That is the thing about being slowly convinced you are crazy.

There is no single moment you can point to.

There is only a long, quiet erosion, and a woman at the end of it who has learned to doubt the one instrument she needs most — her own certainty that something is wrong with her child.

They had all but finished the job.

What they had not counted on was a seven-year-old who came downstairs for a glass of water, and saw, and understood more than they thought she could, and kept the evidence in her teddy bear’s overalls until she found a grown-up who would listen.

I have read since about how this is done, because I needed to understand that I had not imagined my own unraveling, and the word for it turned out to be old and precise and strangely comforting to finally have.