Letting myself be seen.

There is a phrase in the subtitle of my book that I fought for. Mind, body, and right to be seen. I chose those words for my children. I did not understand, until the last couple of weeks, how much I needed them for myself too.

For most of my life, I was a person who managed things quietly. I spent years as a biotech and pharma executive, and I will not pretend I held it together in every meeting. I did not. What I did do was stay quiet for a long time. If you had met me at work in those early years, you would have had no idea what we were living with at home. I was seen, but only the parts I chose to let you see.

Then, slowly, that changed. I started to open up. First to a few individuals I trusted. Then to small groups. And eventually to people who came up to me, or reached out, because they were walking through something similar and wanted help or a little insight. Every time I said more of the truth out loud, it got a little less frightening to be known.

Writing this book meant choosing the opposite of quiet. It meant telling the truth about two separate fights: the years I spent battling for my children's mental health, and, as its own distinct story, my son Daniel's emergence as a transgender young man. Two different journeys. For a long time I almost kept both of them private. And then I came back to the question that lives underneath everything I do. If not me, then who.

So I let myself be seen.

Then came launch week. I shared my story out loud three separate times, in three different rooms, in front of very different audiences. People I love were there. People I had never met were there. My voice held, even when I expected it to break. For the first time, I was seen fully, on purpose, because I chose it. Not seen for the wrong reasons, the way you feel exposed when your child is melting down in a public place and strangers stare. Seen for the true reasons. For the whole story, not the edited one.

Some of the people in my corner had been there from the very beginning. A handful of people close to me knew about this book long before there was a finished copy to hold. They watched me write it, wrestle with it, and grow through it. They knew what it cost and what it meant. And when the book finally arrived, they showed up. There is something about being witnessed over time, by the people who know you best, that I will not take for granted.

Here is what launch week taught me. Being seen is the very thing I had been trying to give my children all along. The right to be known fully, without shrinking, without editing out the hard parts. I had spent years asking the world to truly see them. I had not yet let it see me. And you cannot ask other people to be brave about who they are while you stay safely hidden.

It is terrifying to be seen. It is also the most freeing thing I have ever done. The rooms did not fall apart when I told the truth. Neither did I.

💚 Jenn