Welcome to my blog. Let me get right to it.

On September 5, 1990, I went to see a psychiatrist I had met only once before. My appointment was at 2 p.m. It might have been a Wednesday. I need to check on that.

By 5 p.m. that same day I was admitting myself into the locked unit of a Miami mental hospital (this was not voluntary). Five days later I was on a plane to Los Angeles where I would spend the next 8 weeks as a patient at the John Bradshaw Center at Ingleside Hospital.

Although 27 years have passed, I am still trying to make sense of this experience. I have decided to take a year off to write a memoir about it. This blog is my way to stay accountable so I complete this book in the next 12 months and, more importantly, present my story honestly and with an open heart. Whether you are a writer, reader, mental health professional, current or former mental health patient, or friend of any of the above, I invite you to join me in this journey. I don’t think I can go it alone.

Nancy Wollin Cook, July 27, 2017