Deborah Vlock

Writer

For years, [my son's] death wish trumped everything. If he could not perform the act himself, then he wanted me to do it for him. It was the one and only sacrifice I could never make for him.

An Anguished Choice To Help A Son With Mental Illness

I was frightened of the strange mechanism within him that made him want to end his life, the first time when he was just a little slip of a 4-year-old boy.

Of a sudden, this boy once possessed by dread and futility talks about the future: college, work, romantic love... He has decided he wants to live.

Deborah Vlock: "For years, [my son's] death wish trumped everything. If he could not perform the act himself, then he wanted me to do it for him. It was the one and only sacrifice I could never make for him." (blueskyzmedia/Flickr)

1106_COG_mother

Life

Opinion

family

mental health

I don’t need reason to kindle my anxiety; I can conjure worrisome things out of thin air.

Our perpetual state of anxious arousal is inseparable from our keen sense of wonderment at this wide world, in all its moods and hues -- and from our desire to translate our impressions of the universe into aesthetic work.

Angst Begets Art: On Finding Beauty In A Life Of Anxiety

Deborah Vlock: "In spite of all the psychiatric dysfunction passed down along generations of my birth family and my built family, we are also the lucky heirs to a special gift: the ability to transform emotional chaos into things of beauty." (porsche-linn/Flickr)