Lately I’ve been struggling with coming to terms with the trauma I experienced from my upbringing and I would feel comforted if I could find a fiction/non-fiction book about dysfunctional families/someone suffering or coming to terms with family trauma.
Any suggestions?
by innocent1234
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Fun Home was amazing
I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy
Less Than by AD Long
Jeannette Walls – The Glass Castle
All Families Are Pscyhotic by Douglas Coupland. It’s fiction and is about family trauma with no SA or suicide. It’s also hilarious
This is How by Augusten Burroughs. Non fiction
In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate. Non fiction, about how trauma drives addiction
Everything I Never Wanted to Be by Dina Kucera. A little different from most family trauma memoirs in that she grows up to try to hold together an extended household of elderly parents, addicted offspring, and relatives with physical challenges and health conditions. Well written and relatable.
“On earth we’re briefly gorgeous” touches on these themes
Educated by Tara Westover
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green
Julian May’s Intervention and Galactic Milieu series are ostensibly about humans’ first contact with aliens, and the emergence of higher mind powers (telekinesis, telepathy, etc.); the real drama, though, comes from the dysfunction and trauma that some of these people with powers experience, and how having powers only increases the damage they can do. (To fully understand both series, you might have to read the Pliocene Exile series first, which does touch upon these issues to a lesser extent.)
Stephen King’s _Carrie_ does much the same thing, if I remember correctly, just in one book.
The benefits of being an octopus (Ann Braden)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Running With Scissors..