Trauma Memoir

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 ...

André Xavier’s life was forever changed by a single phone call on a sunny September morning. On the other end, his wife Charlie heaved in breathless panic. Come quick. There’s been an accident. André jumped into action and found his way to the hospital Charlie had been airlifted to. There, he would learn his wife was alive, but just barely. To the sterile backdrop of beeping, whirring machines, André learned that Charlie had survived a workplace accident, causing severe burns covering 85% of her body. Her road to recovery would be a long and winding one and she would need André’s ...

Growing up with Autism is hard enough. Growing up with Autism when you're a little gay weirdo is almost impossible. Greatest Hits of my Childhood Trauma is the story of a boy fighting to exist in a world that would rather throw him away. From overly religious mothers to prison sentences, drug overdoses, psychiatric facilities, bizarre sexual encounters, and queer high school romance, this tale of 90s middle America is heartbreaking, hilarious, and hard to put down. Alex Dark takes us through the darkest parts of his life with a charm that will keep you coming back for more.

The founder of Recovery Management Agency—the world’s first agency devoted to helping addicts heal their addictions by reawakening their souls—uses her knowledge of depth psychology and her personal experience as a recovering addict to help you reconnect with soul, find meaning and live your purpose.

Ruth M. Glenn wasn’t surprised the first time her husband beat her. She was hurt and disappointed but after a childhood in a broken and violent home, she was not surprised. After all, this was just the way things were, right? It was only after she lay bleeding in a carwash parking lot, after being shot three times by him, that Glenn resolved—if she managed to survive—to spend the rest of her life standing up to domestic violence.

Rachael Maddox bravely shares her own story of statutory rape and recovery, inviting readers into the possibility that their current sex issues, fears, stunted confidence or self-worth troubles, private addictions or private depressions, or impossible-seeming dreams could in fact be resulting from unresolved sexual trauma. There's a myth that so many women bear the burden of in today's world. The myth is that we're bad for the violations that happen to us as well as the mess of the aftermath of those abuses.

Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health.

From a childhood shaped by conflict to the relentless search for self-worth, Bound Free is a gripping memoir that delves into the raw and unfiltered journey of breaking generational cycles, reclaiming identity, and finding healing. With unflinching honesty, the author unpacks a past marked by trauma, loss, and self-discovery—growing up in a home where survival meant fighting, silenced voices carried pain, and love often came with conditions.

In November 2020, Caroline Darian received a call from the police in Carpentras. Her father was in police custody. The seizure of his computer equipment revealed the unthinkable: since 2013, he had drugged his wife before handing her over, in a state of unconsciousness, to men, from all ages and stages of life. With exceptional courage, Darian recounts the earth-shattering discovery that a loved one, her own father, is capable of the worst.

With poignant prose and a deeply authentic personal story, this harrowing account exposes the stark and painful realities of childhood abuse, painting a heart-breaking picture of the lasting pain and fear that it inflicts on its victims. Spanning 30 years, in this coming-of-age memoir, author Christina Vitagliano recounts in vivid detail the frightening nights spent when her father loomed in the doorway of her bedroom, along with the psychological toll that the relentless familial abuse took on her psyche.

In January of 2019, I was trapped in a hotel room in the DusitD2 in Nairobi for 17 long hours while Al-Shabaab terrorists attacked the property. I was completely alone, and certain I was going to die. However, thanks to the incomprehensibly brave men who fought to get us out, hundreds of us were extracted to safety. After the attack, though, PTSD made me so miserable that I started to wish I had died after all. This book is the in-depth retelling of the attack, combined with my personal journal entries about PTSD afterward. It's a true story about trauma.

An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time - and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten.

Growing up, Lisa Nikolidakis tried to make sense of her childhood, which was scarred by abuse, violence, and psychological terrors so extreme that her relationship with her father was cleaved beyond repair. Having finally been able to leave that relationship behind, surviving meant forgetting. For years, “I’m fine” was a lie Nikolidakis repeated. Then, on her twenty-seventh birthday, Nikolidakis’s father murdered his girlfriend and her daughter, and turned the gun on himself.

In 1945, Edith Farnsworth asked the German architect Mies van der Rohe, already renowned for his avant-garde buildings, to design a weekend home for her outside of Chicago. Edith was a woman ahead of her time—unmarried, she was a distinguished medical researcher, as well as an accomplished violinist, translator, and poet. The two quickly began spending weekends together, talking philosophy, Catholic mysticism, and, of course, architecture over wine-soaked picnic lunches.

Rising to accept a prestigious award, Jody Lulich wondered what to say. Describe how caring for helpless, voiceless animals in his own shame and pain provided a lifeline, a chance to heal himself as well? Lulich tells his story in In the Company of Grace, a memoir about finding courage in compassion and strength in healing-and power in finally confronting the darkness of his youth.

Riveting, honest, and raw, I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness—including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison—and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.

Do you want to conquer life's challenges? Jesus wants that for you too! We usually can’t prevent what happens to us, but we can change our reaction to it just by following some simple biblical principles. Are you plagued by anxiety? So was the apostle Paul. Are you gripped with fear? So was the prophet Elijah. Are you riddled with doubt? So was John the Baptist. Do you want to learn to live with hope, rather than despair, and optimism rather than dread? I invite you to join me on this journey. We’ll face some of life’s challenges head on, including: Anxiety Fear Doubt Rejection ...

At the start of this remarkable story of recovery, healing, and redemption, Ginger Gaffney answers a call to help retrain the troubled horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico, a facility run entirely by the prisoners. The horses are scavenging through the dumpsters, kicking and running down the residents when they bring the trash out after meals. One horse is severely injured. The horses and residents arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many: the horses are defensive and terrified, while the residents, some battling addictions, are emotionally and physically shattered.

Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the “walking wounded,” facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community.

Tom Murphy is a retired Navy Captain, a combat veteran, an Olmsted Scholar, and served as a U.S. Navy SEAL for 25 years, rising through the ranks to become the Commanding Officer of two different SEAL commands, including the much-publicized SEAL Team Six. This is his story. The Navy SEAL Trident.is one of the proudest military insignia a man can wear. Embark on an extraordinary journey through the life of this U.S. Navy SEAL as he transcends the depths of trauma to explore the essence of spirituality in "Beyond the Trident."