While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

Why did Meg Kissinger turn to journalism as a means to inform the public and bring change to the lives of people with mental illness? How does journalism act as a mechanism for not only social and political change, but for Kissinger’s own personal growth and healing as well?

In Kissinger’s opinion, what makes grieving loss as a result of suicide different from other types of grief? Examine Kissinger’s assessment of her and her siblings’ struggle to process their loss of Nancy and Danny and how it differed from the ways they grieved their parents.

What was different about experiencing mental illness in the 1950s and 1960s compared to today? What similarities and problems remain, and what does Kissinger suggest can be done to improve these issues?