This post is about a book that was published on September 29, 2021. But this posting is not a book review--it is intended as information only--and I welcome and appreciate comments. Thank you for reading.
DISCLOSURE: As a writer and editor, I had an opportunity to write an article about child abuse in 2010 and publish it as the cover story in Raising Arizona Kids magazine. Writing it gave me a chance to meet Vincent J. Felitti, M.D. and make a promise to him that I would pursue for the rest of my life the concept of healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences. I've worked as a freelance editor since 2009, and since 2016 I've been collaborating with Wilma MacLiver on her book, Life Behind the Masks, the story of extreme abuse of a child by a mother. That book is available at www.amazon.com/Life-Behind-Masks-Surviving-Mother-Daughter-ebook/dp/B09HL1MH89 and it achieved #1 status on amazon in the category of Adolescent Counseling.
WARNING and EXPLANATION: This book includes descriptions of physically and emotionally violent acts, sexual abuses, animal cruelty, illegalities committed in the workplace, and descriptions of emotional breakdowns, including threats of suicide by the mother that involved witness by the public and attention by police. In all these descriptions, the author worked to "tone things down" so as to prevent "voyeurism" as well as to embrace the progress of her healing journey.
Love should surround every act of conception. Alas, it does not...yet...love did appear at points along the timeline that illustrates the life of Wilma MacLiver. Her story is the most powerful I've ever heard, read, edited, witnessed. And it includes a very strong promise that HEALING FROM EVEN THE MOST EXTREME FORMS OF ABUSE IS POSSIBLE.
Modalities that worked for her were pastoral counseling, EMDR, and the attention she received from a handful of people who were placed into her life by the inexplicable, miraculous, benevolent force that some people name "God."
Love, honor, and respect should be meted in every interaction between an adult and a child, so when a daughter (one of four siblings) becomes the victim of abuse by a mother, the horror is abject.
Wilma MacLiver lived this abject horror. She survived and engaged with healing in ways that allow her to deserve abject honor.
Sincerely,
Mary L. Holden
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