Trauma Memoir

In this remarkable memoir, Jeremy Norton marshals twenty-two years of professional experience to offer, with compassion and critique, an extraordinary portrayal of emergency responders. Trauma Sponges captures in arresting detail the personal and social toll the job exacts, as well as the unique perspective afforded by sustained direct encounters with the sick, the dying, and the dead.

Set against a backdrop of East End London, Georgia experienced a childhood few of us could imagine. Though brought up in a loving family, she watched her family break apart through deceit and her mother descend into heroin addiction. Escaping into what she felt was a loving sanctuary, Georgia ended up trapped in a violent relationship with a man who would beat and abuse her. After having her three children by him, she knew she had to escape to finally find safety. Now Georgia is sharing her story of survival to help others and prove there is hope even after trauma and heartache.

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.

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.

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 this poignant and deeply moving memoir, Sigal Magen reflects on her life as a second-generation descendant of Holocaust survivors. Through vivid recollections and heartfelt introspection, she weaves together stories of childhood fears, inherited trauma, and the resilience that shaped her into a beacon of hope and connection. From climbing a playground slide to carrying the weight of generational fears, Sigal shares how her father’s unspoken pain and her grandfather’s symbolic train journeys shaped her view of the world. Her journey takes her from moments of personal struggle to a ...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

Childhood trauma leads to perseverance and personal growth in this empowering memoir. Born into a world shrouded by multi-generational cycles of abuse and child marriages, Donna Simmons navigates a harrowing landscape of pain and betrayal, detailing the challenges that devastated her early years but ultimately did not define the person she became. Through poignant storytelling, she shares both moments of despair and the small victories that fueled her resilience.

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.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all—gunshot wounds, stabbings, traumatic brain injuries—and ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass. As a Harvard-trained physician, he learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, he tried to save the lives of officers shot in the deadliest incident for US law enforcement since 9/11.

For writer and human rights advocate Amanda Jetté Knox, the inspiring story of her family’s journey of love and acceptance, when both her child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. Their tale, shared in her memoir Love Lives Here and embraced by readers everywhere, quickly found its way to the top of bestseller lists.

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.

Rebecca Lafferty grew up with a volatile, erratic, and ultimately notorious father, Dan Lafferty. She carried the scars of her traumatic upbringing through childhood and into adulthood. But most of all, Rebecca carried the horror of learning about the cold-blooded murder of her aunt and infant cousin in 1984, perpetrated by Dan and Ron according to a revelation Ron had received—as profiled in the Jon Krakauer book and FX/Hulu series Under the Banner of Heaven.

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 ...

Have you struggled with obesity, poor self-image, weight-related health problems, or simply a feeling of inadequacy or meaninglessness? Are you tired of feeling left out of the active world around you? Have you ever contemplated weight-loss surgery? Kelley Gunter found herself dealing with all of these issues and many more as she weighed the decision to undergo bariatric surgery. Finding very few personal accounts from those who had gone through the same struggles, she decided to write about her experience in an effort to help others facing the same decision.