Dysfunctional Childhood

Were you abused as a child? Gary was. He was born in a small town in rural South Carolina to alcoholic parents who abused and neglected him. For the first twenty years of his life, he was trapped in a world of anxiety, fear, and self-loathing. Tormented daily at home and bullied at school, he was the ideal candidate to pass along the same abuse to his children. . . or worse. Instead of perpetuating the sadistic behavior, he decided it was enough. It would stop here, with him. Gary’s story, heartbreaking and gut-wrenching though it may be, is, above all, uplifting and inspiring. Overcoming...

You spent years wondering what was wrong with you. You spent years wondering what was wrong with you. You walked on eggshells. You learned to read the emotional weather in the room before you even spoke. You made yourself smaller, quieter, easier — because keeping the peace felt like your responsibility. When something went wrong, you assumed it must somehow be your fault. And even after you grew up, something from that environment followed you. The second-guessing The overthinking The strange feeling that love is something you have to earn by being careful enough, good enough, or useful ...

THE GIRL THAT NO ONE CLAIMED is the true story of a child everyone saw but no one truly protected. As a little girl, Lena learned early how to disappear in plain sight. Behind the closed doors of a small-town home, she faced the kind of fear most people only see on the news—violence, manipulation, and adults who cared more about protecting themselves than protecting her. When she finally spoke up, the system that promised safety gave her something else instead: disbelief, blame, and a courtroom that broke her all over again. This memoir follows her life before and after the day the state ...

“Toxic Family Survival Guide” is for anyone who wants to give themselves a fighting chance at happiness and peace in their life, no matter what their early years subjected them to.

9-year-old Nichole and her parents are evicted from their home because both of her parents are addicted to heroin. With nowhere left to turn, they are now homeless. In order to survive they must dig through dumpsters, beg, and steal. While living on the streets, Nichole struggles to understand why people treat them differently.

"It’s a dark story that forced me to think more expansively about what constitutes a cult." —The New York Times' Ernesto Londoño "Although this is Mestyanek Young’s first time narrating, listeners will appreciate hearing this deeply personal story told by the author herself. Share with...

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but...

“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear.” –Oprah.com The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of Mary Karr’s hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation. The Liars’ Club took the...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In a coming-of-age memoir that’s “equal parts hysterical and moving” (Marie Claire), the co-creator of Hulu’s brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father—and whether it’s possible to reconnect before it’s too late. “Anna Konkle...

Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris! In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A...

You are not broken. You are simply a person who learned to survive. You live as if something bad is always about to happen. You move through your days carrying a heavy, invisible weight, a constant, underlying sense that you must guard yourself, perform, or hide just to be safe. To the outside world, you might seem fine. You might even have high functioning anxiety, appearing competent and successful. But inside, you feel like you are performing a role rather than living a life, constantly managing the internal noise of a nervous system that refuses to rest. This is not a personality flaw. ...

This true story will take you on a journey through the life of a child that suffers from horrible physical and mental abuse. You will truly be shocked, saddened, and emotional, yet amazed and excited, as you find yourself rooting for Wayne, for his courage and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. How to suffer and survive the most deplorable degradation, pain and abandonment. This story will show you family dynamics in a secretive, isolated setting of horror and hopelessness, and how this young boy learned to survive and found a safe place for refuge. He will go on to face the world...

The unforgettable story of a young woman's odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes on her journey to redemption. Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her...

Breaking Free from a Painful Childhood: How to Heal is a clinically informed and compassionate guide for adults shaped by emotionally unavailable, controlling, absent, or harmful parents. Whether the pain was overt or hidden behind closed doors, its effects often linger for decades—disrupting self-worth, boundaries, identity, and the capacity for healthy relationships. In this practical and deeply honest book, Dr. Erik Gray draws on years of experience as a psychotherapist to illuminate the long-term impact of early emotional wounds and provide a clear, structured path toward healing. ...

In an all too familiar scenario, played out in millions of homes every day, children who grow up in addictive families abide by certain rules: don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. The rigid survival roles and youthful coping behaviors they take on, such as the responsible child, the adjuster, the placater, and the acting-out child can eventually contribute to problems of depression, loneliness, and addiction in adulthood. 

Your parent was there for all of it, and somehow you were still on your own. There was no death, no dramatic rupture, nothing you could point to. Just a persistent absence inside the presence, and a childhood spent waiting for a version of them that never arrived. Most people never call that grief, because nobody gave them permission to. This book gives the loss its proper name. Grieving a living parent is disorienting precisely because the person is still available to disappoint you, and every family gathering reopens the question. You are not mourning who they were. You are mourning the ...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon, Jeannette Walls’s gripping coming-of-age novel about two sisters “transports us with her powerful storytelling...contemplates the extraordinary bravery needed to confront real-life demons in a world where...

Bloomsbury presents Dancing with the Octopus written and read by Debora Harding. For readers of Educated and The Glass Castle, a harrowing, redemptive and profoundly inspiring memoir of childhood trauma and its long reach into adulthood, named one of the Best True Crime Books by Marie Claire...

What if you’re the lucky one? At sixty-five years old, William Aperance was proud of the life he’d built: a comfortable home in upstate New York, a successful career managing country clubs, and, most importantly, a happy family. Despite growing up in poverty and neglect, with a sense that he never quite belonged, William and his wife, Kim, had created a loving home for their three children. But with retirement on the horizon, one Christmas gift challenged everything. The results from the DNA kit under the tree rocked the foundations of his identity, and everything he thought he knew ...

Did you grow up feeling unseen, unheard, or unimportant in your own home? Maybe your parents were emotionally distant, overly critical, or made you feel like your needs were a burden. Perhaps you learned early on to hide your feelings, take on adult responsibilities as a child, or strive for perfection just to feel loved and accepted. These experiences don’t stay in the past—they often follow us into adulthood, shaping how we see ourselves and relate to others. But here’s the good news: your past doesn’t have to define your future. In I Didn’t Choose to Be Born, certified early ...