Jennifer De Leon graduated near the top of her class at Palm Desert High School, but when it came to applying to college it seemed like the world was crashing down around her.
“I would always just go to the next highest level,” she said. “Honors, Advanced Placement.” Then, I broke down.”
“I wasn’t in good shape,” added De Leon. “It was just very dark. “Everything was pointless.”
She started taking pills from her parents’ medicine cabinet and was hospitalized after drinking a bottle of liquid Tylenol.
For more than a year since then, De Leon, who turned 20 in December, has been treated by Riverside University Health System.
During that time, she went from barely leaving her bed to holding down a job and rebuilding relationships with her parents and friends.
During an interview this fall, she was “feeling better” but was still dealing with some things, including her self-described “hardcore perfectionism.”
The game changer was Desert FLOW, a youth outpatient mental health clinic and resource center that opened in 2017 in La Quinta, specifically serving people ages 16-25.
But you probably won’t hear the staff describe Desert Stream like that. They are told to avoid using words like “patient” and “clinic”.
The staff makes the place feel more like a club. It’s a space where teens and young adults can come together to play games, practice yoga, do arts and crafts, and cook—and receive individual, group, or family therapy. FLOW stands for fun, love, opportunity and well-being.
In addition to providing psychiatric and ongoing mental health services, staff help connect young adults, including De Leon, with housing and employment resources, life coaching and legal services as needed.
To keep the atmosphere informal, there is no front desk, and youth can “drop in” to use the common spaces as they wish, explained Behavioral Health Services Supervisor Alyssa Huntington.
Desert FLOW is one of three transitional youth centers operated by Riverside University Health System. The others are in Perris and Riverside.
About 150 to 200 “TAYs,” as Huntington and others call transition-age youth, use a variety of services through the La Quinta location. About half of those deal with the center on an average week, Huntington said.
Traditionally—and, in many cases, legally—age 18 is the hard cutoff between treatment as a youth and as an adult. TAY centers aim to ease the transition to adulthood for adolescents in need of mental health care and access to social services.
“Turning 18 shouldn’t be a crisis,” Huntington said. “Part of the problem before TAY centers was that when people turned 18, they often fell through the cracks of behavioral health.”
Centers like Desert Stream aim to fill that void.
“If we can give adolescents access to services when they’re 16, we can prepare them to turn 18,” Huntington said.
She explained that many adolescents are labeled as adults but lack the necessary skills and resources for independent living, a gap she said is often exacerbated by mental health diagnoses.
“Our goal is for TAYs to be able to live independently on their own or with their family and fulfill their life dreams, maintain employment and have a support group intact,” Huntington added.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, 50% of mental illnesses begin by age 14, and another 25% begin by age 24.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the brain is not fully developed until the mid to late 20s.
Nationally, adolescent mental health issues have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many have experienced feelings of isolation and despair.
Locally, Huntington said she has seen an increase in suicide attempts and suicidal ideation that continues to increase.
“I don’t think it slows us down, unfortunately. It’s still going on,” Huntington said. “I don’t know if it is related to the pandemic. I think the pandemic has made it worse, but I don’t think it’s an independent problem.”
In 2021, more than a third (37%) of high school students reported experiencing poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 44% reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless during the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control Diseases and Prevention Data.
“Isolation, I think, definitely played a role in how I feel,” De Leon said. “Even when I hated school, I felt the joy of seeing my friends like a breath of fresh air.”
The high-achieving student said she believes the stress of academic excellence played a role in her mental health deterioration, and the COVID-19 health and safety protocols likely made matters worse.
But her struggles were nothing new.
Around the age of 10, De Leon said she realized she struggled with perfectionism. When things didn’t go her way—especially in the classroom where she always excelled—she would get angry with herself and sometimes hit objects.
“I don’t do that anymore,” she said.
Over the years, De Leon said she has built coping mechanisms for her emotions, including following a routine.
Then the pandemic changed everything.
There was no more going to school. No more seeing friends at lunch. No more extracurricular activities in person.
“My routine was disrupted,” she said.
Adding to that was the stress of applying to colleges.
“The application felt so black and white,” De Leon said. “As if there was a right choice and a wrong choice.”
The anxiety of it all weighed on her until she broke.
“I knew things were going to break down,” she said.
But now, De Leon feels like things are looking up. Through Desert Stream, she began to build a new routine.
Attends daily activities with peers. Sometimes they focus on music or crafts. When Desert Sun met her, she was on her way to a yoga class taught by a volunteer instructor at the center. Five or six other TAJs also participated.
The class started about an hour later than scheduled because the bus that picks up TAYs from across the Coachella Valley and takes them to activities in La Quinta was late. But for some young people living in Desert Hot Springs or Mecca, the SunLine bus trip to La Quinta would take even longer.
Downtown Huntington is designed to serve everyone from Desert Hot Springs to Mecca.
Pustinski FLOW has a total of nearly 20 staff, including a psychiatrist, a nurse, doctors, lawyers and peer support specialists. Peer Support Specialists are certified professionals with a proven track record of overcoming some of the most common mental health and addiction issues facing adolescents and young adults. At Desert FLOW, each TAY has an assigned Peer Support Specialist.
“As a TAY-aged person, I had some depression and anxiety, but I didn’t know what I was going through,” explained peer support specialist Javier Sanchez.
Years later, Sanchez counsels young adults to help them understand their emotions and find purpose.
As for De Leon, she is still uncertain about her aspirations.
But her progress is undeniable.
“We have success stories like Jennifer who came out almost dysfunctional in every area, and to see her go from that to a fully functioning young person with social work with their parents — I mean, that’s huge.” Huntington said.
For more information about Desert Stream, visit www.rcdmh.org or call (760) 863-7970.
Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at [email protected] or @Writes_Jonathan.
