Eighteenth of January last year. Worst day of my life. Woke up in the middle of the night to find my daughter's bedroom empty. She'd run away all the way to another city. The police found her the next day. There'd been a shredded suicide note on her floor. Over the next few months we slowly found out that she'd been self-harming, leading to her hospitalization. In the end, it turned out that she's got ADHD that hit her particularly hard.

I'm still blaming myself a lot. Like you, I gave my child space because I didn't want to pry and push. Thing is, I was here all the time and it went wrong, anyhow. There are days when I feel like a hollow shell of my former self that just keeps putting one foot in front of the other. What pulls me back is that my kid still loves me and needs me. It's good to remind myself that her life is more than the one event that I'm still caught up on, but god, it's hard sometimes.

A friend of mine refers to having children as "walking around with your heart outside your body". I don't know how you got through this, but I'm glad you did, because I like you a great lot. Your husband and kids sound like wonderful people, too.