Tag: rape

3 mental health books that saved my life

Maybe it’s a bit dramatic to say these books saved my life, but they kinda did. They gave me invaluable tools to cope with my complex PTSD while I’ve been unable to get back into therapy. I still believe that everyone can benefit from therapy, but unfortunately not everyone has access to it. If that’s the case for you, I hope these books will help.

Taming Your Outer Child / Susan Anderson

This book started it all for me. Anderson’s methods might seem a bit silly at first, but once I got past that, I learned how to separate my various selves, communicate better with myself from my highest self, and unpack my self-sabotaging behaviors. Once I finished the book, I no longer felt any need to write letters to my Inner or Outer Child, but now I occasionally write letters to and from my adult self. The self-communication skills that you’ll gain from this are so worth it; a lot of us trauma survivors have no idea what our wants, needs, or drivers are, and this book cleverly shows you how to figure that out.

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Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents / Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD

In my parents’ defense, they were literal teenagers when they had me. So I mean absolutely no disrespect. I love my parents and I know they love me and did their best, and yet I had a lot to unpack in adulthood, a lot of behaviors I picked up as a way to cope with not only my childhood but also multiple traumas that occurred. This book helped me see things from a whole new perspective, and gave me tools I desperately needed to shape the adult I wanted to become. I’ve been operating from a place of trauma-based fear, and this book helped me both see the areas in which I’m emotionally immature and how to reparent myself. It’s less about blaming your dysfunctional parents/family for all your problems, and more about stepping into yourself and healing.

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How to Do the Work / Dr. Nicole LePera

How to Do the Work felt like the natural next step. I actually had it quite a while before I even started “Emotionally Immature.” They say that books come to you when you need them most, and I’ve found that to be so true. Maybe it was the universe guiding me, or maybe deep down I just knew I needed to ease into all this shadow work. It sure isn’t easy, facing yourself! Dr. LePera AKA The Holistic Psychologist on Instagram gently guides you through the process, while sharing her personal story as well as her clients’ stories. This book helped me build upon the things I learned from the other two, plus gave me some new insights.

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I don’t think you necessarily have to read and work through all three of these books or in this exact order; you can start with whichever speaks to you most and go from there.

I hope these books help you! Please let me know if you try them. And if you have any mental health books you found helpful, please share them!

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

The Real Story That Inspired Bryce’s Story in A FATAL PROSPECT

TW: Sexual assault of a minor.

In 2016, players from a high school basketball team sexually assaulted one of their teammates while at a conference. Three players were found guilty, only one of which was actually found guilty of rape. They all basically got away with a slap on the wrist.

This was about a year before I wrote A Disturbing Prospect.

This story haunted me. Based on news articles and tweets, it sounded like the school—or at least staff involved with the team—tried covering the whole thing up. The coach rushed the survivor to the hospital for emergency surgery, but didn’t report the incident. The superintendent cancelled the remainder of the basketball season, but didn’t publicly address why. According to the Times Free Press, “the judge initially refused to disclose the verdict or to allow reporters to cover the trial, claiming that it could harm the now-guilty defendants, who were juveniles at the time of their arrest.”

Our society is too often more concerned about protecting rapists instead of supporting victims. Even if a rapist is found guilty and convicted, the sentencing is often the bare minimum, with an emphasis on the negative effect it’d have on them, rather than the lifelong trauma they brought onto their victim.

This boils my blood. Here we had a young athlete, who had just as promising a future as the boys who held him down and sodomized him with a pool stick. He should’ve been supported and protected.

When I wrote A Disturbing Prospect, I knew where I wanted to take the series, but I wasn’t sure if my readers would be into a book/series like it. I wrote it as a book that could stand on its own if my readers weren’t feeling it, but could easily be built on if I got the green light. I knew exactly where I wanted to go with this series, if they let me. As soon as I realized my readers not only loved it but also wanted more ASAP, I started writing A Risky Prospect.

I wanted to incorporate a story like what happened to the teen in Tennessee because I wanted to bring awareness to how rape affects boys and men, and how rampant sexual assault is in sports. I created the character Bryce to represent all of the boys who’ve survived sexual violence in silence.

I needed to know what happened to the basketball player. He was never named and I wanted to give him the help and support he deserved.

Originally, Bryce’s story was part of A Risky Prospect. I wrote about 20,000 words of that first draft before I realized I needed to tell Olivia’s story first, to establish why she wanted to help Bryce so badly. I moved Esther’s story to A Risky Prospect because it tied in well with Olivia’s. Both of them grew up with absentee mothers who were neglectful at best. (Bree’s story is told in Her Mercy to explain why she wasn’t able to be present for Olivia; she’s a victim, too.) Those relationships played a huge part in the violence they both suffered.

Once I established those storylines, I was able to move Bryce’s front and center in A Fatal Prospect. I wanted to write this storyline as realistically as possible, while also giving Bryce the support he deserved.

From a young age, I learned that I couldn’t trust authority figures to protect or even support me. I drew on these experiences and the news to flesh out how the school, town, and police department handled what was done to Bryce. Then I let the River Reapers take over his case.

Since outlaws inherently don’t trust authorities, either, it was actually easy to write from the club’s point of view. Olivia, Cliff, and the MC make an effort to work with police, but there’s a lot of mistrust there and the police can’t legally take the case any further without the proper physical evidence. The club knows they want to support survivors like Olivia, Esther, and Bryce, and this is a sort of test run for them so they can eventually branch out and protect survivors as a service.

They’re completely new at this and they have to make mistakes before they can finesse their system. Unfortunately, their internal issues and historic rivalries don’t give them the time they need to reach any level of efficiency. The shit hits the fan and the club is thrown into reactive mode.

Bryce represents the innocence that is stolen when a person rapes someone. He’s a boy and, according to society, supposed to be strong—especially since he’s a football player. Pink is a soft color, and I gave him pink hair to remind readers that he’s still a victim, and all victims deserve justice.

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Trigger Warnings for A FATAL PROSPECT

Here are the potential triggers for A Fatal Prospect.

  • Drug and Alcohol Use: Some characters use drugs and drink alcohol.
  • Childhood Sexual Assault: Several characters have a history of being molested as children.
  • Guns and Violence: My vigilante bikers use guns to fight the bad guys, as well as other violent means of taking out the trash.
  • PTSD: Multiple characters experience flashbacks, anxiety, anger, and other symptoms of PTSD.
  • Sexual Assault of a Minor: A character under the age of 18 is sexually assaulted (off page).

This book will break you. Have tissues ready.
(I promise, Cliff and Olivia get their HEA in the fourth and final book!)

If you feel that you won’t be safe reading A Fatal Prospect, please don’t risk your health. As a rape survivor and someone with PTSD, I wish many books came with a list of trigger warnings. No book is worth your well-being.

Please also note that I don’t necessarily condone or endorse the themes contained in this book. I do, however, wish it was legal to kill rapists.

If you’ve read A Fatal Prospect and feel that I may have missed something, please email me at elizabethbaronebooks@gmail.com.


A Fatal Prospect
River Reapers MC, Book 3

Cover Reveal: April 14th
Release Day: April 28th
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Our enemies of past and present are uniting to put us in our graves. Not even death would destroy our love, but death isn’t the only thing that’s fatal…

Cliff

I’ve finally got Olivia, but she can’t give me the two things I want most: three words so I know I’m not in this alone, and a family so I can redeem all the horrible things I’ve done. My past is still chasing me, and the only way I can let it go is if I stop running and face it. I can’t allow the monster in my blood to take over, but it’s rising to the surface and I can’t fight it much longer.

Olivia

After all I’ve been through, I’m never giving away my heart, even if my heart has other plans. War strikes before Cliff and I get a chance to figure it out. When a teen football player is unspeakably violated, only my club can avenge him. A rival motorcycle club from the past is also looking for revenge, just as I realize my true feelings for Cliff.

When someone betrays us, we’ll pay the ultimate price, in both blood and love…

A FATAL PROSPECT is the third book in the River Reapers MC series, a dark romance with a body count. Some content may be disturbing to some readers.

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Catch Up on the River Reapers MC Series

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Trigger warnings for Her Mercy

Although I purposely wrote Her Mercy to be a bit less dark than A Disturbing Prospect and A Risky Prospect, it still contains some themes that might be uncomfortable or even triggering for some readers. As a rape survivor, I am a huge supporter of trigger warnings in entertainment; I cannot tell you how many seemingly fluffy romances I picked up, only to find themes I wasn’t mentally prepared for. When you have PTSD or something else you struggle with, being equipped is an essential tool in your recovery.

Here are the potential trauma triggers, as well as a content warning.

  • Age gap romance: There is a substantial age difference between Bree and Mercy; she is 14 and he is 33 when this book begins.
  • Drug and alcohol use: Some characters use drugs and drink alcohol.
  • Childhood sexual assault: Several characters have a history of being molested as children.
  • Guns and violence: My vigilante bikers use guns to fight the bad guys, as well as other violent means of taking out the trash.
  • PTSD from rape: A character experiences flashbacks, anxiety, and other symptoms of PTSD due to being raped by a teacher. Most of this is mentioned vaguely, on purpose; I needed to write a bit of a lighter book after A Risky Prospect.

If you feel that you won’t be safe reading Her Mercy, please don’t risk your health. As a rape survivor and someone with PTSD, I wish many books came with a list of trigger warnings. No book is worth your well-being.

Please also note that I don’t necessarily condone or endorse the themes contained in this book. I do, however, wish it was legal to kill rapists. 😉

If you’ve read Her Mercy and feel that I may have missed something, please email me.

Read Her Mercy

Runaway Bree shatters veteran Mercy’s peace when she shows up on his MC’s doorstep, then his heart when she runs away again. Can he find her and make up for twenty years lost?

I Stood My Ground

Last summer, I ran into one of the men who sexually assaulted me.

I knew it was a matter of time. We live in the same town. We have mutual friends. The clock was ticking. I was mentally prepared.

I thought.

It was a Saturday. I’d spent all week writing  A Risky Prospect. He hadn’t been far from my mind while I wrote Olivia struggling through her own PTSD. Still, I hadn’t exactly been worried about running into him.

I drove to the store for a pack of cigarettes. As I got out of my car and headed in, he went inside. I thought he looked familiar from behind, but talked myself out of it. I see men who look like him all the time and initially panic, then realize they are someone else. When I got inside, he turned around.

It was him.

We stood 10 or 20 feet apart. He stared at me. I stared back.

I wanted to turn and walk right back out. But I wanted that pack of cigarettes even more—especially since there he stood, right in front of me for the first time in years.

The last time I saw him was at the wake of a mutual friend.

As we stared each other down, I remembered everything: his hands around my throat, the mess on my face, the quiet and numb ride home, how I cut all contact with him as soon as I got out of his car and into the safety of my home.

I also remembered the good things: how he was my first kiss, how we stood there in front of our high school, snow falling around us. How he’d give me his hoodie when I was cold. How he always said the right things, but I no longer believed him.

He stood there in the store, I stood there in the store. He looked like he wanted to say something—just like the night of the wake. Except this time, I didn’t turn and walk away.

He was the one to walk away.

I bought my cigarettes and I drove home.

Even as the flashbacks slammed into me, I was proud of myself. I stood my ground.

It was a huge step forward for me.

Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

Trigger Warnings for A RISKY PROSPECT

When I published A Disturbing Prospect, I told you it was the darkest book I’d ever written. Well, I think I’ve outdone myself. *laughs nervously*

I 1,000% stand behind A Risky Prospect. I wrote this book for me. I took two “men” who hurt me, merged them into one character, and then got my revenge. I realize that this book isn’t for everyone. It might not make sense to a lot of people. But to me—and maybe for some of you who have survived hell, too—this book is everything.

However, I’d never want my words to set someone else’s healing back, so I’ve put together a list of triggers so that you don’t walk in blindly. I can’t count how many fluffy romances I picked up only to find themes I wasn’t mentally prepared for. When you have PTSD or something else you struggle with, being equipped is an essential tool in your recovery.

Here are the potential triggers.

  • Drug and Alcohol Use: Some characters use drugs and drink alcohol.
  • Childhood Sexual Assault: Several characters have a history of being molested as children.
  • Guns and Violence: My vigilante bikers use guns to fight the bad guys, as well as other violent means of taking out the trash.
  • PTSD from Rape: A character experiences flashbacks, anxiety, and other symptoms of PTSD due to being raped by an ex-boyfriend.
  • Sexual Revenge: A character goes Full Dark, No Stars and a little biblical and gets their revenge.

If you feel that you won’t be safe reading A Risky Prospect, please don’t risk your health. As a rape survivor and someone with PTSD, I wish many books came with a list of trigger warnings. No book is worth your well-being.

Please also note that I don’t necessarily condone or endorse the themes contained in this book. I do, however, wish it was legal to kill rapists.

If you’ve read A Risky Prospect and feel that I may have missed something, please email me at elizabethbaronebooks@gmail.com.

Pre-order A Risky Prospect

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Trigger Warnings for A DISTURBING PROSPECT

A Disturbing Prospect is the darkest book I’ve ever written. Not only is there a body count, but the book also deals with some real-life nightmares that I’ve longed to fight back against. Some of these themes may trigger personal trauma.

I needed to tell the story in my heart and right some wrongs, but I’d also never want anyone to suffer because of my words. None of these themes are gratuitously presented in the book, and my vigilante bikers always prevail. Still, I want my readers to be safe, so here is a list of potential triggers.

Animals: There’s no pet death in A Disturbing Prospect, but an animal is harmed.

Biker Culture: Let’s be real—biker culture is misogynistic as fuck. I wanted to portray that realistically, while also incorporating some changes. There’s some biker slang and characters who treat women as property in this book.

Childhood Sexual Abuse: Some of the characters have a history of being sexually abused as children. None of their memories are described, but there is mention of it having happened.

Drugs: There is brief mention of selling and use of drugs.

Self-Injury: A character catches a glimpse of another character’s self-mutilated arms.

Sexual Assault: One of the recurring themes in this series is violence against women and children. (One of the other recurring themes, however, is justice for that violence.) There are some hints of past sexual assault throughout A Disturbing Prospect.

Stalking: A character mercilessly stalks and taunts another character throughout A Disturbing Prospect.

Violence: All of the good guys in this series are vigilantes—antiheroes who take justice into their own hands. There is blood, fighting, gun violence, and a villain body count.

If you feel that you won’t be safe reading A Disturbing Prospect, please don’t risk your health. As a sexual assault survivor and someone with PTSD, I wish every book came with a list of trigger warnings. No book is worth risking your safety.

Please also note that I don’t necessarily condone or endorse the themes contained in this book.

If you’ve read A Disturbing Prospect and feel that I may have missed something, please email me at elizabethbaronebooks@gmail.com.

Ex-con Cliff thought Olivia was the peace he needs, but she just might be the hell he’s riding away from.

A Disturbing Prospect is now available!

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Chapter 1

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A nod to Tess Sharpe, who wrote up a similar list for her Barbed Wire Heart and made me feel like less of an alien for wanting trigger warnings.

Photo by Ash from Modern Afflatus on Unsplash