In this revealing book, you will meet courageous women who broke away from abusive relationships to escape the agonizing pain and find lasting peace. You, too, will recognize the signs of abuse, conquer timidity and helpless dependency, develop the strength to start over, heal your emotional and physical scars, defeat the fear of being alone, and enjoy healthy relationships. Physical battery is the number one cause of injuries among women—more than automobile accidents, rapes, and muggings combined. Are you one of the women who are being abused? You can escape the controlling power of your abuser.
This is the only book on the market today that focuses on the entire spectrum of emotional, verbal, sexual, and physical abuse. Written by University of Utah Clinical Associate Professor Elaine Weiss, a survivor, the book goes right to the heart of the reader and changes their perspective on this topic. She paints a clear picture of women who stay in a marriage because of their fierce loyalty and commitment to the sanctity of marriage. Elaine emphasizes the period of time after women leave their abuser and describes in detail what they go on to do with their lives. These are stories of twelve women from various walks of life, including professionals. Each a victim of domestic violence. Each escaped from her abuser. Each reclaimed her dignity, reconstructed her life, rediscovered peace. Every woman who has left an abuserevery woman who has yet to leavewill find encouragement and support in the voices of these women who broke free.
The world-renowned therapist and author of the groundbreaking self-help classic, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship, delves into the most destructive and powerful weapon of the abuser: shame. And reveals its most powerful antidote... In The Emotionally Abused Woman, therapist Beverly Engel introduced the concept of emotional abuse, one of the most subtle, yet devastating forms of abuse within a relationship. Now Engel exposes the most destructive technique the abuser uses to break our spirit and gain control--and guides readers on how to free themselves from the shame that can keep them from the life (and the love) they deserve. Emotionally abused people are gradually stripped of self-esteem, dignity, and humanity--making them feel unworthy and utterly powerless to escape. But they possess a potent tool with which to combat shame: self-compassion. In these pages, Engel shows how to access it. Using her highly effective Shame Reduction Program, she helps readers jumpstart the process of recovery by offering specific steps to help heal, regain self-confidence--and ultimately become empowered enough to leave--for good. An invaluable resource for both men and women who suffer from emotional abuse, as well as therapists and advocates, Escaping Emotional Abuse is a supportive, nurturing guide for anyone seeking to break the chains of shame, and gain the emotional freedom to create healthier, lasting relationships.
Today there are more than five million women and their children are living in a violentrelationship, and this number is increasing as new technology from tracking devices on cell phonesto computer technology allow an abuser to track its' victims every move. Domestic violence and stalking related crimes are being dismissed in a flurry of shuffled divorcedocuments and court orders of protection. You cannot plead with an abuser and walk away frompotentially life threatening situations if you are unable to learn the steps necessary to protect yourself. In this straight forward, clearly written guidebook, veteran violence safety expert Susan MurphyMilano provides victims the tools and support they require to face this debilitating problem andtake the necessary steps to regain control of their lives. Victims and those going through divorce now are able to provide information, in their own words, about the fears, dangers, experiences they have had at the hands of their abuser. Like our own individual fingerprints, no two crimes against a victim are the same. An abuser isclever like a fox and this book will teach you the techniques to be ten steps ahead before a threatagainst your life can be carried out against you or your children. With the Evidentiary Abuse affidavit provided in this book a victim will be able to provide legaldocumentation and answers, allegations and fears that arise when a person has disappeared whenthey announce the relationship is ending, gone missing or have been found dead. You will be ableto properly document and describe: -Threats made against your life or well being, -Incidents of past abuse that a victim had endured -Admissions of how a threat will be carried out against a victim once they announce they are leaving or filing for a divorce -Where evidence or weapons would or could be located -Portray visible injuries or marks -Determine how to begin and continue through the complex maze a victim faces with policeand prosecutors-How to leave a Perpetrator-How to collect evidence "on the fly" How to begin and continue on the road to safety using a virtual toolbox of techniques How family and friends can be crucial in this process Using the creative approaches developed in this ground breaking guide book by Susan Murphy-Milano will take the victims from the State of being controlled to the "State of being in control." Susan is the author of Defending Our Lives, Getting From Domestic Violence and Staying Safeand Moving Out Moving On when a Relationship Goes Wrong Workbook. "There is nothing like this out there. The reason this book is so valuable is that it's the first book to provide step-by step procedures and structure to protect everyone from dangerous and abusive relationships" -Rev. Jennifer Burns Lewis, Pastor
At 22, Leslie Morgan Steiner seemed to have it all: a Harvard diploma, a glamorous job at Seventeen magazine, a downtown New York City apartment. Plus a handsome, funny, street-smart boyfriend who adored her. But behind her façade of success, this golden girl hid a dark secret. She'd made a mistake shared by millions: she fell in love with the wrong person. At first Leslie and Conor seemed as perfect together as their fairy-tale wedding. Then came the fights she tried to ignore: he pushed her down the stairs of the house they bought together, poured coffee grinds over her hair as she dressed for a critical job interview, choked her during an argument, and threatened her with a gun. Several times, he came close to making good on his threat to kill her. With each attack, Leslie lost another piece of herself. Gripping and utterly compelling, Crazy Love takes you inside the violent, devastating world of abusive love. Conor said he'd been abused since he was a young boy, and love and rage danced intimately together in his psyche. Why didn't Leslie leave? She stayed because she loved him. Find out for yourself if she had fallen truly in love – or into a psychological trap. Crazy Love will draw you in -- and never let go.
The statistics are alarming. Some say that once every nine minutes a woman in the United States is beaten by her spouse or partner. Others claim that once every four minutes a woman in the world is beaten by her spouse or partner. More women go to emergency rooms in the United States for injuries sustained at the hands of their spouses and partners than for all other injuries combined. Shelters for battered women are filled beyond capacity every single day of the year. Despite the overwhelming evidence that violence in our homes is a daily reality, most of us are not willing to acknowledge this private violence or talk about it openly. Women Escaping Violence brings women's stories to the attention of the academy as well as the reading public. While we may be unwilling or unable to talk about the issue of battered women, many of us are ready to read what women have to say about their endangered lives. Considerable scholarship is emerging in the area of domestic violence, including many self-help books about how to identify and escape abuse. Women Escaping Violence offers the unique view of battered women's stories told in their own words, as well as a feminist analysis of how these women use the power of narrative to transform their sense of self and regain a place within the larger society. Lawless shares with the reader the heart-wrenching experiences of battered women who have escaped violence by fleeing to shelters with little more than a few items hastily shoved into a plastic bag, and often with small children in tow. The book includes women's stories as they are told and retold within the shelter, in the presence of other battered women and of caregivers. It analyzes the uses made of these narratives by those seeking to counsel battered women as well as by the women themselves.
"Stunning . . . . This is an immensely courageous story that will break your heart, leave you in tears, and, finally, offer hope and redemption. Brava, Kelly Sundberg." —Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder In this brave and beautiful memoir, written with the raw honesty and devastating openness of The Glass Castle and The Liar’s Club, a woman chronicles how her marriage devolved from a love story into a shocking tale of abuse—examining the tenderness and violence entwined in the relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually broke free. "You made me hit you in the face," he said mournfully. "Now everyone is going to know." "I know," I said. "I’m sorry." Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In her remarkable book, she offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships. To understand herself and her violent marriage, Sundberg looks to her childhood in Salmon, a small, isolated mountain community known as the most redneck town in Idaho. Like her marriage, Salmon is a place of deep contradictions, where Mormon ranchers and hippie back-to-landers live side-by-side; a place of magical beauty riven by secret brutality; a place that takes pride in its individualism and rugged self-sufficiency, yet is beholden to church and communal standards at all costs. Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary, and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation as she gradually rejects the painful reality of her violent life at the hands of the man who is supposed to cherish her, begins to accept responsibility for herself, and learns to believe that she deserves better.
WINNER OF THE HILLMAN PRIZE FOR BOOK JOURNALISM, THE HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD, AND THE LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST * ABA SILVER GAVEL AWARD FINALIST * KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY: Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, BookRiot, Economist, New York Times Staff Critics “A seminal and breathtaking account of why home is the most dangerous place to be a woman . . . A tour de force.” -Eve Ensler "Terrifying, courageous reportage from our internal war zone." -Andrew Solomon "Extraordinary." -New York Times ,“Editors' Choice” “Gut-wrenching, required reading.” -Esquire "Compulsively readable . . . It will save lives." -Washington Post “Essential, devastating reading.” -Cheryl Strayed, New York Times Book Review An award-winning journalist's intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors. We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a “global epidemic.” In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem. In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths-that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.
