Sanity, by definition, is considered an either-or scenario—we are rational (sane) or not (insane). One is viewed as good (sane), while the other, labeled with a severe mental-health issue, is not (insane). But most of us aren’t either-or.
Most of the US population with mental illnesses, some 25 percent, struggle with something mild, technically speaking, including ADHD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. But these so-called mild diagnoses, which many of us face, can and usually do significantly impact a person and those they live and work with, including family and friends. Divorce rates spike among sufferers, particularly among those battling addiction or depression, as do job changes and persistent feelings of dissatisfaction.
That’s how it was for me, battling most maladies on this list over the course of my life until I finally succumbed, breaking down in a midlife crisis and losing it all—family, career, and the little self-esteem I had left.
I considered giving up more than once. But something unusual, if not remarkable, happened as I slipped from mild mental illnesses amid that dreadful crisis into an experience that can only be categorized as a severe mental-health issue. I lost a sense of reality for a time and some might question whether I have ever regained it completely. But what happened in that experience, and the twelve-plus years since, changed my life, sending me in pursuit of purpose and joy—a quest that helped me to better manage and recover from the mental-health issues I’ve faced, unlocking the work and the rewards I’d desperately wanted and chased in all the wrong places for too many years until I crashed in middle age, losing it all. That’s why my memoir, Dear William, about individual and family addiction, was only the prequel to my story. Arresting behavior is only the first step, after all. Recovery from addiction, and all mental illnesses, requires us to dig in to the root of the problem, and it’s never the drink or the drug. For me, that journey began in a fit of madness, when loved ones questioned if I’d finally lost it. Frankly, I wondered the very same thing. But losing it, I learned, is sometimes the start of finding it.
This book is that story.