In April 2004, during a family fishing trip, Lizbeth’s temper abruptly explodes, alarming her husband and children and revealing the first signs of her burgeoning depression. Over the next eight years, with the support of her loving and patient husband Noah, Lizbeth battles a swarm of personal demons including self-loathing, rage, doubt, fear, apathy, and lethargy that not only leave her unable to function, but push her to such destructive behaviors as self-mutilation and attempted suicide.

Although a novel, From the Darkness is written as an intimate first-person memoir that follows Lizbeth along her arduous journey back to manageable health through multiple hospital visits, therapy sessions, a myriad of medications, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) visits, gambling and spending addiction, and at least two failed attempts to return to full time employment.

All the while, Lizbeth is haunted by a scornful, threatening voice in her head designated “Pita” (aka Pain in the Ass) that relentlessly urges her to take the easy way out. Yet even during the worst of her tribulations, Lizbeth manages to hold her own, drawing strength and encouragement from family, doctors, therapists—and the smallest of life’s victories—to bear the crushing burden of depression and find her way out of the darkness.