In this deeply human memoir, Lisa Plumb confronts the reality of being abused by those entrusted with her care, and how that harm continued to shape her life long after childhood ended.

With clarity and courage, she traces her path through abuse, addiction, and survival, revealing how mental health, legal, and social systems meant to help instead compounded her trauma well into adulthood.“There was a time I couldn’t even imagine a life like this, stable, peaceful, purposeful. As a child, I knew only fear, confusion, and the ache of being unprotected. I carried that ache for years, numbing it with substances before I ever reached adulthood.”

Told with care and deep compassion, this memoir weaves together the voice of the survivor and the wisdom of the trauma therapist Lisa becomes. Through tender dialogue with her younger self, little Lisa, the book explores how early harm shapes identity, relationships, and belief, and how healing requires reckoning, validation, self-compassion, and the courage to keep choosing life.

This memoir speaks to survivors, clinicians, helping professionals, and anyone who cares about how abuse and systemic failure shape a life. More than a story of survival, it is an invitation to believe in repair, and in the possibility of sacred healing.