“It is relatively early on a summer evening, just after sunset. From my bed, I notice a shadow of a spindly branch dancing across the corner of the bedroom wall. I get up and close the curtains tightly to make it disappear, careful not to step on my daughter, who’s camped on my bedroom floor, lying stiffly under the weighted anxiety blanket I’d made her. I don’t mind the shadow, but I know it will make it impossible for her to fall asleep. This is the fourth night in a row she’s spent here.”
Read the entire essay about my teen daughter’s anxiety and how I think I caused it at New York Magazine’s The Cut/Science of Us (click here).