A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Pain

A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Pain
Author: Alexis White Thomas
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2015-01-05
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1496960580

A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Pain contains a collection of poems that takes you on a journey that explores every aspect of emotions, such as joy, pain, sorrow, fear, hope, despair and victory. A true story revealing the raw emotions of a mother's ups and downs as her daughter battles breast cancer. In A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Pain, you should be able to find hope and encouragement and know that the word "cancer" doesn't always mean death.

If You Love Me

If You Love Me
Author: Maureen Cavanagh
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781250205872

Maureen Cavanagh's gripping memoir If You Love Me is the story of a mother who suddenly finds herself on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic as her daughter battles--and ultimately reckons with--substance use disorder. Fast-paced and heartwarming, devastating and redemptive, Maureen's incredible odyssey into the opioid crisis--first as a parent, then as an advocate--is ultimately a deeply moving mother-daughter story. When Maureen and her ex-husband Mike see their daughter Katie's needle track marks for the first time, it is a complete shock. But, slowly, the drug use explains everything--Katie's constant exhaustion, erratic moods, and all those spoons that have gone missing from the house. Once Mike and Maureen get Katie into detox, Maureen goes to sleep that night hoping that in 48 hours she'll have her daughter back. It's not that simple. Like the millions of parents and relatives all over the country--some of whom she has helped through her nonprofit organization--Maureen learns that recovery is neither straightforward nor brief. She fights to save Katie's life, breaking down doors on the seedy side of town with Mike, kidnapping Katie outside a convenience store, and battling the taboo around substance use disorder in her picturesque New England town. Maureen is launched into the shadowy world of overcrowded, for-profit rehabilitation centers that often prey on worried parents. As Katie runs away from one program after another, never outrunning her pain, Maureen realizes that even while she becomes an expert on getting countless men and women into detox and treatment centers, she remains powerless to save her own daughter. Maureen's unforgettable story brings the opioid crisis out of the shadows and into the house next door.

Will I Ever be Good Enough?

Will I Ever be Good Enough?
Author: Karyl McBride
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2008
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1416551328

The first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life for yourself. Drawing on over two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women's psychology and health, psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride helpsyou recognize the widespread effects of this maternal emotional abuse and guides you as you create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.An estimated 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder, which makes them so insecure and overbearing, insensitive and domineering that they can psychologically damage their daughters for life. Daughters of narcissistic mothers learn that maternal love is not unconditional, and that it is given only when they behave in accordance with their mothers' often unreasonable expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters consequently have difficulty overcoming their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. They may also have a terrible fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy love relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism, or to self-sabotage and frustration.Herself the recovering daughter of a narcissistic mother, Dr. McBride includes her personal struggle, which adds a profound level of authority to her work, along with the perspectives of the hundreds of suffering daughters she's interviewed over the years. Their stories of how maternal abuse has manifested in their lives -- as well as how they have successfully overcome its effects -- show you that you're not alone and that you can take back your life and have the controlyouwant.Dr. McBride's step-by-step program will enable you to:(1) Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life (2) Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into a strong desire to overachieve or a tendency to self-sabotage (3) Construct a step-by-step program to reclaim your life and enhance your sense of self, a process that includes creating a psychological separation from your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse. You will also learn how not to repeat your mother's mistakes with your own daughter.Warm and sympathetic, filled with the examples of women who have established healthy boundaries with their hurtful mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

Thin Wire

Thin Wire
Author: Christine Lewry
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2012
Genre: Heroin abuse
ISBN: 9781780882956

Thin Wire: A Mother's Journey Through her Daughter's Heroin Addiction is an honest and intimate account of heroin addiction told by both mother and daughter. Amber is introduced to drugs and becomes addicted without her mother's knowledge. She meets a dealer who feeds her habit. Whilst living together, they are raided by the police. Bailed to her mother's address with a £200-a-day addiction, Amber doesn't think her family will accept her back when they discover the truth. When she's charged by the police with dealing class A drugs and accepting stolen goods, she fears she'll go to prison. Trying to feed her habit alone, Amber meets a fellow addict who offers to introduce her to prostitution. The prospect terrifies her, but will her mother help her?An unflinching story that looks at drug addiction from two different sides, Thin Wire will appeal to a diverse range of readers, in particular fans of autobiographies and memoirs, and is remiscent of Melvin Burgess' Junk. The book's concluding section offers two sets of personal guidelines; one for addicts, the other for parents or partners of addicts, while the in-depth, harrowing real life story vividly illustrates the difficulties of overcoming addiction. In a society where 50% of teenagers experiment with drugs, Amber is every mother's child. She could be yours.

A Mother's Journey of Love, Loss and Life Beyond

A Mother's Journey of Love, Loss and Life Beyond
Author: Jennifer L. Scalise
Publisher: Lakeland Press LLC
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-12-05
Genre: Daughters
ISBN: 9781936691005

A Mother's Journey is the powerful true story that is sure to offer undeniable hope to all. As she soaks in one of the last days of a perfect vacation in Costa Rica, Scalise has no idea that she is about to face an incomprehensible tragedy that will claim the life of her twelve-year-old daughter, Brooke. Hidden discoveries and simultaneous events too parallel to be deemed coincidence reveal that Brooke's life had a greater purpose and her soul was preparing for the journey home. As she begins to unravel Brooke's messages, somewhere between conviction and proof, Jennifer finds an unshakable faith in eternal life and peace, knowing that Brooke remains by her side with a love unabridged by death.

My Mother's Pain

My Mother's Pain
Author: Fae Bidgoli
Publisher: Gallatin River Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2021-01-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9781662902673

My Mother's Pain explores the progressive nature of cultural abuse and the tragic decisions women bound to such conventions must make in the name of love, often denying and even sacrificing their true selves. This is also a story of healing, rebirth, and reunion. Twenty-five years ago, Jennifer Thompson made a decision that would change the course of her life, and hopefully, protect her unborn child from the ravages of cultural abuse. A phone call from her daughter shatters the stitched-together memories of lost love and her mother's pain that make up Jennifer's fragile reality. Hours later, dressed in her nightgown and raincoat, wearing the red heels previously hidden for two decades in her garage, Jennifer sits in her car in front of a small house in Erie, Pennsylvania. She has driven straight through from San Francisco, but in her fugue state, she doesn't know where she is or why. My Mother's Pain follows Jennifer's journey as she unravels the threads of truth within her carefully constructed, now shattered, world. Grief denied, love lost, childhood memories, and an unexpected reunion are woven into the lives of the current owners of Jennifer's childhood home.

Tending Dandelions

Tending Dandelions
Author: Sandra Swenson
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1616497203

Mothers of addicted and alcoholic children share a deep connection—one that is rarely understood by anyone who hasn’t experienced a similar path. Sharing our perspectives helps us all grow stronger, together. These meditations continue the tradition of Hazelden’s beloved series of daily readings by providing moments of recognition, confession, and healing for those who are realizing that recovery rarely follows a neat or comfortable path. Along the way, we plant beautiful roses only to be injured by their thorns, and we pull up unwanted dandelions that, at times, are our only source of wishes. By sharing the realities we never expected our families to face, mothers of addicted children support each other through experiences that can only be feared and imagined by others. From our shared struggles emerge opportunities for personal growth. Tending Dandelions is a vital source of wisdom, support, and strength that helps us begin our own journey of recovery. “We all need to take a closer look at the things we’ve avoided—the things lurking around in this place where love and addiction meet—so we’re as strong as we can be.” —Sandra Swenson, author of Tending Dandelions

When Rain Hurts

When Rain Hurts
Author: Mary Evelyn Greene
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1597092916

“A searingly candid chronicle of the heroic struggle of two adoptive parents to raise their multiply disabled son . . . inspiring.” —Kirkus Reviews When Rain Hurts is the story of one mother’s quest to find a magical path of healing and forgiveness for her son, a boy so damaged by the double whammy of prenatal alcohol abuse and the stark rigors of Russian orphanage life that he was feral by the time of his adoption at age three. Bizarre behaviors, irrational thoughts, and dangerous preoccupations were the norm—no amount of love, it turns out, can untangle the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. More people are coping with and caring for those affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders than individuals living with autism, but because there is a stigma associated with this preventable, devastating birth defect, it is a pandemic of disability and tragedy that remains underreported and underexplored. When Rain Hurts puts an unapologetic face to living and coping with this tragedy while doggedly searching for a more hopeful outcome for one beautiful, innocent, but damaged little boy. “Emotionally complex, fascinating, gritty, exhausting, and teeming with protective mother-energy and love. Three cheers for Mary Greene’s fighting spirit and the work she’s doing to create and protect her family while educating so many of us about the complexities of international adoption and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.” —Sheri Reynolds, #1 New York Times-bestselling author “Greene’s searing account of learning to parent her prenatal alcohol-exposed, bipolar, orphanage-veteran son is an unforgettable lesson in commitment, fortitude, and unconditional love.” —Jessica O’Dwyer, author of Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir

Everything Left to Remember

Everything Left to Remember
Author: Steph Jagger
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250261856

"This will cast a spell on fans of Cheryl Strayed and Glennon Doyle." - Publishers Weekly Between Two Kingdoms meets Wild. In this heart wrenching and inspirational memoir a woman and her mother, who is suffering from dementia, embark on a road trip through national parks, revisiting the memories, and the mountains, that made them who they are. Steph Jagger lost her mother before she lost her. Her mother, stricken with an incurable disease that slowly erases all sense of self, struggles to remember her favorite drink, her favorite song, and—perhaps most heartbreaking of all—Steph herself. Steph watches as the woman who loved and raised her slips away before getting the chance to tell her story, and so Steph makes a promise: her mother will walk it and she will write it. Too aware of her mother’s waning memory, Steph proposes that the two take a camping trip out to Montana—which her mother, on the urging of Steph’s father, agrees to embark upon. An adventure full of horseback riding, hiking, and “tenting” out West quickly turns into one woman’s reflection on childhood, motherhood, personhood—and what it means to love someone who doesn’t quite remember the person she spent her lifetime becoming. A staggeringly beautiful examination of how stories are passed down through generations and from Mother Nature, Everything Left to Remember brings us the wisdom of who our memories make us under the constellations of the vast Montana sky.

I Am Intelligent

I Am Intelligent
Author: Dianne Goddard
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2012-06-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0762785985

This riveting memoir of extreme loss and unimaginable gain recounts the story of a child who, although unable to expressherself, lives fully aware of her limiting circumstances. Robbed of speech and bodily control, and despite her loving parents’ best efforts to help her, Peyton Goddard suffered neglect and ongoing abuse by many who dismissed her as autistic and severely mentally retarded. No one could have imagined that she possessed a brilliant mind in her uncooperative body until her first opportunity to communicate electronically at age 22 when she typed “i am intlgent,” a breakthrough reminiscent of The Miracle Worker. Today Peyton is following through on her vow to be an advocate on behalf of other devalued people. Her inspirational life helps readers transcend stereotypes and join her in the radical notion that, as she says, “All people are vastly valuable. Treasure all because great is each.”