Kelly Burch

Parenting my daughter through toddlerhood is sometimes amazingly rewarding. Her personality is emerging and I see the conversation and friendship that will hopefully fill our lives when she says things like, “I’m really proud of you, Mommy,” or “You’re my best friend.” Other times, when she blatantly refuses to obey, I seethe.

By introducing my father’s illness as a fact during a time when his mental health had no negative effects on my life, my parents enabled me to live without stigma, which in turn empowered me to advocate for my father’s treatment when his health took a turn for the worse my freshmen year of college.

A family's day of celebration became a nation's day of mourning.

No having a community rally in support, like it is supposed to during a crisis, can make a family in mental health crisis feel shamed and stigmatized.

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I’m one of those bigger girls that confuses the medical community by being entirely healthy. My doctor body shamed me and lied to me about tests she ran.

I clearly remember the first time that I was forced to accept that something was wrong.

“How many time have I asked you….” I say in frustration, and then it hits me. The real question I should be asking is how many times I’ve uttered that phrase.

Parenting a toddler is invigorating, exhausting, dirty, and intense. But since I want my daughter to have cousins (or at least pseudo-cousins) one day, I can’t always share the truth about my tiny tyrant on social media, for fear that my friends and siblings would never reproduce. And because, sometimes, you just want to project the image that you're calm, cool, and collected.

Just like kids who kick the seat in front of them and middle-aged women who get drunk and chatty on long flights, crying babies are a fact of life.