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I Was My Mother's Slave: A Memoir of Growing Up Owned, and Learning to Leave
Paperback
Biographies GeneralAbuseSelf-Help
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Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 242
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.55 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Nobody in the village would have called it abuse. The house was clean. The woman who ran it could be charming when there were guests. Some of the neighbors liked her; most simply tolerated her. None of them ever saw how far down it went.
Inside, the rules changed daily and were never written down. The pegs on the washing line had to match the color of what they held. My hair was washed and dried as a punishment. Things I loved disappeared while I was out - quietly, coldly - until I learned never to say out loud that I loved anything.
I was not hit in a way that showed. I was managed. And for thirty years I believed that the exhaustion, the flinching, and the endless reading of a room were simply what I was like.
This memoir is the story of how long it took me to understand otherwise.
It is about a childhood spent as somebody else's property. About a father worn down in the same house, who could not see a way out either. And about the slow, unglamorous work of leaving in middle age - and taking him with me, with one suitcase each.
It is not a book about a monster. There is no revenge in it, and no diagnosis. Readers will recognize what is now called narcissistic abuse, and the words emotional neglect, coercive control and scapegoat daughter would all fit. The book uses none of them. It is about a woman who could not see me, about the people who noticed something was wrong and let it go, and about what it costs a child to become an expert in someone else's moods.
If you grew up walking on eggshells, if you have been told you are too sensitive, or if you are an adult daughter still working out why one phone call from your mother can flatten you for a day - you will recognize this house.
It took me thirty years. I am writing it down in case it takes you less.
Hanna Frei writes under a pen name. She is also the author of Not Your Cross to Bear: Recognizing Narcissistic Abuse in Christian Homes, and of the three workbooks that go with it.
Contains descriptions of emotional abuse, coercive control, and suicidal ideation.
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