From the library of The Heather Experience
What Comes Home
Why they say they're good, and what to do when they say it
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"Ask me again, mom. When I tell you I'm good, I need you to ask me again. It might take a lot of times but eventually I'll know I'm safe enough to tell you that I'm not."
—My son, at age 16
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"Sometimes when I was acting different, I wish someone would've asked how I was doing without asking about basketball. I didn't need another conversation about the game. I just needed someone to notice me."
—Male, Age 17,
The Unseen Athlete Interviews
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"When I was going through a difficult time, I didn't need anyone to fix it. I just wanted someone to seriously check on me. No phones. No laughing. Just a real conversation where I could finally let everything out."
Male, age 19,
The Unseen Athlete Interviews
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"I loved being an athlete, but I wanted to be more than that to my parents. For them to just see me as more than my statistics or how I played would've been freeing. I would pray that they would read my mind that I was in pain and didn't know how to say it."
-male, age 20,
The Unseen Athlete Interviews
They just never said it to each other.
I spent six years in the rooms your kid walks into without you. Locker rooms. Closed practices. Behind the bench.
Then I asked three hundred people the same questions, separately. The coaches, the families, the athletes. They all said the same thing…
PREORDER · THE FIRST FAMILIES
Book and narrated audio
Delivered September 1, 2026