Imagine suffering a traumatic brain injury. Imagine being in a mental ward when your lover deserts you. Imagine relinquishing the successful business you cultivated from the ground up. Imagine being told to vacate your home of over ten years. Imagine watching, dumbfounded, as friends take flight from your life. Imagine being stripped of your sense of purpose, your identity. Worst of all, imagine losing your mind.

Skyler Raye doesn’t have to imagine these things, as she has lived them. But that was just the beginning of her nightmare. Mini-vacations in inpatient mental hospitals followed, coupled with way too many prescription drugs. Storm after storm slammed into Skyler’s life; her struggle to stay afloat seemed hopeless, particularly to her.

Through it all, Skyler religiously expelled her turbulence into dozens of journals and “art therapy” projects. A compilation of these journals, “Facing Face” is her map out of hell. It takes you along her journey through and out of the darkness, and offers hope to those out there hurting for whatever reason. Skyler details how she was able to grasp onto that one pinhole of light, and learned it is not so much what happens to you, but how you react to it. A sense of humor also helps.