Sunny Mera

I’m a mother who writes and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where I landed by way of New Hampshire. I was inspired to write the book All in Her Head: A Novel after my diagnosis of severe mental illness and my battle with postpartum depression, psychosis, and delusional disorder. I come from a privileged, educated, and stable home; I grew up attending a small, private Christian school that my parents and their friends founded in our attic in Topeka, Kansas. Thankfully, medication is effective for me and I wasn’t criminalized for my illness. On my journey, the thing I needed was more role models to explain how to share. I needed to hear stories of people who told their stories, and see more stories explaining how to teach others to listen. This would have helped so much during my dark days and then during my early days of insight. I’ve spent the last decade writing a narrative I can live with. Now that I’m finished with this story, I can work on what I want: mothering and writing about things that aren’t centered on me. I’m sharing this story with the aspiration that others will share my real hope for building a reality that is a place we want to live.