Content Note
Shattered Illusions is a memoir about my family’s experiences with mental illness, financial exploitation,
suicide, and grief.
This book discusses mental-health crises, eating disorders, depression, suicide and suicidal behavior, firearms,
financial and emotional manipulation, family conflict, and death. It also contains references to alleged
childhood sexual abuse and descriptions of the aftermath of suicide.
Some portions of this memoir may be difficult to read.
I have chosen to include them because they are part of my experience and part of my mother’s story—not to
sensationalize what happened.
This memoir reflects my own memories, experiences, and understanding of events. In some instances, I
describe things that were told to me by other people or offer my own interpretation of events I could not
fully understand at the time. I have tried to distinguish those things wherever possible.
Memory is imperfect, including my own. This book should therefore be understood as a personal account
rather than a complete or objective record of every event described.
Above all, this is the story of a person I loved.
My mother was more than her illness, more than the people who exploited her, and more than the way her
life ended.
Her name was Tracey Jean White.
She was my mom.