Trauma Memoir

A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brené Brown, New York Times best-selling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions.

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.

When her six-year-old daughter found her collapsed on the kitchen floor, Rachel had no idea how much her life was about to change. A brain scan revealed a dark shadowy mass, a huge abnormal growth of tissue that, whilst benign, was still growing and would surely kill her. It was too big to operate on. It needed to be "managed", and Rachel had, at best, two years to live. Refusing to accept the bleak prognosis, Rachel was determined to stay alive.

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.

Have you or a loved one ever struggled with addictions, codependency, trauma, or shame? Do you often feel "not good enough", alone, or hopeless? Have you ever wondered if God is real, alive, or cares about your mess? This book is for you. Laura McCarthy writes from both her personal struggles and professional point of view.

This is a deeply personal story of a sister who lost her brother to a fentanyl overdose. Tiff Carson found her brother Cory’s struggle with addiction frustrating and impossible to understand until he chose to use his voice.

The third of a nonfiction trilogy, this intrepid memoir tracks sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the life of a veteran American journalist. It also describes the long and ultimately successful psychotherapy the author undertook to heal.

The Romeo & Juliet Delusion provides inspiration to anyone whose life has been touched by addiction or domestic violence. Abbott relies on raw and uninhibited storytelling to convey the methods she used to explore healing and freedom from trauma. Abbott's hope is that by authentically sharing her story, she can help to change the lives of people in similar situations and inspire others to view addiction and domestic abuse with compassion and curiosity.

In 2001, Christine Yanke’s life was turned upside down after police raided her family’s home and arrested her Hells Angel husband. Suddenly an unemployed single mother of three boys, she had to fight to keep her home and family together. For the next three years, her husband awaited a trial that would determine their future together as a family. Blinded by an Angel is the true story of one woman’s struggle to survive mental, physical, and financial hardships.

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.

A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world's most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meters above sea level on the China-Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain.

Whether you are a trauma survivor of any kind or a loved one of a survivor, this audiobook is for you. In Silent No More, Gilani carries her listeners through an honest exploration of suffering and survival as it affects us all. By drawing upon her personal experiences, she shines a light on the tumultuous landscape of trauma as a whole. The societal forces shaping human behavior across time and cultures. The powerful ways in which we all influence one another, through our worst mistakes and our warmest compassion.

“You were like this once. What did you do to get better?” A day out from a mental institution, a woman devastated by flashbacks from childhood trauma poses this question to her big brother. Within a few weeks, she took her own life. This book is the answer that her brother wished he could have offered. Spiritual director and professor Frank Rogers had been there. As a young adult, he too was tormented by trauma suffered in the same family.

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.

From a profoundly troubled childhood comes unflinchingly honest stories of abuse, neglect, violence, isolation, and blatant racism. Through the Storm of Early Trauma is not told from a place of anger or resentment. Instead, it speaks with the voice of hope - that others who have lived such stories, and who are living those stories today, will find their own inner strength to seek the help they need and deserve.

As a young, single mother, Sara Schulting Kranz discovered her path to forgiveness and healing from the scars of sexual abuse and the trauma of an unexpected divorce started with a daily practice of actively embracing the power and beauty of nature. Along the way, Sara learned a key lesson that to heal from anything you must walk through it on your own terms.

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.

E. Lynn Harris writes the memoir of his life - from his childhood in Arkansas as a closeted gay boy through his struggling days as a self-published author to his rise as a New York Times best-selling author. In What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Harris shares an extraordinary life touched by loneliness and depression, but, more important, he reveals the triumphant life of a small-town dreamer who was able through writing to make his dreams - and more - come true.

By his 40s, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his 50th birthday, Peter’s 75-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not his biological father. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy.

What kind of childhood is possible with sexual assault? Is there a way to escape from hurt? How do you shed the victim identity? This gripping book details the life of a first-generation girl who went through hell. Born in England in 1980 with mixed Asian Indian ancestry, she narrates her story of hardship and resistance.