“My mom and I have always been close. But we had to learn how...

“My mom and I have always been close. But we had to learn how to communicate again after my dad died. It took therapy. We’d stopped being honest with each other. My dad’s illness had been so stressful that we didn’t want to create any additional worries. So we tried to protect each other. Neither of us would admit if we were having a bad day. Or if we were feeling depressed. The answer to everything was always: ‘I’m fine.’ But we weren’t fine. And it was obvious. So we worried about each other all the time. It caused a lot of stress and arguments. We had to relearn how to admit when we were having a bad day. Because you can never truly know if someone’s ‘fine’ unless you trust them to tell you when something’s wrong.“