MY MEMOIR COMING SOON:

Two Ways Out: A Memoir of Then and Now

Synopsis

I know what it’s like to be crazy.

Living with psychiatric patients and a parent with mental illness, fifteen years later, I was on the verge of losing my own mind.

I grew up in a house unlike any other: my family cared for twenty-one psychiatric patients, while my mother silently battled her own depression. As a defiant teenager, I struggled to exist in a home steeped in mental illness and toxicity. When my mother died by suicide, the fragile threads holding our family together unraveled completely, leaving me to face the aftermath alone.

Years later, I found myself a defeated, subservient careaholic, trapped in the all-too-familiar chaos. Married to a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder, his escalating violence jeopardized the safety of me and my three children. I felt alone and as the weight of it all threatened to crush me, my body fought back, rebelling against the life I was barely surviving. Debilitating panic attacks became my breaking point, forcing me to confront a cycle I swore I’d never repeat.

Faced with the impossible, I made the unthinkable choice—to leave everything behind to save myself and my children.