This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Geoffrey R. Jonas will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
A young woman dies alone in a hotel room, her fentanyl-poisoned cocaine still on the desk. She had been missing for nearly 2 weeks. Social Services had been trying to find a place for her to live with her 3-year-old son, whom she had left with her parents. Six months later her father fights for his life in intensive care, but succumbs to his illness because of a lifelong use of alcohol and tobacco. A month after his death her mother is assessed by doctors to be unable to care for herself because of her Alzheimer’s and mental health issues brought on by benzodiazepine and alcohol addiction.
The son, brother, stepson is the only one left to pick up the pieces. He begins a journey of the self and finds out the truth of his family. After going over letters, notes, emails, videos, and text messages, he uncovers a disturbing picture of the abuse his sister suffered at the hands of their parents. He also begins to better understand his own struggles with mental health and substance addiction because of the trauma and abuse he also suffered from their parents.
Follow the son as he looks through his family history to discover the generational abuse that trickled down through the years. Learn about how parents who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder emotionally abuse and manipulate their children. See how the abuse and trauma becomes mental illness in the abused, and how they fall into vicious traps of addiction, eating disorders, self-harm, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Witness the transformational change of the son as he works on the recovery of his inner child and tries to become the man he was meant to be.
Enjoy an Excerpt
Prologue
Defining Narcissistic Parental Abuse
Normal Narcissism vs. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
To understand the tragedy’s conclusion, we must define the patterns of learned behaviours and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) that caused it. To do that, we first need to discuss what NPD is and how it differs from normal or healthy narcissism (NN).
Many of us have heard the tale of Narcissus from Greek mythology. Narcissus starved to death because he fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water and refused to leave it. This results from pathological narcissism or NPD. If he had just checked his reflection like we all typically do in the morning and moved on with his day, that would be healthy narcissism. We are all guilty of a bit of healthy narcissism, especially in these days of social media. Healthy narcissism can generate positive self-image and self-esteem, but can lead to bragging or even demeaning others. The key difference here is that someone with NN will recognize that what they have said or done has hurt others, can feel empathy, and will try to correct the situation.
For someone with NPD, the lack of empathy for others is a key criterion for diagnosis. Sufferers of NPD need what is called ‘narcissistic supply’, meaning the emotional reaction from others, whether negative or positive, to fill the gaping hole of low self-esteem most of them have. They require constant reassurance and admiration from others and can become hostile and angry, even rageful, if we do not meet their needs. They will use any means necessary to get their supply, even lying and being aggressive or demeaning towards others.
About the Author: Geoffrey is a first-time author. He lives peacefully by a lake, spending his time writing, painting, gardening, and woodworking. His recovery is ongoing, and he enjoys his privacy and seclusion.
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Thank you so much for featuring BEING BROKEN today.
I really appreciate you doing this. I look forward to your discussion.
The book sounds very interesting. I love the cover. Very effective!
Thank you. My sister loved to make collages as art. I wanted to honour that while expressing her angst.