Hi, Kyle, thank you so much for reading this story, and for your kind comments. I'm glad you're here, too!!! Yes, I know Melissa's story and have read some of her work.

I never really think about my adoption as being an issue, per se. Perhaps because mine happened in a different way from the way it was with Melissa. My only conscious memories are of being in this family, even though there would be subconscious memories of being with my birth mother for a while, then foster care. So there was something in my psyche that was already set up for being vulnerable and feeling unwanted, etc.

It's true my mother never liked me, or as she put it when I was in my 40s, she knew from the moment I entered their home at about 6 months old that I was "different." How she knew that, I don't know, but she said she could see that, and she just didn't have a clue what to do with me. She was always trying to make me fit her vision of the daughter she wanted and could understand.

My husband had a hand in this, too. For someone who professed to love me so so so so much for a few years prior to our wedding, he turned his back on me as soon as I was having troubles. He was 23, not exactly a teen. Was a generally pretty responsible, mature person. But ill equipped to handle a wife who was losing her grip on reality. Instead of showing me compassion and trying to help me get the medical attention or other support I needed, he treated me like I was a lunatic.

It's a complicated issue and for many women, it happens out of the blue with no previous risk factors. I'm going to write a piece on some of the issues and facts about this illness. There's a lot of shocking information to share.

Thanks for reading this, Kyle.