I recognized the mugshot of a man who confessed to seriously harming his young son yesterday. Unfortunately, It wasn’t the mugshot or the news headline that shocked me. It was the recognition. It’s a different thing knowing something terrible exists in the world and knowing something terrible exists in your world.

The even more shocking part was that my reaction was not anger. It wasn’t hatred or “how could you?” or “humanity is so terrible.” Those are my go-tos when I see a random mugshot from a random news source with a similar headline. It’s easy to demonize someone or something you don’t know. It’s a slight relief to see the tragedy is something that happens to them over there. In this case, my reaction was “it can’t be,” “he is so kind,” “what must have broken him to lead to this kind of heartbreak?” I suppose the thought crossed my mind: “what if that was us?”

Let me explain…

While I don’t know this person well, I met him during a time when my own child was struggling hard with a mental and behavioral health crisis. If you have ever experienced this kind of crisis in your own family, you’ll understand that when one member of a family unit is deeply not ok, that whole family spirals into dysfunction. This is the space we were living in when I had my experience with this person I recognized in the mugshot. We were desperately searching for healthy avenues for our child to work through his behavioral health challenges, and we found ourselves in an extracurricular this man led.

I have always prided myself on being a good judge of character. I get along with most people, and when I just can’t, there usually turns out to be a good reason for it. And this person, he was a good one. He was strong but kind, structured yet compassionate. When he saw my son starting to come undone during class, he would go to him and guide him through the struggle rather than let him quit. When I apologized for the behavior, for the disruption he would so often cause, for his many on-display imperfections, the teacher looked me in the eye and assured me it’s a part of the process. The memory of that time in our lives, which was exactly two years ago but feels like so much longer, still brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. Because it was so hard, and this man was so kind.

The class didn’t last long for our son. Covid hit, classes went remote, and another Zoom link for the 4-year old, not-yet-diagnosed ADHD in-crisis kiddo was not part of the solution to help him do better. I didn’t know at the time that we had another year and a half of active and painful struggle ahead to get that child stabilized. I didn’t know that our lives as a family and the lives of everyone in the world would spiral into a long, winding road of isolation and deep, lasting change and so much fear and challenge.

Mercifully, I didn’t know that my son wouldn’t be the only family member in mental and behavioral health crisis during that time, but he wasn’t — the slough of diagnoses, the smorgasbord of therapies, the around the world tour of pharmaceuticals, the ebb and flow of mental health in our household, the wait lists for support, the fear and desperation and darkness, the fights with insurance about medical versus behavioral health coverage, and, my god, the endless bills. I had no idea what was coming, but I know now. I hope we never have to navigate it again, but I know we probably will. This is why I can look at someone that did something horrific in a time of crisis and wonder “what if that was us?”

When I see a story about a person I know to have been kind and capable and good, even for the tiny snapshot in time that I knew him, there’s not a cold place in my heart to demonize him and lock the horror away. I don’t know him or his family well, but I know there was love there and they were doing their best because I saw it and felt it with my own eyes. Of course, this doesn’t mean I excuse the offense. It doesn’t mean I condone the behavior. It doesn’t mean I understand the act. It means that because I have been in deep distress with my own family, I understand that people can be doing their best and struggling their hardest at the same time. My heart breaks for him and whatever drove him to this point of desperation, for his son who is fighting for his life, for his wife that is surely wondering how her family came to this point and what she might have done to stop it, for their family that will never, ever be the same no matter how the rest of the story unfolds. I desperately hope there is healing, recovery, redemption, and so much love ahead. (I wish for them what I wish for us.)

Mental health is not optional. It is not a state of have or have-not. It is not something healthy people have and ill people don’t. It is not static. It is a river — constantly moving and changing, sometimes calm and sometimes vicious, sometimes flowing perfectly but sometimes dammed up and fighting to break through, sometimes predictable and sometimes utterly wild and out of control. Be gentle always. Radiate love everywhere. Take care of yourself. Take care of your people. Be kind to everyone. Talk about what’s so hard. Take the break you need to recover. Find a professional to help you navigate what feels impossible. Ask others where they need support. You don’t know their struggle but you know yours, and that should be enough to wonder “what if.”