The Faces Behind the Shattered Mirror

The first time I met Victoria, half her nose was missing. Her childhood had been a horrifying labyrinth of abuse and betrayal and now her hot tempered husband had swung a two-by-four like a baseball bat across her face. Her nose would never be the same and neither would she. Now determined to leave her husband, Victoria found him just as determined to stop her by any means. When Victoria’s husband sank into excessive gambling and days lost to alcohol, she and her children became homeless. She discovered courage and an inner strength that had lain dormant inside her. Courage and inner strength are rarely enough to light the way for a victim of severe life-long abuse or allow one to discover the road to healing and independence. There is an acute and mostly unaddressed need for women like Victoria to bridge the chasm between the hour spent weekly in psychological counseling and the seven day stretch to the next. What does an abuse victim do when a counseling breakthrough is imminent or a crisis is rocking her stability and the mental health professional states the hour is up? THE FACES IN THE SHATTERED MIRROR details Victoria’s staggering story of both childhood and adult abuse and the authors’ fourteen year collaboration as her mentor helping to restore her to a productive and successful life. This role as mentor and confidant gave the author an unparalleled view into the abyss of extreme abuse and its effects leading to a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.