Author

When psychologist Enid Sanders’ first child Keri died, the young mother spilled out a series of poems and put them away in a drawer. Decades later, when her husband Andrew died, she took them out and started writing again. At first she wrote for herself, for Andrew and to Andrew. A poem would rise up from nowhere, and she’d jump up and scribble it down, not knowing how it would end until she wrote the last word.

Little by little, she shared the poems with friends and fellow therapists who pushed her to turn them into a book. The book’s title comes from a grieving friend who read the poems and said, “These are words for me; words for the unbearable.”

“I’ve been surprised by how all readers, including many who are married or divorced, relate to the poems,” Dr. Sanders says. Her biggest joy was her grief group’s reaction to the book’s first draft. “My loss helped them on their own journeys of grief,” she said. “I could not ask for more.” 

Dr. Sanders brings her experience as a noted clinical psychologist to the writing of this book. Now in private practice in Northern California, she trained with internationally renowned child abuse expert, Eliana Gil and has specialized for 34 years in the treatment of sexual, physical and emotional abuse survivors as well as issues related to relationships, parenting, life transitions and trauma. She’s also led popular workshops on abuse prevention with institutions and companies from Xerox and Kaiser to Lawrence Livermore Labs and the Stanford Research Institute. After studying at University of California, Santa Barbara, she earned her MA and PhD at The Professional School of Psychology, San Francisco. A mother of four and grandmother of eight, Enid enjoys reading, writing poetry and spending time with her family. She is working on a book about aging and growth.