Child Abuse
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What to Do with a Family Secret
When I was a child, my mother always saw to it that I had clean clothes to wear to school and that my shoes were polished. Even after my father died and finances were tight, she made sure I had school lunch money, and she paid for my piano lessons. My piano teacher once commented… Continue reading
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Why We May Doubt Our Memories of Childhood Trauma
When I was growing up in my mother’s large, tightly-knit extended family, I was subjected to sexual abuse. Mother warned me not to tell anyone what was happening to me. Instead, she made up a story — a tale of a child nurtured and cared for by a kind, loving family — that she instructed… Continue reading
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The Trouble with Writing about an Abusive Parent
If you had to sum up your relationship with one of your parents in a few words, what would you say? I struggle to find a way to convey my childhood experiences with my mother quickly and clearly, so that you, my reader, will have a sense of what happened to me. Where is the… Continue reading
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Kitchen Table Talk
Aunt Dinny sat at Mother’s kitchen table snapping green beans for our supper. I sat across from her, shucking ears of sweet corn to be steamed, cut from the cob, and frozen. Mother had bought the fresh produce from our neighbor, who had a vegetable garden in his backyard. Looking down at the beans as… Continue reading
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Another ‘Bad Mother’ Memoir
As the daughter of a bad mother, I admit that I am drawn to memoirs in which a child dishes dirt on a parent. When I saw the title of Molly Jong-Fast’s recently published book How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir, I suspected that, like Jennette McCurdy in I’m Glad My Mother Died,… Continue reading
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Memory of Payton in Four Fragments
I. Bull’s Eye Aunt Dinny and Mother walked ahead, their white shirts lit by the evening sun, with Cousin Payton and me behind them. He and I walked side-by-side because Aunt Dinny said Payton and I should be friends. The dirt road behind my grandmother’s house was straight, running east to west, with woods on… Continue reading
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.
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