The Lure of Divorce: Emily Gould writes in The Cut about the crisis in her marriage and mental health. The writing is astonishingly honest and often difficult to get through.

I was in the hospital for a little more than three weeks, almost the entire month of October, longer than I’d ever been away from my kids before in their lives. I celebrated my 41st birthday in the hospital and received a lot of very creative cards that my fellow crazies had decorated during art therapy. Eventually, the drugs began to work: I could tell they were working because instead of feeling energetic, I suddenly couldn’t stop crying. The tears came involuntarily, like vomit. I cried continuously for hours and had to be given gabapentin in order to sleep.

This read better as a mental health story than a marriage story to me. Someone close to me had a crisis very simliar to Gould’s and spent a month in an institution. It’s unbearably difficult, both on the patient and the people around them. I’m happy to report that my loved one has recovered well, though it was slow, and certainly not a linear process. I hope that Gould gets well and stays well.