The many letters written between 1949 and 1962 provide a brutally honest insight into one of the most distinctive Danish literary voice’s often turbulent and difficult life as a mother, wife and not least famous author during the 1950s. The letters primarily focus on issues close to her heart, such as family, marriage and love.

But Ditlevsen's manic and depressive sides are also expressed with sincerity in several letters, including in the passages that dealt with the author's marriage to Carl T. Ryberg and Victor Andreasen, respectively. Several letters originate from the years around 1950, where Ditlevsen had a period of frequent hospitalization. In one letter she writes: “I ended up here, deadly ill and miserable, but I am slowly becoming human again, which is also what I need to be, what I must be – I have to get home again to the kids and be a Mother and Caregiver, while Carl is strapped down under the belt and threatens and roars at all those who come close to him. I do not want to tire you with the details of what sounds more like a fanciful story than real life.”