Crazy

Reclaiming Life from the Shadow of Traumatic Memory

by Lyn Barrett

Take a peek from Chapter 1: When the Bubble Burst…

It was somewhere between my thirty-fourth and thirty-ninth year when I began to go crazy. It’s hard to remember the exact date. Things moved from great to awful in small increments. My sense of being real to becoming unreal came in wisps and snatches. My love for my children consumed me until one day I lost it. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. I always thought I was sane until I wasn’t, and then I was crazy. Or at least I thought I was.

In the beginning, though, we were happy. My husband, John, our three children, and I had just moved into our new home in a small suburban Philadelphia town, and everyone was excited to be closer to our extended family. The house was three stories high with a yellow-brick facade and an oversized, fenced-in backyard. I loved the curly, twisty branches of the Japanese red maple tree that framed the turn-of-the-century architecture. It was graceful and called to be climbed. A crook in the trunk branched into several mid-sized limbs where my children used to sit or hide or magically transform the tree into an old Western fort. We were the perfect family, and I was the perfect wife and mother who had found my calling in taking care of my brood.

John was writing his PhD dissertation in sociology, so we designated the attic room at the top of a narrow flight of stairs in the yellow-brick house as his office. He was the breadwinner, who engaged his academic career in the traditional classroom and while drinking beer in bars where he said students were more relaxed and open to deeper discussions. Teaching with an informal flair, his trademark was casual attire and old, loose-fitting khakis.

Life was good. Things changed. Over the next ten years, our family would disintegrate. Each of us would leave the yellow brick house, one by one, broken, just a shadow of who we thought we were. And it was all my fault.

Endorsements

“As the founder of a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse and offering collective healing journeys for survivors, I can say without hesitation that this is a life changing book—for survivors, for those who love them, and for anyone who wants to educate themselves on trauma-induced dissociation, particularly its manifestation as DID. ~ Linda Crockett, Director of Safe Communities

“Barrett’s prose style is precise and rich, and she excels at communicating her complex emotional states, keeping the reader grounded even when she describes the experience of switching between personalities. … An engaging and deeply felt account of mental illness.” ~ Kirkus Review

Crazy is a beautifully written, exceptionally honest story of hope and recovery, and a beacon of hope to those who still suffer from the effects of childhood sexual abuse and emotional wounding. ~ Rev. Tilda Norberg, M.Div, Founder of Gestalt Pastoral Care and author of Consenting to Grace: An Introduction to Gestalt Pastoral Care

Personal and provocative, this book will invite you to embark on a holy adventure of self-awareness, healing, and spiritual transformation. ~ Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly, Process Theologian and author of Healing Marks: Healing and Spirituality in Mark's Gospel

Buy Crazy