“It started when I was 17, during my last year in high school. One day it struck, and it hasn’t left since. I went dizzy, I felt sick, I was confused. My head was pounding like a freight train. I just wanted to be a normal teenager.”
‘I was told to ‘Man up.’ Did they honestly think I was just a drug seeker? ‘I can’t keep feeding you with medication,’ my doctors said. ‘The pain will eventually just go away.’ Was I going mad?’
‘All I could think was, ‘Isn’t that what Dr. McDreamy does?’ My mom panicked. ‘Is this normal?’ He then asked if I frequently got migraines.’
“I was only 12, but got migraines a lot actually. It was to the point where people thought I was a hypochondriac. They would say, ‘she’s just a kid, why does she have migraines?”
‘My sweet baby, my firstborn son, is homeless, mentally ill and addicted to heroin.’
“It had been 4 months since we’d had any contact. I hear someone calling my name. It’s my son! It’s a miracle. I hugged my sickly thin boy and told him, ‘I love you.’ I didn’t want to let go. I offered to buy him a meal. Our interaction was less than 10 minutes long. I left him there.”
‘My son has until this Tuesday to turn himself in. I love you, Josh. But the DEVIL returned this year. I made the decision to send my son to jail.’
“Yesterday he called. He wanted to come home. He even gave me the address where he was staying. I made the most difficult decision; I called the police to let them know where he was.”
‘This is for the dads who came running when we yelled, ‘Come quick, something’s wrong.’ The dads who asked, ‘Can I hold her now?’ because that time was precious.’
“The dads who said ‘It’s okay,’ even when it wasn’t…”
‘People told me I should kill myself’ the vital bullying plea all parents need to hear
“These issues continue to happen weekly. They’re not being addressed properly. I’m terrified as a mother.”
