“We looked like the perfect family,” says Lisa Lovejoy. “Everything looked so nice on the outside.”
Family photos prove her point. Lovejoy had a beautiful mother and a handsome father who enjoyed spending time with friends and family. When she was a toddler, Lovejoy and her mother wore matching outfits. Later on, Lovejoy would star in high-school plays. She was talented, vibrant, going places.
But those photos tell only a portion of the truth. “The discrepancy between what was real and what it looked like from the outside made me angry,” says Lovejoy. Her parents argued, then divorced. Her mother, who had mental health challenges, abused her. She spent years as a child, then as an adult, struggling with anxiety and depression.
“It took me a long time to get help,” Lovejoy says. But eventually she did — at Harborview Medical Center.