Gone Before Gone: When Mental Illness Steals Someone You Love

How to survive ambiguous loss, by a mom who lost her son to psychosis and then to suicide.

What mom expects her honor-student son to one day barricade a bathroom in their home to lock away “demons?” Who can imagine a beloved child behind jail Plexiglas, his eyes vacant? How does a mom sleep knowing her son is homeless, sleeping rough in a city park, his life tattered by his disordered mind? In Gone Before Gone, Clark describes her son’s “death by degrees” during a young adulthood wrecked by severe mental illness.

Surviving a parent’s nightmare led to Clark’s memoir of self-help—a toolkit for living with “ambiguous loss,” a term coined by Pauline Boss, PhD, an academic, author, and long-time family therapist. Trained by Boss herself, Clark has blended Boss’ concepts with her own experiences and the coping skills she’s cultivated as a long-time yoga teacher.

The result is a book like none other. Part memoir, part survival guide, complete with practical exercises. You’ll feel as though a kind mom is holding your hand and helping you breathe as you bravely take one step at a time toward healing yourself.