Skyland Trail

“Our young adult loved one graduated from Skyland Trail today, and I am filled with gratitude for the care, compassion, and support our family received during their 90-day stay. Before our loved one was admitted to Skyland Trail, we were skeptical after reading some of the negative Google reviews. However, we did not have any other option left, and we decided to move forward. For the past three years, we had felt increasingly clueless and helpless watching our loved one struggle with mental health challenges. Skyland Trail not only provided exceptional care for our loved one, but also offered our entire family an extraordinary amount of support, education, and guidance. The level of care and support we received from Skyland Trail SURPASSED ALL OF MY EXPECTATIONS. Our loved one's primary therapist, Emily McFarland, is truly exceptional. Her expertise as a therapist is matched by her high intelligence, and deep empathy. She became an important mentor to our loved one, who had spent many years remaining silent and isolated while carrying internalized trauma, pain, and grief. During our biweekly calls with Emily, we were continually touched by the genuine care and concern she showed for our loved one. Her guidance made a profound difference. Outside the biweekly calls, I emailed Emily many times with many questions or even concerns. Emily always responded almost immediately, and addressed all my questions and concerns with immense clarity. We also received excellent family therapy from Jessica McMorris, another outstanding therapist. Like Emily, Jessica is both brilliant and compassionate. She helped us understand what our loved one was experiencing while also helping us grow and communicate more effectively as a family. We learned so much from her, and we grew significantly as a family through that process. We are also deeply grateful to Dr. Murphy, our loved one's psychiatrist; Chris Wiley, the care coordinator; and Clara Light, the therapy coordinator. Each of them demonstrated tremendous professionalism, empathy, and dedication—not only toward our loved one, but toward our entire family. When we arrived at Skyland Trail, we felt lost and unsure of what to do next. Today, as our loved one graduates, we leave with a much greater understanding, a renewed sense of hope, and immense gratitude for the people who supported us along the way. Thank you, Skyland Trail, for caring not only for our loved one, but for all of us. We will always be grateful for the difference you made in our lives.”

“I don’t understand the bad reviews. If it wasn’t for Skyland I wouldn’t be where I am today. When I first arrived at Skyland I wasn’t sure this would be for me, I had no willingness to engage and I was avoiding everything. After a few weeks I decided to give it a try and my oh my how things changed. It’s important to understand that nobody can change you except yourself, the staff is there to support you in every way possible, after being at Skyland for over 90 days and then going to transitional I am now able to live on my own, which at the time I felt was impossible, I still think about Skyland and how much it changed me and my perspective on my mental health. To anyone who might be looking to go to Skyland: the first few weeks will be the most difficult time of your life but after that it will get better. Trust the process, trust the staff! Healing is possible but you have to be patient!”

“my time at skyland trail was one of the worst experiences of my life. instead of feeling supported, i felt constantly invalidated and dismissed. my meds were upped behind my back without any explanation or consent. imagine finding out after the fact that people are making huge decisions about your brain chemistry without even talking to you. it made me feel like i had no control over my own treatment. the food was gross and barely edible, which might sound small, but when you’re stuck there every day, it wears you down. it just added to the feeling that patients weren’t cared about on even the most basic level. what’s worse is how not trauma-informed the place is. staff members would straight up invalidate patients’ feelings and experiences, as if our pain was an inconvenience. half of the staff didn’t even seem to have a basic understanding of psychology, especially when it came to borderline personality disorder. instead of compassion, there was judgment. peer restrictions were thrown around in ways that felt punishing and isolating, not therapeutic. it felt like they used restrictions as a tool for control instead of healing, cutting people off from the only real support we had, each other. there was also a disturbing disparity in how people were treated if they relapsed. some patients were allowed to stay, while others were kicked out. it felt unfair and arbitrary, like there were hidden rules about who was worth helping and who wasn’t. skyland trail markets itself as a place of healing, but i left feeling worse! unheard, invalidated, and like my struggles were just brushed off. i wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone seeking real, compassionate mental health care.”

“being here sucked. i see another review from someone i had multiple groups with echoing the same sentiment (validating! + encouraging me to post my own experience.) spent 3 months here, wasted time & my family's money. i came in with a misdiagnosis of bpd. only thing gained at skyland was a psych evaluation from dr. bruce that correctly identified my primary issue as a dissociative disorder, w/ some pd traits as a secondary issue . despite me repeatedly saying that cbt was way more helpful to me than dbt, and that i didn’t relate to much of what was in the dbt track, i was stuck in that track until i left (and felt like i had to performatively lie/pretend to relate to examples of bpd behavior, or else i would be accused of noncompliance.) being diagnosed by their own psychiatrist didn’t change my treatment course; they didnt even finish my report until like a month after i left. dr. ayankola forced me on abilify for the bpd i turned out not to have. it caused extreme exhaustion and made me nonfuctional. after groups ended at 4 pm, i would sleep in my room. wake up for dinner (sometimes,) go back to sleep, until 15 mins before i had to go to morning group. i stopped being able to hang out in the common areas/go on outings *things i did before w no issue* and i still wanted to, but i was too drained. i repeatedly brought up the severe fatigue from abilify with my PC and psych. PC (brandi) insisted that i was self isolating, being non compliant, and that i needed to get out of my comfort zone & socialize (as if i randomly decided to stop doing it?) dr. ayankola helpfully informed me that the exhaustion that started the day i started abilify was actually from “working hard in treatment,” and also because i was still in withdrawal from cocaine- which i'd quit 1 year before. had to wait until i could self administer meds to stop taking it and then when i cold turkeyed it the exhaustion totally stopped. and some lady at the rollins desk intercepted my package (book on DID, which again, skyland psych diagnosed me with while there,) told me i wasn’t allowed to read about mental illnesses and literally said psychology books are banned so patients don’t try to treat themselves (huh?!) when i pointed out i was allowed to have books on bpd/depression in my room she said maybe other staff members allowed those, but she didn’t. so it wasn’t an actual consistent policy to take away books? she just did it for the vibes? the only good part from skyland was the dual diagnosis program; emily’s dd core was wonderful and helpful. that and actually getting diagnosed w/ DID. otherwise, this place is very impersonal and uncaring. if they can’t typecast you as another BPD person, and you might have more diagnostic complexity, they don’t gaf about you. prepare to be overmedicated into compliance and for them to act like you’re a problem for self advocating, and medically gaslight you about your unnecessary meds!”