Finding Alice [Paperback]

Sliding into the Rabbit Hole… Would She Ever Return?

On the surface, Alice Laxton seems no different from any other college girl: bright, inquisitive, excited about the life ahead of her. But for years, a genetic time bomb has been ticking away. Because of Alice’s near-genius intelligence, teachers and counselors have always made excuses for her “little idiosyncrasies.” But during a stress-filled senior year at college, a new world of voices, visions, and unexplainable “knowledge” causes Alice to begin to lose her grip on reality.

As Alice’s schizophrenia progresses, she experiences a disturbing religious “awakening,” believing that God and angels and demons are speaking to her. When others attempt to intervene, Alice is subjected to a wide range of “treatments” even more frightening and painful than her illness.

Powerfully raw and brutally honest,Finding Aliceis a story of individual suffering and hope, a family’s shared ordeal, and a search for true mental and spiritual healing.Melody Carlsonhas published over ninety books for children, teens, and adults, many of which have appeared on bestseller lists and won writing awards. She and her husband have two grown sons and live in Central Oregon.Chapter Two
Drink Me

So here I am, several weeks into my fall term at Portland State. It’s my senior year, and I am lugging my stuff up the stairs to my new studio apartment on the edge of campus. It’s raining sheets of bullet-size drops outside, which doesn’t help the hideous cold I’ve been fighting all week. I cough and hack as I dig through my backpack until I locate my precious Robitussin, which I guzzle straight from the bottle as if it’s labeled “drink me,” like the bottle for that other Alice.But this helps to numb my aching throat as well as to dull my senses. Anyway, this is what I tell myself as IlS�