Earning My Parents' Love — Michael Williams

Rarely is the story of adult children told from the child's point of view. Reading this story is listening to the heart and mind of our inner child. A childhood in dysfunction and especially violence and alcoholism is the experience of the unworthiness of the inner child. Defense mechanisms are formed in childhood. Those consequences continue throughout an adult-child's life and left untreated tend to worsen. Trauma separates the spirit of the inner child in the most profound way from itself. The author grew up in a home of alcoholism, violence, and dysfunction; yet, had no idea this experience created its own evolving trauma.