When the Bough Breaks

The Brauer family would have described themselves as conventional and nondescript, until Barbara, a devoted wife and mother, suddenly developed bipolar disorder. She was 45 and otherwise in good health, but plunged into depression so quickly that she slit her own throat before anyone suspected the gravity of the situation. This book is about the year in which the family struggles to find treatments, trying to recover the woman they loved from the abyss of mental illness. When the Bough Breaks, co-authored by the Brauer sisters, is a memoir about the painful year in their adolescence when their mother is diagnosed with manic depression. They are the statistics come to life: research about girls experiencing family problems who are more likely to experience depression, use drugs, experiment with sex, and struggle with eating disorders. Survivors of suicide often feel like this subject is one of the last taboos in our society, and they can feel uncomfortable discussing the loss of a loved one to suicide. This book attempts to breach this divide by sharing one story from the perspective of teenagers who lived through it.