Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian

5 reviews

oworthyfool's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Domestic abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Violence, Abandonment, Addiction, Car accident, Medical content, Mental illness, Racism, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Ableism, Miscarriage, Cultural appropriation, and Homophobia

agador_spartacus's review

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Racism, Child abuse, Child death, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Domestic abuse, and Abandonment

Moderate: Addiction and Pandemic/Epidemic

imstephtacular's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Mental illness, Classism, Toxic relationship, and Death

Moderate: Pregnancy, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Murder, Eating disorder, Sexual violence, Ableism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Alcohol, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Physical abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Miscarriage, Gun violence, and Racial slurs

pmhandley's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

Many people remember the infamous Hart family, the married female couple that drove themselves and their 6 adopted children off a cliff. In the aftermath, I remember seeing little about their birth families, other than that they had been removed from them and sent to into foster care. Asgarian hunted down their birth families, who didn't even know the children that had been taken from them were dead - no one bothered to tell them. It's a deeply empathetic story that reveals the cruelty involved in the child welfare system. While it's clear the children's birth mothers had struggles, they were also deeply loved and wanted by their birth families and had extended family trying or willing to help. The things that would actually help their children, and their parents, like substance use help, therapy, or just straight up providing money for essentials were never addressed. Instead, they were largely rushed through a legal system, declared unfit and otherwise forced or coerced to terminate their parental rights. They didn't even have a legal right to their murdered children's remains to bury them close to home. Meanwhile, the Harts, who the children were placed with, were accused of abuse, with one of them even pleading guilty to domestic violence against the children, and yet no one stepped in. It's perhaps one of the most glaring examples of where we have opted for punishment instead of a social safety net. Even attempts at reunification by the families desperately trying to get their children back are undermined, with things like requiring parenting classes but providing no transportation to get there in a city like Houston, with little reliable bus options. One woman risks being denied the return of her child because they had been with a foster family so long CPS said it the child had bonded with the family - but the only reason the child was with that foster family for so long was due to CPS and family court's own delays, while the mother desperately tried to plead her case and her innocence. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Physical abuse

another_dahlia's review

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Physical abuse, Murder, Medical content, Miscarriage, and Medical trauma

Minor: Alcoholism, Police brutality, Infertility, Drug use, Confinement, and Car accident