HERE & GONE: Fragments – From a Life Partially Unlived

HERE & GONE... Fragments – From a Life Partially Unlived – is my book about healing (wholing), about coming out of the mists of dissociation and claiming my life as mine. About integration. About becoming myself...I could not remember my life as one life, with a single coherent timeline.It seemed chopped up and jumbled, with multiple timelines – even lives.Why am I sharing the stories and reflections in this book with you? It can seem like a pretty odd and overly vulnerable choice to make, even an inappropriate one, perhaps?I do it because there are so many misconceptions about dissociation “out there”, because few clients in therapy ever speak up and share their perspectives on therapeutic processes. Because child sexual abuse and exploitation is so much more common than you would ever want to believe.This is not a graphic book. It is not so much a book about the traumas and the criminal acts themselves, but about how they could happen. About the consequences. For me. But it is not a hopeless book. It is also a book about how I found my way out of feeling like I still lived in hell, like I was more absent than present in my own life.I have a mission with publishing this book. With it, I want to create debate, discussions and learning opportunities. I hope it can be part of initiating change and new beginnings. With it, I also want to honor the expertise of Lived Experience. I trust we as humanity can do better and build more compassionate societies – including a more compassionate “mental health care” system. Most of all, I wish to inspire those who are on their way through and out of their own versions of “Trauma Mordor” and dissociative mists. To learn to live your own lives. That, I have found, is the true adventure! Read more