I was incredibly lucky to be born into a home with a mother who was happy, funny, and loved her role as a mother and wife, and a father determined to provide the best life he could for his family. But in the infancy of psychotherapy, Mother's onset of probable post-partem depression (never heard of at the time) was deemed a "nervous breakdown" that could be treated with the new cure-all, a lobotomy. And all our lives were forever changed. These are my stories of growing up mostly without my mother, and my mother's stories of struggling with being forcibly separated from her family while dealing with a surgery that left her mentally disabled. Our stories are everyone's stories yet unique to us. The stories we share keep us from being afraid and keep us connected.
