I Was Horrified By What My Son Did On Snapchat—But Something Unexpected Happened

My 13-year-old said, “You need to see this.”

He held up his phone and showed me a video of his oldest brother slurring into the camera from a hospital bed. This son’s T-shirt was cinched up over his shoulder to make room for the IV in his arm. His words were barely audible. At the end of the video, he broke down crying.

I wanted to cry, too. Then I wanted the earth to crack open and swallow me whole. I’d just gotten off the phone with my husband, who’d spirited our 18-year-old to the emergency room. Our son hadn’t been sleeping. Things he said made no sense. Doctors diagnosed him with psychosis , possibly drug induced. They considered him a danger to himself, and were in the process of committing him to a psychiatric hospital. While he waited, my son posted on Snapchat. By the time his