Chapter1
What Is Happening
to My Son?

I screamed! SETH! The capital letters of his name ignited, sending fire across my brain. A tangled mass of chaotic words slithered up like snakes and smothered out the flames.

Breathing heavily, I awakened, aware it was all a dream. Relieved, I clutched my tear-drenched pillow. The moon dipped into my window. A shadow stood in the hallway. My heart jumped, still caught in the realness of the dream.

I recognized Seth standing there. I exhaled, reassured. Yet fractions of shadowed light, sectioned into nanoseconds, took me beyond the third dimension. I saw Seth’s face broken into segmented pieces, as if the whole of him could not form itself.

I shook myself real. “Seth, what’s the matter? Are you sick?” He didn’t answer but stumbled towards me in his lanky, eighteen-year-old body.

He shuddered. “Mom!”

I could see the little boy within him wanting to burrow under the warm covers and have me hold him like I used to do when he was scared.

“Mom, I can’t hear myself think. There are horrible, angry voices inside me. They talk over me; they hurt me inside. They told me you don’t love me, that the whole family hates me!”

He crumpled to the floor by my bed holding his head. I put my arms around him and lifted his broken spirit. The moon lit our way. I looked into his eyes as he had me do when he was three years old. Our deep recognition had been a place of safety for him when he had experienced a terrifying past-life event. I didn’t understand why that persistent fear from his childhood had crashed down on him. Why had he attacked his college roommate weeks ago? Why hadn’t the psychiatrist helped? How could he possibly say we hated him?

My mother-bear instincts exploded through me. “SETH!” I shook him. “I LOVE YOU!” My words ricocheted off the walls. “WE LOVE YOU!” The words vibrated back and forth, opening portals into his empty soul. I said it over and over again forcefully, fiercely. My truth defied whatever was trying to unravel him.

Then the words came