Linda Gray Sexton, poet, author, and daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton, spent days on end in bed, cushioning her numbness with sleep. It became a buffer for her struggle with depression, suicidal thoughts and emotions tied to her mother's suicide. The "land of the bed" became her comfort zone in which to separate from reality.

Sexton spoke eloquently and poetically to a large audience in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Reading Room on Thursday, March 1.

The event was co-sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and coordinated by Prof. Dawn Skorczewski (ENG), who recently published a book about Sexton's mother's recorded therapy sessions titled The Accident of Hope: The Therapy Tapes of Anne Sexton.

Sexton started off by discussing her latest work, Half in Love, a memoir about her personal struggle with depression and suicide.

She made it clear that her work is not a mental health text or a self-help book, although it has definitely helped several individuals struggling with similar issues.

Anne Sexton, Linda's mother, killed herself in 1974 when she was 45 years old and Linda was a senior at Harvard University.

"None of us really understood the pain that took my mother to her final self-destruction. We all felt baffled, angry, guilty and ultimately rejected," Sexton said.

Sexton, therefore, wanted to reach out to the people and families who had lost loved ones to suicide or who live with people who are overwhelmed by depression. She wanted to show them that she survived depression and suicidal attempts.

Sexton was willing to expose her own life, feelings and family in her deeply personal memoir because, as she said in her lecture, "There is tremendous power in being willing to lay bare one's soul in public."

Before delving into her personal story, Sexton explained to the audience the prevalence of depression and suicide. According to her, over one million people commit suicide worldwide annually, which is two times the number of homicides. Aside from hypertension, more Americans suffer from major depression than from any other general medical issue.

More than 20 million people in the United States are affected by depression. Sexton noted that both mental illness and suicide are now considered largely hereditary. Brain chemistry, she said, is the source of mental illness, not laziness, self-pity or selfishness.

Sexton and her sister made a pact early in their lives that they would never do what their mother was doing-attempting to commit suicide and disregarding her family's needs.

"For me, suicide was a legacy, something that was handed down through the generations. My mother's elder sister killed herself with an overdose of pharmaceuticals. And my mother's aunt used a shotgun. My mother herself turned on the ignition of her car, and let the tide of carbon monoxide take over," she said.

Sexton read emotionally charged excerpts from her memoir regarding her struggle with depression and suicide and how it coincided with her role in life as a sister, daughter, wife, friend and mother. Sexton courageously read aloud the section of the book in which she describes in detail her last suicide attempt.

She spoke about how depression had taken over her life and how she lost perspective on it.

"Even my love for my sons could not keep me from ruminating over my cutting, that lesser cousin to suicide," she said.

Searching for Mercy Street, another of Sexton's books, speaks to the process of her maturation into a woman and mother.

This book was an attempt to reach out to her mother after her death, despite her mother's many problems. Sexton described the ways in which she began to know her mother as an adult, especially with the birth of her two sons.

"I discovered a fresh understanding of and compassion for how difficult being a parent is, even when it is not complicated by mental illness."

Sexton added, "I had yet to learn how to come to terms with my mother's death. I needed to confront and disentangle myself from the strong tentacles her suicide had attached to my life."

Sexton spoke about her process of recovery, including time spent in rehab and speaking with her therapist, whom she praised and credited with a major role in turning her life around.

Students at the lecture expressed their appreciation for Sexton's willingness to speak about the taboo topic of depression and suicide so explicitly.

"I just want to thank you for speaking and it is so important that an event like this was [coordinated]," one student commented.

"I came thinking that it was going to be depressing, ... because it was about suicide, ... but I was one of those people who thought that suicide was selfish. ... Actually hearing the thoughts of someone who went through it all, [has changed] my perspective," said Yeji Son '14.

"It was a learning experience for me. ... It was really interesting to hear form the point of view from someone who was so open. I didn't realize how intimate [her lecture] would be," Tammy Chung '14 said.

Sexton has rebuilt relationships with her family and friends and her sons still stand by her side. The best part, she said, is that she found a new partner, whom she married in 2009.

She has finally started writing again after taking a break throughout her depression.

Sexton concluded by reassuring the audience that "I am still here, and I am better than I have been before. I would say if I was half in love with death back then, now I am fully in love with life-if that does not sound like a clich?(c)."