In Home, you share your childhood experiences with hunger, addiction, shame, and repeated uprooting through the lens of adult trauma therapy. What inspired you to share your story with readers?

In the beginning, I wrote to give voice to the child I was, to bear witness to her pain and her struggle. It was a way of reclaiming myself. For so long, my childhood was a tremendous source of shame to me, a story I’d never told anyone. Somewhere along the start of the almost ten-year process of writing my memoir, I found Brené Brown and her work on shame. Her quote, “You either walk inside your story and own it or stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness,” stopped me cold. I realized that I had a story worth telling, and that in doing so, it had the potential to help others.

Was there a particular childhood memory that was especially difficult to put on the page?

The most difficult memory for me was contained in the chapter “Dragons.” It describes the story of when my family lived in a hippie commune in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in 1970. It was particularly difficult to write about because I was dissociative for much of that time.

How did learning about trauma change the way you viewed your childhood?

Previous to learning about trauma, I perceived many of the skills and strategies I used to survive as weaknesses. Learning that these were, in fact, “hidden talents” was an absolute game changer for me. It shifted my thinking from someone with significant deficits to a woman with assets and adaptive skills she could use in positive ways.

Looking back, were you surprised by how much small gestures shaped your resilience?

Yes. Before trauma therapy, I had difficulty remembering positive moments. After therapy and through the writing process, I was able to remember what I once described as lily pads of safety in otherwise stormy waters, which allowed me to hopscotch to a better life on the other side—teachers, caring neighbors, bus drivers, cafeteria ladies, the parents of friends, and other caring individuals who were sources of support and nurturance.

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After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller’s panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past-childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her life: her wise great-grandmother’s teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory-one that holds the key to her deepest fear.

Part investigation, part love letter to survival, Home is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you’re searching for is the one you build inside yourself.