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Healing Books post your book suggestions here!

#16 User is offline   Jes 

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Posted 20 January 2002 - 11:02 AM

Recently, I read The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving, which I loved.  One of the main characters was raped and learned to survive.

In addition, the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a thirteen year old girl, who struggles through her freshman year in high school after being raped by a senior.

Hugs,

Jes


#17 Guest__*

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Posted 20 February 2002 - 10:15 AM

"Coping with Trauma: The Guide to Self-Understanding" The title says it all.. VERY good book..

#18 Guest__*

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Posted 23 April 2002 - 03:52 PM

My first day and already I'm contributing!

Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation
 Leora Tanenbaum
Very precisely explains the effects of the slut epidemic.

After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back
Nancy Venable Raine
PTSD anyone? This woman helped me realize I wasn't going crazy. It's a very detailed books about the symptoms and effects of PTSD. Very factual meat and potatoes kind of book as apposed to...

Still Loved by the Sun : A Rape Survivor's Journal (sadly, out of print)
Migael Scherer
I considered this a "light" read. A chronicle of this woman's first year of recovery. Might be very helpful for SOs and family, my SO found it helpful.

Men on Rape: What They Have to Say About Sexual Violence
Timothy Beneke (not out of print, circa 1983)
The most valuable thing out of this book, for me, was the Rape Language chapter. Now I know why I refused to play darts with the "boys" at work.
The book mostly consists of different monologues by different men. Very educational.

Can anyone recommend a book about relationship/spousal rape? I've read as much as I can read about date and acquaintance rape - it just didn't happen to me. I was raped and tortured within a relationship, right out of high school. Thanks!


#19 Guest__*

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Posted 02 June 2002 - 11:26 PM

Oh, I have one to add my own list here. I greatly, greatly needed to read and enjoy "After Silence" by Nancy Venable Raine. And it was "Telling" by Patricia Weaver Francisco that inspired me to try healing my body, as well as my mind.

I'm reading a book now called "Anna: A Daughter's Life", by WIlliam Loizeau (or similar spelling - will check it for you). It's about his own crisis - loving and then losing his first baby, at 5 months old. So many of his reactions to the trauma are relatable - it is finally helping me to connect with the fact my reactions are considered reasonable and normal. And I think that anyone who has lost a child because of rape (pregnancy, abortion, or adoption) could probably feel a lot more connections. It's sad, but inspiring too.


#20 Guest__*

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Posted 19 July 2002 - 07:38 AM

My favorite is The Survivor's Guide to Sex by Staci Haines.  It's really more like an instruction manual, but written really well.  It's about csa, but it covers many types of r*pe and abuse, and in general made me feel better about the fact that I like sex now, despite my past.  (Jeez, I can't believe that I just typed that! :o )

#21 Guest_Amy_*

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Posted 18 January 2003 - 10:04 AM

Bodily Harm by I can't remember who :), but a good treatise on self injury.
Of fiction I'd have to say "She's Come Undone" was extremely helpful for me -- a girl raped at age twelve gets through life and finally learns how to survive.  Very triggering though.  Written by Wally Lamb.
Ancien Echoes and Anam Cara by John O'Donohue; both books are written through a holistic, ancient celtic point of view and can be extremely healing.
Take care,
Amy

#22 Guest_katehealer_*

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 04:06 PM

"The Courage to Heal" can be as helpful to rape survivors as well.

"One Day My Soul Just Opened Up" by Iyanla VanZant great for self-esteem growth.

"The Woman's Comfort Book"   excellent self-care and self-soothe techniques for coping and learning love of self.  

"Healing the Child Within" and "A Gift to Myself" its workbook by Charles L Whitfield.

"I Can't Get Over It" PSTD.
"Trauma and Recovery"
"Secret Survivors"

"Safe Passage to Healing" for ritual abuse survivors.

"The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers" by Bobbie Rosencrans.
"When You're Ready: A Woman's Healing From Childhood Physical and Sexual Abuse by her Mother" by Kathy Evert.

"The Obsidian Mirror" by Louise Wisechild a lesbian healing from csa.
"She Who Was Lost Is Remembered" edited by Louise Wisechild an excellent resource about women's use of art in their healing processes from csa.  Excellent book.

"Transforming a Rape Culture"  excellent book on how we need to and can change ourselves, our loved ones, and our culture.


(Edited by katehealer at 4:45 pm on Aug. 19, 2003)

(Edited by katehealer at 6:32 pm on Aug. 20, 2003)


#23 User is offline   Caristy 

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Posted 15 September 2003 - 01:28 PM

Just finished Lucky a week ago and found it ... well ... triggering. I admire her for writing it. Definitely felt shaken for awhile after.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but I love the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It's just such a beautiful story and so well written. I feel like I heard about it all over the place this summer. I don't know what I can say without giving anything away, so here's the summary from amazon...

14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their South Carolina peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. These consoling fantasies are her heart's answer to the family story that as a child, in unclear circumstances, Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest.


#24 User is offline   auditorium 

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Posted 15 September 2003 - 02:30 PM

Tell me by kim adonizio...it is a book of poems and is simply wonderful

#25 Guest__*

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Posted 26 March 2003 - 02:09 PM

My two favorite books are deffinately 'The Courage To Heal' and 'I Never Told Anyone'. Dealing with the issue of Childhood sexual abuse is hard but it's harder growing up still asking questions and still feeling guilty and ashamed of your childhood. We must understand that we are not alone and through my studies over the past 4 years I have learned that books on Child Sexual Abuse have been another key to successful healing.

Haullie


#26 Guest__*

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Posted 12 July 2003 - 04:37 PM

I would like to suggest that anyone seeking empowerment as a woman, and a new way of seeing the sexes, read The Second Sex, by Simone De Beauvoir, interesting and enlightening.

Also worth reading, for any of us, would be, Rape, the All-American Crime (author unknown by me) 'Sorry.  I haven't read it yet, but am going to.  Don't look for it in the library.  It's not PC.  (He,he)
Love to one and all -- Lee    


#27 Guest_kat tahut_*

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Posted 04 August 2003 - 06:33 AM

i read "lucky" by alice sebold this weekend. its wonderful, and the main thing about it for me is that it shows its ok to not be perfect.

tanni
xxx


#28 User is offline   hopefloats 

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Posted 20 August 2003 - 05:36 PM

I am always looking for books.  I have to say that Secret Survivors by E. Sue Bloom was very helpful to me.
Also:
"Trigger" for title-------



How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying To Kill Me by Susan Rose Blauner.  It is a good book about su*cide prevention, written by someone who is very forthright in speaking of her experiences.

Hope


#29 User is offline   Lis 

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Posted 30 October 2001 - 02:32 PM

Two of my favorites are:

After Silence, by Nancy Venable Raine
Telling, by Patricia Weaver Francico

:)

Lis


#30 Guest__*

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Posted 27 December 2001 - 02:39 PM

I have to say "Bastard out of Carolina" by D. Allison.  It triggers badly, but has some of the strongest women characters since Fannie Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes"

In terms of just Great reading- Try M. Z. Bradley's Avalon series, Juliett Mariller's "Daughter of the Forest", and Joyce Carol Oates' "Foxfire"---- these are great reads for grrrrrls.


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