Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Dysfunctional Families

Glen Walsh and Steven Alward were childhood friends in their tight-knit working-class community in Shortland, New South Wales. Both proud altar boys at the local Catholic church, they went on to attend the city's Catholic boys' highs schools. Both did well: Steven became a journalist; Glen a priest. But when Glen discovered another priest was sexually abusing boys, he reported the offending to police. Just weeks before he was due to give evidence at a key trial against the highest cleric to ever be charged with covering up child abuse, Father Glen Walsh was dead.

Have you ever felt like you're losing your mind in a relationship? You keep trying to reach some destination but keep continuously looping in circles until you can't remember where you were trying to go in the first place. That is what a relationship with a Covert, Narcissistic Psychopath is like.

Nine-year-old Archie and his five-year-old sister, Bobbi, are taken into emergency police protective custody after an incident of domestic violence at their family home. Rosie collects the children from their out-of-hours foster carer on New Year's Day and instantly recognises Archie from a domestic violence workshop she helped with. Rosie remembers that when asked what he enjoyed most about the course, Archie said, 'The biscuits'. Social workers are concerned that Archie and Bobbi have been neglected.

They say you can’t go home again. But when her father is diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer and her mother with atypical Alzheimer’s, New York-based actress Kate Mulgrew returns to her hometown in Iowa to spend time with her parents and care for them in the time they have left. The months Kate spends with her parents in Dubuque - by turns turbulent, tragic, and joyful - lead her to reflect on each of their lives and how they shaped her own.

Actor, writer and hopeless romantic Rebecca Humphries had often been called crazy by her boyfriend. But when paparazzi caught him kissing his Strictly Come Dancing partner, she realised the only crazy thing was believing she didn't deserve more. Forced into victimhood by the story, Rebecca chose to reclaim her power, posting her thoughts on social media, including advice for other women who might be experiencing what she realised she'd managed to escape: a toxic, oppressive relationship.

From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp, but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man....

When Gemma Carey was 12 years old, a man twice her age would sneak into her bedroom on a weekly basis and sexually assault her. When Gemma was 17, she took the perpetrator to court without anyone else knowing and had him placed on the child sex offenders register. When she was 33, her mother died of cancer. For 20 years, her mother had known about this man. But why had she not acted to protect her daughter? Could the genesis of this betrayal be found in her own family history?

When detective Maggie Oliver first discovered that children as young as 10 were being groomed, abused and trafficked for sex by gangs of men in the Rochdale area, she felt like a lonely voice calling for people to act. Banging on closed doors, it seemed that nobody was able or willing to help her save these vulnerable girls, but she couldn't just sit back while countless lives were being destroyed forever in plain sight. Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.

"You’re just too sensitive!" "That didn’t happen. You must be imagining things." "I don’t remember saying anything like that. You must have misunderstood me." Do these phrases seem familiar? Perhaps a little too familiar? If you hear them often, you might be a victim of abuse - gaslighting. It might mean that someone is manipulating you, making you not trust yourself. Someone is trying to take control of your life.

When she was 14, Jasvinder Sanghera was shown a photo of the man chosen to be her husband. She was terrified. She'd witnessed the torment her sisters endured in their arranged marriages, so she ran away from home and was grief-stricken when her parents disowned her. Shame is the heart-rending true story of a young girl's attempt to escape from a cruel, claustrophobic world where family honour mattered more than anything, sometimes more than life itself.

As your self-absorbed parent grows older and becomes more dependent on you, hurtful relationships may resurface and become further strained. In the tradition of Children of the Self-Absorbed, author Nina Brown offers the first book for adult children of aging narcissistic or self-absorbed parents. You will learn practical, powerful strategies for navigating the intense negative feelings that your parents can incite as well as tips to protect your children from the criticism, blame, or hostility that may exist between you and their grandparent.

Groomed and procured by a woman, raped by several men and labelled ‘one of the most abused girl in Rotherham’, now Elizabeth Harper is fighting for answers as to why so many people paid to protect our children simply turned a blind eye. Aged just 15, lonely and bullied by her peers, Elizabeth ‘El’ Harper felt like an outcast. But then a chance encounter in the street with a friendly woman suddenly brought hope to her world. A friendship between El and this benevolent stranger blossomed, and life began to feel worth living again.

Born in the tough East End of Glasgow and married into one of the city's most notorious criminal families, Janey Godley's young life was far from ordinary. From the grim and far-from-swinging '60s, to the discos of the '70s, to the tidal wave of heroin addiction which engulfed Glasgow's East End during the '80s, Janey was witness to an extraordinary underworld - as well as religious sectarianism, abject poverty and a frightening family of in-laws. Throughout it all, her indomitable spirit - and her vivid sense of humour - kept her alive.

In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around. In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations, and thousands of pages of documents, Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr’s Broken Faith is a terrifying portrait life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.

Based on over a decade of clinical and domestic abuse research, Women with Controlling Partners will help you identify the coercive constraints that can be predictive of intimate partner abuse, recognize the harmful effects of psychological abuse on your mental and physical health, and gain the personal strength and power to break free. Using the author's three-stage recovery model, you'll be empowered to move out of denial, deconstruct what holds you psychologically captive, and take back your life.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy was juggling the life of an overly-committed mom, wife, and psychologist when the loss of her husband brought her world to a crashing halt. Then she meets Cesar, a charming, handsome, and ambitious man who sweeps her off her feet with the promise of new love.

Relationships with narcissists are turbulent, draining you of your essence while feeding their endless fire. Yet, like the phoenix, you possess the power to rise, reborn from the ashes, stronger and more radiant. It's time to prioritize your wellbeing, reclaim your narrative, and embrace the flight of the Phoenix. Begin your ascent towards healing and empowerment.

For forty years David Meagher harboured a secret. Then in mid 2018 a text message from an old school friend forced him to confront his past and finally deal with it. Secrets and Lies is a story about child sexual abuse. The culture that enabled it. How the perpetrator groomed his victims. How it finally came to an end. And how four decades after the crimes were committed his victims embarked on a successful two-year journey to bring the offender to justice. David Meagher delivers an intimate account of the lasting impact of child sexual abuse on survivors.

When leaving is not a viable option: Discover how to cope with narcissists while living under the same roof, sharing a workplace, or co-parenting. Psychologists and behavioral experts are still debating the causes of narcissism, but they all agree on one thing: Having a narcissist in your life is extremely harmful to your well-being. Breaking free from that toxic circle of narcissism and codependency is hard, especially when you’re dealing with someone close to you. You’re not alone, and there’s a way to regain your freedom and confidence.

This haunting yet wry coming-of-age memoir set at an all-girls summer camp fast-forwards decades into the future as Barbara Graham grapples with the knowledge that the "love affair" she believed she'd shared with her female camp counselor in the 1960s fits every definition of sexual abuse. The book will appeal to anyone who has experienced a betrayal of trust or conflated love and abuse.