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iamshadow's review
4.0
This is a good book to read to show the insidiousness of generational and community-wide child abuse, of a culture and a social structure that allows abuse to not only grow and spread but to thrive. If there's one thing I wish, it's that this book laid in harder to the church itself, and how the permissiveness of the church at all levels allowed predators easy access to large numbers of children without any measures taken to prevent it. The silencing of victims and 'forgiveness' by church leaders (from the bishopric right up to general authorities including an apostle) of predators allowed child abuse to run rampant, unchecked. Victims were told not to tell 'lies', wives were told to 'trust' their abusive husbands, and above all, families were counseled against going to the police. The blood and loss of innocence of these children is on the church's heads.
The church aside, this is a book that's as much a snapshot of the 'CSA recovery' movement in the eighties and early nineties as much as anything. It has that feel about it, of that time, when there was a lot of momentum, a lot of proactive therapy and groups going on, and people talking about child abuse in a very dynamic way, before the 'false memory' scaremongering that came later.
It's a good book to read to show different complexities of multiplicity, too. April describes two of her other selves, but talks of many of the members of her support group having others, too. If you take the theory of structural dissociation as a guide, MPD/DID and DDNOS/OSDD are far from being the only forms, just the most complex. People who've been through trauma and have dissociative features can have other selves, even in simple PTSD. Though some of April's support group probably met the criteria for (then) MPD or DDNOS, I doubt all did. Many of them would have probably had simple or complex PTSD, with one or more EPs, or even had none, and just felt free to use 'inner child' work to connect with their younger selves. I think April herself may have fit the secondary structural dissociation bracket, since her other selves seemed to be fairly basic trauma holders/memory keepers, though there was one incident in her account that made me wonder if she actually fits more as a complex, tertiary system. At one point, when she's exploring her multiplicity, her car is broken into, and the journal she'd been documenting this in is stolen from under the seat. Why? It wasn't a purse, just a book, and the idea of someone out there, reading it, terrifies her. I wondered, reading her account of this incident, if perhaps a protector self had broken into the car and stolen the book to keep the information from being shared, an action of which April was amnesic. It just seemed too strange a thing to happen, otherwise, but if it was taken by a protective self, it makes sense. April was telling, April was writing things down, specifically about a self who took the worst of the abuse, April knew this self's name and had written it down. A protective self being triggered to remove the threat posed by the journal seems the most believable thing, rather than a random thief stealing a journal from under a seat which they would have no way of knowing was even there, concealed as it was.
So, it's a book that feels 'of its time', but there's still a lot of value in it, particularly for people looking for works that deal with generational abuse, works that deal with community, church or culture based abuse networks, works that focus on child abuse and child pornography rings, works that talk about processing recovered memories or repressed memories triggered in adulthood, and works that highlight complicity of church, culture, or community in abuse.
The church aside, this is a book that's as much a snapshot of the 'CSA recovery' movement in the eighties and early nineties as much as anything. It has that feel about it, of that time, when there was a lot of momentum, a lot of proactive therapy and groups going on, and people talking about child abuse in a very dynamic way, before the 'false memory' scaremongering that came later.
It's a good book to read to show different complexities of multiplicity, too. April describes two of her other selves, but talks of many of the members of her support group having others, too. If you take the theory of structural dissociation as a guide, MPD/DID and DDNOS/OSDD are far from being the only forms, just the most complex. People who've been through trauma and have dissociative features can have other selves, even in simple PTSD. Though some of April's support group probably met the criteria for (then) MPD or DDNOS, I doubt all did. Many of them would have probably had simple or complex PTSD, with one or more EPs, or even had none, and just felt free to use 'inner child' work to connect with their younger selves. I think April herself may have fit the secondary structural dissociation bracket, since her other selves seemed to be fairly basic trauma holders/memory keepers, though there was one incident in her account that made me wonder if she actually fits more as a complex, tertiary system. At one point, when she's exploring her multiplicity, her car is broken into, and the journal she'd been documenting this in is stolen from under the seat. Why? It wasn't a purse, just a book, and the idea of someone out there, reading it, terrifies her. I wondered, reading her account of this incident, if perhaps a protector self had broken into the car and stolen the book to keep the information from being shared, an action of which April was amnesic. It just seemed too strange a thing to happen, otherwise, but if it was taken by a protective self, it makes sense. April was telling, April was writing things down, specifically about a self who took the worst of the abuse, April knew this self's name and had written it down. A protective self being triggered to remove the threat posed by the journal seems the most believable thing, rather than a random thief stealing a journal from under a seat which they would have no way of knowing was even there, concealed as it was.
So, it's a book that feels 'of its time', but there's still a lot of value in it, particularly for people looking for works that deal with generational abuse, works that deal with community, church or culture based abuse networks, works that focus on child abuse and child pornography rings, works that talk about processing recovered memories or repressed memories triggered in adulthood, and works that highlight complicity of church, culture, or community in abuse.
chelsoaks's review
4.0
Heartbreaking, moving, and so thought-provoking. Not an easy read, but I love the story of hope at healing.
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