Drop-Off Day — The Hardest Day of Our Lives

This is not a story. This is not an example. This is real. It’s happening right now.

Let me start with this: Drop-off day was the single worst day of our lives.

We thought we were ready. We prepared. We role-played. We anticipated problems. We tried to account for every scenario we could imagine.

And honestly, when we pulled in, everything looked great. The building, the grounds — even the people. We saw others around, mostly in their twenties or thirties, walking, talking, laughing. It looked like a place that could work. More than that — it felt like the right place. The staff we met were thoughtful, present. Liz and I both felt it. This is where Willy needed to be.

Now, this is where Liz and I might differ a bit. While we’re 100% aligned on what Willy needs, we don’t always see eye to eye on the best way to get there. And that, too, is probably very common. Everyone’s trying their best. Everyone’s carrying something. We’re all in this together.

And then — here comes the trigger.

This is where OCD, as a disease, takes hold. It controls. It seizes on the moment you are most vulnerable and strikes at your worst fears. This is the mutual enemy — OCD. And if you want to understand how it works, you can see it firsthand here. It doesn’t care how much you’ve prepared. It doesn’t care how perfect everything else might be. It finds the thing. The one thing.

In Willy’s case, that “thing” was the roommate situation. Without going into detail (because this isn’t about the other person), imagine your biggest fear — something deeply personal, irrational but real to you — being placed right in front of you, and then being told: this is your new normal.

That’s what happened.

Willy is, in many ways, a deeply rational person. That’s actually part of the challenge. Hysterical you can’t reason with — but rational? Rational gives you the illusion of a controlled exit. So yes, the rational side of Willy knows this is where he should be. But that same rational side is also working overtime to find a way out.

That doesn’t make the trigger less real. The roommate setup is a serious stumbling block. But honestly, if it hadn’t been this, the fear is… it would’ve been something else.

That’s OCD. That’s what we’re fighting.

We’ll keep you posted.

—Larry & Liz