Trauma Memoir

An unlikely self-love story between a broken girl and her strange brain. Using a refreshing, unexpected, and clever combination of self-deprecation and profound insightfulness, Cindy Robinson shares the story of how her ADHD, OCD, and childhood trauma aided both in her downfall as well as her ultimate triumph. Her humorous and heartfelt vignettes invite you to walk alongside her as she attempts to prove she’s “normal” (and fails repeatedly). Determined not to give up on herself, she ultimately finds solace in a surprising place... her strangeness. Witness her artfully blossom from ...

At six months old, Kenneth is struck by polio, leaving him physically marked and setting the tone for a life shaped by struggle. Abandoned by his mother at the hospital, he is taken in by Pearlie Mae, a blind but fearsome relative who raises him with tough love and relentless discipline. By three, Kenneth experiences haunting visions of celestial beings that feel like a divine or infernal claim on his soul, adding a spiritual weight to his physical trials. Life with Pearlie Mae is harsh; she demands survival skills rather than offering comfort. Kenneth learns early to navigate a world that ...

True Story of Childhood Trauma Can I Come Home Now? In this heart-wrenching yet empowering memoir, author Barbara takes readers on a harrowing journey from the innocence of childhood to the complexities of adulthood, revealing the deep scars left by betrayal and abuse. At just five years old, Barbara's world is shattered as she faces unimaginable trauma at the hands of those who should have protected her. Shuttled between relatives after her family’s disintegration, she becomes a target for predators who exploit her vulnerability, leaving her grappling with a fractured sense of self-worth...

In this intimate memoir, renowned developer of Somatic Experiencing, Peter A. Levine—the man who changed the way psychologists, doctors, and healers understand and treat the wounds of trauma and abuse—shares his personal journey to heal his own severe childhood trauma and offers profound insights into the evolution of his innovative healing method.

Brokenness is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it is a sign of strength. Scars are a sign of healing, of hard work that has been done. Walking through life’s fires, it is inevitable that you will get burned. But God can make something beautiful from those ashes. Broken people are the most genuine people out there. They don’t live their lives as if nothing is the matter with them. In Beautifully Broken, Ruth revisits the trauma of her childhood as a missionary kid in Nigeria, details her search for her biological parents, and shares her brave journey of living with ALS. Ruth’s message ...

She looked like the responsible one. Inside, she was silently falling apart. Some girls get to be children. Others are handed emotional responsibilities before they even know what peace feels like. If you grew up keeping the adults okay, swallowing your needs to avoid chaos, or being praised for “maturity” that was really just survival—you were never alone. And it was never your fault. This book is for the daughters who became emotional caregivers long before they were ready. With soft, piercing honesty, She Raised Herself in a House Full of Adults explores the wounds left by ...

Two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner was the second-most-googled person in 2023—and not for his impressive filmography. His searing portrayals on film ranged from an Iraq-based army bomb technician in The Hurt Locker and a Boston bank robber in The Town to a crooked Camden mayor in American Hustle before he became heir to the Jason Bourne franchise (The Bourne Legacy). Amongst other iconic roles, he also captured hearts as fan-favorite comic book marksman Hawkeye in seven Marvel films.

I was four months old when I was adopted, taken from an orphanage and placed into what was supposed to be a loving family. But love had conditions. Survival had rules. And silence was the price of staying. By sixteen, I had already learned how to disappear—into alcohol, into drugs, into the arms of men who didn’t care if I made it out alive. By eighteen, I was a mother, barely keeping my head above water, raising a child while still a child myself. When I got pregnant again at twenty-one, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going to drag another innocent life into my chaos.

CELEBRATING MORE THAN 300 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS ATOP THE DOCTORS & MEDICINE HUMOR BESTSELLER CHARTS! There are things a man doesn’t talk about. And then there are the things he writes down. No one would believe them otherwise. Meet Dr. Paul Waymack: trauma surgeon, burn specialist, military officer, and—for a time—Cold War envoy operating under presidential orders with Soviet agents watching his every move. See the world’s dangers through the eyes of a man who is most at home when everyone else is falling apart. Imagine Larry David dropped into a Tom Clancy plot. Have you ever wondered ...

There I go again, another piece of me chipped away. Another piece unraveled. And unlike one of my knitted pieces, this mistake would remain. Raised in a Jewish household in a coastal Connecticut town, Debbie left her childhood in the groovy ’60s and entered her teenage years during the disco era. Finding any excuse to get away from her neglectful, abusive mother, she turned to attentive boys for fun and affection. This disillusioned path led to Ivan, her first true love, and Debbie became entangled in a passionate relationship. Life was finally looking up. Until the pregnancy test came ...

Stay: A Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas is a riveting debut that captures the joyous and painful complexity of family love and loyalty, the cost of family secrets, and the quest to help the people we love most without losing our own way. It’s also a rare window into two of the biggest epidemics gripping society today: mental illness and chronic illness and the ways in which they affect relationships, personal identity, and the blueprint of our lives.

Set against a 20-year dialogue with her mother, Barbara, who suffers from long undiagnosed PTSD, author Elizabeth Wilcox opens her maternal history with the birth of her illegitimate grandmother Violet to a German house servant outside London in 1904. With her mother's encouragement, Wilcox goes on to trace the lives of Violet and her mother, Barbara, both of whom are deeply impacted by maternal separation and the complex trauma they have endured because of war.

You're a fan of the 1970s music scene and love a juicy memoir. Under My Skin is a #1 BESTSELLER in 5 categories. Author Elise Krentzel took charge of the tumultuous 1970s by making a name for herself as a rock journalist when still a teenager. As a kid, her parents encouraged her to sing, play music, and write, but she wasn’t allowed to be “herself.” Alienated, she hid her heart and learned to become a stranger in her skin as the torment of early childhood taught her to mistrust everyone, especially herself. As an adolescent traveling in Europe, she came to realize there was more to ...

The Reckoning will examine America’s national trauma, rooted in our history but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of current events and the Trump administration’s corrupt and immoral policies. Our failure to acknowledge this trauma, let alone root it out, has allowed it to metastasize. Whether it manifests itself in rising levels of rage and hatred, or hopelessness and apathy, the stress of living in a country we no longer recognize has affected all of us. America is suffering from PTSD - a new leader alone cannot fix us.

A book for psychotherapists and their clients — and for anyone who wants to make the journey from shame to unshame. Carolyn Spring, author of ‘Recovery is my best revenge: my experience of trauma, abuse and dissociative identity disorder’, documents in this, her second book, her journey through psychotherapy to heal and resolve trauma-based shame, which had resulted in a catastrophic mental breakdown in her early thirties and an eventual diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID).

Trapped. Isolated. Desperate. These were constant realities as I lived with my three young sons, fearing what the next minute might hold in my destructive marriage. Was I making the right decisions about caring for myself and my children? Was I being selfish or making excuses? Surely divorce was wrong...right? As I became frighteningly aware of my circumstances, God began showing me in big and little ways that He was with us. Through daily interactions with friends, family, nature, and His Word, God strengthened me, gave me courage to face each day, and provided a way of escape. Readers of ...

For decades, Amy ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something—a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. “You’re here, but you’re not here,” her daughter said to her one night. “Where are you, Mom?”

Do you ever feel controlled by your life? Is it hard for you to release anger from the past? Are you just surviving and calling it living? Face your fears and their message! Each experience is perfectly aligned for your purpose, peace, and freedom. Listen and trust. Your life lessons will guide you. * * * In her memoir, Lynn Balter shows how she transformed unimaginable traumas into a triumphant life of compassion, purpose, and philanthropy. Her life story illustrates the important lessons she learned while surviving and thriving after childhood trauma, sexual assault, divorce, addiction, ...

On May 12, 2015, Amtrak 188 derailed outside of Philadelphia going 106 miles per hour. Geralyn Ritter was thrown from the train with such force that she sustained catastrophic injuries to her chest, her abdomen, and her pelvis. Found unconscious, unable to breathe, and suffering massive blood loss, she was not expected to survive. After enduring weeks in the ICU, dozens of surgeries over the following years, unremitting pain, PTSD, depression, and opioid dependence, Geralyn was faced with a daunting question: Beyond mere survival after trauma, where is the path back to joy?

First, I Believe You is an astonishing memoir of resilience and recovery from severe childhood trauma she had no memory of. Terrifying flashbacks haunted her for decades despite an affluent, advantaged childhood, resulting in severe depression, food addiction, anxiety, and nightmares.