I was born in 1944, in Worcester, Massachusetts. My insatiable need to search for and maintain my own personal identity is what led me to become a psychiatric nurse. This was my destiny. My seventeen year journey began when I was twenty-eight years old. Ten years married, with two children, I returned to school and became a Licensed Practical Nurse in 1973. I received my Registered Nurse diploma from St. Vincent's Hospital in 1982, and by the age of forty-five, with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, I was helping others find their way through the adversities in their lives. Fractured Lives . . . New Beginnings is my story, and the story of countless others who don't yet have a voice.