Voices together crying for change

Jerri Niebaum Clark is a mental health advocate, author, and mother who lost her beloved son Calvin three ways: to a psychotic illness, to the incoherent system, and to suicide. His life—and death—propelled her to advocate for change while supporting other families. 

Gone Before Gone: When Mental Illness Steals Someone You Love provides guidance for navigating the emotional terrain of "ambiguous loss," a concept developed by Pauline Boss, Phd. When someone is forever changed by a psychiatric illness and/or is missing, incarcerated, or gone for reasons that lack clarity (like suicide), the resulting grief is complex. Jerri Clark's book offers direction and practical tools. You’ll feel as though a kind mom is holding your hand and helping you breathe as you bravely take one step at a time toward healing yourself. 

Author Mindy Greiling, a Minnesota  advocate and former legislator, said this: "In Gone Before Gone, Jerri Clark shares her heart-breaking story, salted with exercises to help readers learn to live, as she did, with both grief and eventually peace or even joy. As the mom of a son with severe mental illness, I’ve often wondered how my life would have turned out if our son had died from one of his many suicide attempts. Jerri’s book helps me see how living with the ambiguous loss of him due to the ravages of his illness is my important grief work even though he is still here."

Jerri shared her story on PBS NewsHour in January 2019, two months before Calvin's death. Steve Goldbloom, producer of "Brief But Spectacular," offers this review of Gone Before Gone: " Jerri Clark writes with a clarity that only lived experience can produce. She tells the story of loving a son through psychosis, and through systems ill-equipped to help him. Her story stands in for countless parents, siblings, and families who have endured the gut-wrenching intersection of mental illness and institutions that too often respond with confusion or punishment instead of care. But this book is more than a retelling of grief. It is a steady, practical guide for surviving it." 

Early pages in Gone Before Gone incorporate a letter from Calvin, a poem, and an inspiring Foreword by acclaimed author Pete Earley. Be sure to locate those elements in your e-book if the platform automatically skips to Chapter 1!

Jerri works as Resource and Advocacy Manager at the non-profit Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC). The postings on this site are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of TAC.