Talya Lewis knows well what living in anguish feels like. Growing up with borderline personality disorder (BPD) in the 1970s and 1980s, Talya had multiple experiences as a psychiatric inpatient and was subjected to traumatic and humiliating incidents. When she wasn't in the hospital, she was at a "special school" where the most emotionally vulnerable adolescents were warehoused. Somehow, Talya survived to become a healthy adult but carried the burden of a secret past that shame compelled her to keep hidden. But when flashbacks start interrupting her life, she's forced to face her demons. Talya's brave memoir, The Boom Boom Retreat, gives you an unobstructed view into the fragmented mind and tortured heart of a person suffering from BPD. Experience firsthand the despair, drama, horror, and humor as you swing back and forth between Talya's present-day interactions and her vivid remembrances of past events. In an effort to make sense of her life, she even takes the courageous move to contact the people who treated her twenty-five years ago. Opening up old wounds is a messy, painful business, but what Talya finds, she offers to you: hope.