Reviewed by Joe Wisinski for Readers' Favorite

When I Am No Longer Here by Kate Wynston is a first-person account of a woman’s life-long struggle with depression and bipolar disorder. Kate spent much of her life traveling and searching for answers to her emotional pain and has documented her experience with journals and letters to her family. Sadly, she sometimes engaged in self-destructive behavior as she sought a way to achieve happiness and reach her personal and career goals. But she found that she could only remain fulfilled temporarily before slipping back into mental anguish. She ultimately died at a relatively young age. After Kate’s death, her sister, Lacy, found her journals and published them in this book, along with the letters Kate had written to her mother and other family members. Except for Lacy's brief preface and afterword, virtually the entire book is in Kate’s words.

I finished reading this book in one day; I found that once I started reading I could not put it down. That statement tells everything one needs to know about Kate Wynston’s account of her life. The book is a tragic, yet captivating, story. Although she suffered from doubts about her intellect and abilities, the fact is that Kate was a highly intelligent woman and an excellent writer. My heart hurt for her, and her family, as I read about her mental torture. Kate’s life story also serves as an indictment of the mental and physical health system in the United States, because all too often the help she needed just was not there. It should serve as a wake-up call to those with the power and authority to change the system. I highly recommend When I Am No Longer Here.