On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness - Tapa blanda

It was the spring of 1989. I was sixteen years old, a junior in high school and an honors student. I had what every teenager wants: a stable family, a nice home in the suburbs, a great group of friends, big plans for my future, and no reason to believe that any of that would ever change.

Then came my mother's psychosis.

I experienced first-hand the terror of watching someone I loved transform into a monster, the terror of discovering that I was to be her primary victim. For years I’ve lived with the sadness of knowing that she, too, was a helpless victim – a victim of a terrible disease that consumed and destroyed the strong and caring woman I had once called Mom.

My mother's illness took everything. My family, my home, my friends, my future. A year and a half later I would be living alone on the street on the other side of the country, wondering whether I could even survive on my own.

But I did. That was how my mother - my real mother - raised me. To survive.

She, too, was a survivor. It wasn't until last year that I learned that she had died - in 2007. No one will ever know her side of the story now. But perhaps, at last, it’s time for me to tell mine.

This SECOND edition of On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened features an appendix containing supplemental materials not currently available in the eBook edition or in the first edition paperback.

Lori Schafer is a writer of serious prose, humorous erotica and romance, and everything in between. Her flash fiction, short stories, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and her first two books were published in November 2014. On Hearing of My Mother’s Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness commemorates Lori's terrifying adolescent experience of her mother's psychosis, while Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past is an autobiographical collection featuring stories and essays inspired by other events from Lori's own life.

In the summer of 2014, Lori began work on a second memoir, The Long Road Home, during the course of a two-month-long journey across the United States and Canada. She anticipates that it will be ready for publication late in 2015.

Lori’s first two novels, My Life with Michael: A Novel of Sex, Beer and Middle Age and Just the Three of Us: An Erotic Romantic Comedy for the Commitment-Challenged, will be released early in 2015. She is currently at work on a third novel, a sequel to Just the Three of Us. When she isn't writing (which isn't often), Lori enjoys playing ice hockey, attending beer festivals, and spending long afternoons reading at the beach in the sunshine.

For further information on Lori’s upcoming projects, please visit her website at lorilschafer.com, where you may subscribe to her newsletter or follow her blog for updates on her cross-country travels. You are also welcome to email her directly at lorilschafer(at)outlook(dot)com.