Trego's Mountain Ear

By Amberli Emery

After nearly three decades, Chrysalis School in Eureka, Montana, is preparing to close its doors permanently on November 15, 2026.

When I first heard the news, I found myself sitting with a mixture of emotions I wasn’t entirely prepared for.

Sadness, disappointment, gratitude, frustration, and even a little relief.

It’s bittersweet.

And for me, it’s personal.

I moved to Montana nearly eleven years ago, and Chrysalis was my first job here. I started working there in 2016 and remained until 2019. After taking some time away, I returned in 2022, following the lifting of the COVID-era mandates.

Altogether, I spent approximately four years working with adolescent girls who were navigating some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

I wasn’t simply an employee who showed up, worked a shift, and went home.

I was invested in these girls.

I was in the trenches with them, celebrating their victories, weathering their storms, challenging their thinking, holding boundaries, and sometimes being the person they were angriest with.

And somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened.

While I was helping these girls learn how to heal, I was healing too.

Chrysalis was founded in 1998 by Kenny Pannell and Mary Alexine. What began as a small, home-like therapeutic program for eight adolescent girls eventually grew into a much larger residential treatment school.

Its original philosophy centered on relationships, accountability, personal responsibility, emotional growth, and helping young women develop the tools necessary to navigate life beyond the program.

I believe there was something genuinely valuable in that foundation.

When applied correctly, by emotionally healthy adults who understood their responsibilities, many of those principles could produce remarkable growth.

I saw it. I lived it. And I benefited from it myself.

I remember seeing statistics years ago reflecting strong outcomes in several areas of personal development. Some of Chrysalis’s historical self-reported measures showed results exceeding 70 and even 80 percent in areas such as emotional regulation, decision-making, and executive functioning. Those numbers deserve closer examination, particularly when distinguishing progress at discharge from long-term success.

But numbers were never what convinced me that parts of the program worked.

It was the girls.

One thing I wish more people understood about adolescents entering therapeutic treatment is that many of them desperately want to get better.

They want to feel safe. They want to belong. They want to understand why they react the way they do. They want someone to believe in them, particularly when they have lost the ability to believe in themselves.

The overwhelming majority of the girls I worked with were not children I considered hopeless or unwilling to grow.

They were struggling.

Some were angry. Some were withdrawn. Some pushed every boundary imaginable. Others had become incredibly skilled at hiding their pain behind achievement, perfectionism, or a carefully constructed exterior.

But underneath those behaviors were young people who needed healthy adults willing to meet them where they were without allowing them to remain stuck there.

I remember one young girl, barely thirteen, who refused to get out of the SUV and come inside.

I didn’t lecture her. I didn’t demand that she cooperate. I simply sat on the back of that SUV and began reading to her.

I read in a steady, calm voice. And I kept reading.

Until my voice was nearly gone.

Somewhere in those quiet moments, something shifted. She eventually came inside.

I don’t know exactly what was going through her mind that day. Maybe she needed time. Maybe she needed to know that someone was willing to sit with her without demanding something in return.

But I remember that moment because it taught me something about working with these girls.

Sometimes the most meaningful thing you can offer a struggling child isn’t a therapeutic technique, a carefully constructed intervention, or another adult telling her what she needs to do.

Sometimes it’s simply being a steady, patient presence until she’s ready to take the next step.

And sometimes building trust begins with nothing more than sitting on the back of an SUV and reading until you lose your voice.

I remember another Sunday when we built miniature Viking ships.

Not because it was part of some elaborate therapeutic curriculum, but because sometimes the most meaningful moments happened when we found creative ways to help the girls express things they couldn’t quite put into ordinary conversation.

We built those little ships and wrote down memories of trauma, painful experiences, and things that needed to be said but perhaps had never been spoken aloud.

Then we placed those words with our ships and set them on fire and pushed them out into the middle of the lake.

We watched them burn.

There was something meaningful about giving those emotions a physical representation, acknowledging their existence, and symbolically releasing the weight attached to them.

It wasn’t about pretending those experiences had never happened. It wasn’t about suggesting that burning a piece of paper could erase trauma.

It was about recognizing that we don’t have to carry every painful experience in exactly the same way forever.

And sometimes a little creativity, a Sunday afternoon, and a group of girls willing to participate could create an opportunity for reflection that a traditional conversation might not.

Those are the moments I remember.

Not the paperwork. Not the endless meetings.

The moments when we stopped focusing on everything that was supposedly wrong with these girls and created opportunities for them to discover something right within themselves.

I watched girls begin recognizing their own strengths.

I watched them develop tools for managing emotions, communicating their needs, building healthier relationships, and accepting responsibility for their choices.

Not every breakthrough was dramatic.

Sometimes progress was a girl admitting she was wrong without falling apart.

Sometimes it was learning to accept the word no.

Sometimes it was recognizing that someone could disagree with her and still care about her.

And sometimes it was simply getting through a difficult day without returning to an unhealthy coping mechanism.

Those victories mattered.

They still do.

When I began working at Chrysalis, I believed I had already done a considerable amount of personal healing.

Life had certainly given me enough opportunities.

I thought I understood myself pretty well.

As it turns out, I still had work to do.

One of the remarkable things about working within a healthy therapeutic environment is that it doesn’t simply expose the struggles of the people receiving treatment.

It can reveal the unfinished work within the adults providing support.

There were things buried beneath the surface of my own life that I genuinely believed I had already addressed.

Some hadn’t disappeared. They had simply become quiet.

Working with these girls, learning the therapeutic principles, and examining my own reactions helped me recognize areas where old wounds were still influencing my thinking.

It also helped me recognize the areas where I truly had healed.

That distinction was important.

Healing isn’t always discovering something else that’s wrong with you.

Sometimes it’s recognizing how far you’ve already come.

Sometimes it’s learning that a situation which once would have completely unraveled you no longer has that power.

And sometimes it’s discovering that you still have room to grow.

I took many of those lessons home.

I applied techniques I learned to my relationships with my own daughters and children, who had experienced struggles of their own.

Those tools became part of how I approached parenting, communication, accountability, and healthy relationships.

Chrysalis wasn’t just a place where I worked.

It became part of my own personal growth.

I made mistakes at Chrysalis.

I want to be clear about that.

I wasn’t some perfectly balanced adult who walked through the doors knowing exactly how to handle every situation.

I had to learn.

I had to recognize my own emotional responses, examine my motivations, and understand the difference between supporting a child and becoming emotionally entangled in their struggles.

One of the greatest lessons I learned was that healthy boundaries aren’t the opposite of compassion.

They are part of it.

I eventually reached a point where I would much rather be considered the enemy by a girl because I maintained a healthy boundary than be her best friend because I failed to maintain one.

That wasn’t always easy.

Teenagers can be remarkably persuasive, particularly teenagers who have spent years learning how to navigate inconsistent adults and unstable relationships.

But they don’t need adults competing to be liked.

They need adults who are dependable. Adults who mean what they say. Adults who can be firm without being cruel. Adults who can recognize a child’s pain without excusing every behavior that comes from it.

And adults who understand that a healthy relationship can survive disagreement.

I learned that being trusted is far more important than being popular.

That lesson has stayed with me long after leaving Chrysalis.

Over time, I began noticing changes.

The work became increasingly difficult, but not necessarily because the girls themselves were becoming more difficult.

The needs of the students were changing.

Earlier in my experience, many students came from high-achieving, high-expectation families. Some had grown up with considerable privilege and opportunity but were struggling emotionally, socially, or behaviorally.

As time passed, I encountered more girls with complicated histories involving adoption, chronic trauma, abuse, attachment difficulties, neurodivergence, and overlapping mental-health concerns.

These were children who often needed highly individualized approaches and adults with specialized knowledge.

And in my experience, the training and practical support available to residential staff did not always keep pace with those changing needs.

That was frustrating.

Not because these children were somehow less deserving of care.

Quite the opposite.

They deserved adults who understood what they were experiencing and knew how to respond appropriately.

As an RM, I found myself seeking out therapeutic educational materials and bringing additional information to my team.

I wanted the people working alongside me to understand the behaviors they were seeing, the diagnoses they were encountering, and the practical tools available to help these girls.

There is a tremendous difference between attending a training session and actually understanding how to apply that information when a struggling teenager is standing in front of you.

I believe that distinction became increasingly important as the program evolved.

Something happens when you genuinely believe in the work you’re doing.

You stay.

Sometimes longer than you should.

You convince yourself that things will improve.

You remember the successes.

You remember the girls who found their footing.

You remember the breakthroughs, the laughter, the hard conversations, and the moments when a child finally recognized something good within herself.

And you keep showing up because you don’t want to abandon the possibility of helping another child experience that same growth.

I believe many of us remained committed to Chrysalis long after we began recognizing problems that concerned us.

Not because we were blind to those problems.

But because we believed in the foundation of what the program was supposed to accomplish.

We believed in the girls.

And sometimes believing in something makes it incredibly difficult to accept that it is changing into something you no longer recognize.

When I returned in 2022, I was not returning as the same woman who had walked through those doors in 2016.

I had grown. I had learned. I had developed a deeper understanding of boundaries, trauma, relationships, and my own responsibilities.

But Chrysalis had changed too.

Some changes were understandable. Programs evolve, research develops, and the needs of children change.

Other changes left me questioning whether the original principles that had made Chrysalis meaningful were still receiving the attention they deserved.

I began feeling that the emphasis was shifting away from helping children develop the tools to move forward and toward allowing diagnoses and labels to become increasingly central to how they understood themselves.

I have never believed that a diagnosis should become the entirety of a person’s identity.

A diagnosis can help explain a struggle. It can guide treatment. It can open doors to appropriate support.

But it should never become a ceiling placed over a child’s potential.

I wanted these girls to understand that their experiences mattered, their struggles were real, and their diagnoses might help explain certain challenges.

But those things did not have to define the rest of their lives.

The goal, in my mind, was never to teach a child how to live inside a label. It was to give her the tools to build a life beyond the limitations she believed that label imposed.

That belief remains important to me today.

I know Chrysalis has a complicated history.

I know there are former students and staff whose experiences may be very different from mine.

I know there are difficult questions surrounding the school’s later years.

And I know there are experiences from my own employment that I may eventually choose to discuss in greater detail.

But that isn’t what I want this particular reflection to be about.

Not today.

Today, I want to acknowledge something that often gets lost when an institution closes under difficult circumstances.

There can be genuine good within something that ultimately struggles or fails.

There can be dedicated employees working inside an imperfect organization.

There can be children who experienced meaningful growth alongside children whose experiences were painful.

There can be valuable principles worth preserving even when the institution responsible for teaching them no longer exists.

And there can be gratitude and disappointment living in the same heart.

I don’t believe acknowledging the good requires pretending the problems weren’t there.

Nor do I believe recognizing the problems requires erasing every positive experience.

Both can be true.

When Chrysalis closes its doors in mid-November, I won’t be celebrating.

I’ll be remembering.

I’ll remember the girls who challenged me.

The ones who made me laugh.

The ones who tested every ounce of patience I thought I possessed.

The ones who surprised themselves with their own strength.

I’ll remember the staff who genuinely cared, who gave more of themselves than was probably healthy at times, and who continued showing up because they believed they could make a difference.

I’ll remember the lessons I learned about myself.

The wounds I discovered weren’t completely healed.

The growth I experienced.

The tools I brought home to my own family.

And the realization that sometimes the people we believe we’re helping end up teaching us just as much about ourselves.

Chrysalis was never just a building or a business to me.

It was a chapter of my life.

A difficult, rewarding, exhausting, frustrating, and deeply meaningful chapter.

I am grateful for the good.

I am disappointed by what I believe was lost along the way.

And I sincerely hope the girls who passed through those doors, regardless of their experiences there, have found opportunities to heal, grow, and build lives they can be proud of.

Because at the end of the day, that was always supposed to be the point.

Not the institution.

Not the reputation.

Not the diagnoses.

The children.

And perhaps that is what makes this goodbye so bittersweet.

Sometimes we don’t grieve something because it was perfect.

We grieve because we remember its potential, we witnessed the good it was capable of, and we know how much it once meant to us.

© Amberli Emery