[Trigger warning: Child suicidal ideation and depression are discussed in this post] When I heard the doorbell ring the first time, I didn’t think anything of it. It was in the middle of the day a few weeks ago, Emily was gone at an appointment, and I was immersed in a task for work that I had been trying to finish for some time. Taylor and Jackson were home and in the room right next to me as their school had gone to an online-only format for a two-week period. Jackson was playing Minecraft on the iPad as he didn’t have any ...

It was the Thursday after St. Patrick’s Day and the first week of homeschooling since we’d been put on quarantine lockdown in our homes due to the coronavirus. The missionaries from our church had reached out to ask if they could share a brief spiritual message with us via FaceTime that evening and we resignedly accepted. And it went exactly as Blake and I expected. Well, at first anyway. As we sat on the couch and huddled around the iPad, Jackson became restless and overwhelmed and therefore resorted to hitting me and Blake and jumping off the back of the couch ...

“I just want to die.” It was 8am and we’d heard Taylor say those words nearly on repeat since 5am, when I’d jumped out of bed with my eyes still closed and stumbled down the hallway and into the kids bathroom to relieve my 8 year-old Makenzie, who was trying to pull a screaming, thrashing Taylor down from the small, open window she was attempting to fit through. It is the only upstairs window we have not hammered nails in to keep from opening more than a couple inches so that Taylor won’t be able to jump out. Now I’m realizing ...

I want to share more about Taylor but instead of rewriting Taylor’s story, I am posting the text from a GoFundMe campaign we recently did to raise money for PrTMS treatment for Taylor. — Our oldest daughter Taylor is a bright and witty 10-year-old who was officially diagnosed with autism, severe anxiety, severe depression, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) and ADHD two years ago. We are raising money for a treatment for her called PrTMS (Personalized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) to help relieve some of her suffering and help her regain her childhood. The reason we’ve decided to move forward with this GoFundMe ...