By the time she was two years old, Erika Nielsen knew that her real language was music and her true voice the cello. But she could never understand why one day she floated on sparkling clouds and marvelled at her own brilliance while the next she huddled in a dank, wretched cellar and brooded over her inadequacy. At age 27, she finally found out: she was mentally ill. In this frank and courageous memoir, Erika confronts the shock of her diagnosis and chronicles how, little by little, she walked herself to a place of stability and health.