Welcome, friend. I’m glad you’re here. If you are parenting or supporting a teenager with mental health issues, you’re in the right place. I started this community called “Evidence of Grace” a few years ago because I needed it. I hope it feels like a safe place for you too.
Evidence of Grace is a community for those walking alongside teens and young adults with mental health challenges and neurodiversity, written through the lens of hope, authenticity, and faith. It is a place where the good, the hard, and the beautiful live side by side. Where grief and gratitude exist in the same breath. Where you come to know you are not alone.
I post stories, reflections, and practical ideas about twice a month. I love it when you comment with your own.
You love someone who has struggled with mental health challenges such as eating disorders, depression, anxiety or other issues. We also talk about supporting folks who are neurodiverse (a broad category that includes learning differences, autism, ADHD, and more). You might be a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher, or a friend. You might feel weary, terrified, angry or hopeful. Or maybe all of it at once.
What you won’t find here: toxic positivity, pat answers, or advice that assumes this is simple or easy.
I’m Serena — a writer, nonprofit leader, and fierce parent advocate. I’m also a woman of faith, wife, and mom of three teens, two of whom are neurodiverse. After navigating my oldest daughter’s eating disorder, depression, and anxiety, I launched Evidence of Grace to create the community I couldn’t find when we were in the thick of it. This is a community where parents find honest conversations, practical tools, and hope for the hard days.
When I’m not writing I’m usually playing board games with my teenagers, biking through forest preserves, or making a carefully-crafted cup of tea (any tea lovers out there?). I’m also finishing a memoir called Bittersweet Journey: Nurturing My Daughter Through an Eating Disorder.
When my daughter was in the darkest months of her mental health crisis, I struggled to find communities who really understood the pain of our journey. Even with many lovely, caring friends and family around me, I didn’t know many people who had walked the same path. Sometimes it felt hard to keep sharing stories of Ellie’s decline and how terrified I felt with folks who didn’t have a kid like mine. Sometimes I felt ashamed. Sometimes I felt frustrated with well-meaning but unhelpful advice.
Writing has helped me process our journey. But I also write to make space for others at our table. As a person of faith, noticing the moments of grace in an otherwise hard journey has helped me keep going, to envision God’s presence with us even when the hard things don’t resolve easily or quickly.
No matter what you experience and whatever you feel, you are not alone. There is always room for you here. I’ll bring the tea, you bring your coffee.
“The comments you share carry a lot of honesty, and the way you hold both the joy and the strain make it easy to settle into your writing.”
“I felt so seen reading this. As a mother to a struggling neurodivergent teen daughter who has been hospitalized multiple times, I have found it so hard to cultivate self-compassion and make space to nurture myself.”
“Everything you wrote here has resonance for me, as the parent of a child who not only is on a different path, but also might not reach independence. Every day brings the joy of seeing the beautiful person she is, as well as the sadness of the path she isn’t taking.”
“Thank you for this. We’re feeling pretty discouraged and out of ideas. This helps.”
Honest Conversations About the Emotions of Parenting Struggling Teens
Interviews with Parents
Bridget’s story - Choosing Affirmation Over Control
Esther’s story - When to Get Professional Help
Cameron’s story - Something Isn’t Right With Our Daughter
Ideas to Support Neurodiverse Teens
Evidence of Grace is free because I want it to reach every parent who needs it.
Paid subscribers make that possible. As a thank you, I will send you a personal letter written for the exhausted parent, for your own use or to share with a friend who needs it.
I would love to hear from you. Drop a note in the comments, share a bit about yourself and your family, and add your Substack link if you have one. This community is built through one honest conversation at a time, and yours matters.
Grateful for your companionship on the journey,
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