This memoir doesn't boast the perspective of hindsight; it's a
teen's raw, in-your-face chronicle of events almost as they were
happening. As such, it's unforgettable. Michener's family of origin
included a father who beat her and collected pornographic photo
albums, an unstable mother who suffered from physical disease but
inflicted deeper psychological wounds on her children, and a
grandmother with a Ph.D. in psychology who, in a complete
perversion of grandmotherly stereotypes, used to attack the author
with her knitting needles. Sadly, Michener's story only gets worse
when her parents have her committed, first to a private, then a
state, mental institution. She relates one story after another of
young teens who suffered from parental abuse being permanently
labeled "crazy" and never finding help within the system. To
Michener, the staff members at the mental hospital seemed far more
sadistic and deranged (Nurse Ratchet types) than the patients. For
the first few months, she was overmedicated, unable to walk without
clutching the wall. For small infractions, patients would be kept
in a urine-drenched solitary confinement cell. When Michener was
16, her mother temporarily released her from the mental hospital,
and before she could be committed again, the girl moved away and
became the ward of her best friend's grandparents, who hired a
lawyer and sued for custody. Michener (her adopted last name) notes
in the epilogue that what bothers her most about her story is that
its happy ending is purely accidental: "I simply lucked out. I had
. . . absolutely no say in my own fate, and this is true of all
children in this country." Michener's story gives voice to the
thousands of children and adolescents trapped in "the system,"
biding their time until their 18th birthdays. A candid and
unstinting tell-all. (Kirkus Reviews)
This is the autobiography of Anna Michener, who suffered physical
and emotional abuse behind closed doors at the hands of her parents
and grandmother. She was made the scapegoat for her family's many
problems and was institutionalized in mental hospitals more than
once. At the age of 16 she found a new family and her own voice and
wrote this text as an early step toward recovery. The account is of
growing up under unspeakable conditions, not of mature reflection
but rather an immediate account of unhealed wounds.
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