her at home and keep her safe and keep us safe.
Now, after more than a dozen emergency hospitalizations and three unsuccessful stays at private treatment programs in St. Louis and St. James, Sarah Boyer said she has been properly diagnosed and is improving. She credits long-term treatment at Cottonwood. Her goal is to be released in time to attend summer band camp.
A LAST RESORT
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Missouri psychiatric treatment center for youth closing under state budget woes