We were freed from the unjus­ti­fied shame.

Fam­i­ly to Fam­i­ly is more than an edu­ca­tion­al class. For my spouse and I, it was an unshack­ling from the pre­con­ceived notions about our child’s tra­jec­to­ry. It was an unshack­ling from the guilt that we had failed to pre­pare her for adult­hood. It gave us the free­dom to con­tin­ue our lives and cel­e­brate the young per­son we have in our lives right now.

We moved to Ken­tucky a lit­tle over a year ago to assist an aging par­ent. Our kids were all grown and the time was right. A few months in, our daugh­ter, who we believed had it all togeth­er, was fac­ing debil­i­tat­ing anx­i­ety. The deci­sion was made to bring her to live in Ken­tucky and help her the best we could.

Our focus became cen­tered on if she was tak­ing her meds as pre­scribed and see­ing her ther­a­pist. Our rela­tion­ship had revert­ed back to care­givers, just like when she was a child. A pan­icked phone call would lead to can­celed plans and an evening of cri­sis management.

The Fam­i­ly to Fam­i­ly class sur­round­ed us with oth­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances and facil­i­ta­tors who had been in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions. The com­mu­ni­ty of shared lived expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ed sup­port and evi­denced-based infor­ma­tion with­out the cold­ness of a clin­i­cal set­ting. Our
Fam­i­ly to Fam­i­ly Class became an extend­ed fam­i­ly that we know we can con­tin­ue to turn to for sup­port and understanding.

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