Eighteen Years of Grief is a true story of a woman who grows up in a poverty-stricken home with two autistic siblings, a bipolar father and an extremist mother. Experience her childhood with her as she describes enduring her sister's exorcisms and her own dark experiences. The following is an excerpt from her account of how her family handled her sister's autism: My mom decided that what was wrong was spiritual and not mental. She began trying to take her into church. The church we went to was Catholic, and the imagery inside was intense. Everything from huge, suffering Christ sculptures to burning candles must have set my sister off. She acted like she was very much in the last place that she wanted to be. My mother took this as a sign. "Why is she acting that way as soon as she walks in the church?" "It must be that something in her cannot stand to be here. We need a spiritual intervention "