Just Keeping My Head Above Water

Some days, it feels like you’re just treading water — fighting to keep your head above the surface — while the waves just keep coming, one after another, trying to pull you under.

For three long, soul-crushing years, I fought for my son.

Three years of courtrooms, accusations, and endless paperwork.

Three years of being silenced while others spoke lies on my behalf.

My son was taken from me when he was six. He came back to me when he was nine.

Those aren’t just numbers — they’re a lifetime.

Those are the years a child learns to trust, to laugh, to feel safe.

And while he was gone, he was led to believe that I had abandoned him. Imagine that. Imagine your child believing that you disappeared — not because you didn’t care, but because the system decided you didn’t matter.

When I finally got him back — on February 4th of this year — it wasn’t a storybook reunion. There were no balloons, no celebration, no happy tears of closure. He came back with nothing. Not his clothes. Not his toys. Not even a photograph.

The private education I had worked so hard to provide for him? Gone. He’d been shuffled from one classroom to another, passed along whether he was learning or not.

And the boy who came back to me wasn’t the same.

He was angry. Withdrawn. Exhausted from fighting battles no child should ever fight.

He’s been diagnosed with toxic stress syndrome — his little body stuck in fight-or-flight mode for three straight years. Now, he doesn’t know how to rest, how to trust, how to just be a kid again.

Every day is a struggle. Every morning feels like starting over.

I lost everything in that fight. My business, my home, my car, my savings — all gone.

And rebuilding? It’s like trying to climb a mountain with your hands tied. Between therapy appointments, school meetings, and the constant effort to help my son heal, there’s little time left to rebuild a life from ashes.

This morning was a perfect example.

We woke up late. He didn’t want to get ready for school — he just wanted to play with his dinosaurs. I tried to stay calm, but he refused to brush his teeth. One small thing spiraled into a full-blown meltdown.

We finally made it out the door, on our bikes, because car insurance is a luxury I can’t afford right now. And halfway there, I realized our dog — my one source of comfort on the hardest nights — had slipped out and followed us to school.

On my ride back home, a neighbor stopped me, finger pointed, voice sharp. “You need to keep that dog on a leash,” they said, already dialing their phone. Moments later: “I’ve called the SPCA.”

I just stood there. On the side of the road, sweat mixing with tears, holding my bike with one hand and the leash of my shaking dog in the other.

And in that moment, I felt everything — the years of fighting, the losses, the exhaustion, the heartbreak — crash down all at once.

Sometimes, it feels like the whole world is ready to punish you for trying to survive.

Like you can’t make a single mistake without the universe deciding to pile one more weight onto your shoulders.

But I looked at my son later that night — asleep, finally at peace — and I reminded myself why I keep fighting. Because this isn’t just about one morning gone wrong.

This is about a system that failed us. About a mother and a child trying to heal after years of injustice. About a fight that countless parents across this country are quietly fighting every single day.

And even when it feels like I’m drowning, I remind myself — we made it through.

We’re still here.

We’re still fighting.

I share this not for sympathy, but for solidarity.

There are thousands of parents like me — silenced, misunderstood, and labeled — just trying to protect their children in a system that too often forgets who it’s meant to serve.

If you’re one of them, this is for you.

You’re not alone. You’re not crazy. You’re not weak. You’re surviving a storm designed to break you. And every day you wake up and keep trying — that’s not failure. That’s victory.

Because the truth is: we don’t need to be perfect to be worthy of peace.

We just need to keep swimming.

Even if all we can do today is keep our heads above water.

This is why I created Better Ways 2 Better Days — to help families like mine heal, rebuild, and rise.

Because the system may have broken us, but it doesn’t get to define us.

We do.