{"id":20692,"date":"2017-12-20T22:59:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T05:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=20692"},"modified":"2017-12-22T10:18:38","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T17:18:38","slug":"at-17-with-so-much-trouble-in-past-hope-finally-lies-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/12\/at-17-with-so-much-trouble-in-past-hope-finally-lies-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"At 17, with so much trouble in past, hope finally lies ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Faith\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Faith Rumph, right, with her Youth Dynamics case manager, Kristin Bauwens.<\/p><\/div>\n

Listening to everything that Faith Rumph has been through, it\u2019s hard to believe \u2014 or maybe it\u2019s just painful to acknowledge \u2014 that she is only 17.<\/p>\n

Born in Billings, she was removed from her biological parents at the age of 2, \u201cbecause basically they were not fit to be parents,\u201d she said. Faith and her then-newborn sister lived with one family until Faith was 4, when Faith was adopted by Mark and Cindy Rumph.<\/p>\n

She admits she was a difficult child, subject to dramatic mood swings and temper tantrums. Faith said she was drinking alcohol and smoking pot by the time she was 13, about the same time she started harming herself, leaving cutting scars that are still visible on her legs and wrists. Once she tried to kill herself.<\/p>\n

She was raped several times by boys she knew, she said, and one time at party she passed out from drugs and booze and was raped again. Or so her friends told her; she said she had no recollection of it. She started doing harder drugs, including heroin, though she says she never did use meth.<\/p>\n

In light of all that, she may seem an odd emissary of hope, but that\u2019s what she is these days, and why she was asked by Youth Dynamics Inc. to make a short video<\/a> about her experiences and to encourage other young people to seek help.<\/p>\n

\n
More information<\/h5>\n

You can learn more about Youth Dynamics by clicking here<\/a>. To reach any Youth Dynamics office in the state, call 877-458-7022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the video, Faith compares mental illness to being in a swimming pool, underwater, where people can\u2019t hear what you\u2019re saying and you feel completely isolated and alone. She asks people to listen and to try to understand that mental illness is like any other illness in some respects.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be no different than if you broke your leg,\u201d she says in the video. \u201cYou\u2019d want people to be compassionate and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has Youth Dynamics<\/a> to thank for starting her on the road to recovery. She had gotten some help before, she said, from the Billings Clinic Psychiatric Center and the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch\u2019s Billings office in the old Garfield School.<\/p>\n

But it was Youth Dynamics that gave her intensive help and for the first time led her to understand her mental illness, which included a diagnosis of bipolar disorder with extreme anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. She spent 10 months at Alternative Youth Adventures, a therapeutic group home and day treatment program in Boulder, Mont., run by Youth Dynamics.<\/p>\n

Cindy Rumph, Faith\u2019s adoptive mother, said it was Faith who made the decision to go to AYA, but she wasn\u2019t very happy with her decision at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe waited it out for a couple months, thinking I would come get her,\u201d she said. \u201cFaith finally got in her head to get more active and take part up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>The program in Boulder offered a mix of regular schooling with therapy and substance abuse counseling, mental-health services and outdoor adventures. She was able to spend a few weekends back home in Billings, but otherwise she was in Boulder for 10 months.<\/p>\n

Through it all, she said, Cindy never gave up on her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so lucky I have a mom like I do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In fact, she added, one reason she quit an addictions program she was part of in Billings was that she couldn\u2019t stand listening to the other kids constantly complaining about how difficult their lives were, even though they had two parents who loved them and took care of them, and then \u201cjust threw it all away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life at AYA in Boulder was \u201crough,\u201d Faith said, because she was forced to be accountable, forced to admit her problems and to try doing something about them. She was headstrong and resentful, at least at first, but in time, she said, \u201cI learned to listen to adults who I absolutely hated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since her return to Billings last January, she said, she has been attending the Career Center and studying at night, trying to keep on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, the reason I\u2019m doing well is I\u2019m so frickin\u2019 lazy,\u201d she said, laughing. She explained that AYA was too much work, so only by staying sober and dealing with her mental illness can she make sure she doesn\u2019t have to go through that again.<\/p>\n

She said her experiences in Boulder also made her realize that \u201cI\u2019ve got to get through all this. I can\u2019t keep blowing my life away. I can\u2019t keep being so ungrateful for my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of her treatment was paid for by Medicaid, though her mother said she had to pay for Faith\u2019s room and board in Boulder and is still paying off those bills.<\/p>\n

Faith\u2019s case manager is Kristin Bauwens, who has spent 17 years in the mental health field. She said she is basically Faith\u2019s \u201cbroker,\u201d making sure she connects with the doctors, programs and educational services she needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce everything\u2019s in place, we sit back and monitor it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Youth Dynamics has also helped Cindy learn how to better manage her daughter\u2019s struggles with mental illness, visiting their home once a month to check up on things and provide any help that\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n

As for the Youth Dynamics video, which has gotten almost 50,000 views since it was released at the start of the school year, Faith said, \u201cit was weird at first. I did not enjoy being involved in it.\u201d But in time she was glad she got involved. She said it helped make her more upfront with her peers, more willing to give them advice.<\/p>\n

If she knows people well and recognizes they need help, she said, she\u2019ll tell them that dealing with the problem is the only way to get better, and she urges them to talk it over with a doctor, a therapist, a parent or a guardian. Don\u2019t self-diagnose, she said, and don\u2019t self-medicate.<\/p>\n

She can take pride in a long stretch of sobriety, and she said this is the first school year that she hasn’t had to be hospitalized for one reason or another.<\/p>\n

“Not yet,” she said. “Knock on wood.”<\/p>\n

Faith is looking forward to graduating from high school this spring and then becoming a cosmetologist and a nail technician, maybe moving to California, where her mother has relatives.<\/p>\n

Her mother doesn\u2019t pretend everything is perfect now, but she said she and her daughter have both been taught how to communicate better, how to deal with problems without screaming or fighting, how to compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always going to struggles,\u201d Cindy said, \u201cbut it\u2019s way better than it was before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listening to everything that Faith Rumph has been through, it\u2019s hard to believe \u2014 or maybe it\u2019s just painful to acknowledge \u2014 that she is only 17. Born in Billings, she was removed from her biological parents at the age of 2, \u201cbecause basically they were not fit to be parents,\u201d she said. Faith and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[6568,6567,4152,5807],"class_list":["post-20692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","category-news","tag-billings-clinic-psychiatric-center","tag-faith-rumpf","tag-yellowstone-boys-and-girls-ranch","tag-youth-dynamics-inc","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20692"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20698,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20692\/revisions\/20698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}