Showing titles in Dysfunctional Families

When police are called to a local supermarket late one evening, they find an angry shopkeeper and a silent young woman. It's the third time 24-year-old Zoe has been caught stealing in the past few days. Eyes filled with panic, Zoe has been hiding bread, milk, Calpol and nappies under her coat. As police officers break down the door of Zoe's flat they find seven-year-old Coco and two-year-old Lola, home alone, huddled on the floor in a freezing cold bedroom, crying out for their mummy.

When Kat Ward put down her pen after finishing the seventh book in her “KERI” series, she considered her mission complete. Nearly twenty years had passed since her therapist originally recommend writing as a means of healing her childhood wounds. And after taking listeners on a stomach-twisting journey through her hellish formative years, she was ready to look in the mirror again.

But It’s Your Family is a remarkable account of what it means to cut ties to toxic family abuse and thrive in the aftermath. Loving someone doesn’t always mean having a relationship with them, just like forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation. Reconciling, in many cases, only sets people up for more abuse. A significant part of healing comes with accepting that this is a part of life; there are some relationships that are so poisonous that they destroy one’s ability to be healthy and function best.

Thirty years since the death of Fred West and the conviction of his wife Rose, in 1995, the West murder case exerts a magnetic fascination for true crime listeners. The Wests claimed twelve victims, young women and girls including members of their own family. Nine mutilated bodies were found buried under their home at 25 Cromwell St, Gloucester, the so-called House of Horrors. The Fred West Tapes incorporates remarkable new evidence and primary source testimony, including the experiences of the West children and victim families.

Oskar's school teacher raises the alarm. Oskar's mother is abroad, and he has been left in the care of friends, but has been arriving in school hungry, unkempt and with bruises on his arms, legs and body. Experienced foster carer Cathy Glass is asked to look after him, but as the weeks pass, her concerns deepen. Oskar is far too quiet for a child of six and is clearly scared of something or someone.

Angie, 6, and sister Polly, 4, are utterly distraught when they arrive to stay with foster carer Cathy Glass. Their older half-sister Ashleigh has accused their father of rape, and the two young sisters have been removed from home to keep them safe. Cathy tries to comfort the girls, but they are inconsolable. They just want their mummy and daddy, who they love dearly. The girls appear to have been well looked after, but as they settle and start to talk of life at home, it becomes clear something is badly wrong.

Family scapegoating is an insidious form of "invisible" abuse that is difficult to recognize. It is therefore critical that adult survivors of dysfunctional or narcissistic family systems understand what type of abuse they are trying to recover from. In Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed, licensed psychotherapist and family systems expert Rebecca C. Mandeville uses her research findings on what she named "Family Scapegoating Abuse" (FSA) to help survivors recognize and release the damaging "scapegoat" narrative associated with the family "identified patient" role.

On September 8, 2022, the world stood still as news broke of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing. Her death dismantled the protective shield around the world’s most famous family, and saw a long-simmering crisis of confidence in the British monarchy begin to resurface. Now, with unique insight, deep access and exclusive revelations, journalist Omid Scobie pulls back the curtain on an institution in turmoil—exposing the chaos, family dysfunction, distrust and draconian practices threatening its very future. This is the monarchy’s endgame. Do they have what it takes to save it?

If you're constantly feeling on edge, forever working to appease your spouse to little avail and feel like you're constantly being chipped away at with their abusive behavior, then I can understand how emotionally shattering it feels to live this way. If, in the same breath, it breaks your heart to even consider leaving them because you can't imagine life without them, then I can understand that feeling too - because I was trauma bonded to my abusive ex.

A young boy suffers amnesia from a trauma he suffered in what feels like must have been another life. He's adopted into a wealthy family - but what will happen when he learns the truth about his past?

Barrister Charlotte Proudman has represented countless women in cases spanning rape, domestic abuse, child abduction, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. She has seen first-hand how the family court deepens the trauma of vulnerable women, staking their futures on the biases of individual judges and forcing them to endure the torture of a judicial process that stretches over months and sometimes years.

The year was 1975, and at age sixteen, young Keri was desperate to strike out on her own. However, as listeners of the first three volumes of this series will know, her childhood was hardly the loving, supportive, preparatory period it should have been.

Narcissistic abuse was originally defined as a specific form of emotional abuse of children by narcissistic parents, but more recently the term has been applied more broadly to refer to any abuse by a narcissist (someone that who admires their own attributes), in particular in adult-to-adult relationships the abuse may be mental, physical, financial, spiritual or sexual. If you have been through an abusive relationship with someone who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, you will know that no one understands what you are going through unless they have personally experienced it.

Aged nine Joss came home from school to discover her father's suicide. She's never got over it. This is the true story of Joss, 13, who is angry and out of control. At the age of nine, Joss finds her father's dead body. He has committed suicide. Then more recently her mother remarries, and Joss bitterly resents her stepfather, who abuses her mentally and physically.

By age 30, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: she had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned by their mother outside Nazareth House Convent - a Belfast orphanage run by nuns. Little did they know the unimaginable cruelty they'd endure within its walls. Frances suffered horrifically at the hands of the Sisters: brutally beaten, worked like a slave, abused and molested, the convent regime stripped her of everything - education, innocence and childhood. But the hope of rescue or escape never left her. Years later, Frances would face her demons in court, bringing to account those who so viciously stole her youth.

From the author of Number One bestseller Damaged comes the poignant and shocking memoir of Cathy's recent relationship with Tayo, a young boy she fosters whose good behaviour and polite manners hide a terrible past. Tayo arrives at Cathy's with only the clothes he stands up in. He has been brought to her by the police, but he is calm, polite, and very well spoken, and not at all like the children she normally fosters. The social worker gives Cathy the forms which should contain Tayo's history, but apart from his name and age, it is blank.

In this important sequel to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents.

In this much-anticipated third volume, Kat recounts her early-mid teen years. Still traumatised by her early experiences, she was however not entirely without that sense of hope that is the inalienable property of youth.

In 2015, Mary Yoder returned home from the chiropractic center that she operated with her husband, Bill, complaining that she felt unwell. Mary, health-conscious and vibrant, was suddenly vomiting, sweating, and weak. Doctors in the ER and ICU were baffled as to the cause of her rapidly progressing illness. Her loved ones - including Bill and their children, Adam, Tamryn, and Liana - gathered in shock to say good-bye. In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned with colchicine.