Following this, she worked as a model for a short time at the Hart Agency in Boston. In 1953 she bore their first child, Linda Gray Sexton in Massachusetts.
In 1954, approximately one year after her daughter was born; Sexton was hospitalized for emotional disturbances at Westwood Lodge. Within a few months her beloved great aunt Anna Ladd Dingley died. When Linda was a young two years old Sexton gave birth to her sister, Joyce Ladd Sexton. With the combined pressure of her new family and the loss of her "Nana" Anne was admitted into a mental hospital. Eight months later, she had experienced her first attempt at suicide. It was at the strong suggestion of her psychiatrist that Anne began writing poetry.
At the Boston Center for Adult Education, Sexton took part in John Holme's poetry workshop. Sexton's natural innate poetic sense provided the avenue she needed to express herself and she received an honorable scholarship in 1958. From this she advanced to the Antioch Writer's Conference where she worked with W.D. Snodgrass. Also in 1958 she was accepted into a graduate writing seminar with Robert Lowell at Boston University. During this time Sexton socialized with Sylvia Plath, Maxine Kumin, and George Starbuck. Her poetic style uses imagery that she uses to create an avenue by which the reader can identify with the personal stresses in her own life. .
In 1959 Anne faced more hardship. Her mother, Mary Gray Staples Harvey, died of cancer, and her father, Ralph Churchill Harvey died of a cerebral hemorrhage. During the summer of that same year, she received the Robert Frost Fellowship to attend the Breadloaf Writers" Conference. Shortly thereafter, her shining success was dulled by illness. She was hospitalized for pneumonia, an appendectomy and an ovarectomy. By the end of 1959 she was well enough to deliver a lecture at Harvard.
To Bedlam and Part Way Back was published in 1960.
