Missing Me

A stunning memoir by a writer and mental health advocate about motherhood, postpartum mental health, and finding ground when you lose all control.

When writer and blogger Ayana Lage became pregnant, she prepared as any parent would: voraciously researching, Redditing, preparing for anything. And having experienced a previous miscarriage, she braced herself for the worst. But days after giving birth, Ayana’s sense of control began to break when God started speaking to her. After growing up Pentecostal and longing to hear from God, she heard him audibly for the first time—and often. God told her that she had been chosen. He told her that her daughter was the second coming of Jesus Christ. She carried around notebooks to ensure she didn’t miss any divine words. Eventually, she was diagnosed with post-partum psychosis and sent to a psychiatric ward, unable to see loved ones or her baby and sometimes unsure whether she’d actually had a baby at all.

Her once-rational thought process was consumed with delusions, and overnight, the self-professing people-pleaser turned into a fearless charismatic, obeying what she believed to be God’s orders—including pulling the fire alarm to force an evacuation in the hospital—and shouting at anyone who disagreed with her. Slowly, the medication and treatment began to work, and when she was well enough to be released, the hard road to recovery began.

Ayana struggled to adjust to normal life after the breaks she endured—both the psychosis itself and the experience of feeling betrayed by her mind. Once a fierce mental health advocate, she still remained hesitant to share about psychosis, because of the stigma associated with this mental health disorder.