Laura Love is both haunted and motivated by the decision to take her 13-year-old son Sam Aden to an emergency room after he shared feelings of despair in early 2022.
“We had no idea what to expect once we got there, we just knew that when your kid is experiencing a mental health crisis you take them to the ER,” Love said. “What we found was an environment that wasn’t hope-based, it was based in fear.”
Sam, who was defined by his kindness for others, was separated from his parents on and off for nine hours while he underwent evaluation. For safety reasons he was stripped of all his personal belongings and monitored in a secure holding room…