Dysfunctional Childhood

When Claire Hoffman's alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven - Iowa - to live in Maharishi's national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire's mother, Transcendental Meditation - the Maharishi's method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life - was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart.

This latest volume by best-selling author Peg Streep picks up where her acclaimed book, Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life, leaves off with 110 answers - all of them founded in science or expert advice - to the most pressing and common questions daughters on the road to recovery from childhood experiences ask. A unique and valuable tool, the Question & Answer Book is divided into 11 focused chapters, each with its own introduction that establishes the context and illuminates why these questions are important.

More than just a book full of the latest information, this is a dynamic, interactive, and personalized journey of recovery for those impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACES). Finally, they can put their past behind them where it belongs! For those who have grown up in a family with addiction, mental illness, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACES), the heartache and pain doesn't end when they grow up and leave home.

If you or someone you love grew up with an emotionally unavailable, narcissistic, or selfish parent, you probably struggle with residual feelings of anger, abandonment, loneliness, or shame. For anyone who endured a nightmare or a wasteland instead of a nurturing childhood, The Toxic Parents Survival Guide will offer you the clinical insights and the day-to-day tools so you can break the chains of toxicity that bind you in a mess you didn't create.

This guide by Dr. Lawrence L James, an expert in alcoholism and trauma, offers not just knowledge but a shared understanding of the lifelong impact of adverse childhood experiences. Drawing from personal and professional experiences, Dr. James delves into the heart of the emotional and psychological turmoil faced by adult children of alcoholics.

At age four, Diana manages her family's banking, grocery shops alone, and befriends the town drunk. Her father is too busy chasing skirts and throwing fits to notice what she does. And her mom is too mentally absent to properly parent. While Diana's narcissistic dad terrorizes and exploits her, she works harder to please him. Estill, an award-winning humor author, shares an honest and comedic look at her dysfunctional childhood. As an adult, she struggles to reclaim her power while caring for her dementia-impaired dad.

“An often poignant and resonant rumination on the enduring effects of abuse and what it takes to overcome, survive, live, and love again.” —Kirkus Reviews Grandson of a Ghost explores how a family’s unspoken, festering grief impacted a boy born 25 years after the suicide of his grandfather. It follows the struggle of Scott as he grows up but fails to see how abuse from his mother clouded his perception of the world, and fueled his self-destructive behavior as an adult. Following a tumultuous childhood, Scott moves from northern New England — driven by his demons — to New York in...

It isn't every day a sexy demigod throws a pissed-off Cupid onto psychologist Matilda Schmidt's couch and informs her the fate of the world depends on her ability to get him off his diapered ass and back to helping people fall in love. But first she'll need to convince a seductive hit man he's snatched the wrong woman before he convinces her he might be the right man - for a night.

Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why.

Bestselling recovery author Karen Casey looks at stories of people who grew up in dysfunctional families and "the good stuff" that can, ironically, come from the experience. She interviews survivors who emerged from the fires of turbulent households affected by abuse, addiction, or other problems, and reveals how they came to process their often-harrowing personal trials and, against the odds, triumph over their difficulties—using skills they honed in response to their childhoods.

When adult Levonne Gaddy returns to the rural North Carolina community where she was born and raised to attend her mother's funeral, the director bars her entry to the viewing room, assuming she is white and therefore not related to the “colored” woman in the coffin. A sad, funny, and poignant story of childhood emerges as memories surface of racism and of the dysfunctional family life she left behind. Turmoil during the 1960s' racial integration of southern schools fill her mind, as do the challenges of her first job, at age 11, as the live-in caregiver for an elderly white woman.

What does it take to finally strip off masks of attempted perfection? Is exposing the pain and chaos in your heart and getting real with yourself and others worth it to find true freedom? Jackie Brewer Van Dyke yearned for a fairytale family. Promising herself to never end up like her violent father and overly timid mother, the young girl morphed into “the fixer" in her household, believing she alone could put an end to the cycle of abuse. Determined to conceal her pain and feelings of inadequacy, she hid behind the façade of perfectionism. Though she resolved to never expose her ...

Jade Pepperdine has a problem: Her life is crumbling beneath the weight of the past, events of the present, and fears for her future. Things need to change, but she doesn’t know where to start. Answers come in the form of an unexpected opportunity when Jade finds herself stuck in a mythical land. She meets Mayor Dudley, who insinuates she is emotionally broken and in need of repair... a fact she’d just as soon ignore. He offers to help her get home if she is willing to face her issues through a process of restoration. Frightened and skeptical yet out of options, Jade grudgingly agrees. ...

A personal and brutally honest account of the destructive dynamic that a drug-affected and mentally ill father can have on his child. Through Under the Influence, Zachary gives us a sacred peek into his once shattered mind, teaching us that, even against all the odds, a broken mind can not only be healed, but can go on to flourish, inspiring others along the way. From the author: " Under the Influence is the story of my childhood. It provides an insight in to the reality of being the son of an addict, paranoid schizophrenic, chronic hoarder and drug dealer."

When Gail Gallant was five months old, she died. A year later, she was reborn. Or so her mother said. The crash occurred on a July night in 1955. The truck hit the Gallant family's car head-on; a few weeks later, newborn baby Gail died from her injuries. Mad with grief, her mother prayed feverishly for Gail's return, convinced that God would bring her child back to her. And when she gave birth within a year to a baby girl who looked identical to her lost child, she believed her prayers had been answered. She named that newborn baby Gail.

Einer der Gründe für Beziehungsstörungen in der Familie ist, dass Eltern mal mehr mal weniger dazu neigen, die Liebe, mit denen sie ihren Kindern von Beginn an begegnen, an bestimmte Bedingungen zu knüpfen – so wie sie es selbst schon von den eigenen Eltern erfahren haben. „Ich liebe mein Kind besonders, wenn es schön ist, oder klug, oder sich um andere kümmert, oder sich mir unterwirft.“ E

Sally grew up in a dilapidated house by the sea where men were forbidden, her childhood world filled with mystery and intrigue. Hippies trailed through the kitchen looking for God - their leader was Aunt Di, who ruled the house with charismatic force. When Sally’s baby brother vanished from his pram, she became suspicious of the activities going on around her. What happened to Baby David and the woman called Poor Sue? And where did all the people singing and wailing prayers in the front room suddenly go?