200 People Said the School Was Wrong. Four Parents Had Signed Up.
A school cancelled a talk I was giving to parents about my daughter. The post about it reached a couple of hundred thousand people and two hundred of them told me the school was wrong. Four families had registered. I spent years angry at a coordinator because it was easier than being curious about everyone who stayed home, and what kept them home was never indifference.
I Wrote About Depression When Maddie Was 12. I Never Asked If She Was Okay.
In October 2012 I published my first post about depression. I'd been seeing a psychiatrist for four years and took a careful inventory of my own life every few weeks. My daughter Maddie was twelve. She appears in that post once, as evidence I was doing fine. Knowing about depression and seeing it in the person across the table are two different abilities, and I confused them.