Sarah Deschamps on Motherhood, Love, Loss, and the Courage to Tell the Truth

Sarah Deschamps was a teacher and administrator for many years in the United States and Tokyo, Japan. In 2007, she embarked on a career in development, raising millions of dollars for multiple non-profit organizations. Her debut memoir, Journey to Japan: A Life-Saving Memoir, sold in seven countries around the world. It is a powerful story about helplessness meeting determination, and details the lengths she went to for her daughter so she could have the best chance in this world.

Readers of her first book continuously ask, ‘What happened next?’ Her new work, I Couldn’t Tell You: The True Story of a Mother and Daughter’s Journey to Overcome Their Mental Health Demons, tells that story. Sarah recently sat down with Writer’s Life to share her journey, what these books mean to her, her inspirations, and much more. Here is what she had to say:

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Tell us a bit about your background.

I am a memoirist and non-profit development professional whose writing explores family, resilience, and the lasting impact of medical trauma. I am a former teacher and school administrator in the United States and Japan. I have raised millions of dollars for non-profit organizations. My debut memoir, Journey to Japan: A Life-Saving Memoir, has been published internationally. Through my work, I bring empathy and honesty to stories of survival, parenting, and the emotional complexity of healing.

How many years did you live in Japan? What lessons from the culture and people did you bring back to the States?

My family lived in Tokyo, Japan, for seven years, from 2000-2007.

Japan and the Japanese people are different in almost every aspect from me and my family and me. That was why we moved there. We wanted to fully immerse ourselves in a culture and country that wasn’t our own.

On a daily basis, we learned what it felt like to look out into a group of people and see no one who looked like us, and no one who spoke our language. I often remind myself of those feelings when I see what is happening today with immigration in the United States.

In Japan, fitting in meant learning the rules that included simple things like taking off our shoes when we entered a home, or bowing properly when greeting someone. While we lived there, our youngest daughter had multiple medical issues requiring surgeries and hospital stays, so our cultural challenges included being deeply involved with the medical system. It is paternalistic and doesn’t include the input or voice of a mother. That was very difficult for me, especially because we were talking about my baby. Now, back in the United States, I try to make certain my voice is heard, and my opinion is always taken into consideration.

In my first book, I talk a lot about disturbing the “Wa” in Japan. It is the way that the Japanese show social harmony and humility. It is the basis for Japanese society. As a foreign person who didn’t grow up knowing the rules for the Wa, I worked hard when I lived in Japan to show the utmost respect and deference as I slowly learned how to fit in.

Today, I’m still cautious in new situations. I try to “read the room” before jumping into anything. I’m also much more willing to put myself in uncomfortable situations, and then to laugh at myself when things don’t turn out as expected.

Tell us about your new book/memoir, I Couldn’t Tell You The True Story of a Mother and Daughter’s Journey to Overcome Their Mental Health Demons.

I believe it is a powerful memoir that continues the story I began in Journey to Japan, revealing what happened after my family believed the worst was finally behind us. After years of medical crises overseas, my family returned to the United States, hopeful that our young daughter’s health battles were over. Instead, a devastating diagnosis triggered a new and far more complicated struggle—one that unfolds not only in hospitals, but in the hearts and minds of my daughter.

As physical illness gives way to emotional and psychological trauma, the book explores how medical hardship can fracture family dynamics, identity, and trust. I think my candid account shows my daughter’s descent into fear, anger, and despair, and my own self-unraveling as a parent desperate to protect the child I love.

I believe it is honest and deeply moving. I hope my memoir sheds light on the hidden toll of chronic illness and the strength required to keep going when hope feels out of reach.

What was your impetus for writing your book?

No one is telling these kinds of raw, real, personal stories. My daughter’s and my mental health trauma lasted for over 20 years. I hope readers find pieces of themselves in my book, and maybe even find something in the story that will help them to make their own lives better.

Who are some people who have inspired you along the way?

I’m not a writer by training, but I am a voracious reader of memoirs. I knew the kind of book I would write if I ever had the time and space to do it. The authors who inspired my writing also have told their own deep dark secrets and have found a way to tell their true stories in a meaningful, powerful way. I hope my writing does the same.

Those authors who created the path for me are:

Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle,

Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire,

Tara Westover, Educated,

Javier Zamora Solito

What are the lessons you want readers to take away from reading your work?

My daughter Lily has written a quote for the beginning of the book. It is one of the lessons I hope will be taken away by readers of I Couldn’t Tell You.

“I wanted this book to be written because I know what it feels like when you think no one will ever understand, and when you believe you are alone in what you are going through. This book is for anyone who feels like it’ll never get better, but it does.” -- Lily Deschamps (Sarah’s daughter)

Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never give up.” I have that quote on a card sitting next to a small Japanese Shinto Shrine, my husband bought for me when we left Japan. The shrine and the saying sit on a shelf in my closet. Those words remind me every day that I have to get up, get dressed, get out of my house, and get on with life, no matter what. A reader of my book will see that I did this day after day after day, even when the unimaginable happened, I still got up.

While we lived in Japan, I had learned how to fit in and how not to disturb the Wa, the social order. In the U.S., when we returned in 2007, I translated that to mean don’t tell anyone you are hurting, sad, and desperate. Keep those thoughts and feelings to yourself. I tried to look happy and acted like I had my life under control. As the book progresses, the reader will watch me fall apart, almost to the point of breaking. Then they will see me finally admit to myself that I have to trust my friends and family to hold me up when I’m down.

Your memoir tells a very personal story, oftentimes touching on very sensitive subjects. Was it hard for you to be so vulnerable with your readers?

It was my daughter Lily who told me to write both of my memoirs. Once I had her permission, even her encouragement to hurry up and get them written, it wasn’t hard at all.

I’m often asked if it is cathartic to write my books. It isn’t. I don’t write so I can feel better, I write so others can feel what I felt, see what I saw, experience what I experienced, and then hopefully take something away from it for themselves. I have had a complicated life. I hope other people can learn from it, and maybe even make their own lives just a little bit better.

I have 35 five-star reviews for Journey to Japan. I hope that demonstrates that my story resonates with readers, and I hope the same happens for I Couldn’t Tell You.

Share with us about what a mother/daughter bond means to you.

I can only speak about my own mother/daughter bond with Lily. She and I are intertwined tightly. As the reader learns in I Couldn’t Tell You, many times the relationship is wound too tightly. To keep Lily alive, I had to pay attention to every detail in her life. That made for a complicated relationship as she grew up.

The reader will see and feel how much I love my daughter, how much I worry about her, and how much Lily wants to make her own choices for her own body. That creates a sometimes toxic, sometimes loving, sometimes complicated, but absolutely unbreakable mother/daughter bond.

What advice can you give parents who are struggling with similar situations?

Parenting a fragile child with special needs is almost impossible. You are thrown into a medical community you never wanted to know, with a child who could die if you don’t get it right.

In my book, I Couldn’t Tell You, I write the following:

“I often say that I have an MD and a PhD in my daughter Lily. I know every detail about Lily’s intricate, complicated body. I studied it, researched it, experienced it, and my PhD thesis would have been several hundred pages. The answers on my tests would have saved her life, or killed her. For my oral exam, I would have recited when a procedure was done, who did it, and what the outcome was. I lived and breathed Lily.”

I’m not sure I’m the right person to offer advice. I did absolutely everything I could think of to give Lily the best possible outcome for her life. In the process, I lost myself, my marriage, and my mental health, but I didn’t believe there was any other path than the one I chose.

What are you working on now, and what can we expect from you next?

I’m going to put every ounce of my energy into promoting I Couldn’t Tell You. I hope that the medical community reads it. I hope parents and children read it, and I hope people suffering in silence read it.

I also hope people who are curious about the impact that mental health trauma can have on a mother and daughter read it. It is a fast-paced, deeply revealing book. I think readers will find it worth their time.

Where can people find out more about you and your work?

They can visit https://www.sarahdeschamps.com/