Breaking Down

It's 1993, and Diane McTigue's life is following a carefully charted course. Diane begins her career as a Philadelphia lawyer, but living in six-minute billable increments ignites a severe case of imposter syndrome. A perfect storm of sleep deprivation, a misguided Halcion prescription, a robotic Freudian psychoanalyst, and other factors lead to a complete mental and functional breakdown. In this forthright account, Diane reveals the apathy and compulsive thoughts that may accompany a decent into major depression and severe anxiety, while encouraging others that they too can emerge stronger and feel better again.

Diane McTigue graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University School of Law, and did lawyering stints as a large law firm associate, in-house counsel, and solo practitioner. Diane began writing when her duties as a full-time mother of three and a chronic volunteer phased down. She and her husband of twenty-nine years divide their time between the Philly suburbs and Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Diane is currently working on her first novel.