01/05/2026
Sobering read
Any ideas?
It has been a month since I first spoke publicly about reactive attachment disorder.
It has also been a month since I shared that our oldest child was incarcerated.
That moment was not the beginning of our story. It was the moment years of advocacy, fear, exhaustion, and unanswered pleas became visible to people outside our family.
Our oldest child was adopted from foster care at age five after experiencing severe abuse and neglect in early childhood. From the moment they became part of our family, we have been actively fighting for their mental health. Therapy. Evaluations. Services. Specialists. Crisis calls. Documentation. Advocacy. We have spent nearly their entire childhood asking for help, escalating concerns, and pushing for care that matched the level of trauma they carried.
What happened was not the result of inaction. It was the result of a system that could not provide the level of care needed for a child with this degree of early trauma.
Despite years of effort, repeated interventions, and constant advocacy, the mental health system remained fragmented and under resourced. As our child moved closer to adulthood, those gaps widened. When behaviors escalated to a point of danger, there were still no appropriate placements, no beds, and no coordinated response available. In that moment, the only system left that could intervene was the criminal legal system.
That is how this happens. Not suddenly. Not because families stop trying. But because they never stop trying in a system that was never built to hold kids like this.
When I shared that reality, millions of you read what I wrote. I did not share because I wanted attention. I shared because silence was not helping anyone, and because too many families are being pushed into the same corner without language to explain what is happening to them.
In the weeks that followed, I have been able to educate a lot of people about reactive attachment disorder. I have answered questions. I have corrected assumptions. I have tried to bring clarity to something that is deeply misunderstood, even within mental health spaces.
Reactive attachment disorder is not bad behavior.
It is not poor parenting.
It is not a phase someone grows out of.
Reactive attachment disorder develops when a child experiences severe, chronic neglect, abuse, or instability during the earliest years of life, when the brain is forming its understanding of safety, trust, and attachment. When a child’s basic needs are not consistently met, the brain adapts to survive. Attachment does not feel safe. Care does not feel reliable. Control becomes protection.
This is not a disorder of love or effort. It is a trauma based injury to the developing brain.
Children with reactive attachment disorder often struggle to form healthy bonds with caregivers. They may push away the very people trying to help them. They may lie, steal, manipulate, or engage in risky or dangerous behaviors. Not because they want chaos, but because chaos feels familiar. Calm, consistency, and stability can feel threatening because they are unfamiliar.
Intelligence can remain intact, which makes this disorder harder to recognize and easier for outsiders to dismiss. On the surface, things can look fine. Underneath, the nervous system is constantly scanning for danger.
Reactive attachment disorder is disproportionately common among children who have experienced the foster care system. Early abuse. Chronic neglect. Multiple placements. Broken attachments. Institutional care. Each disruption compounds the injury. Even when a child is adopted into a safe and loving home, the nervous system does not simply reset. Love alone cannot undo early developmental trauma.
This is where many adoptive and foster families are caught off guard.
Parents are often told that time, stability, and love will heal everything. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do not. And when they do not, families are left navigating behaviors and risks that few people understand, often without adequate professional support. Too often, parents are blamed instead of helped.
Over the last month, I have received thousands of comments. Some deeply encouraging. Some devastatingly mean. What has become painfully clear is how little people understand reactive attachment disorder and how quickly they reach for judgment when something does not fit their preconceived ideas of family, parenting, or mental illness.
At the same time, I have heard from hundreds, maybe thousands, of parents raising children with reactive attachment disorder. Many adopted. Many fostered. Many exhausted. So many of them have been dismissed or gaslit by systems, professionals, and even friends when they tried to speak honestly about what life is actually like.
I have also heard from families all across Oregon who are living inside a broken mental health system. The lack of services. The lack of beds. The lack of coordination between agencies. Children falling through gaps so wide they lose years of their lives. My heart breaks every time I read another story that sounds just like ours.
The only reason this conversation gained traction is because I already had a platform. I am very aware of that. I have spent the last four years building trust here by showing up consistently and telling the truth about mental health, the outdoors, and life as it actually is. This is the first time I have spoken publicly about reactive attachment disorder, but if you have been following me for a while, you have been walking this road with me the entire time.
To those of you who defended me and my family in the comments when people did not understand or chose not to understand, thank you. The love and support has mattered more than you know.
Both of our oldest children were adopted from foster care after being abused and neglected in every possible way. We brought them into our family believing love, safety, and consistency would give them a real chance. For some children, it does. For others, the trauma runs deeper than most people are prepared to acknowledge.
And as hard as it is to say, what happened with our oldest is now happening with our middle child as well, who is a full biological sibling and also lives with severe reactive attachment disorder. This is not a one time story. This is a pattern that plays out in families everywhere, inside systems that are not built to hold this level of complexity.
Over the last month, I have been asked to do interviews with a few publications. There have also been early conversations about speaking at conferences focused on mental health and adoption. I do not know where any of that will lead.
What I do know is this.
My story is not unique. It belongs to so many families who have been living this quietly for years. The only difference this time is that people were listening.
I am going to continue advocating for better mental health services.
I am going to continue educating people about reactive attachment disorder.
I am going to continue encouraging people to take care of their mental health in whatever ways they can.
In the coming weeks and months, I will also be leaning more into fitness, outdoor content, and educational hiking material, especially on YouTube. That space has always been part of how I survive and stay grounded. Mental health advocacy does not disappear when I step onto a trail. It comes with me.
I do not know exactly where this path leads.
But I do know I am not done.
And if you are walking a similar road, or if you want to learn, listen, or stand with families living this reality, I hope you will walk with me.
We can do better.
And we have to.
