This collection of poetry, memoirs and stories of amusing short fiction presents to the reader such themes as depression, suicide, hopelessness, grief, loss, love, mental illness, and abuse both emotional and physical experienced by the writers or someone close to them.

This collection serves to demonstrate that hiding behind shame or fear rather than sharing emotional pain as the authors in these works do is tantamount to “putting on a mask” or “wearing a person suit.” It is pretending. It is a state of existing but not truly living life to the fullest.

The 11 authors featured in this collection have taken off their “person suit,” exposed their true selves to the world so that others may find their own voice and the courage to speak about mental illness and abuse of any kind.