It Can All Be True

August 24, 2022

It's been a while. I've wanted to come back here to you for so long. To update you. To share our ongoing struggles and successes, to bring you little bursts of hope, to remind you that you are not alone. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

With all that was going on in our world - Covid yes, but also our nation's collective reckoning on so many social justice and human rights issues including critical conversations and calls to action about systemic racism, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights, climate change, political unrest, so much more... Our story just felt too indulgent and self-involved, so very small by comparison. 

So I took a step back, because honestly, what could I possibly have to say here that mattered to anyone in light of all that was happening in the world? 

This blog has always been focused on my experiences navigating family mental illness. What it has been like as a parent, and also now as a professional mental health advocate as well.

But I'm back now because recently I realized something. Our collective experiences nationally and globally are big and impactful and life-changing. 

But my family's experiences are also big, impactful, and life-changing. It's not either, or. It can all be true.

And with all big, impactful, life-changing, true things, over time, something can happen.

Resilience. 

Resilience changes us, it empowers us, strengthens us, and makes us more capable, despite how very incapable we may feel. 

Resilience allows us to keep going - all the way through it - to get to the other side. 

And as we do keep going, we see that things can get so much better. We find support and information, and we stop feeling so alone. We find our people, our place, and our purpose. And we find ourselves. We thrive.

Nothing can bring back what has been lost. Nothing will ever be as it was. Nothing will ever be the same. We will hurt. This is all true.

But with time and with patience, new growth appears. And it is beautiful. 

This is also true. It can all be true.

So, today, I'm back to rejoin this conversation with you. Moving forward, I intend to use this space for more conversations about mental health advocacy in general. Sure, I'll give you personal family updates as they become available, but really, this space is my story. My experiences with my child inspired this work originally, but my child is no longer a child at all. He's a grown-up. So it's time to allow him the space and privacy and grace he deserves to move past his past and create the future he deserves. 

But before I officially transition this blog space to something outside the scope of our family's story, I will share this news with you.

My older son has found his people, his place, and his purpose. He is living a full, happy life. He has his own family now. He is thriving...and I am so proud of him, of the man he's become. And the father he will be. 

Yes, he still struggles, yes, it's still sometimes difficult, and yes, there are still challenges. But he is thriving. And it is beautiful. 

Healing happens. Resilience happens. Beautiful, new growth happens.

It can all be true.