May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Across the country, landmarks light up in green, social media feeds fill with inspirational quotes, and public conversations turn toward an essential truth: mental health is just as critical as physical health.
But at New Roads Behavioral Health, we know that for millions of individuals and families, mental health is not a topic that can be neatly packed into a single month. It is a daily, lived reality. For those struggling with severe, complex, or co-occurring disorders, mental health awareness isn’t about overcoming a “bad day”—it’s about navigating a dense, often terrifying fog while trying to construct a life that feels genuinely worth living.
If you or someone you love is fighting a quiet battle against a complex mental health condition, a severe substance use disorder, or both simultaneously, this month is a reminder that you do not have to wander in the dark alone. Let’s strip away the stigma and look closely at what complex mental health really looks like, how co-occurring disorders intertwine, and how an intentional, evidence-based roadmap can lead you back to wholeness.
Redefining Awareness: Moving Beyond “Everyday Stress”
When mainstream media discusses mental health awareness, the focus frequently lands on generalized anxiety, burnout, or mild depressive episodes. While these struggles are deeply valid and deserve attention, this surface-level dialogue often leaves out individuals dealing with complex, severe, and persistent psychiatric conditions.
At New Roads, our mission centers on the people who feel left behind by standard treatment templates. We specialize in treating conditions that require deep clinical expertise, intensive training, and highly structured environments, including:
- Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior, BPD demands a specialized clinical touch rooted in profound empathy and rigorous behavioral training.
- Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorders: Severe neurocognitive conditions that alter a person’s perception of reality, requiring precise psychiatric management, specialized social programming, and consistent, long-term support.
- Bipolar Disorder: A condition marked by dramatic shifts in energy, mood, and activity levels that can fracture a person’s career, relationships, and sense of self if left unmanaged.
- Complex Trauma and PTSD: Deeply entrenched emotional wounds stemming from prolonged or severe trauma that hijack the nervous system and make navigating daily life feel like walking through a minefield.
- Severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A disruptive cycle of obsessions and compulsions that goes far beyond a desire for neatness, often paralyzing an individual’s ability to function.
When these conditions are present, everyday life becomes an exhausting exercise in survival. Compounding this challenge is a reality that clinicians and families know all too well: mental health conditions rarely travel alone.
The Tangled Web of Co-Occurring Disorders (Dual Diagnosis)
It is extraordinarily common for a complex mental health condition to coexist with a substance use disorder. This intersection is known clinically as a co-occurring disorder or a dual diagnosis.
According to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), millions of adults experience a co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder each year. Yet, historical treatment models have treated these two issues as completely separate entities. A person might be sent to an addiction rehab facility that is unequipped to handle their schizophrenia, or they might visit a psychiatric unit that cannot safely manage their substance withdrawal.
This fragmented approach is a recipe for cyclic relapse. To understand why, we have to look at how these conditions feed into one another.
1. The Cycle of Self-Medication
People naturally look for relief when they suffer from severe mental health struggles. They may experience the intense emotional storms of Borderline Personality Disorder. They might face the terrifying hallucinations of schizophrenia, or the crushing weight of a depressive episode.
Without effective treatment or coping skills, many turn to substances. They may use alcohol, illicit drugs, or prescription medications. They do this to numb the pain, quiet their mind, or help them sleep.
While substances might offer a temporary, fleeting escape, they inevitably alter brain chemistry in ways that exacerbate the underlying psychiatric illness. When the drug wears off, the psychological symptoms return with greater intensity, prompting further substance use.
2. Overlapping Biological Vulnerabilities
Substance abuse and mental illness share deep genetic and environmental roots. Factors such as genetic predispositions, early childhood trauma, chronic stress, and disruptions in neurotransmitter systems (like dopamine and serotonin) make an individual uniquely vulnerable to both addiction and psychiatric disorders. One does not necessarily “cause” the other in a simple linear fashion; rather, they are two branches of the same underlying neurobiological tree.
3. Mutual Escalation
Active addiction makes managing a mental illness nearly impossible. Alcohol and drugs can render psychiatric medications ineffective or cause dangerous drug interactions. Conversely, an unmanaged mental health crisis shatters the impulse control and emotional stability required to maintain sobriety.
True awareness means recognizing that you cannot treat one while ignoring the other. If you only address the addiction, the untreated mental illness will eventually trigger a relapse. If you only address the mental illness, the active substance abuse will continue to destabilize the brain and tear apart the person’s life. Dual-diagnosis treatment must be unified, integrated, and delivered by a singular, cohesive clinical team.
The New Roads Philosophy:
Fostering “Lives Worth Living”At New Roads Behavioral Health, our philosophy comes from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Our goal is to help clients build a “life worth living.” We never view clients as just a list of symptoms or diagnoses. Instead, we see them as whole, complex people. They want to get better, but they just lack the right tools, structure, or support system. Our treatment combines the latest evidence-based care with a supportive community. We guide clients through recovery with efficiency and deep compassion.
To do this, we invest heavily in ongoing staff training. Every employee receives this training, from executives to direct care workers. We ensure our team knows world-class therapeutic methods inside and out. These include:
Gender-Affirming and Neurodivergent-Competent Care: Our teams undergo specialized training in Autism Spectrum Disorder frameworks and LGBTQ+ care. We are fully equipped to meet the unique identity and neurodevelopmental needs of everyone who walks through our doors.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Our program is steeped in DBT principles. It is led by our CEO, Eric Schmidt, an intensively trained, Linehan Board-Certified DBT clinician. DBT is the gold standard for treating emotional dysregulation, chronic suicidality, and personality disorders. It teaches four main skills: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. It balances radical self-acceptance with a firm commitment to change.
Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS): Our clinical staff is fully certified in CAMS. This evidence-based framework safely and effectively treats suicidal ideation through collaboration.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE): Trauma is often the root cause of mental illness and addiction. Our team holds advanced certifications in PE. We help clients safely process traumatic memories so they lose their disruptive power.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): We use ERP for clients trapped in the rigid cycles of OCD. It is the most effective behavioral tool to break obsessive thoughts and compulsive habits.
Healing in Stages:
Our Comprehensive Levels of CareRecovery is not an event. It is a gradual, non-linear journey. Someone in an acute crisis needs high structure, safety, and close clinical monitoring. That is very different from someone who is stable and ready to re-enter school or the workforce.
New Roads bridges these gaps so people don’t fall through the cracks. We offer an integrated continuum of care across multiple Utah properties:
1. Residential Treatment
Our residential programs provide 24/7 monitoring, safety, and intensive therapy. Clients face no outside distractions or triggers. Instead, they focus entirely on stabilization, psychiatric care, and building coping skills.
We tailor our residential care to specific genders to build trust, safety, and community:
The NORTH Program: Located in Provo, Utah, this track supports adult men with serious, chronic mental illnesses like schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder. It uses ACT and DBT models to guide them toward long-term stability.
The PATH Program: A dual-diagnosis track built for young men facing both substance use and mental health challenges.
The WORTH Program: A dedicated women’s program. It uses intense DBT to treat trauma, personality disorders, and emotional regulation in a supportive sisterhood.
2. Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) / Day Treatment
As clients stabilize, they step down to our Day Treatment program, which offers approximately 30 hours of structured clinical care per week. Clients participate in intensive DBT skills groups, individual therapy, life skills development, and medication management.
For those who need ongoing structure outside of clinical hours, our PHP+ program offers supervised therapeutic apartments. Staff provide daily support and welfare checks, allowing clients to practice real-world independence within a safety net.
3. Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
Our 12-week IOP offers nine hours of group therapy per week, alongside individualized counseling and psychiatric check-ins. This level of care is designed for individuals who are ready to return to work, school, or family life, but still require rigorous, structured professional support to reinforce their coping strategies and maintain relapse prevention plans.
4. General & Psychiatric Outpatient Services
Long-term stability requires ongoing maintenance. Our general outpatient and psychiatric services ensure that as clients fully transition back into independent lives, they retain access to the trusted psychiatrists and therapists who know their stories, manage their medications, and keep them accountable.
Moving Beyond Stigma: A Message for Families
If you are a parent, spouse, or sibling of someone dealing with a severe psychiatric condition or addiction, we know how exhausting this journey can be. You have likely spent sleepless nights worrying, navigating a confusing web of healthcare providers, and feeling an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
Mental Health Awareness Month is as much for you as it is for your loved one.
The stigma surrounding complex mental illness often leaves families suffering in silence. Neighbors and friends might understand a cancer diagnosis or a physical injury, but they often don’t know what to say when a family is dealing with a psychotic episode, a borderline emotional crisis, or a severe drug relapse. This isolation can breed shame and despair.
We want to tell you clearly: This is not your fault, and you do not have to carry this weight alone. Complex mental illnesses are neurobiological conditions; they are not a reflection of bad parenting, a lack of willpower, or a character flaw. Healing requires professional, multi-disciplinary intervention, and it requires a community. When a client enters New Roads, we don’t just treat the individual—we seek to wrap our arms around the family unit, providing education, family therapy, and the resources you need to rebuild your own lives and boundaries.
Taking the First Step on a New Road
As we look at Mental Health Awareness Month, challenge yourself to look past the superficial conversations. Let this month be the catalyst for real, substantive change.
If you or someone you love is trapped in the cycle of co-occurring disorders, or if a complex mental health diagnosis feels like an impossible mountain to climb, remember that roads are built one mile at a time. You do not have to figure out the whole journey today. You only need to take the next right step.
At New Roads Behavioral Health, we have spent nearly two decades helping people navigate these exact woods. With evidence-based therapeutic models, highly trained specialists, a comprehensive continuum of care, and a community deeply rooted in compassion, we are ready to help you map out your recovery.
Your diagnosis is a chapter of your story—it does not have to be the final headline. Let’s find your way back together.
If you or a loved one are ready to explore a customized roadmap to recovery, reach out to New Roads Behavioral Health today at 888-358-8998 or visit our admissions page at newroadstreatment.org to speak with a compassionate care coordinator.