by Jon Katz

"When I woke up one morning on the farm, and felt as if I had plunged into a dark and bottomless pit, I decided to write about it on my website, bedlamfarm.com, not something I would normally ever have done. I was astonished at the response—supportive, empathetic, encouraging. Suddenly, I was not only not alone, I wasn’t even that unusual. It helped, a lot, so I began sharing my climb out of the shadows on the website. My blog was an important part of this experience, and writing about it was a good move—it held me accountable in some way, as if sharing this with other people meant I needed to climb out. And so I did.

The mental illness that engulfed me in the fall of 2007 was a gift to me, in every sense of the word, for all of the pain and fear. I am stronger, better, wiser, happier. I got help, and it helped. I was fortunate to have such great companions on this journey—my daughter Emma, my friends, my dogs, two steers, a cow, four donkeys, three goats and couple of barn cats and roosters.

I am, without a doubt, coming out of the shadows, and have learned a lot, and want to share what I have learned. So this is a true story, and these are my photos, and this is a report at a defining time from the very heart of my life."—Jon Katz.

8x8" paperback book, 72 pages, over 40 photographs