On September 11, 2001, the "Fear Switch" in our brains got flicked. How do we turn it off and reclaim our lives? Five years after September 11, we're still scared. And why not? Terrorists could strike at any moment. Our country is at war. The polar caps are melting. Hurricanes loom. We struggle to control our fear so that we can go about our daily lives. Our national consciousness has been torqued by trauma, in the process transforming our behavior,...

Nora Brown teaches high school English and lives a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl's face appears above the students' desks. 'A wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora's body, the kind of raw terror you feel when there's...

Abandoning her homeless existence to become a minister's wife, Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview.

Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided thousands of readers with an answer -- and has helped them to apply it to their own lives. Far too many of us had to learn as children to hide our own feelings, needs, and memories skillfully in order to meet our parents' expectations and win their "love." Alice Miller writes, "When I used the word 'gifted' in the title,...

Plagued by traumatic childhood memories, crime reporter Sawyer Brooks still struggles to gain control of her rage, her paranoia, and her life. Now, after finally getting promoted at work, she is forced to return home and face her past. River Rock is where she'd been abandoned by her two older sisters to suffer alone, and in silence, the unspeakable abuses of her family. It's also where Sawyer's best friend disappeared and two teenage girls were murdered....

Garnering media attention when she tries to incinerate her dead father, reclusive Sally Diamond, beginning to discover the horrors of her early childhood, steps into the world for the first time and soon finds her trust issues severely challenged by a sinister voice from her past she does not remember.

Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, but it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical fingerprints on...

"Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary award. An unnamed Tokyo taxi driver has experienced a rupture from his everyday life. As he picks up fares that take him through Tokyo's night streets, offering him glimpses into the lives of his passengers, he can't escape his own nihilistic thoughts. Almost without meaning to, he puts himself in harm's way; he can't stop daydreaming of suicide, envisioning himself returning to the...

Describes the author's upbringing by fanatic parents, who raised her in isolation through traumatic disciplinary exercises designed to eliminate weakness, and recounts how she eventually escaped with the help of an outsider.