My Why
When I was getting my The Growing Brain trainer certification from ZERO TO THREE, I shared my 'why' with them, so I'd like to share it here too. Long before becoming the SME in a doctorate program, I was a pregnant teenage runaway.
At 17, I hopped state lines, driving from West Virginia to Maryland to elope with the father of my child. I was leaving a home with domestic violence, with a history of spending time in the foster system- I was in foster care for 12 months, from age 11 to 12.
I have a history of trauma; my family has a history of trauma. The kind that most people can't stomach. And then, I had a baby. I loved him before he even existed, and knew that I could love him enough to learn to be his mother the right way. I thought, naively, that I had an easy baby. He slept through the night, ate regularly every three hours, and was generally pleasant.
And then, at a year, the sleep seizures started. That took two years to get diagnosed. Then came the autism diagnosis. Then came anxiety. Depression. ADHD. In 2020, we got the Bipolar diagnosis. In 2024, it was confirmed that he had a mild intellectual impairment. I started college for the first time in 2013 and have spent every day, both professionally and personally, learning to be his mother. I've built a career out of it.
I tell people he has complex psychiatric needs. I joke that he has 'alphabet soup': ASD, BP, ADHD, GAD, MDD, I/DD; he has very little empathy. No remorse. His brain is sick. But more than anything else, I've loved him. I do love him.
But love- the kind that offers safety, that protects, that heals- also means doing the right thing; the hard thing. Safety is the highest form of love. And my son, the child who taught me how to love, does not live at home. He lives in a residential placement; and two months ago that meant placing him in the custody of the State of West Virginia. Not because he wasn’t wanted, but because giving him the very, very best shot at care and safety meant admitting I couldn’t give it.
I moved mountains for him.
He’ll live there until he turns 18, and when he’s 18, he’ll be placed in an adult care setting. He will likely never live alone, and that’s ok, because he will, above all, be safe.
And safety is the highest form of love.