The Dark Side of Innocence

Killing yourself at any age is a seriously tricky business. But when I was seven, the odds felt insurmountable. As a young girl, Terri Cheneys life looked perfect. Her family lived in a lovely house in a tranquil Los Angeles suburb where the geraniums never once failed to bloom. She was pretty and smart, an academic superstar and popular cheerleader whose father doted on her. But starting with her first suicide attempt at age seven, it was clear that her inner world was anything but perfect. Theres something wrong with her, her mother would whisper, her voice quivering on the edge of despair. And indeed there was, although no one had a name for it yet. Hostage to her roller-coaster moods, Terri veered from easy A-pluses to total paralysis, from bouts of obsessive hypersexuality to episodes of alcoholic abandon that nearly cost her her life. Throughout Terris chaotic early years, nothing was certain from day to day except this: whatever wa...