Tony Pacitti

It was the perfect sort of August day that you don’t really get in Rhode Island. That sticky, soul sucking humidity that defines New England’s deepest dog days had lifted, and the haze-free, endless blue sky hosted just a handful of picture perfect puffy white clouds...

Our twins, Lorenzo and Max, were born on April 3, 2020. A week later, my wife, Sondra, experienced a 36-hour psychotic episode. I watched helplessly as she spiraled from paranoia to hallucinations to an hours-long bout of screaming every fear and regret I knew she held deep in her heart out into the world.

I was honored to participate in the 2023 Postpartum Psychosis Awareness Day storytelling collaboration between The Moth and Cherished Mom.

On April 1, 2020, I was placed on an eight-week furlough due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My wife, Sondra, was thirty-four weeks pregnant with twin boys. No one hopes for “Catastrophic Health Crisis” and “Unexpected Loss of Income” on their parents-to-be bingo card, but there it was. As I scrambled to get our mortgage deferred, I reminded myself that at least we’d keep our health insurance. It was the only thing that kept me from running through the wall screaming, leaving a cartoon me-shaped hole.