Love you guys!! Ashley is amazing!!

Brooke, you’re all strong, determined, wise women. We’re praying for you each, for strength, mercy and more wisdom from above. This was honest and touching and I hope you’re also receiving comfort from sharing it. I love you, near or far.

Brooke as I sit and read this I have tears in my eyes. I too have been dealing with something similar with my daughter. She suffers from panic attacks from change, from life. The things that make us mad or cuss that go wrong in a day, make my 18 year old hyperventilate and fight to breathe. Its mental illness. I hate those words. Mental what is that? Something our world has such a stigma about. Yet people like your sister and my daughter exist in that world unseen most of the time. My daughter was accepted at Clemson I move her Friday. Since her graduation in May it has been a struggle at best. Not because she doesnt want to go, not because this isnt the dream of a lifetime to be accepted into the pre-vet program but the change. The struggle she knows being so far away without me, without people that know her struggles will be there to lift her back up. She too is on meds which help most days. Mental illness is inviseable it is something most cant see so they dont accept it. Try telling that to housing as you struggle to get your daughter in an enviroment she can handle. She has a service dog that can detect her oncoming panic attacks. She sees a counselor and a physician who both have written letters to the college telling them this dog is so needed. Not asking for special treatment, not asking for the dog to be allowed everywhere on campus just at her dorm so something is familiar for her at night to calm her. So explain to me why the one lady in housing says to me, “Do you know what all I have to do to get this dog approved?” (its not the first service dog at the school mind you) As I am sobbing on the other end I respond to her, “No ma’am I don’t.” Does she know what i am dealing with, a kid who is screaming she would be better off dead so no one would have to accept what she goes through, a kid who tells me as she is fighting to breathe she is scared out of her mind and can’t see she isn’t the only one, a kid who says she is so tired of taking medications just to survive life. We can see cancer, we can see a disease, no one sees mental illness unless that person is so far out in left field. This lady in housing works with disability. I sure hope she didn’t treat another parent the way she treated me and I sure hope she doesn’t act like this when she meets with my daughter or there will be hell to pay from her momma. I follow this site (http://ok2talk.org/) and I read the stories there is a video too and the one boy who says I just want to fit in. Yes that’s my daughter. Just once she would like to be known as who she is not what she has. Maybe someday, maybe one day she will feel as though she already does. My hope is that she can look in the mirror everyday and be as proud of herself as I am. I mean come on its not everyday a kid like her gets into the vet program at Clemson with her academics. She is wonderful to me and always will be.

Thank you Brooke for being real and talking about your sister. It helps us know that its ok to talk about it, and to know that yes my daughter is not alone.

I am so sorry that your daughter is going through this Shelly and that the housing lady treated you the way she did. I wish I could say that that was a rare case but just like you said before, Mental Illness is an “INVISIBLE” disease. People don’t understand it. People are afraid of it. It breaks my heart. You hear a person has cancer and immediately you feel so bad for the person & ask if there is anything you can do. You hear a person is BiPolor or Schizophrenic and you run the other away. That stigma needs to change.

Thank you. I am so proud of her. She allows her story to be shared and is not afraid of what people will think or say…because she wants to help others.

Love you netter!

Thank you Dee. She really is.