When the administrator of yet another high school informed Victoria Costello that her seventeen year old son Alex was not to come back, followed by Alex running her car into a fence for no apparent reason, she had little choice but face facts. Especially as those facts included a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, an outcome not completely unexpected as Alex had shown signs of being “different” since early childhood. Two years after his older brother’s breakdown, Victoria’s “perfect” son Sammy began exhibiting signs of mental illness as well. Plagued with depression for much of her life, Victoria gained the courage to cast off years of denial. As Victoria searches for medical answers, effective treatment options and delves into her family history, she discovers long kept secrets and half-truths that veiled two suicides and a line of assorted mental illness spanning three generations.
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