The day before yesterday I learned that Sara, a WordPress blogger, took her own life. I’ve been bereft since then, mainly because I feel I have no right to feel this way. For a period of time, Sara and I corresponded after she posted about her experience at Sheppard Pratt. In that particular posting she ranted in that brilliant and funny way of hers about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). I resonated with her rant because I also find it exhausting that too many of these places that treat PTSD and DID put all their eggs in the DBT basket. DBT is not a bad concept, it certainly has its’ good points … but please it is not the be all and end all cure for PTSD. I had completed a stay at Mclean Hosptial’s residential program for traumatic and dissociative disorders, and it was interesting for both of us to hear about each other’s experiences in what many consider the top two psychiatric programs for PTSD in the country. From our correspondence you could see that we both found our programs acceptable, but way too ballyhooed for their own britches.

Sara was much more articulate than I was in ranting about it. I wish I could recall the specifics of what she wrote.

I am most disappointed in myself because I fell out of contact with her. It’s one of those things that happens when life gets in the way.

I will further admit that I became aware that Sara lived less than a 3 hour drive from me. In the back of my mind I planned to tell Sara that I lived close enough to drive to her, and I would ask if she would like to meet. But, it never came to pass. My own life struggles take center stage far too often, and that plan never got off the back burner. Now it will never be.

I sit here stuck now in front of my laptop computer, immobilized from disappointment and undeserved grief.