A Tiny White Light

From an author with a psychology background, a candid memoir about the interior of her own psychotic episode and its origins in guilt, lost purpose, conflict between mothering and career, and the ambiguity in her relationship with her therapist.

Only weeks after nineteen-year-old Linda’s family moves from a small, rustic town in Wisconsin to the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of Los Angeles in 1967, her family disintegrates: her parents divorce and she and her younger brother, Brian, suddenly must fend for themselves. Linda finds a foothold in academic pursuits and part-time work, but Brian quickly spirals downward—behaving erratically, landing in psychiatric hospitals and jails, and, finally, committing an irrevocable act. Plagued with guilt over Brian’s deterioration, Linda loses her sense of purpose, abandons a promising career in psychology, and finds herself in a life she never envisioned—poor, alcoholic, an accidental parent in an unhappy marriage, feeling invisible and alone.

At her husband’s urging, Linda starts seeing a psychologist, Sam, who quickly becomes a touchstone for what she has lost: her sense of self. Feeling truly seen, she falls in love with Sam and believes he might return her feelings, but he gives mixed messages. The ambiguity, mingled with other overwhelming stresses, triggers her descent into a psychotic episode—one that echoes her dreams, Brian’s experience, and Sam’s own phobia.

Standing at the brink of self-destruction, Linda realizes she is at a turning point: She can continue stumbling down her brother’s path—or she can find her way back to herself and create the life she longs to live.