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Inside Our Minds Is Another Story
It Won’t Hurt None shares your story about healing from childhood abuse and trauma and realizing you have Dissociative Identity Disorder as well as PTSD. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I love to write – and have since I was quite young. Writing is my creative conduit to express myself and so when I sat down and started writing in the depths of my post-surgery decline, it felt like an intuitive part of the healing process. I find expressing myself to family difficult, even today, and writing the book helped me say quite a few things that I’ve not felt safe to say to those around me – particularly my parents. I suppose that not feeling “heard” throughout my life is part of the reason why I needed to write the book. To find my voice and be heard by others, even strangers, after so many years. The response to the book from other writers, and particularly from other survivors, has been wonderful and overwhelming. To know that people have read my story and now my truth is part of a larger discussion helped me remember that the abuse wasn’t my fault. Telling my story put the final piece into my healing journey by giving me a sense of control over my own narrative.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
I suppose one of the reasons why the book is so candid is that I don’t know how to write any other way – I assume that people want to read a story that sounds like we’re having coffee together. By far the most difficult passages to write were of the interactions between myself and my alters – my personalities. Writing chapters 13, 14, 15, and 18 was made even more complicated by the fact that I was going through a final phase of somatic work while I was writing. That wasn’t intentional but that’s how it turned out. So as I was writing about the conversations with 5, 6, 7, and 13, I was doing powerful healing work with my coach. It was humbling but also exposed some deep emotional scars. The chapter I wrote about my alter 7 was touching and kind. The first draft of the chapter about my alter 13 was not kind at all – I didn’t have any love for her. (My beta reader pointed that out.) I had to learn how to love all of them while I wrote and while I went through the somatic work – it was like swallowing two huge doses of medicine all at once. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that approach to anyone else – it was complicated to keep my mental health on track at the time – but the end result was transformational for me and the chapters turned out pretty well.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about DID?
People confuse DID with schizophrenia. They’re entirely different. I also think that some mental health disorders get big labels and they confuse people so society tends to create a lot of stigma around DID, Bipolar disorder, etc. because medicine makes them unapproachable – intangible. The fact is people probably meet people with DID more often than they realize. We live perfectly normal lives on the outside – inside our minds is another story.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
If you want to heal, you need to take agency of your body and mind and get help. You will be challenged by bad medicine, bad doctors, misinformation, people who tell you to stop talking about it, people who won’t support you – there will be several hurdles in your path to healing. It’s your task to keep going. Do not give up. Find someone – somewhere – who can be your advocate. Someone that will support you through your healing journey and who will also call you out on your nonsense when you get stuck in your own swirl. You only need one – find that person. They can be your friend, neighbor, or someone you meet online who lives on the other side of the world. Everyone needs a cheerleader as they work through their mental and physical health issues. This isn’t a journey you’re designed to take alone. (Can I mention that I also co-authored a journal to start the healing process? It’s called “Hurt No More – Grow a Foundation for Healing”.
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It Won’t Hurt None is Rebecca E. Chandler’s inspiring memoir that shares how she confronts her past and processes layers of trauma and chronic PTSD. Ultimately, through a combination of self help and several forms of healing, Rebecca releases the trauma locked in her mind and body so she can finally live her life whole and in the present.
Rebecca hopes her story of surviving trauma and healing encourages all readers to tend to their own wounds. She encourages everyone to let your wound open because when it is visible, it’s vulnerable. Look at it, communicate with it, learn from it, and heal it. Rebecca believes we do not have to live broken by shame and in the shadows. She believes we all have the ability to heal.
Buy It Won’t Hurt None today and start your healing journey. Please also purchase Hurt No More – Grow a Foundation for Healing the companion journal to It Won’t Hurt None. Co-Authored by Rebecca E Chandler and Aparna Ramakrishnan, MSW, Hurt No More offers practical insights, steps, and encouragement to stand in your truth.
It Won’t Hurt None
Family secrets and childhood trauma lay a heavy load on the child, which stays on the child’s shoulders way past childhood. Trauma lingers in the dark corners of the mind lifting its ugly head at most random times with consequences for every aspect of a person’s life. So how does one go on with this burden? How can a person navigate relationships, career, and healthy decisions with someone else in the background calling the shots? Especially when that someone else is another form of yourself. What does it take to move on and live a life as a whole person when parts of you never moved on?
It Won’t Hurt None by Rebecca E. Chandler is a deeply personal story of a successful woman living with deep scars from the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. While this is by no means a professional guide, this is a story of healing written as a message for others who are still suffering. There is hope. There is a chance to heal the old wounds and be able to live a healthier and happier life. It is not an easy journey, but it is a path that can be taken and successfully completed with the right help and dedication.
This autobiography covers sensitive subjects and, at times, is graphic and descriptive. There is no genteel way of describing certain events without taking away from the deep horror of the events and experiences. Reader discretion is advised. Those who join Rebecca Chandler on her literary journey in this memoir will find her work beautiful and well-written in its raw and honest form. This inspirational book encourages those who have suffered abuse and gives others a look into the world of someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
Pages: 260 | ASIN : B0BQZGWFB6
LITERARY TITAN 