In June of 1995, I had my first exposure to a mental health ward.  When I was 23 years old, I ended up committing myself to a locked unit, one year after I experienced the traumatic loss of a child I had carried for 8 ½ months. I naively took a week’s vacation from work to admit myself, with the belief that I would receive intensive counseling and get “over it.” I was at a point where I could not sit still. I rearranged the furniture in my apartment on an almost daily basis.

For someone who feels things so deeply, whether love, pain, anguish, disgust, anger or hatred, there is nothing more unnatural than feeling numb.  As a teenager, I can remember driving in a friend’s car, listening to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” and today, I can’t even begin to imagine such a thing.  Less than one week ago, I wrote the poem below. My emotions were beyond intense, but yet, I still felt alive. Read my words. Feel my pain and anger. If I tried to write that

Yesterday, after reading my first post, my lifelong best friend called me and began to cry because she said that she felt awful that I was feeling the way I did. Interestingly, my first reaction was to tell her to stop and beg her not to cry. I was not writing to make people cry. I created this blog to keep me from crying. But then I began to think about my reaction. Who am I to tell someone not to cry if they feel sad or sorry for me or anyone for that matter? Crying is a

Sitting here at the age of 43, mother to three beautiful children, and married to a supportive and loving husband who’s been my best friend for the past 16 years, I never in a million years could have fathomed that I would be so lost and debilitated by such profound sadness, hatred and anger. Every day, I wake overwhelmed, confronted with two choices, either get up and get dressed and act like a mom and wife, or disappear to a place no one would ever find me. Disappearing see