On a trip to New York and back, I recently read Laura Brown’s excellent book for survivors of childhood abuse and neglect (including emotional abuse and neglect): Not the Price of Admission: Healthy Relationships after Childhood Trauma. Here is part of a review by Kathy Steele from the back cover of Brown’s book that I think captures the essence of this book well:
“Laura Brown… has given us a book that is delightfully authentic and readable, chock full of humor, honesty, compassion, and–most importantly–realistic hope. How can people who have been terribly hurt by their caretakers in childhood ever learn to trust and love again? Dr. Brown explores this agonizing question with refreshing clarity, sharing stories that illustrate tough issues and realistic solutions. She truly gets the impossible dilemma of desperately wanting emotional intimacy, yet being paralyzed by a belief that you are unlovable, and mired in the deep mistrust and confusion that only profound betrayal can engender. Dr. Brown offers realistic and compassionate pathways to (re)learn how to take the tough but essential risks of authentic connection with the right kind of people, so you no longer find you have to pay a price for love.”
In particular, Brown explains how to raise or lower the volume of one’s “cheater detectors”, depending on which way they have been miscalibrated as the result of adverse childhood experience, and how to determine which people are and are not trustworthy. She also explores how to set new boundaries so as not to continue to pay a price for participation in relationships with reliable people who never wanted the survivor to pay such a price in the first place, and end (or not get involved in) relationships with people who are likely to re-traumatize the survivor.
Brown clearly articulates how the predicaments survivors find themselves in came to be and are not their faults, and also how to start taking responsibility for changing them. Survivors are likely to find this book eye-opening, affirming, useful and empowering.