Showing titles in Dysfunctional Families

A young boy suffers amnesia from a trauma he suffered in what feels like must have been another life. He's adopted into a wealthy family - but what will happen when he learns the truth about his past?

This powerful and haunting memoir details the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s. As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years - a book in the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club.

Writer Peg Streep lays out seven distinct but interconnected stages on the path to reclaim your life from the effects of a toxic childhood: "discover", "discernment", "distinguish", "disarm", "reclaim", "redirect", and "recover". Each step is clearly explained and richly detailed with the stories of other women. With approaches drawn from psychology and other disciplines and with unique exercises, the book will help the listener tackle her own self-doubt and become consciously aware of how her mother's treatment continues to shape her behavior.

The shocking first true account from one of the young girls who lived through and survived the Rotherham sex abuse scandal. In the summer of 2014, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal sent shockwaves through the nation. A report revealed that since the 1990s, up to 1,400 young girls in the town had been regularly abused by sex gangs, predominantly comprised of Pakistani men.

Estrangement from one or both parents-even by choice—can take a huge emotional and psychological toll. If you have cut ties with a parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, guilt, and shame. You may question or second-guess your decision. And you may have trouble setting or keeping boundaries with your parent, as well as others in your life. This workbook offers evidence-based skills to help you heal the emotional wounds of your past, so you can finally move forward.

A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.

The Dance of the Lion and the Unicorn is a riveting listening and a revolutionary approach to helping couples whose relationship is in trouble. It focuses on the most common dynamic of relationships that fail: One partner (lion) reacts with outbursts of anger, while the other (unicorn) tries to avoid conflict in ways that only make things worse.

Plagued by the suicides of both his siblings, heir to alcohol and drug abuse, divorce and economic ruin, James Brown lived a life clouded by addiction, broken promises and despair. In The Los Angeles Diaries, he reveals his struggle for survival, mining his past to present the inspiring story of his redemption. Beautifully written and limned with dark humor, these 12 deeply confessional, interconnected chapters address personal failure, heartbreak, the trials of writing for Hollywood, and the life-shattering events that finally convinced Brown that he must "change or die".

Are you tired of feeling manipulated, confused, or undermined in your relationships or workplace? Counter Gaslighting: A Small Manual of Counter-Manipulation is a powerful guide for anyone looking to regain control, assert their reality, and break free from the toxic cycle of gaslighting. In this practical and concise manual, Dan Crown provides you with the essential tools and techniques to recognize and counteract manipulative tactics designed to distort your perception of reality.

Develop healthier and better relationships today! Experience improved relationship fulfillment and unlock the best strategy for secure attachment styles in your relationships. Do you want to develop better and healthier relationships with your loved ones? Would you like to understand yourself better and be more satisfied with your life? Are you looking to break free from being avoidant and start opening up more to create long-lasting and fulfilling relationships? Then this book was made just for you.

In this book, the author provides a real-life example of the shocking revelations and aftermath of DNA investigation. Growing up as one of nine children, Stephen Anderson suspected from a young age that something was amiss. A chance accident, and a small crack in the history of his family broke open. More would come to be revealed as the author sets out on a journey to find answers to his questions. Any listener wondering what a DNA test might reveal will find here one extreme example of family secrets gone awry.

The Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author of Damaged tells the true story of Donna, who came into foster care aged 10, having been abused, victimised, and rejected by her family. Donna has been in foster care with her two young brothers for three weeks when she is abruptly moved to Cathy's. When Donna arrives she is silent, withdrawn, and walks with her shoulders hunched forward and her head down.

A light in the darkness for severely troubled children, former special education teacher Torey Hayden faced three of her most extraordinary challenges after she left the classroom. Nine-year-old Cassandra, kidnapped by her father and found starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans - a child prone to long silences and erratic, violent behavior, whose hard-won recollections of the nightmare she endured could not be fully trusted.

Narcissistic abuse is hard to make sense of. One day, things are going great, the next, you’re left emotionally torn to pieces. The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery guide will help you set healthy boundaries and make sense of the complex. It will give you actionable steps you can take toward achieving healthier relationships. When you have no idea how to properly handle narcissistic abuse, it will linger, escalate, and go on far longer than it should. It’s time to clear the muddy waters. This guide offers a deep dive into the forces that drive narcissistic abuse.

My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon, begins Shame, the probing story of the 12-year-old girl who will become the author herself and the single traumatic memory that will echo and resonate throughout her life. With the emotionally rich voice of great fiction and the diamond-sharp analytical eye of a scientist, Annie Ernaux provides a powerful reflection on experience and the power of violent memory to endure through time, to determine the course of a life.

When foster carer Cathy Glass is asked to foster Darcy-May, a two-day-old baby, she is very concerned. The baby is coming to her straight from the hospital and will have no contact with her teenage mother, Haylea. Even more worrying, she will be brought to Cathy with a police escort, as it’s vital her extended family don't know where she is.

Just a Girl is the shocking true story of Scarlett Jones, who was abused by her loved ones, groomed and trafficked by a gang, all the while fearing for her life. Scarlett is just 8 years old when the horrific abuse at the hands of her father begins. It creates a world of shocking normality, one that she can only escape in her mind. Little Scarlett dreams of a time when she can be free... and then she meets Ed. Groomed and trafficked by her boyfriend, Scarlett realises she has been primed for abuse ever since she was a child. This is her harrowing story.

Malignant narcissism is a psychological disorder that's an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behavior, aggressiveness, and sadism. It has all of the characteristics of narcissism - but it takes them to the extreme...I wrote this book as a resource for anyone else who is suffering at the hands of a malignant narcissist. I want to offer not only healing words but also guide you through understanding the disorder in order to better help you deal with it.

In Estranged: Finding Hope When Your Family Falls Apart, Julie Plagens shares about her life as a child of well-known restauranteur parents who also owned the first nightclub in Texas. After ten years in the entertainment business, her parents made a public conversion to Christianity and went into full-time ministry. Unfortunately, the hardships of maintaining a perfect image as a Christian family became too heavy of a burden due to anger and unforgiveness. After a life-altering health diagnosis (Crohn's disease), Julie, her husband, and their two children walked away from the family to ...

The Manager Mom Epidemic is the first book that not only acknowledges the fact that moms are burning out, but shows you how to transfer responsibility for daily tasks from yourself to your partner and also (gasp!) your kids. Clinical psychologist and child discipline expert Thomas W. Phelan, PhD, walks you through real-life situations and shows you how to step back from the things that are dragging you down.