A journey through mental illness and

despair to vibrant hope in allegorical

prose and poetry.

​​

A woman in her mid-30s chronicles a journey through the

depression, anxiety, and psychosis of schizoaffective disorder

into transformational hope using poetry and letters to the

human experience.

Lauren C. Sergeant, a Christian advocate for mental health, has struggled with schizoaffective disorder, trauma, anxiety, and Panic Disorder for almost twenty years. She has found solace in imaging the Creator of all things beautiful through her own creativity, and prose and poetry have played a central role for her in processing the circumstances that led to her mental illness.

In this book, she writes to Hope Lost, Unrequited Love, Pain, and Death as she wrestles with the forces that have brought her to dark places. While her experience is unique, her words give voice to the torment of many who struggle with mental health conditions.

The turning point comes when she cries out to God in her suffering. Doubts, questions, pain, and anger surface in her poetry—a challenge to some traditional views of faith.

Through the second half of the book, we witness the answers she receives and her efforts to interpret them. She writes to Truth, Love, Freedom, Courage, and others, and we experience her growth in hope and confidence alongside her.

Lauren's story is profoundly personal, but many share her experience of depression, anxiety, emotional pain, and psychosis. Her poetry and allegorical letters voice the intense hurt, fear, confusion, despair, and loneliness of mental illness, and her journey to life-giving hope bears witness that light truly can pierce the darkness. Healing is not out of reach. This peek into her inner world reveals not only the beauty within a human soul but also that her God is a God who loves.