{"product_id":"monster-the-daughter-who-loved-her","title":"Monster \u0026 The Daughter Who Loved Her","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMONSTER \u0026amp; THE DAUGHTER WHO LOVED HER: a true story \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eby Linda Ford Ayres\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book is about being raised by a cunning, mentally ill mother and a father in denial, and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emy road from hate and distrust to understanding, sympathy, love, and ultimately unexpected\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eforgiveness. Written with voices alternating between my own voice and my mother's voice, her\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emental illness becomes more fascinating than terrifying and mystifying. Strangely, I was her\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003econfidant. I had access to her thoughts, plans, deeds, and disturbed reasoning behind what\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eusually would be seen from a moral point of view only as evil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy story begins with my first memory...my mother stomping my turtle with her foot until\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eshe killed it. My mother's voice begins with her belief that she died in childbirth which resulted\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein her trip to heaven and back, the Virgin Mary having given me to her to raise on earth. I\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ebrought my mother the only joy she had ever known until I went to school where her sadism\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eworsened and escalated to her attempt at murdering me in my sleep at age eighteen as I was\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eabout to graduate from nursing school.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeaving Ray, the boy I had fallen in love with, I escaped to San Francisco and studied\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecreative writing, supporting myself as a nurse. I \"dropped\" acid, ending my faith in the only\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esolace I had left, the Virgin Mary. Falsely accused of killing a patient, my depression deepened, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elanding me in a locked-down psychiatric ward and released to psychotherapy. \"I wanted to save\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elives like Dr. Bauer had saved mine.\" I returned to graduate school and became a successful\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003epsychotherapist in New York City for many years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI married, adopted my son, and divorced when he was three. I eventually did marry Ray, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe boy I deserted forty-nine years before, who had retired as a Marine three-star general.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the end, my mother and I made our peace. \"Just like love, and maybe even because of it, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eforgiveness mysteriously just happened.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Linda Ford Ayres","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46799947759852,"sku":"9798992012026","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9798992012026.jpg?v=1757263639","url":"https:\/\/allstora.com\/products\/monster-the-daughter-who-loved-her","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}