“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 ...

This morning we woke up to this sweet note. Taylor had the idea that she and Makenzie would make us breakfast. They made me a peanut butter and honey toast and prepared Emily a bowl of Raisin Bran cereal. This doesn’t seem like anything significant, but Taylor has never really done anything like this so for us it was pretty huge. According to Makenzie, this was all Taylor’s idea. This morning Taylor pulled out some little cards she got when we were doing ABA therapy last summer that each have a suggested activity to help her figure out what to do ...

Taylor has now completed 35 sessions of PrTMS and its time for an overdue update. We have seen improvements in her sleep (falls asleep faster, wakes up fewer times during the night), improved behaviors at school (fewer elopements, less frequent suicidal ideation), and an overall improvement with her impulse control and behavior at home. We first started tracking Taylor’s suicidal ideations and elopements from home in the middle of December (I wish we would have started tracking this sooner!) and overall we have seen a decline in both of these since then. See chart below: Each column shows a full week of ...

As I was tucking Taylor into bed the other night, I turned to leave the room and said, “Goodnight, Taylor. I love you!” Her response? “I read that pitbulls are only aggressive if they feel threatened or if their owners teach them to be aggressive.” Yup, just living that autism parenting life, lol. In all seriousness though, many parents of autistic children rarely hear their children reciprocate feelings. It wasn’t until Taylor was 9 years old — when I had literally told her thousands of times that I love her — that Taylor responded one random night with, “I love you too, mommy.” I left ...

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 ...