Love Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Book excerpt: In New York City, something newsworthy is happening every which way you turn, and reporting the news can sometimes get a little gritty for reporters. As an award-winning journalist, Dalesa Moreno knows firsthand how difficult, yet rewarding her job can be at times-from each published article to her next. But perhaps, what is just as hard or even more challenging, is reporting to herself the truth about herself-raw, unedited, and unfiltered. "Love Is in the Eye of the Beholder" depicts the hardship Dalesa has faced in a lifelong battle with major depressive disorder. Clinical depression is twice as likely to occur in women than in men, and the mental health condition accounts for the leading cause of disability worldwide. However, Dalesa isn't interested in being a statistic. Instead, what she grapples with now is confronting the demons she's kept secreted for so long and dealing with her present ones' tormenting, emotional attacks. Combining original spoken word and free-verse poetry with narrative prose, "Love Is in the Eye of the Beholder" tells how Dalesa has never felt close to love-not even within the proximity of lovers, friends, and family. After a failed suicide attempt, Dalesa agrees to receive counseling from a psychoanalyst-having nowhere else to turn. Feeling hopeless and vulnerable, her therapist eventually comes close to compromising Dalesa's mental health recovery with his increasing fondness and affection for her. Delving deeper into her trauma with every chapter, you too may develop an affinity for the fairly forsaken bachelorette. You will be like the metaphorical "fly on the wall" during Dalesa's heart-wrenching weekly therapy sessions. She has good days and bad days, but one can only hope she will one day come closer to discovering and feeling worthy of "the greatest love of all."