A five-year-old announces she's going to be a ballerina when she grows up and isn’t going to get married. At six, she describes her image of God as a man made of metal. By nine, she attempts to read Freud in her parents’ library. Following her autistic brother’s sudden death when she is a preteen, she acquires a crippling anxiety disorder. How does she know what she knows, discover an unimaginable family secret, and finally retrieve her voice and understand the meaning of her early inklings? Rooted in the historical context of the 1950s and 1960s, I Didn't Know That I Didn't Know You: A Late-Coming of Age Story is a collection of personal essays that highlight the wisdom of a child as it informs adult lifestyle decisions, family relations, vocational choice and religious and spiritual affiliation. Personal, professional and pastoral sensibilities combine to explore questions of individual identity, family dynamics, social change, and ultimately, hope. As is true for all of us, the author's narrative is a story within a story. Each essay is embedded in a larger context: the women’s and LGBTQ+ movements, developing theories of mental illness, the changing role of organized religion, and the #MeToo movement.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Betty Morningstar is a clinical social worker who has served as a psychotherapist, educator, and associate chaplain. She holds a Ph.D. from Smith College School for Social Work and a M.A. from Andover Newton Theological School (now Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School). Dr. Morningstar's work has been featured in or on The Boston Globe Magazine, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab website at Brandeis University, Columbia University Press, and other professional journals. She lives with her wife in Boston and on Cape Cod.