Onyx Willow Fox. This is the name of a beautiful, caring, funny, talented, smart soul that I get the immense joy of calling my kiddo. There are so many more words to describe them. It probably goes without saying but this kiddo makes me incredibly proud on a daily basis. They stand up for themselves even if it’s against me and their dad. They advocate for themselves in school. They stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves and their friends. They wear what makes them feel good regardless of if it’s the “in” fashion. They are learning that being themselves attracts like personalities and they are finding their tribe. A tribe of beautiful unique individuals like them. These humans encourage each other and check in on each other. They laugh and cry together and I could not be happier that they found this theater life and family.

As most of you know, they have not always been Onyx Willow Fox, but since they had the courage to come to Josh and me to tell us they are non-binary and wanted a new name not attached to the old them, I have watched them grow into this incredible tiny human. Well, I guess not so tiny anymore. They picked the name Onyx and to be honest at first I had a hard time calling them that. For about 2 weeks I called them kiddo A LOT. But I reminded myself that this was not about me and my uncomfortableness, this was about a person finding their way in their young life. And I wanted to support that anyway I could. Since becoming Onyx I have watched this kiddo grow in ways I never thought possible, their confidence, their comfort in their own skin, it is just more than amazing to watch. This is something I’m still learning to do and to be able to assist this beautiful human at such a young age is an honor.

Today we made it official and legally changed their name to Onyx Willow Fox. The pride I feel for this tiny human is beyond words. They teach me something new every day. My heart almost bursts with pride, love and amazement of them. I will forever be grateful that they chose me to be their mom. My beautiful family feels even more complete, and I have never loved us more or been prouder of us than this moment.

What do you do when a childhood trauma haunts you? You know that trauma happened but you have blocked out the specifics so it makes you feel like you have lost your mind. A trauma that happened when you were 10 and you haven’t told a soul about in 32 years. You feel this trauma in your soul and deep in your gut, especially when you are in certain places or see certain people. What do you do when in the past you have been able to shake the feeling and shove it into that deep hole. The hole you swear you will deal with someday but never do, but this time that hole shoves that trauma right back out and straight to your heart.

Well, I guess you say fuck it and finally deal with it. You find a therapist you feel safe with and finally, after 32 years you say that shit out loud to someone. It felt like the scariest thing I’ve done, but it also felt like a boulder was lifted off of my 10-year-old shoulders. It then gives you the courage to tell the other safe people in your life and makes you realize that even if those people don’t know how you feel, they support you. It makes you start to be open to accepting help and being able to talk about how it makes you feel. But most of all you finally get to process every feeling you have buried and learn about every wall you have built.

I am far from feeling healed, but I’m so relieved to have started this process of healing 10-year-old me and being able to comfort 10-year-old me. I have so much healing left to do, but it feels good to finally acknowledge that. It feels good to process things that my heart and body of held onto for years. And it feels so good to finally open my heart fully to my husband and talk about my feelings with him. So if you have trauma, when you are ready take that leap, and start healing that child or adult who was hurt. Until then know you are enough.

When you have a kid you just wish them to be healthy and happy. As they get older you hope they find friends and their place among their peers. You hope they don’t get picked on and that they can navigate their way through the hardships of middle school and high school with little damage done to them. But what do you do when you realize your kiddo is just a little different than most. When you realize that she struggles in things like social interactions. Knowing she just wants to fit in and not get picked on but she just doesn’t seem to grasp the social cues that society has deemed normal, so it makes her stand out in ways that aren’t “socially acceptable.”

Well here’s what we have been doing and will continue to do for our newly diagnosed teen with autism and OCD. First, we make sure she knows that she is so loved and that the way her brain works is beautiful and brilliant. We make sure that she gets the accommodations needed in school to make sure she is taught in a way that she can understand and learn because autism does not mean dumb. She is incredibly intelligent if given the opportunity to learn in her way, which all kids should get that chance. We educate ourselves on what autism and OCD all can entail and become experts on how this affects her beautiful soul and then we find the proper help she needs.

Most importantly we talk to her to let her voice her feelings and ask questions. We empower her to embrace her diagnosis and make sure she knows it does not have to define her. We give her every tool possible to succeed and help her find her voice to advocate for herself when needed. We make sure she knows she is safe to come to us with anything. We will talk through it all. We find extra patience as her parents because I may not completely understand her brain, but that does not make her wrong.

As with all things that have been thrown at my beautiful family, we will embrace this together. We will do everything we can to protect her while also challenging her to grow. I am so proud of the beautiful soul that she is growing into and I admire her resilience. Mostly I am in awe of all that, this tiny human has taught me in her short 13 years! I could not be more proud of my beautiful family!

Feeling lost is such a weird feeling. You don’t know why you feel lost and you don’t know where to start to not feel this way. You change things in your life thinking that feeling will go away and it does for a while but then it creeps back in. This feeling is so different from any other I have had. I’m not sad most of the time and I’m not unsatisfied, just lost. And makes no sense at all. So how do you heal this when you can’t even describe it.

I feel so out of place almost everywhere I am. I don’t really fit in with anyone, although I have felt that way my whole life. I feel like something is always missing in my life, which makes me feel so ungrateful because I have so many amazing people and things in my life. My life has been far from bad, so why the feeling? I’m not even sure what aspect of my life I feel lost in. I have an amazing little family, a job I genuinely enjoy, and some pretty darn good friends, so what is causing this hole in my life, and will I ever figure out how to fill it?

I often wonder if others feel this way too. Is this part of getting older or is this just part of never fitting in anywhere. Is there a community of awkward misfits out there? Does healing past traumas help this feeling? And seriously where do you even start in the healing process? I do not have these answers, but I’m sure not going to give up trying. And if I ever figure it out, I’ll share my journey along the way.

Today Josh and I were talking about something that led to us realizing that it has been 7 years since his suicide attempt and during that conversation I realized that for first time I did not think of this once on May 4th….the actual anniversary!!

So this post will not be all about that day. This post will be about how proud I am of my little family, which yes I know many are about, but we deserve that proudness!!

We have made it 7 years post suicide attempt! We have realized when we needed help and have gotten it. We have recognized symptoms in our tiny human and made sure she knew she could come to us and got her the help she needed. We have worked through it all and supported each other through everything!! We have embraced the love and support from so many!

My little family has so much to be thankful for! We still have our days and weeks but the fear subsides everyday and the communication increases! I’m not sure I have ever felt this content in my life. My family, my amazing support from all of my tribes and my new career and work family bring me so much joy and support!

If you are in a place of unsureness, just know that there are people who understand. Reach out to those you trust. Know that you don’t need to have all the answers and you don’t have to always be strong. But overtime you will grow and find yourself and your family and tribes. Take care of you along with the ones you love that are suffering. I promise people see you and your struggles and they support you. You are seen and loved! Happy 7 year anniversary to living our best life!!!

2 sober years, if you would have asked me 6 years ago if I ever thought we’d be here, ummm absolutely not! Josh getting to the sober point has been an amazing, terrifying, heartbreaking, exhausting and beautiful journey. He has worked damn hard….realizing when he needed help with his mental health so he didn’t numb the feelings with alcohol.

This past fall he recognized the spiral that was happening and spoke up for himself. Took the time off work he needed and went to a partial hospitalization program for Mental Health for 3 weeks. He embraced the tools and skills he was given. He brought them home to share with our beautiful soul of a daughter and still uses those skills….all of this while staying sober.

He even started a workout, health journey with me….turns out he loves working out and loves running even more. These last few years have been the most challenging yet the most rewarding. Surviving alcoholism and mental illness are incredibly hard but finding your way to the positive side and doing it as a family is a feeling that is indescribable.

To my favorite husband, it’s truly hard to put into words how proud of you I am. You have fight like hell to stay in this physical world with our beautiful family. And you have fought just as hard to do it sober. Along the way you have taught our incredible tiny human so many necessary skills. I’m beyond grateful for our journey that has brought us closer as a family and makes me admire and love you more everyday….I’m happy I’m stuck with you! And keep remembering your illness does not define who you are, it’s a part of your journey!!

Do you ever fear the good times in life because they never last long before the dark takes over again? You feel like if you don’t embrace the highs then the lows won’t hurt as much….it’s those walls you built during trauma. This is usually my mind set, but this time I’m completely embracing the high, the good and taking the time to enjoy it with everything I can, because I’m starting to realize that the hard times are going to hurt no matter what, so far I have survived a lot and will keep doing just that.

My new job feels like an incredible new beginning. It feels like a big, deep, fresh breath. It feels like just what my soul was looking for, it’s hard to explain so instead I’m just flying high on the happiness it‘s bringing me. My tiny human is finding her way too, I was terrified for her starting the middle school. I was convinced she would get completely lost and swallowed up, but clearly I did not give her enough credit….does she have hard days, of course she is 12, but is she working through them, YES, just like the amazing, beautiful soul she is!

And my absolutely, amazing soul of a husband has been doing the most incredible, hardest work he can the last 3 weeks and will continue to do so for the next 8 weeks. He realized he was spiraling down a steep path again, acknowledged it and took the steps to learn the tools on how to make it through. He spent 3 weeks going to a program that taught him so much about mental health, and in turn he is teaching the rest of us. He is continuing on this amazing journey.

So this time I’m acknowledging the happiness without fear of it disappearing, I’m embracing this feeling of not drowning and most of all I’m taking the time to be absolutely proud of my beautiful family. We have broke through so much darkness and we are basking in the light! And when that darkness falls again we will swim through it like we always do, together as a tiny family, leaving no one behind!

Change has always been one of the scariest things to me, even if I know the change will be beneficial I still get anxious and it used to stop me from moving in a different direction. But without change how do you grow? I guess maybe you still do but for me, it starts to feel stagnant, so I guess the option I choose changes. So this summer, my parents moved from their house of 44 years and they are incredibly happy in their new townhome (it’s a quiet, beautiful neighborhood), T started playing tennis, it’s her first high school sport, I finished my BS in Psychology, and the biggest change for me is I’m leaving nursing and Mayo and starting a new career as an adult mental health Social Worker for Goodhue County.

We plowed right through the changes into our new normal for now. My new career so far is just what I was looking for. I’m excited to go to work and to keep learning everything I can about mental health and the services we can provide to keep people going as independent as possible. Taylor has embraced tennis and is learning how to balance middle school and sports, not always easy but change rarely is.

For one of the first times, I did not shy away from change in fear but ran straight at it hopefully showing my tiny human that we can do hard things and scary things, we will make mistakes, we won’t always win but if we are working hard and enjoying our change it is well worth it. There are always going to be hard times in life that I used to dwell on and have an incredibly hard time overcoming, but I’m starting to learn how to really embrace the happy, good times too. Do I get slammed back to the horrible and traumatic time in my life of suicide and mental illness, of course, but do I recover more quickly than I used to, thankfully yes!! I’m thankful for the people who continue to support my beautiful family and more thankful every day for my amazing soul of a husband he always believes in me, cheers for me, and encourages me no matter what crazy shit I throw at him!!

Today marks an anniversary that I don’t necessarily celebrate but I like to acknowledge it because it was a day that changed the course of our lives. 6 years ago my husband survived his suicide attempt and has spent the next 2190 days fighting his mental illness and trying like hell to feel good. He spend some of that time fighting alcohol and has now been sober for 15 months. Most days the memory of May 4th 2016 passes without a thought, but somedays I can take myself right back to that place. I can feel the actual ache in my heart, I can see the lifelessness in his eyes and feel the desperation of wanting him to just be ok. I remember the fear of not knowing if we were going to be ok after he was admitted to the psych unit, not knowing if he blamed me or would resent me. Those feelings come less and less, but are still intense when they creep in. I have learned to not let the memory overtake me and I do not give into the fear, because when that fear tries to set in I remember how far he has come, how far I have come and how far we have come as a family.

So to my favorite husband you are amazing, strong, a loving dad and husband, smart, sexy, and the best person I know. Someday I hope you believe all theses things about you. Someday I hope you see yourself through my eyes. You show me love even when I don’t feel as though I deserve it, you make me feel beautiful when I’m at my worst, you understand our Love Bug better than I can ever have hoped for, how lucky is she to have a dad who not only understands her beautiful brain but also is open enough to try to help her understand it. Look how far we have come. The bad times have made us grow just as much as the good. I am learning to embrace the storms because calm will come and with that there will be more growth. Thank you for you continuous fight everyday to stay with your little family, we not only need you but we want you. It’s hard to put into words the love I continue to have for you, but I will keep trying. I am so grateful to keep getting to do this crazy life with you, so when you feel like you can’t fight anymore, you give that shit to me for awhile, rest and when you are ready I will give it back so you can face it and leave it behind. I love you and I thank you for the growth of the last 6 years.

Mental illness comes in waves, and all kinds of waves big, small, straight on, sideways and sometimes a drowning wave you feel like you will never escape. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in my own house, like one giant wave of mental illness just engulfs us and gives us little glimmers of breath before pulling us under again. Some just knock you completely on your ass with no warning, which thankfully for us has not been often. Other times it’s like steadily treading water. And then there are the glorious times when you feel like you are sitting on the beach in the warmth of the sun where the waves can’t reach you. What I’m learning the longer we do this, is that each set of waves comes with it’s own set of learning experiences. The waves are never identical to the previous ones, so if I can learn to embrace the lesson with each wave instead of letting it drown me, then maybe we can keep living with the mental illness, while teaching my tiny human how to stay on top of the waves as we go.

Currently I feel like I’m riding the giant one that gives me just enough breath to survive, but not much breath left over for living. I know that me and my beautiful family will get on top of this wave and ride it out like we do the rest of them, together. Do I let myself stay down sometimes, of course, I’m human and I get defeated and worn down, but do I remember that I have a whole lot of love, support and tools to get us through, so far yes. I am so, so lucky to have a husband who talks about his mental health and who fights and is in the current mind set of knowing when maybe he needs to switch what he is doing to slow the racing thoughts. Which in turn teaches T that mental health should be talked about and that she has tools, love and support from all aspects of her life. So even though it feels like so much right now, I know that we will find our way to the beach where that wave will let us live and breathe, at least for awhile until the next wave comes. But wave after wave, we will never stop fighting mental illness and the stigma attached.