Showing titles in Abuse

A 13-month guided pathway for healing transgenerational sexual trauma Body-based practices, ancestral connection rituals, and reflective empowerment exercises to integrate trauma, build resilience, center pleasure, and reclaim wholeness Healing from sexual trauma is deep, transformative, and...

In this "incendiary" memoir, a woman fights the criminal justice system to release her incarcerated sister after she kills her longtime abuser (Publishers Weekly). In September 2017, a knock on the door upends Michelle Horton’s life: she learns that her sister has just shot her partner and is...

The main goal of this book is to identify and define the characteristics of Trauma Bonding as a result of Narcissistic Abuse and Complex PTSD. Many survivors of abuse feel hopeless and trapped in their situation, not knowing that there is a way out. Survivors of this abuse usually get stuck in the repetitive patterns and don't recognize how to escape an unhealthy situation. Many survivors of abuse were never role modeled as to what a healthy relationship looks like, and therefore don't actually identify that their relationship is tragically unhealthy.

When Diane, a psychologist, falls in love with Charles, a charming and brilliant psychiatrist, there is laughter and flowers?and also darkness. After moving through infertility treatments and the trials of the adoption process as a united front, the couple is ultimately successful in creating a family. As time goes on, however, Charles becomes increasingly critical and controlling, and Diane begins to feel barraged and battered. When she is diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, Charles is initially there for her, but his attentiveness quickly vanishes and is replaced by withdrawal, anger, and unfathomable sadism.

In this provocative and intimate look at Covert Emotional Incest (CEI), Adena Bank Lees, LCSW, a leader in the field of traumatic stress and addiction, takes you on a moving and informative journey through her own experiences with this form of abuse. CEI, as she has defined it, is an elusive, emotional form of sexual abuse that occurs in a family system with the absence of direct genital contact. Being placed in the surrogate or substitute spouse role for a parent(s) is one of the primary tenets of CEI, but there is much more.

What is the line between emotional abuse and normal human behavior? And who gets the right to draw that line? Are you feeling depressed and anxious because your mental health simply isn't doing well right now? Or is it a direct response to the emotional trauma that is being caused by an unhealthy relationship? These are all difficult questions to answer, and I understand how hard it can be to diagnose emotional abuse from the inside of a relationship.

In I'll Give You Something to Cry About, Elizabeth Acker gives a stunning account of growing up under the abusive control of an emotionally and mentally ill mother. Elizabeth is forced to become estranged from her father, and struggles alone to create hope and meaning for her life, while serving her mother like a slave. This audiobook is a true account of a daughter's struggle to survive a mother with paranoia, schizophrenia, and manic depression.

Are your relationships ruled by overthinking, emotional anxiety, or a fear of abandonment? Do childhood wounds or unresolved trauma still shape how you connect with others? This powerful two-in-one guide brings together the best insights from Free Yourself From Anxious Attachment and Move Beyond Childhood Trauma to help you move from emotional survival to lasting inner security.

Detroit is a thriving blue-collar town in the 1970s, an era when alcoholism and dysfunction thrive behind closed doors. When fifteen-year-old Debbie accepts a new babysitting job, she has no idea that it will forever alter her life. Mac, father of the young children she cares for, slowly begins to groom Debbie with words of praise and flattery.

Do you feel like you are living a lie? Do you always feel at fault? Do you doubt every move you make? Are relationships like war zones in your life? Do you attract toxic situations? Do you shrink inside your uncomfortable skin? These are some of the many valid emotions that arise from dysfunctional interaction with a narcissistic carer. Being born to a narcissistic mother can be one of the most destructive scenarios to face, and some daughters never find peace, not even after the death of their mother. This book addresses the realities of maternal narcissistic victimization.

You don’t need your co-parent to change—you need a plan. With expert-backed strategies and actionable tools, this book helps you rise above the toxicity, protect your children, and move forward with strength. Be the best parent you can be.

Do you feel like you're not living your life the way you want? Have you felt like you've been in living in your father's shadow? Or is your marriage in shambles because of your husband's behavior? It's likely you are a victim of a narcissistic parent. Unfortunately, you are just realizing the issue now, but on a good note, it's never too late to turn your life around.

The first "red flags" of coercive control are so subtle you barely notice them. Eventually, he has driven away your friends and family, is making all the decisions and controlling the finances, and you are trapped. These brave, resilient, brilliant women share the tools that helped them escape and rebuild their lives. They want to encourage and empower you to break the chains of coercive control and create the life you deserve.

In this volume, you’ll hear some stories that take place as recently as a few years ago, while others date back as far as the 1930s. There’s the story of a young Russian immigrant who came to the United States seeking the exciting lifestyle he’d seen on television, only to be stabbed, set on fire, and left to die in the desert by his own friends. There’s also the story of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. There’s one of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. And more.

Within this book, you will discover hope in regaining control of your emotions so that memories only serve as reflections of the past and no longer cause you pain. Discover how to ease yourself out of depression and release anxieties by rewiring your high-alert trauma brain. Brain chemistry changes from high cortisol levels, and science shows are directly connected to symptoms.

Disgrace is the first truly global history of sexual violence. The book explores how sexual violence varies widely across time and place, from nineteenth-century peasant women in Ireland who were abducted as a way of forcing marriage, to date-raped high-school students in twentieth-century America, and from girls and women violated by Russian soldiers in 1945 to Dalit women raped by men of higher castes today.

Stolen Childhoods: Thriving After Abuse focuses on how survivors of childhood abuse can finally break their silence and begin the process of recovery by understanding the impact their abuse history has on their adulthood. Filled with real life client conversations, along with her own experiences as a patient, this work helps listeners stop reliving past abuse and thrive in their recovery. It demonstrates the tremendous hope that can come from having a witness, and feeling heard and believed.

Was your mother always shaming you, making you feel rejected? Was it always about her? Was she often emotionally, or even physically abusive towards you? Sadly, this is how narcissists act, and despite the vast majority of mothers being very maternal & loving, narcissistic mothers just aren’t like this. And, of course, this leaves scars as you become an adult.

By the time Barbara was four years old, she already knew what she would have to do: get tough or die. Before DVDs existed, Barbara's childhood trauma was permanently recorded and embedded in her head. Long before "surround sound" technologies were available, she captured all of the sights and sounds of her childhood in vivid detail. To author this book, all she had to do was press “play,” and that scared her because many of those details were not a pretty picture. Some looked more like an old Alfred Hitchcock horror movie.

In this shared voyage of self-discovery, we'll explore how child abuse continues to steal our adult happiness. I'll suggest exercises and ask you questions. Why? Because you - not me or anyone else - are the world's leading expert on you. This guide is about you - your past, your present, your future. We'll look at insights, available to us through our dreams and even through fairy tales. We'll discuss whistle-blowing - to our families, to our abuser, and by writing a memoir.