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Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: As I read through the Pages of Dear Sister, Once Abused, I found myself finally understanding the reasons why my life was in such a turmoil. I understand what I have to do to heal. Now I have hope.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: As I read through the Pages of Dear Sister, Once Abused, I found myself finally understanding the reasons why my life was in such a turmoil. I understand what I have to do to heal. Now I have hope.
Rating: 
Summary: ¿Dear Sister¿¿ a primer for victims, families and therapists
Review: If Dear Sister, Once Abused, the first book written by psychiatric nurse Victoria Lynn, were a conventional first-person account of discovery and recovery from childhood sexual abuse (CSA), sympathetic readers would expect a higher than usual quotient of self-absorption and finger-pointing. They will be pleasantly surprised that Dear Sister's...deeply troubling story is coupled to specific information and techniques that other victims, their families and friends as well as clinicians, therapists and clergy may use to understand and deal effectively with the seemingly chronic after affects of childhood sexual abuse. Lynn also hopes that reading about the lasting damage they cause may even dissuade some perpetrators and provoke them to seek help.
Lynn tells her story in conversational language that creates the distinct impression that she's invited you into her kitchen for a confidential "straight-from-the-soul" chat - tangents and all --over a cup of coffee. Her obviously cathartic report candidly bares many excruciating details-- confounding setbacks and exhilarating breakthroughs.
Plagued all her life by serial physical and emotion maladies, Lynn's vivid "breakthrough" recollection at age 42 that she had been molested as a three-year-old sets of an obsessive quest that illustrates dramatically the life-long residual affects of childhood sexual abuse. The details of her struggle make a compelling case for early intervention and vigilance by parents, health care providers, teachers and clergy. "That's why I wanted to write the book in the first place - to help victims and people who can help victims," she says emphatically. "Although I had the telltale symptoms, mother admits she did not know what to look for and none of the doctors she took me to ever suggested I might have abuse trauma," Lynn writes. She notes that key telltales are eating disorders: one expert claimed "that 90 percent (or more, in his opinion) of those suffering from an eating disorder have a history of sexual abuse," she writes.
Understandably Lynn's search for "my truth, as I know it" upset those near and dear,, but, in the end, brought deeper understanding as to why relationships with her mother, father and step-father -- who took over parenting duties when Lynn was just seven-had been strained, frightening and contentious.
When her paternal grandmother finally seems to confess that Lynn's recovered memory is accurate, but that the abuser was her recently deceased grandfather, not her father as Lynn had suspected, the grandmother adds dismissively - "you can't blame a dead man." In keeping with the way people of her generation often dealt with painful issues from the past, her grandmother chides: "Why can't you just forget about something that happened so long ago?"
The confession - and subsequent loss of a close relationship with her grandmother-- propelled Lynn into another mental and physical tailspin, yet "It helped me to have my my own knowledge of what happened to me in order to continue healing," she noted.
Lynn's journey forces her to reevaluate the roots of her life-long fear of her mother, the downright cold and aloof relations with her father, who apparently would have preferred a male child to Victoria -- " His European upbringing had convinced him a son made a man manlier -- and I was his second daughter," she writes, and a somewhat checkered relationship with her step-father. Even the breakthrough flashback presented life-threatening traumas. "It's my belief that victims can die not only of shock from abuse itself, but from the shock that almost always accompanies the breakthrough flashback as well," she said in a telephone interview. "It is not uncommon for traumatized victims to consider or attempt suicide and other self-destructive acts."
Although the book underscores that there is much a victim can and must do on his/her own, Lynn lays out specific tactics parents, spouses, children, siblings and friends can do to speed the healing process. She illustrates her points with many touching examples of how her husband and six sons coached her through set-backs and tough times.
Further, she emphasizes the importance of getting professional help, but cautions: "as is true of any therapy, the most benefit is derived if the therapist is well trained...Someone who is not well trained can cause even more trauma." Ditto the importance of using pharmaceuticals to control depression and anxiety as well as the need for gradual weaning under the supervision of trained medical personnel.
Because she interweaves her story with practical suggestions, the book is likely to become a primer for clinicians, parents, educators, victims, students and clergy. Each chapter follows this general format: chapter topic and discussion; here's what happened to me; here's how I responded; here's what you can do; here's how others can help; here are the outcomes.
Oddly, Lynn virtually ignores the impact CSA may have had on her first attempts in high school to forge romantic relationships with boys. She remembers avoiding a particularly handsome classmate "because he was so good looking, I worried he wouldn't be very reliable. As intimacy (with men) barriers continue to fall - remember God probably had a purpose in mind when he gave me a nurturing husband, and six sons to raise -- perhaps I'll have something to add in a second edition of the book."
Lynn's "everything but the kitchen sink" healing formula includes the need for spiritual/religious tools, although she hastens to add "one needn't be religious to employ spiritual resources. Meditation-"prayer is a powerful form of meditation--" can be enormously helpful, particularly in the "forgiveness" stage.
Concluding a cathartic open letter to her abuser, her dead grandfather, she writes: "I can look at your picture and see you as the handsome soldier grandma fell for. Who am I to judge? Only you and God know what went amiss for you. I feel mercy toward you-not really love-but mercy is an improvement."
Above all, Lynn's book demonstrates that she is indeed improving. She assures that with time, clinical help and support from their families and friends, so too can most victims of childhood sexual abuse. This is good news indeed!
Rating:
Summary: Dear Sister, Once Abused
Review: Victoria Lynn, psychiatric nurse, draws upon her experience and talks openly about her healing process from childhood sexual abuse. This book is a powerful resource for adults who have suffered abuse and for their families and friends. Well written and hopeful, it is about a journey that connects with human suffering and opens hearts to understanding.
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