08/02/2026
Good morning guys, I wanted to share this, I feel so rubbish sometimes about all my daughter went through - hindsight is amazing at that isn’t it.
For anyone early on in this, listen to that voice in your head telling you this isn’t right.
A piece for my eldest daughter who is now much happier but this comes from the days of being dragged through systems that didn’t show an ounce of empathy or compassion.
I wish I hadn’t listened
to people who knew you
for less than an hour.
People who met you once, on your worst day,
under fluorescent lights,
with expectations already written
before you even spoke.
They watched the surface-
the overwhelm, the shutdown,
the fight to stay upright in a room
that wasn’t built for you
and they thought that was the whole story.
They didn’t see the way you light up
when you feel safe.
They didn’t know your laugh,
your patterns, your brilliance in the quiet moments.
They didn’t know you at all.
And still, they decided.
They used checklists instead of curiosity,
time limits instead of trust.
They confused distress for defiance,
survival for behaviour, and called it expertise.
I wish I hadn’t believed that an hour with a clipboard meant more than years of loving you.
I wish I hadn’t doubted my own instincts
because someone spoke louder,
or sounded certain,
or wore the right badge.
I wish I’d known then
what I know now
that no one can understand a child
by observing them briefly in a place where they feel unsafe.
I am sorry that decisions were made about you
by people who never stayed long enough
to see who you really are.
Sorry that their words carried weight
they never should have held.
But listen to me now.
I see you.
I see the full version not the one-hour snapshot, not the crisis version,
not the misunderstood child.
I see you.
And I promise this
no one who barely knows you gets to decide your future again.
No one who hasn’t sat with you, learned your language, earned your trust,
gets to define your needs.
From here on, your voice matters.
Our knowing matters.
Together, we stand stronger than assumptions,
louder than labels, done with letting strangers
rewrite our truth.
I wish I could go back in time and undo what’s been done.
Michaela 🫂🩷
