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Damage to Victory

Natasha Brown

Damaged to Victory: Secrets to My Son

By: Natasha Brown

 

God, why do you hate me? The monsters hurt me again and again, and she won’t help me. Isn’t a mother supposed to protect her children? I know she knows what these beasts are doing to me and my sisters; she has to hear our cries. I want to die. I don’t want to be this anymore. Enough. God, I have had enough, just let me die.

I have to be better for my son. My past will not define my future. My immaculate conception, my first love, my one true victory, my reason for living, the love of my life will never know the feeling of degradation and self-hatred I felt the first time I realized that my mother did not love me enough to protect me nor did she care. That will not be my son’s reality. Though my divine blessing was a product of rape, I will protect him with my life!

God blessed me when he brought the Goldsteins in my life. These great people, my God-given parents, took this flawed hurt girl with all my thorns, self-hate, and rage and loved me to wellness. They brought me from damage to victory, and now it is time to tell my secrets to my son.

 

 

 

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Child Abuse

Sydney Newton

This accessible and informative book examines the highly-charged issues of child maltreatment, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and neglect. Sensitively written by a child psychologist, Child Abuse discusses disclosure and feeling safe, and explains how abuse and neglect affects children and adults.

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Scared Selfless

Michelle Stevens

-Michelle Stevens has a photo of the exact moment her childhood was stolen from her. In it, she's only eight years old and posing for her mother's beguiling boyfriend, Gary Lundquist--an elementary school teacher, neighborhood stalwart, and brutal pedophile. Later that night, Gary locks Michelle in a cage, tortures her repeatedly, and uses her to quench his voracious and deviant sexual whims. Michelle can also pinpoint the moment she reconstituted the splintered pieces of her life. Just a few years after being confined to a mental hospital and at the mercy of an alternate personality who kept trolling for sadistic men, she's in cap and gown receiving her Ph.D. in psychology--and the university's award for best dissertation. The distance between these two points is the improbable journey from torture, loss, and mental illness to recovery that is Michelle Stevens's powerful memoir, Scared Selfless. Gary Lundquist kept Michelle as his sex slave for six years. During that time, he waged a campaign of unimaginable cruelty. He pimped her out to countless men for prostitution and forced her to perform in 'kiddie porn' when it was legal and shown in Times Square. It took fifteen years, three hospitalizations, and multiple suicide attempts for Michelle to work through Gary's dark legacy. She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and developed multiple personalities. There was 'Chelsey, ' the rebellious teenager who told her boss to shove it; 'Vicious, ' a tween with homicidal rage; and 'Sarah, ' a sweet little girl who brought her teddy bear on a first date. In this harrowing yet unflinching look at her own experience, Michelle, who was inspired to help others heal by becoming a psychotherapist, sheds light on the all-too-real threat of child sexual abuse and the psychological effects on its victims and best methods for healing, based on her own struggle with PTSD and dissociative identity disorder (more commonly known as multiple personality disorder). Scared Selfless is an examination at the extraordinary--and inexplicable--feats of the mind in the face of unspeakably horrifying trauma and the story of Michelle's courageous road to healing, recovery, and triumph---

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When Daddy Hit Mommy

Sheila Stewart

"When parents fight, it can be very scary for kids, especially if one parent is hitting or hurting the other. Kids in this situation often don't know what to do, whether to tell someone or keep the abuse a secret. It is especially confusing because the child usually loves both parents and then has conflicting and confusing feelings about what is going on in their home. Kids living in an abusive home need to feel safe and loved, and they need to know they are not alone"--Page 4 of cover.

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Too Close to Me

Dave Pelzer

In the blockbuster autobiography A Child Called "It", Dave Pelzer shared the story of his childhood--one of the most dramatic and extreme stories of child abuse ever prosecuted in the state of California. As a child, Pelzer was beaten, starved, and abused both emotionally and physically by his alcoholic and mentally unstable mother. As a man, Pelzer went on to have love, happiness, a fulfilling career, and his own family.



To many, Pelzer seemed to have found his happy ending. But for a child abuse survivor, living a normal adult life carries challenges and complications above and beyond those faced by most people. This book, the fifth in Pelzer's nonfiction series, provides an honest and courageous look at the difficulties inherent in marriage, parenthood, work, and life from the perspective of someone who survived horrific physical and emotional terrors as a child--and who seeks to meet the responsibilities and complications of adult life with love, strength, and an open heart.

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The Only Girl in the World

Maude Julien

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH.
For readers of Room and The Glass Castle, an astonishing memoir of one woman rising above an unimaginable childhood.

Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who believed it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor--raising her in isolation, tyrannizing her childhood and subjecting her to endless drills designed to "eliminate weakness." Maude learned to hold an electric fence for minutes without flinching, and to sit perfectly still in a rat-infested cellar all night long (her mother sewed bells onto her clothes that would give her away if she moved). She endured a life without heat, hot water, adequate food, friendship, or any kind of affectionate treatment.

But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending the animals on the lonely estate as well as the characters in the novels she read in secret, young Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love that her parents forbid as weak. And when, after more than a decade, an outsider managed to penetrate her family's paranoid world, Maude seized her opportunity.

By turns horrifying and magical, The Only Girl in the World is a story that will grip you from the first page and leave you spellbound, a chilling exploration of psychological control that ends with a glorious escape.

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My Body Belongs to Me

Jill Starishevsky

Speaking to children on their own terms, this critically acclaimed book sensitively establishes boundaries for youngsters. In a non-threatening, engaging manner, this guide teaches kids that when it comes to their body, there are some parts that are for “no one else to see” and empowers them to tell a parent or teacher if someone touches them inappropriately. Telling the story of a gender-neutral child who is inappropriately touched by an uncle’s friend, this tale delivers a powerful moral when the youngster reveals the offender and the parents praise the child’s bravery. Most importantly, this narrative assures young ones that sexual molestation is not their fault, and by speaking out, the child will continue to grow big and strong. A “Suggestions for the Storyteller” section is also included to assist in facilitating a comfortable discussion afterwards, thereby helping to prevent the unthinkable from happening to any child. With inspirational rhyming and beautiful illustrations, this is a compelling and uplifting message of what is right and wrong.

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I Said No!

Zack King

Helping kids set healthy boundaries for their private parts can be a daunting and awkward task for parents, counselors and educators. Written from a kid's point of view, I Said No! makes this task a lot easier. To help Zack cope with a real-life experience he had with a friend, he and his mom wrote a book to help prepare other kids to deal with a range of problematic situations. I Said No! uses kid-friendly language and illustrations to help parents and concerned adults give kids guidance they can understand, practice and use. Using a simple, direct, decidedly non-icky approach that doesn't dumb down the issues involved, as well as an easy-to-use system to help kids rehearse and remember appropriate responses to help keep them safe, I Said No! covers a variety of topics, including: * What's appropriate and with whom. * How to deal with inappropriate behavior, bribes and threats. * When and where to go for help, and what to do if the people you are turning to for help don't listen. * Dealing with feelings of guilt and shame.

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Losing Patience

James Peinkofer

All it takes is two or three violent shakes -- in as little as five seconds by an angry parent or caregiver -- to punish or quiet a crying child. Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is the leading cause of abuse related deaths among infants. Nearly one-third of shaken babies die, with as high as 80 percent of survivors suffering permanent brain damage.

In Losing Patience, James Peinkofer provides an encompassing look into the famous and recent cases (Virginia Jaspers, Patience Gill, and Louise Woodward) and key medical personnel that helped shape and define Shaken Baby Syndrome. He identifies the victimology (which infants and children are most vulnerable), what to look out for in a caregiver, and what a family should do if they suspect SBS. He also provides prevention efforts, ways to soothe a crying baby, and stories from the families and survivors.

Losing Patience is a must-read for every parent, grandparent, and caregiver. The life that's saved may be your tiny loved one's.

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Healing from Childhood Abuse

John J. Lemoncelli

The American Medical Association currently estimates at least one in every five adults suffered abuse as a child. While childhood abuse or trauma is certainly not a new issue, it has reached epidemic proportion. Yet most clinicians have not been sufficiently trained to appreciate or understand the devastating long-term impact of abuse on the total person.

 

John J. Lemoncelli, EdD, authored this book to enable those who suffer in silence to understand what happened, take control, and begin and maintain a program of recovery. It helps those abused in childhood to grasp how their experience impacted their development and the extent to which it negatively affects their present lives; encourages them to let go of the belief that they are damaged, dirty, or at fau

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If You Tell

Gregg Olsen

An Amazon Charts, #1 Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen's shocking and empowering true-crime story of three sisters determined to survive their mother's house of horrors.

After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle's talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.

For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother's dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.

Harrowing and heartrending, If You Tell is a survivor's story of absolute evil--and the freedom and justice that Nikki, Sami, and Tori risked their lives to fight for. Sisters forever, victims no more, they found a light in the darkness that made them the resilient women they are today--loving, loved, and moving on.

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The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog

Bruce Perry

A renowned psychiatrist reveals how trauma affects children - and outlines the path to recovery

"Fascinating and upbeat.... Dr. Perry is both a world-class creative scientist and a compassionate therapist." --Mary Pipher, PhD, author of Reviving Ophelia
How does trauma affect a child's mind--and how can that mind recover? In the classic The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Perry explains what happens to the brains of children exposed to extreme stress and shares their lessons of courage, humanity, and hope. Only when we understand the science of the mind and the power of love and nurturing, can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.

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The Truth about Abuse

John Haley

Abuse is a pattern of physical, emotional, verbal, social, or sexual behavior used to control another person. Every year, millions of people suffer from some form of abuse at the hands of friends, relatives, or other loved ones.

The Truth About Abuse, Second Edition features 30 A-to-Z entries that completely cover the issues related to the many different types of abuse, with updated statistics reflecting the most recent information available. Using straightforward prose, this valuable resource guides readers toward a greater understanding of this sensitive topic, providing effective coping strategies for anyone suffering from or close to someone suffering from abuse.

New and revised entries include:

  • Abuse in society
  • Abuse of runaways and homeless teens
  • Bullying
  • Child sexual abuse
  • Common traits of abusers
  • Date rape drugs
  • Domestic partner abuse
  • Hate crimes
  • Hazing
  • Legal intervention
  • Morbidity, mortality, and abuse
  • Prejudice and abuse
  • Rehabilitation and treatment
  • Women and abuse.
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No More Secrets for Me

Oralee Wachter

Fully endorsed by the Masters and Johnson Institute, "No More Secrets for Me is an invaluable resource to help parents talk with their children about the sensitive subject of sexual abuse. This updated edition, with a new foreword and chapter introductions, will help young people recognize the warning signs of abuse. The book will also reassure parents that their children will be prepared to avoid this all-too-real-danger.

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My Orange Duffel Bag

Sam Bracken

Abandoned at age 15, Sam Bracken battled homelessness, poverty, and abuse to successfully earn a full-ride football scholarship to the Georgia Institute of Technology. When he left for college, everything he owned fit in an orange duffel bag. Now, in this award-winning illustrated memoir and road map to personal transformation, Sam
shares his story as well as everything he’s learned about overcoming the odds and radically changing his life so that you can create positive, lasting change of your own. With My Orange Duffel Bag, you’ll have the inspiration, motivation, and tools to realize your potential and achieve your dreams.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2r366n3rKE&feature=youtu.be

My Orange Duffel Bag Award Highlights: 
2011 Outstanding Book of the Year in Young Adult/Children's from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the first self-published book in the organization's 60-year history to win an award.
2011 Merit Award for Editorial Design from HOW Magazine
2011 Benjamin Franklin Book Award Silver Medalist in both Self Help and Juvenile/Young Adult Nonfiction categories from the Independent Book Publishers Association
2011 IPPY Gold Medal from Independent Publishers Book Awards for Most Outstanding Design out of 4,000 entries from 14 countries
2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards Winner in these two categories: New Non-Fiction and Young Adult Non-Fiction
 

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Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

Lysa TerKeurst

*#1 New York Times Bestseller*

You deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to you.

Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can't go on like this, but you don't know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she's discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren't willing to make things right.

With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you:

  • Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they're sorry.
  • Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today.
  • Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now.
  • Identify what's stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead.
  • Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness.
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Trauma and the 12 Steps, Revised and Expanded

Jamie Marich

An inclusive, research-based guide to working the 12 steps: a trauma-informed approach for clinicians, sponsors, and those in recovery.

Step 1: You admit that you're powerless over your addiction. Now what?

12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) have helped countless people on the path to recovery. But many still feel that 12-step programs aren't for them: that the spiritual emphasis is too narrow, the modality too old-school, the setting too triggering, or the space too exclusive. Some struggle with an addict label that can eclipse the histories, traumas, and experiences that feed into addiction, or dismisses the effects of adverse experiences like trauma in the first place. Advances in addiction medicine, trauma, neuropsychiatry, social theory, and overall strides in inclusivity need to be integrated into modern-day 12-step programs to reflect the latest research and what it means to live with an addiction today.

Dr. Jamie Marich, an addiction and trauma clinician in recovery herself, builds necessary bridges between the 12-step's core foundations and up-to-date developments in trauma-informed care. Foregrounding the intersections of addiction, trauma, identity, and systems of oppression, Marich's approach treats the whole person--not just the addiction--to foster healing, transformation, and growth.

Written for clinicians, therapists, sponsors, and those in recovery, Marich provides an extensive toolkit of trauma-informed skills that:
* Explains how trauma impacts addiction, recovery, and relapse
* Celebrates communities who may feel excluded from the program, like atheists, agnostics, and LGBTQ+ folks
* Welcomes outside help from the fields of trauma, dissociation, mindfulness, and addiction research
* Explains the differences between being trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive; and
* Discusses spiritual abuse as a legitimate form of trauma that can profoundly impede spirituality-based approaches to healing.

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Domestic Violence

Warren B. Dahk Knox

The author clearly defines the make-up and behavior of domestic violence. This guide outlines how to identify and terminate domestic violence and other forms of mental and physical abuse.

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No Visible Bruises

Rachel Louise Snyder

An award-winning journalist’s intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors.

We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a “global epidemic.” In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem.

In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don’t know we’re seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths—that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

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Goodbye, Sweet Girl

Kelly Sundberg

In this brave and beautiful memoir, written with the raw honesty and devastating openness of The Glass Castle and The Liar’s Club, a woman chronicles how her marriage devolved from a love story into a shocking tale of abuse—examining the tenderness and violence entwined in the relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually broke free.

"You made me hit you in the face," he said mournfully. "Now everyone is going to know." "I know," I said. "I’m sorry."

Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In her remarkable book, she offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.

To understand herself and her violent marriage, Sundberg looks to her childhood in Salmon, a small, isolated mountain community known as the most redneck town in Idaho. Like her marriage, Salmon is a place of deep contradictions, where Mormon ranchers and hippie back-to-landers live side-by-side; a place of magical beauty riven by secret brutality; a place that takes pride in its individualism and rugged self-sufficiency, yet is beholden to church and communal standards at all costs.

Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary, and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation as she gradually rejects the painful reality of her violent life at the hands of the man who is supposed to cherish her, begins to accept responsibility for herself, and learns to believe that she deserves better.

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Welcome to Wherever We Are

Deborah J. Cohan

Recommended Book in Domestic Violence by DomesticShelters.org

How do you go about caregiving for an ill and elderly parent with a lifelong history of abuse and control, intertwined with expressions of intense love and adoration? How do you reconcile the resulting ambivalence, fear, and anger?

Welcome to Wherever We Are is a meditation on what we hold onto, what we let go of, how we remember others and ultimately how we’re remembered. Deborah Cohan shares her story of caring for her father, a man who was simultaneously loud, gentle, loving and cruel and whose brilliant career as an advertising executive included creating slogans like “Hey, how ‘bout a nice Hawaiian punch?” Wrestling with emotional extremes that characterize abusive relationships, Cohan shows how she navigated life with a man who was at once generous and affectionate, creating magical coat pockets filled with chocolate kisses when she was a little girl, yet who was also prone to searing, vicious remarks like “You’d make my life easier if you’d commit suicide.”

In this gripping memoir, Cohan tells her unique personal story while also weaving in her expertise as a sociologist and domestic abuse counselor to address broader questions related to marriage, violence, divorce, only children, intimacy and loss. A story most of us can relate to as we reckon with past and future choices against the backdrop of complicated family dynamics, Welcome to Wherever We Are is about how we might come to live our own lives better amidst unpredictable changes through grief and healing.

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See What You Made Me Do

Jess Hill

A deeply researched mental abusebook from an award-winning journalist that uncovers the ways in which abusersexert control in the darkest--and most intimate--ways imaginable.

We fear dark alleys, when in truth, home is the most dangerousplace for a woman. Of the 87,000 women killed globally in 2017, more than athird (30,000) were killed by an intimate partner, and another 20,000 werekilled by a family member. In the USalone, 2.5 women are killed by theirpartner every day. These statistics tell us something that'salmost impossible to grapple with: it's not the stranger in the dark womenshould fear, but the men they fall in love with.

See What You Made Me Do, a newnonfiction release, is not only a searing investigation, but also a dissectionof how that violence can be enabled and reinforced by the judicial system wetrust to protect us. It carefully dismantles the flawed logic of victim-blamingand challenges everything you thought you knew about psychological abuse andemotional abuse relationships, while shining a spotlight on domestic violenceawareness and abuse awareness.

This is a book about love, abuse, and power.It's about turning our stubborn beliefs and assumptions inside out andconfronting one of the most complex-and urgent-issues of our time. Follow alongas the author Jess Hill travels through an extraordinary landscape, from theconfounding psychology of perpetrators and victims to the Kafkaesque absurdityof the family law system. Through the eyes of survivors and perpetrators, Hillhas wandered into the horrific underworld of domestic abuse. Now is the timefor all of us to see what is hiding in plain sight.

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Child Abuse

Heidi Williams

Sometimes the line between instilling discipline and enforcing punishment for bad behavior blur into a murky area; what is acceptable and what is abuse? This collection of essays presents even-sided discussions about topics relating to child abuse. Chapter one sets out to define what constitutes child abuse. Chapter two examines the causes of it. Chapter three explains its impact on its victims, and chapter four explains methods that may prevent child abuse. Sources include ParentalRights.org, Harvard Mental Health Letter, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

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No More Secrets for Me

Oralee Wachter

Fully endorsed by the Masters and Johnson Institute, "No More Secrets for Me is an invaluable resource to help parents talk with their children about the sensitive subject of sexual abuse. This updated edition, with a new foreword and chapter introductions, will help young people recognize the warning signs of abuse. The book will also reassure parents that their children will be prepared to avoid this all-too-real-danger.

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When Your Adult Child Breaks Your Heart

Joel L. Young

Behind nearly every adult who is accused of a crime, becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol, or who is severely mentally ill and acting out in public, there is usually at least one extremely stressed-out parent. This parent may initially react with the bad news of their adult child behaving badly with, "Oh no!" followed by, "How can I help to fix this?" A very common third reaction is the thought, "Where did I go wrong--was it something I said or did, or that I failed to do when my child was growing up that caused these issues? Is this really somehow all my fault?" These parents then open their homes, their pocketbooks, their hearts, and their futures to "saving" their adult child--who may go on to leave them financially and emotionally broken.  Sometimes these families also raise the children their adult children leave behind: 1.6 million grandparents in the U.S. are in this situation.
       This helpful book presents families with quotations and scenarios from real suffering parents (who are not identified), practical advice, and tested strategies for coping. It also discusses the fact that parents of adult children may themselves need therapy and medications, especially antidepressants. The book is written in a clear, reassuring manner by Dr. Joel L. Young, medical director of the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine in Rochester Hills, Michigan; with noted medical writer Christine Adamec, author of many books in the field. 
         In the wake of the Newtown shooting and the viral popularity of the post "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother," America is now taking a fresh look, not only at gun control, but also on how we treat mental illness. Another major issue is our support or stigmatization of those with adult children who are a major risk to their families as well to society itself.  This book is part of that conversation.

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The Right Touch

Sandy Kleven

Developed as a gentle and thoughtful tool for teaching skills to help prevent child sexual abuse. All of us, especially children, need affection and personal contact. However, children should be taught that secret, deceptive, or forced touching is wrong and should immediately be reported to a trusted adult.

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Beginning to Heal

Ellen Bass

For all women just beginning to heal from child sexual abuse, an introduction to the healing process based on the groundbreaking and national bestselling classic The Courage to Heal.

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Hollywood Park

Mikel Jollett

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

“A Gen-X This Boy’s Life...Music and his fierce brilliance boost Jollett; a visceral urge to leave his background behind propels him to excel... In the end, Jollett shakes off the past to become the captain of his own soul. Hollywood Park is a triumph."
O, The Oprah Magazine

"This moving and profound memoir is for anyone who loves a good redemption story."
—Good Morning America, 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020

"Several years ago, Jollett began writing Hollywood Park, the gripping and brutally honest memoir of his life. Published in the middle of the pandemic, it has gone on to become one of the summer’s most celebrated books and a New York Times best seller..."
–Los Angeles Magazine

HOLLYWOOD PARK is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.

We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. ...

So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.

In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.

Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.

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The Adoptive Parents' Handbook

Barbara Tantrum

The essential guide to parenting adopted and foster kids--learn to create felt safety, heal attachment trauma, and navigate challenging behaviors and triggers

Children who have been adopted and/or shuttled through the foster-care system experience trauma at a much higher rate than other kids, which can make it difficult for them to trust, relax, regulate their emotions, and connect with their new families. As a parent, learning how to heal attachment trauma, attune to your child's needs, identify triggers, and create felt safety is essential to providing the loving, supportive, and stable home they need to thrive.

Written for parents of adopted and foster kids of all ages, this book offers resources for handling common concerns like sleep issues, food sensitivities, anger, fear, and reactivity. It also provides guidance on navigating transracial adoptions, working through parents' own hang-ups, and recognizing signs of developmental and psychological conditions. The book highlights practical strategies and provides real-life examples to address questions like:
- How do I help my adopted child adjust?
- Is this kind of behavior "normal"?
- How do I help my child live, heal, and thrive with PTSD?

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The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family

Karyn B. Purvis

"An extremely useful parenting handbook... truly outstanding ... strongly recommended."
--Library Journal (starred review)

"A tremendous resource for parents and professionals alike."
--Thomas Atwood, president and CEO, National Council for Adoption

The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion.

Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, The Connected Child will help you:

  • Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child
  • Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders
  • Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened

"A must-read not only for adoptive parents, but for all families striving to correct and connect with their children."
--Carol S. Kranowitz, author of The Out-of-Sync Child

"Drs. Purvis and Cross have thrown a life preserver not only to those just entering uncharted waters, but also to those struggling to stay afloat."
--Kathleen E. Morris, editor of S. I. Focus magazine

"Truly an exceptional, innovative work . . . compassionate, accessible, and founded on a breadth of scientific knowledge and clinical expertise."
--Susan Livingston Smith, program director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

"The Connected Child is the literary equivalent of an airline oxygen mask and instructions: place the mask over your own face first, then over the nose of your child. This book first assists the parent, saying, in effect, 'Calm down, you're not the first mom or dad in the world to face this hurdle, breathe deeply, then follow these simple steps.' The sense of not facing these issues alone--the relief that your child's behavior is not off the charts--is hugely comforting. Other children have behaved this way; other parents have responded thusly; welcome to the community of therapeutic and joyful adoptive families."
--Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children

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Healing the Scars of Emotional Abuse

Gregory L. Jantz

There are no bruises to yellow and heal, no gaping wound to point to. But, in spite of their invisibility, emotional wounds are a very damaging form of abuse. Whether caused by words, actions, or even indifference, emotional abuse is very common-yet often overlooked. In this helpful guide, Christian therapist Gregory Jantz examines why emotional abuse is so common and damaging. He reveals how those who have been abused by a spouse, parent, employer, or minister can overcome the past and rebuild their self-image. This new expanded edition of Healing the Scars of Emotional Abuse now includes:* strategies for dealing with the verbal abuser* self-check quizzes with each chapter* keys to rebuilding relationships* letters from survivors of emotional abuse* new information on spiritual abuse * a biblical plan for healing

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Healing Emotional Wounds

Nancy M. Welch

Nancy’s labor pains were harsh and long, close to seven years, in fact. Conceived by Ukrainian parents, her two adopted children, Alyona and Alec, began their rebirth six years later in an American city near the East Coast shoreline.
 
Healing Emotional Wounds-A Story of Overcoming the Long Hard Road to Recovery from Abuse and Abandonment is a compelling chronicle of metamorphosis that gives testament to the power of love, encouragement, and resolve over the desperate circumstances of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. This unvarnished story recounts the tumultuous road to recovery of two six-year-olds adopted from Ukraine and takes the reader through a mosaic of emotions from anger and frustration to laughter and bewilderment.
 
This action-packed drama of the family’s first seven years reads like fiction, but it’s real. The high-stakes adventure is replete with volatile behaviors, love, intrigue, sadness, police intervention, unwavering faith, doggedness, emotional fluctuations, and humor. Three main characters emerge, along with a large supporting cast of friends, family, neighbors, and community: 1) Alec, born prematurely to a substance-abusing mother, who spent the early part of his life swathed in a blanket cocoon almost devoid of human touch; 2) Alyona, found on the streets at age four or five and returned to the orphanage by her Italian adoptive family after only six weeks due to her aggressive behavior; 3) Nancy, a single, early fiftyish professional who feels called to adopt these children. The antagonist in this saga is the history of abuse and abandonment, but the real heroes are the children, who emerge from the abyss of hopelessness to live lives of confidence, love, and expectation.
 
Healing Emotional Wounds-A Story of Overcoming the Long Hard Road to Recovery from Abuse and Abandonment affirms the hope of healing through commitment, hard work, extensive family and friend support, a “never quit” attitude, and an unyielding resilience and focus.

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