12/05/2025
Today was one of the hardest days of my life. It was the sentencing hearing for our oldest (who turns 18 in 3 months), and it came only a few days after the verdict. This last Tuesday they were found guilty of a violent crime, but it was a lesser offense than the original charge. We believe the reduction was a mistake because the original charge reflected the true seriousness of what happened. Most parents never imagine sitting in a courtroom hoping a judge will take their child’s actions seriously, but that has been our reality for thirteen years. We have lived inside an escalating crisis that no amount of love or effort could stop.
Even with the lesser conviction, something meaningful happened today. During sentencing the judge took everything seriously. They reviewed the entire history. Every report. Every incident. Every run. Every interaction with law enforcement. Every broken conditional release. Every professional recommendation. They listened to the clinicians who testified about our child’s diagnosis. They understood the danger our child has been living in and the danger they have created. And although the sentence is not as long as we believe is necessary, the judge still sent our child to corrections to finally give them structure and safety. It was the first time in years that anyone in the system chose action instead of dismissal.
Some background...before we adopted our oldest at age 5 they had been abused and neglected in every possible way by their biological parents. That is why they were removed from that home. We brought them in hoping to give them stability and a real chance. For 13 years we have fought for the mental healthcare and support they needed. We did everything we could. And while trauma explains so much it does not excuse the active violence or the long pattern of unsafe behavior that kept escalating in and outside our home.
For thirteen years we have tried to get help for a child who lives with severe reactive attachment disorder. Most people do not know what this disorder really is. They think it is a matter of tougher parenting or a new therapist or a better program. None of those things touch what reactive attachment disorder does to a developing brain. It is not a phase. It is not something a child grows out of with time. It is an injury to the part of the brain responsible for bonding, trust, and safety.
Reactive attachment disorder forms when a child experiences extreme neglect, abuse, or loss during the years when the brain should be learning how to attach to caregivers. Instead of learning safety the child learns survival. Instead of learning trust the child learns fear. The brain wires itself around danger. Chaos feels familiar. Stability feels threatening. Caregivers become the enemy. Harmful people become comforting. The child pushes away the people who love them and runs toward people and situations that exploit the emptiness created by early trauma. Intelligence remains intact, which means the child may excel in school while being drawn into some of the most dangerous situations imaginable.
People love to tell us that someday they will come around. Someday in their twenties or thirties they will see what we did for them. Someday they will understand. I know those words come from a place of hope, but reactive attachment disorder does not work like that for many children. We hope for reconciliation. We hope for connection. But we also know enough about this disorder and enough about our child to understand that this day may never come. Reactive attachment disorder does not guarantee healing inside adulthood. Sometimes it prevents it entirely.
When we walked out of the courtroom today, we did so with the understanding that this might have been the last time we will ever see our oldest. That truth is almost unbearable. Parenting a child with reactive attachment disorder requires loving someone who cannot accept it, who cannot feel it, who cannot process it in a traditional way. It means holding hope while also holding the grief that connection may never be possible. Today that grief became real.
I also want to speak clearly about my wife, Lindsey. She has a bachelors degree in education. She has a masters degree in education. She is one of the smartest, strongest, most capable people I have ever known. She gave up her career as a full time educator to manage the care of our oldest and our other children who have special needs. She carried the meetings, the phone calls, the safety plans, the daily crises, the emotional weight, the years of instability, and the responsibility of navigating a broken system. She has stood in the center of this storm with more strength than most people could ever imagine. And even with all of her training, all of her knowledge, and all of her dedication, she could not undo an injury formed long before our child ever came into our home. (Gosh, I love her so much)! This is why families cannot survive without real systemic support. Love is not enough. Education is not enough. Individual effort is not enough.
As a creator with a platform, I have always tried to protect our children’s privacy while still speaking the truth about the failures of our mental health system. Some people do not agree with me sharing anything. I understand their perspective, but I also respectfully disagree. If people like me stay silent, nothing changes. I do not reveal names or faces, but I will continue to talk about the systems that have failed so many children, including ours.
There were moments when speaking publicly was the only reason our child received any services at all. State senators called. Journalists called. Advocates stepped in. Agencies finally moved because there was public pressure. That is not how a state should function, yet that is what it took for our child to receive even temporary help. And even then, Oregon remains near the bottom for youth mental health care. The best programs available to us were still nowhere close to what our child needed to survive.
When a state has forty residential psychiatric beds for youth and five hundred children waiting for those beds, no one receives long term treatment. When mental health workers are traumatized, underpaid, and unsupported, they leave the field. When agencies fail to communicate, children fall into gaps so wide they lose entire years of their lives. When lawmakers sit in meeting after meeting while avoiding real investment, families collapse inside crises they cannot solve alone.
And this brings me to the Governor of Oregon, Tina Kotek. I have begged Governor Kotek repeatedly to take meaningful action before it was too late. She knew Oregon ranked near the bottom for years. She knew children like mine were falling through these cracks. She knew families were drowning. And instead of decisive action, we have seen endless committees, roundtables, summits, and conversations. None of that helps the child who is in crisis right now. None of that helps the families who are holding on by a thread. Oregon families needed real action, and they needed it years ago. The truth is simple. Oregon failed our child. Oregon failed many children. And Governor Tina Kotek has not done what the state so desperately needs her to do.
Today has been heavier than anything I can put into words. We are grateful that the judge finally saw the whole picture and made a decision that provides structure and safety. But it breaks me that it took a violent crime and video evidence for any part of this system to take our child’s condition seriously.
We are going to rest now. We need time to breathe. We need to let our bodies and our hearts catch up to thirteen years of crisis. We need space to feel the weight of the possibility that today may have been the last day we ever see our oldest.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out with compassion. Thank you to those who have stood beside us in this impossible journey. We are not looking for suggestions or treatment ideas. We have tried everything the system offers. We are simply holding space for the reality of what is, while still holding the smallest hope for what could be.
Oregon must do better. Governor Tina Kotek must do better. Our children deserved more than conversations. They deserved action. They deserved care. They deserved a system that worked.
Thank you for standing with our family.
