The Day I Went Missing by Jennifer Miller is a chilling true portrait of an intelligent, successful young TV writer taken in by a consummate con artist working as her therapist. It is a devastating betrayal that ultimately costs the author dearly – financially, mentally and emotionally. Perhaps most haunting of all, the end of this story stops just short of a true resolution leaving the author and reader with a lingering specter of uncertainty. It is a quick and engaging read that nonetheless struck a serious chord with me on a couple of particular points.
First, Miller’s story is a poignant illustration of the vulnerability that comes with emotional disconnection and depression. As this story begins, the author falls quickly and deeply under the spell of her new therapist. As time goes on, she only becomes more and more emotionally invested in the relationship. As a result, a woman who is a known and proven skeptic wholeheartedly accepts and believes a series of increasingly outlandish claims and offers. Perhaps the most frequent question that the reader will ask – and that I have seen questioned by many reviewers – is how. How could an accomplished and intelligent person be so easily and completely deceived in the face of so many and such obvious red flags? Are we really to believe that’s possible? I think that the answer to that question is a deep exploration of vulnerability that is one of the most important takeaways from this book.
Miller is straightforward in telling of her wrestles with depression and emotional issues rooted in the cold and distant family of her childhood. Emotionally deprived as a child, she struggles as an adult to find an emotional compass within herself or to find any source for a real connection to another person. She is ambiguously aloof, unsure that she could even recognize her own happiness and somewhat desperate in the persistent feeling that something is wrong with her without fully being able to identify or remedy the ailment. It is a most profound kind of emotional vulnerability that plays directly into the hands of the man who takes such advantage of her. He deftly reads and manipulates her longing for connection and belonging. And all at once, he is in control beyond all appeals of reason. Now I’ve certainly never experienced a situation so extreme as the subject of this book. But I have experienced firsthand how far outside of yourself this kind of deep emotional thirst can push you when someone seemingly extends a lifeline of connection across the void. When that kind of emotional deprivation gets in the driver’s seat, you can say and do things that are not only counter to your normal character, but that simply make no sense – all in the faint hope of actually connecting with another person or the world and feeling something that’s real. It’s a very present danger that’s one of the less talked about aspects of mental health but that claims so many people as victims to varying degrees.
The other really striking thing about this book is the unflinching honesty with which Miller portrays her own deception. Let’s face it. On a lot of levels, it would be hard to characterize this as flattering. And while I found her emotional duping highly sympathetic, the telling of this story obviously opens her to scrutiny, judgment and derision for having been so easily and completely taken. Even so, at no point does she soften, sugarcoat or defend. I came away with a great admiration for her courage in writing and publishing this story. One of my biggest personal struggles in writing has been with just that kind of vulnerability – whether for fear of judgment or simply not being able to stand seeing the words in print. Stories creep into third person seemingly on their own. Miller approaches her subject raw and head-on with an impassioned telling that doesn’t shy away from how complete and utter her deception was. And it is inspiring and human. And I hope that I can carry with me some of that strength and boldness away with me.
