One night after attempting suicide, Deborah ends up living in a mental hospital for 3 years. While she is there, she lives in and out of her three worlds: real, midworld and Yr.

Her world is full of gods and goddesses, plains and mountains and love and punishment.

She thinks nothing is wrong with it until The Collect, one of the fieriest gods, takes her to the Pit, a place of punishment and leaves her there.

In Yr, Deborah believes she is complete safety from herself and others. To Deborah her nganon, the Yr word for poisonous essence, reaches out to harm people around her. They start to turn on her as she reveals secrets to her therapists and she begins to fear her once loving friends.

She becomes lifeless and unable to speak. Deborah’s world turns upside down and she finds herself in a world of cold packs and black out spells.

She sadly becomes a living , breathing zombie deep inside her head.

But not all hope is lost. With the help of her new found friends and Dr. Fried starts to show Deborah that she doesn’t need to live in a fantasy world and tries to get her to feel again.

Deborah starts to connect with patients around her and slowly finds English words for her feelings. Slowly Deborah sees that she is part of “their” world

She learns the truths about her illness and looks for a world of sanity, and the ability to leave her fantasy world behind.

I found this to be a powerful book of self-discovery and wonderment. It is an emotionally strong and colorful story of living in real life or the life of a mad man.

I recommend it to everyone and consider this a must-read.