Wednesday 18 February 2015

BOOK OF THE DAY: Wounds of the Father by Elizabeth Garrison

by Elizabeth Garrison
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BOOK DESCRIPTION
In the bestselling tradition of Smashed and Glass Castle, this raw, eye-opening memoir tells the powerful story of Elizabeth Garrison’s fractured childhood, descent into teenage drug addiction, and struggle to overcome nearly insurmountable odds. Elizabeth invites the reader behind the closed doors of a picture-perfect Christian family to reveal a dark, hidden world of child abuse, domestic violence, and chilling family secrets all performed in the name of God under the tyrannical rule of her father. Like countless teenage girls, Elizabeth turns to drugs and alcohol to escape. With smack-you-in-the-face honesty, Elizabeth chronicles the dark realities and real-life horrors of teenage drug abuse, living on the streets, foster homes, and treatment centers. She paints an unsparing portrait of scratching and clawing her way out of the grips of child abuse, addiction, and betrayal to find the strength within herself to save her own life.
 

AUTHOR BIO
Elizabeth Garrison has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and works as a researcher for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. Her research focuses on the effects of childhood abuse and developing interventions to help children recover. She also is a well-known celebrity ghost-writer. Given her talent in helping others to tell their stories, Garrison decided it was time to tell her own story. Visit her at www.elizabethgarrison.info.
 

REVIEWS
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and powerful memoir February 6, 2015
By DD
Format:Kindle Edition
The most impressive part of this memoir is how Elizabeth manages to never fall into a victim mentality even though she’s a true victim. It made me furious that so many counselors reported her father for child abuse, but that the court system kept sending her back home and into his hands. I wanted to yell at Elizabeth- “tell them your father is abusing you.” However, Elizabeth’s silence regarding her father’s abuse isn’t because she’s trying to keep it a secret. She really doesn’t have any awareness that what he’s doing is abusive because she’s just a very lost and confused teenage girl. She believes what her family has always told her- that there’s something wrong with her.

Her ability to take readers through her descent into addiction without using any labels was amazing. I must admit it was excruciating to go through the rollercoaster of becoming sober and then relapsing along with her, but it provided a first-hand look at what it is like to be trapped in the vicious cycle of drug use. Although there are many emotional parts of the book, the hardest part for me was in the courthouse when her social workers and probation officer washed their hands of her and she ended up homeless. Despite the pain, the book is laced with hope and is an inspiring tale of survival.

 
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
This book is not a literary masterpiece, but I was hooked from the first line by her disassociative style of writing. It was like being inside her head. Near the middle of the book, she splits into two voices in her head. This is very difficult for a writer to pull off, but not only did she do it, she did it well. The voices show the war that is going on inside her in a way that is raw and transparent. She is constantly engaged in the battle of wanting to know the truth and at the same time, wanting to run away from it. When she steps over the line into addiction, she shares all the moments most girls work so hard to hide and never hesitates from sharing her terrible truths. I can’t imagine the courage it took to write this book and share it with the world. I thought the epilogue was too short because I wanted to know more about how she is doing now, but I was happy to see she was still sober and working as a psychologist with abused kids.
 

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