It Was the Best Thing My Parents Did for Me

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There’s a lot of talk about, “Let kids be kids, don’t let them worry about anything.” Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but a lot of kids didn’t spend time getting to just be a kid, and just as many had to start dealing with mental health issues at an incredibly young age. For me, it was when I turned seven years old.

When my great-grandma passed away — about a year before my therapy journey started — it was a major shock for me. I didn’t understand what death was. Heck, I didn’t even hear the word until my parents sat me down on the stairway. I remember so clearly that my mother was at my side, holding my hand, and my father was standing over us. Both of their eyes on me, they told me my great-grandmother, or rather my “Big Gum,” as I affectionately called her, had died.

I asked them, “What does that mean?”

They looked at each other, saying, “It means Big Gum went to sleep, and it’s okay. It’s a peaceful sleep, but we won’t be able to see her for a very long time.”

Now, as a child, all I had were nightmares, or just jet blackness. So, in my little brain, I thought to myself, “Death is bad, death is the enemy, death took away someone I love.” And it terrified me.

I don’t remember much about that day, but I do remember not long afterward, we suddenly had to move out of our house and in with my grandmother. Everything was changing, and I didn’t know why.

Again, I don’t remember the exact day it started, but I remember my thoughts were filled with new thoughts, new images, and things I also didn’t understand. I’d be walking down the stairs, when all of a sudden, my brain would tell me, “You have to step on the last stair five times or your mommy will die.”

I did what it said, every single time. “Make a high-pitched squeak sound or your daddy will die,” “If you finish eating the brownie, you’ll die,” and “If you cry, everyone you love will die.”

It was all day, every day, for months. I didn’t know peace, all I knew was to count every bite I took, to turn on and off the lights for a certain number of times, so no one would die. I felt like I controlled fate, and if I made one misstep, it was all my fault.

After weeks of making random noises and crying every day, saying, “The bad thoughts won’t stop,” my parents had to think of options. At the time, they thought I had Tourette’s syndrome, but even their understanding of that was hazy.

It was only 2005, and to be fair, mental health and therapy weren’t the big topics they are today. You had to whisper about therapists in polite conversation, avoid anyone thinking you’re a loon. But my parents didn’t care, they just wanted to see me stop crying, to be okay again.

I remember they told me I was going to talk to a nice woman about what I was feeling, and that I could tell her everything that was going on in my head.

“But won’t she think I’m bad?” I asked my mom.

She responded, telling me, “Of course not, honey. She’s here to help you battle your thoughts!”

On a random Thursday, my parents drove me to the other side of town, and we parked in front of a strip mall. There were two glass doors towards the end, by a Dunkin’ Donuts. The glass door on the left was for a Bowling Alley, and the one on the right was for a therapist. I walked up a long, long flight of stairs before we reached the top. My parents led me to a door with a woman’s name: “Marguerite.”

They opened the door for me, and we were greeted with a blue couch and an array of colorful blocks next to it. I immediately went to the blocks, playing with them to create a mini-skyscraper scene, until a woman came out of a second door.

She was an older woman, wearing a berry-colored blazer and a silk handkerchief around her neck. She kneeled at me, smiling and asking if I’d like to speak with her, so that I could talk about anything I wanted.

I remember that when the door closed, she asked me so many questions. And I only had one for her: If I could play with the dolls in her room. She obviously said yes, and before I knew it, it was time to leave. She had a quick word with my parents, and then we were back in the car. On the drive home, my parents asked what I thought about Marguerite, and I was honest: “She’s a super nice old lady.” (Eloquence was not my strong suit at seven years old, clearly.) But they were excited, and told me I was able to see her every week, and I get to play with her dolls and talk about everything going on in my head.

A few weeks went by before Marguerite asked me a question that changed the trajectory of my mental health journey. She sat me down on the couch, sitting next to me as she asked, “Delilah, do you know what OCD is?”

Nope, no idea. It sounded menacing, though, but I desperately wanted to know more. For those who may not know, OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, is a mental health condition where someone is put in a cycle of intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that compel one to perform repetitive tasks or rituals (compulsions) to feel momentary relief.

When she laid it out like that, it all clicked; that’s what I had! All of the “bad thoughts” were from this. Finding out about it was a mix of relief and fear. I was relieved that there was a reason, an answer to what was happening in my brain, but the fear was still there, and it multiplied into so many questions: “Does that mean I’m a freak? How do I make the bad thoughts stop? What if they get stronger? Will I be like this forever?”

After Marguerite told me, I remember her telling my parents the same thing, that I have OCD. She recommended some practices we can try at home, along with some books. My parents read every single one, first starting with What to Do When You Worry Too Much and then, a couple of years later, What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming OCD; both of which became my Bible. My parents worked hard to emulate what to do in the books, first by giving my “bad thoughts” a name. My mom said if we gave it a silly name, it wouldn’t be as scary. We landed on “Wigglesworth,” which quickly became a covert code word for when I had a bad day.

When I had the bad days, which were more often than many may have thought, my parents would remind me of another one of those tricks: If my anxiety and intrusive thoughts are a tomato plant, you need to make sure it doesn’t grow. They’d give me new activities, distract me in different ways, or even just teach me more about it.

I wish I could tell you I have defeated the dragon in my mind, but that wasn’t the case. Something else happened instead. I went to Marguerite for years until we moved states, but then I started bouncing to different therapists throughout my teen years. There were breaks in between, sometimes lasting a year, but I’d always come back. In college, I found another therapist, one I went to every week, and another one in my 20s that I’ve been seeing for three years now.

You may think, “Why are you still in therapy after 20 years?!” Well, as I’ve grown up, the issues in my life have changed. In high school, it was depression and body image. In college, it was dealing with toxic relationships and crippling anxiety. Today, it’s about learning to process past trauma. Like life, the problems change. But the great thing about being in therapy all these years is that I’m not afraid. I’m not scared of my own brain or being vulnerable with people. The years of therapy have shown that there is power in being so open when you need help.

When I was a child, I realized that my mental health conditions were always going to be there. I made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t let it consume me. Now, I’m not saying it’s all rainbows and easy days; I still get bad days. But being in therapy for so long destigmatized it all to me, and it made me less afraid to be open about my story. Being open so young and having parents who encouraged me to talk about it made me better off when my mental health changed. It’s gone up, gone down, but everything I’ve learned has helped me.

The mental health conversation in 2025 is light-years ahead of what it was in 2005. Therapy has gone virtual with online platforms like BetterHelp and is more popular than ever, especially among young people. Unfortunately, the problems have evolved, too. Teens today have a loneliness epidemic, social media addictions, the terrifying fear of the rise of AI, and more; and it can be a lot.

But to parents today, here’s a word of advice from someone who’s been in therapy throughout it all: Don’t frame it as “They’re going to fix you.” Frame therapy as a place where your child can feel safe opening up about anything and everything. And parents: Educate yourselves, too. A mental health journey, especially for someone so young, can feel so lonely. Read the books, find ways to help, and know that no one is ever alone.