Tonya Mosley

Your spring year of college, first year at Oxford, you're with friends, you're hanging out as college kids do, and you're offered marijuana, specifically a bong.

And

You join in with your friends, and as the hours tick on, you have a reaction.

You can't walk.

Everything goes black.

And this, you realize, is a very familiar place.

Could I have you read what you wrote about it in the book?

It's hard to read.

It's hard to read it.

There are some dark moments that you experienced after that night.

You started to experience these intrusive thoughts that didn't stop, even after the high went away.

You describe being afraid of a kitchen knife, not that someone would hurt you with it, but that you might hurt yourself.

And I just kept thinking as I was reading this, for someone the world has called the bravest girl on earth,

What was it like to suddenly be frightened of your own hands, of your own self?

Because your parents didn't believe in therapy.

I think your father said only a completely non-functioning person needs a therapist.

So there was a lot that you needed to get over to actually seek one.

Let's talk about love.

You write that you'd convinced yourself you'd never date, you'd never marry, that you'd be like a quote, like a nun but Muslim.

Once you got past yourself and you and your now husband, Aser, fell madly in love, which folks can read all about it in this book.