Category: Speaking Out Loud
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Thoughts on Afters and Nexts 2.0
Tomorrow is the last day of the 2021-2022 school year. The kids will say peace out to 9th and 10th grades by lunchtime, and by dinnertime the eldest will also be officially discharged from the outpatient mental heath program that has been that child’s only extracurricular activity since March. To say the least, June 16,…
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Antonyms for Linear…
Healing is not linear. Every option available to the kid and to us as parents right now is a rotten option. Nothing makes sense and nothing is clear – actually nothing make sense and the only thing that is clear is our love for this child.
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Strange Symmetry and “Stepping Down”
April 5, 2022, 6 years deep into treatment for depression and an anxiety disorder, and just one month into a partial hospitalization program to treat a crisis point in their mental health; my eldest child was officially “stepped down” from the full day program to the afternoon program.
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Thoughts on Afters and Nexts
So here’s the thing….if you ask me how I am right now, I will probably answer honestly that I am perpetually exhausted, frustrated by school and insurance systems that make it nearly impossible to get a teenager critical mental health treatment, frightened for my struggling child, worried that my other child is uncomfortable in our…
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Politics of Hope and Joy
Politics of Hope & Joy – some thoughts on a day where we honor the legacy of MLK mere weeks after confederate flags were paraded through the US Capitol in an overt display of white supremacy and two days before the inauguration of Biden and Harris.
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Election Eve Pondering and a Promise
I am feeling all the feels – all the feels for myself, for my teenagers who are deeply invested in this election as they come of age in an upside down world, for my core belief that we owe it to each other to fight for the common good, for my fear that another four…
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Birthday Eves and World Mental Health Day
On this day 15 years ago there was so much I did not know. I certainly didn’t imagine that our every day would include my child living (thriving) with mental illness. And that means that somewhere out there this evening are other mothers, in other hospitals, waiting for their own baby to join the world…
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Community With A Capital C…
I had the opportunity to “guest preach” at our church last weekend. In this super strange time where it seems many people are more interested in personal “liberties” or preferences, I had a whole bunch to say about the need for all of us to live with the common good at the center. I kept…
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Social Distancing Week 13…Kind of a Big Deal
By stripping away the people, pressures, and noise of the world, the man-child has been able to fully accept and own who he is and begin to claim his space in the world. It’s definitely a big deal.
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Our Invisible and Unwelcome Family Member
My son is living with anxiety and depression, but the entire family lives with the fallout caused by his anxiety and depression.
We're All A Little Broken 