Congratulations on your hard won sanity Danielle. I really admire your courage to be with your daughters reality. And I know for me, that is absolutely the hardest - and the most excruciatingly exahusting, and profoundly worthwhile endeavor I will ever undertake as a parent. And I think we absolutelty deserve a standing ovation every time we can do it. And of course, so often these heroic acts are invisible and pass by unacknowledged.

The next time I do it, I'm going to image a crowd of loving and supportive parents in the bleachers standing and cheering for me. I think we need that.

And to this point you're naming here - I want to add can't. I do think there is a can't AND a won't AND a don't want to - that feels really true here. Like it feels like the world will actually come unglued if this thing is true, and like it actually might. This unravelling really is terrifying, for real and not real reasons.

Somehow that helps me be with all of the confusing complexity of this...

Brava to you. Thank you for this piece.