Sarcastically Yours, Jen

Being Broken by Geoffrey R. Jonas
Genere: Memoir

A young woman dies alone in a hotel room, her fentanyl-poisoned cocaine still on the desk. She had been missing for nearly 2 weeks. Social Services had been trying to find a place for her to live with her 3-year-old son, whom she had left with her parents. Six months later her father fights for his life in intensive care, but succumbs to his illness because of a lifelong use of alcohol and tobacco. A month after his death her mother is assessed by doctors to be unable to care for herself because of her Alzheimer’s and mental health issues brought on bybenzodiazepine and alcohol addiction. The son, brother, stepson is the only one left to pick up the pieces. He begins a journey of the self and finds out the truth of his family. After going over letters, notes, emails, videos, and text messages, he uncovers a disturbing picture of the abuse his sister suffered at the hands of their parents. He also begins to better understand his own struggles with mental health and substance addiction because of the trauma and abuse he also suffered from their parents. Follow the son as he looks through his family history to discover the generational abuse that trickled down through the years. Learn about how parents who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder emotionally abuse and manipulate their children. See how the abuse and trauma becomes mental illness in the abused, and how they fall into vicious traps of addiction, eating disorders, self-harm, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Witness the transformational change of the son as he works on the recovery of his inner child and tries to become the man he was meant to be.

The book is so sad, but I am sure it is very relatable for many. Dealing with so many issues a lot of families deal with but are never strong enough or are too ashamed to talk about. In one part he talked about two things that were very interesting & relatable, as I have noticed that it seems that the older generations/boomers view alcoholism as a normal, acceptable behavior. Let’s not get started on the boomers views on mental health. I’ve never really seen that as having any relation to World War II, but it does make a lot of sense. PTSD is very real & horrible to deal with; alcohol would be an easy way to try & deal with it. No need for mental health services. His healing process is portrayed throughout the book. It is very inspiring to read about how this author is trying to stop the cycle of violence & dependence in his family. Hope this release, when he wrote this story, can help him to find some kind of peace. You can pick up your own copy here.