From The Heart of An Abandoned Daughter: My Personal Journey Through Family Violence and Beyond

by Helen C. Gennari, Nancy L. Erickson (Editor)

Overview

From the Heart of An Abandoned Daughter is about the trauma of family violence. It highlights the inner struggle of the author’s attempt as a child to cope with a terrorizing father and a mother who was so focused on survival that she had to block her own feelings, and consequently, disconnect from her children, leaving them to feel emotionally abandoned rather than protected.

Without passing judgment on her parents, author Helen Gennari tells the story of what happened and how she coped by creating strategies for survival that then became crippling patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving in her adult life. She explains these patterns and offers resources for personal change. This book helps women who grew up with family violence understand its effects on their adult lives, find hope for healing, and feel empowered to re-write their own life narrative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780983080053
Publisher:	From The Heart Books
Publication date:	09/24/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	826 KB

About the Author

Helen Coleman Gennari, MSW, LCSW, left home at age sixteen to find work in the city to help pay bills accumulated by her abusive father. When she joined a religious order of nuns a year later, she did not realize that she brought with her the childhood turmoil and pain that she had successfully buried. Twenty-five years later, the trauma of her violent childhood caught up with her and she was hospitalized, deeply depressed. Thus began her journey of discovery and healing which included eventually making the painful decision to leave her Congregation. Her inner work required her to face and embrace the self she had abandoned. In time, she married the man who would become her best friend, and was devastated when he died of cancer ten years later. Through her work as a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and advocate for abused women, Helen has taught and counseled many women toward self-empowerment. She continues to offer compassionate guidance and hope for healing, especially to women who have grown up with family violence. She believes that we can be more than survivors-that we can return to our true selves, replace the patterns that kept us imprisoned, and thrive as whole, happy persons.
International book marketer, public speaker, nonfiction book coach, university professor, and author advocate, Nancy Erickson's (formerly Nancy Baumann) passion is to change the world, one reader at a time. She is the creator and owner of Bookarma (www.bookarma.net), the international book marketing platform that connects authors with new audiences around the globe. She is also known as The Book Professor (www.thebookprofessor.com) because she gives everyday people the courage to tell their truth and the tools they need to write a nonfiction book that will change lives, saves lives, or transform society.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Lundy Bancroft, Prologue by Author, Part I: Dislodging the Story From My Heart: 1 - A Story Rooted Deep In My Heart; 2 - Life Before The Invasion; 3 - The Invasion; 4 - Abandoned; Part II: Telling Stories: 5 - Why Stories?; 6 - Caught In a Storm: 7 - Lost; 8 - Invisible: 9 - My First Stage Appearance; 10 - The Orchard Keeper; 11 - My First Best Friend; 12 - The Tree; 13 - I Will Plant Cosmos; Part III: The Inner Journey Of The Emotionally Abandoned Child: 14 - My Inner World: A Closer Look At The Child's Perspective: 15 - The Ever-Present Threat of Violence; 16 - Learned Abandonment; 17 - Patterns of Hidden Thoughts, Buried Feelings, Revealing Behaviors; Part IV: Embracing the Abandoned Self: 18 - Through Darkness to Discovery; 19 - Embracing the Abandoned Self; 20 - Lessons From the Heart; Epilogue; Part V: Creating A New Life Narrative: Book Discussion Guide; Recommended Books; Additional Reading; Other Resources Appendix I: Why She Stays; Appendix II: The Effect of Family Violence On Us as Children; Appendix III: Strategies For Survival: Inner Patterns; Appendix IV: Changes We Choose To Make; About The Author; In Gratitude;

Editorial Reviews

No scholarly book has yet been published that documents the health problems, unhealthy relationship patterns, or self-loathing that children who grow up exposed to a batterer often carry with them through their adult lives. Enter Helen Gennari's ground- breaking memoir. We get to follow that little girl into her adult life. Her voice is so clear and resonant, and her decision to take her private life out into the public view is a gift to all of us.
-Lundy Bancroft, Author of When Dad Hurts Mom

Consultant on domestic abuse and child mistreatment Author of When Dad Hurts Mom: Helping Your Children Heal the Wounds of Witnessing Abuse

This book provides an honest and heartfelt personal account regard- ing the recovery journey away from childhood powerlessness, due to witnessing domestic violence and maternal emotional neglect, toward a state of power and personal choice in adulthood. Lessons learned include how each of us possesses the ability to make our own choices, and effect our destinies, no matter what has come before.
-Kim Anderson, PhD., LCSW Associate Professor, School of Social Work University of Missouri Author of Enhancing Resilience in Survivors of Family Violence

This is a wonderful guide for empathy and insight toward healing abandonment.
-Susan Anderson Author of Black Swan: The Twelve Lessons of Abandonment Recovery

The journey of healing is a personal one, but it need not be traveled alone. In Helen Gennari's From the Heart of an Abandoned Daughter, her vivid and moving stories of a childhood silenced by her father's violence against her mother, lead to an adult's path of healing that others may follow. Like the "mothering tree" that gave her comfort in a comfortless childhood, Helen provides a safe, sturdy and living process for others to use to recover their true selves, their inherent resilience, and their own individual healing.
-Colleen Coble Chief Executive Officer, Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence

This book is a wonderful gift of hope, healing, wisdom and peace for anyone who has grown up with, or is experiencing family violence. The impact of this trauma on innocent children can result in a lifetime lived in fear, isolation, shame and insecurity. Helen invites us, her readers, to accompany her as she shares not only her story but the transformational journey beyond a painful past. Comforted, informed and uplifted, we are empowered to release the bonds of the past in order to embrace a fulfilling, safe, joyful present and future. We deserve nothing less.
-Mary E. Burns Family violence survivor Former Executive Director of Woman's Place, Drop-in Center for abused women, St. Louis, MO

From the Publisher