Karen Gerson recalls struggling with her mental health for much of her life, dealing with a mix of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
It was those experiences that inspired Gerson to write a memoir about her mental health journey. Entitled “I Should Not Be Here,” the debuted book also reflects on the loved ones who supported her at various stages of her struggles.
Childhood experiences contributed to her mental illnesses
Though she lives in Leawood now, Gerson grew up in Ohio, the middle child between an older brother and a younger sister. She was made to feel like an accident, had a hard time in school and dealt with a narcissistic mother.
“In the beginning of my life, all I wanted to do was please her, and I couldn’t figure out how,” Gerson said, adding that’s where she started to develop tendencies she now understands to be OCD.
Later, she was sexually assaulted by a family member as a young child, which left her traumatized.
Though she’s still unsure how, Gerson managed to graduate from high school and go to Ohio State for college. However, while she was in college, her depression got so bad she “stopped functioning.” She wound up in a private mental health institution and found a medication that worked for her after a lengthy period of trialing several options.
“That was the beginning of some type of healing for me,” Gerson said.
She graduated from college and became a teacher, working with elementary school students in Ohio. After that first year as a teacher, she moved to Florida to teach at a Jewish Day School and decided to go off her mental health medication.
However, that was short-lived, and she ended up going home to Ohio and was in a psychiatric hospital for some time. It took her about a year and a half, by her own estimate, “to start functioning” again. After that, she went to live with her aunt, away from her parents.
Gerson has been active in the local Jewish community
Gerson eventually came to Kansas City about 25 years ago, moving to the area to be with her now-husband, Jeff, for his optometry residency. (The pair had met through a Jewish youth group as teenagers before starting a romantic relationship in their mid-20s.)
She remembers not loving the idea of coming to Kansas City, but they fell in love with the area and made it their home. Today, they live in Leawood and have two adopted sons.
While living here, she’s gotten involved with the Jewish community, too, working with youth programs and mentorship. After getting a master’s degree about a decade ago, Gerson also got invested in nonprofit organization management.
Gerson started with a blog on mental health struggles
In the years since coming to the Kansas City area, Gerson has continued to struggle with her mental health, falling into lengthy depressive episodes at times. Those experiences led her to start a blog she called “Cancer of the Mind,” but she didn’t stick with it for very long; however, she kept all of her writing from that project.
After dealing with another stint of depression around the pandemic, she got the urge to write again, in part inspired by the people who have supported her.
“I knew enough about myself, and I had a good team of people that I knew that I could get sick again, but it would never be to the place where I couldn’t function,” Gerson said.
Her old blog blossomed into a memoir
At first, she thought she might like to get into public speaking on mental health, but decided to start with writing a book on the subject instead. With the help of a friend, that’s exactly what she did, pulling material from her old blog.
“The one thing that was really important to me was that it was honest, and no matter how hard it was to read or talk about, I wanted enough information so that people really understood,” Gerson said. “My hope with this book is that even though it was honest, raw and really sad and hard to read, is that … at the end of the day, there’s time for healing.”
She also wanted to tell the stories of her loved ones who had supported her over the years, so she said “their voices are interwined” in there too, through interviews.
“I feel it’s so important to get the word out there, not just so that the person who is challenged with mental illness has a place and feels that they can talk to people, but that their loved ones get support and they get care for themselves,” she said.
Through it all, her goal is to destigmatize mental illness and show people how they can support the people they love during mental illness.
And, she thinks she’d like to try writing other books, potentially one about parenting with mental illness.
How to read Gerson’s book:
- Gerson’s book “I Should Not Be Here” officially came out on Nov. 18, 2025.
- Interested readers can get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Some independent bookstores, including Rainy Day Books, in the area have started offering it, too.
- She is also working on an audiobook format, which she hopes to have completed in late January.
- Gerson is also working on some kind of programming to go alongside the book that she hopes to roll out during Mental Health Awareness Month in May, though she isn’t sure exactly what that will look like yet.
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