Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery

Clinical psychologist Gildiner (Too Close to the Falls) shares heart-wrenching stories of child abuse in this pull-no-punches narrative about five of her patients. Of them, nine-year-old Laura was abandoned by her sociopathic father in a Canadian winter and left to raise her younger siblings; Peter was locked away in an attic by his mother until his fifth birthday and terrorized by her thereafter, leading to impotence and the inability to have a normal romantic relationship; Alana’s father began raping her at the age of four and forced her to have sex with his friends, causing dissociative identity disorder; Danny was stripped of his Cree heritage and endured sexual assault by priests at a state-run school; and Madeline was a brittle workaholic whose verbally and emotionally abusive mother conditioned her to believe she has no worth and is a “monster.” While each patient first comes to Gildiner with an immediate health concern, they all find healing by opening up, delving into their past to uncover former traumas, and finding forgiveness for those who have caused them harm. These painful accounts will break anyone’s heart, and also inspire awe for the ways people who suffered horrific abuse were able to find a measure of recovery. (Sept.)