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Austin Macauley Publishers - Deborah Susan

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137 pages

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The title of this book was born the day I walked into my therapist's office, believing that there was no hope of healing for me. The scars I carried were embedded in me from infancy, and I asked her: "Are we trying to change the spots on a leopard here with me? Are not some of these negative traits so deeply imprinted that we'll never root them out, no matter how hard we try?" And she replied, without a flinch, without hesitation, and with full confidence, "You were raised by leopards. Those spots were never yours to begin with. Those spots belong to them and we will root them out, one by one." That moment changed my life. Right then and there, I turned a corner and faced the sunlight for the first time. There was hope. I could heal. I could become whole again.

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	30 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781645364566
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Spots on a Leopard
Deborah Susan
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-30
Spots on a Leopard About the Author About the Book Dedication Acknowledgement Copyright Information Prelude EMDR Saved My Life! Chapter One The Formative Years Chapter Two The Great Escape Chapter Three Live and Let Live Chapter Four An American Female in Alberta Chapter Five Harsh Realities Chapter Six From Recovery to Discovery Chapter Seven New Patterns Chapter Eight And the Beat Goes on 20 Years Later Chapter Nine The One/Two/Three Punch Chapter Ten Can It Get Any Worse? Chapter Eleven Play It Again, Sam… Chapter Twelve Journey to Healing Suggested Reading And Now a Word from
About the Author
Deborah was raised in a very rural farming area of Pennsylvania by extremely abusive parents. While the phrase ‘extremely abusive’ tends to indicate physical abuses, today, we have come to understand the deeper levels of abuse that verbal and neglectful parental behaviors can inflict. Deborah survived them all. This book goes on to describe the behaviors Deborah grew into that both preserved her and nearly destroyed her at the same time.
About the Book
The title of this book was born the day I walked into my therapist’s office, believing that there was no hope of healing for me. The scars I carried were embedded in me from infancy, and I asked her: “Are we trying to change the spots on a leopard here with me? Are not some of these negative traits so deeply imprinted that we’ll never root them out, no matter how hard we try?”
And she replied, without a flinch, without hesitation, and with full confidence, “You were raised by leopards. Those spots were never yours to begin with. Those spots belong to them and we will root them out, one by one.” That moment changed my life. Right then and there, I turned a corner and faced the sunlight for the first time. There was hope. I could heal. I could become whole again.
Dedication
I want to dedicate this book to my EMDR therapist. She embodies all the strength and determination necessary to conquer the challenges life throws at professional women and she does it all with grace and finesse. There are no words adequate enough to express my gratitude for her help and dedication to my recovery.
Acknowledgement
Loretta Zwaan – without her help to copy-type the first seven chapters, that were written in 1996 into an electronic word document (and that were only in hard copy at the time), this book would have never been published.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Deborah Susan (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publiser’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Susan, Deborah
Spots on a Leopard
ISBN 9781641826327 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781641826334 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781641826341 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781645364566 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935775
The main category of the book — Biography & Autobiography / General
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
mail-usa@austinmacauley.com
+1 (646) 5125767
Prelude

EMDR Saved My Life!
I asked my therapist, the most recent of so many, if we might be trying to change the spots on a leopard by trying to heal behaviors that were ingrained within me from infancy. And she replied, “ You can change these spots because they were never yours to begin with! You were raised by leopards and they projected these spots onto you. And now, we will proceed to define and remove them, one by one! ” That was the day that finally changed my life. I was 62 years old at the time…
As an actual true story, you will see how I endured severe isolation, abuse, and neglect from childhood and throughout most of my adult life. My survival was accomplished by the use of paperback psychology combined with a deep-seated faith in prayer.
I suggest that you get real comfortable before you continue on. Grab a cup of your favorite warm drink, put your feet up, and consider this the longest letter you’ve ever read. And that is what this book is meant to be. Read it as if it were a letter to yourself from someone you know a little more than an acquaintance; however, a little less than a friend. (Note: all names have been changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent.)
I suffered the realities that schizophrenics only imagine and, yet, carried on a seemingly normal life as those around me would have verified, if asked. Yet, they too witnessed some of the ‘crazy’ behavior.
Had I not lived it myself, I would not believe anyone could have carried on any semblance of a functional, productive life with all the ‘baggage’ I carried.
However, the boom and bust rollercoaster results of my life do bear witness to the inner struggles. I was never fortunate enough to have anyone around me at any time who actually provided stability or knew me well enough so that, when I went into the self-destructive behaviors, they could stop me and say, “Hey, this isn’t you” and, therefore, give me a shot at stopping it. That is, until at age 61 my one and only daughter did just that and I finally found a therapists that actually provided healing techniques.
Otherwise, the people around me were always too happy to write me off as crazy, a waste of time, or a loser, until I reached a point where I just never let anyone stay in my life long enough to write me off.
I do have to acknowledge the self-help writers who became my best friends during most of the time of my life covered in this publication. They are listed at the back and I am so thankful for them even today.
These people could have just lived their successful lives in private and they could have kept it all for themselves. Yet, because they did take the time to share what they learned, people like myself survived and did not become the most recent suicide statistic.
In fact, each and every therapist I worked with – and there were quite a few – commented on how I should have become a drug addict, a prostitute, and/or at least homeless. Yet, had it not been for the publications I clung to with all my might, surely and truly I would not have survived it.
And so, I feel that it’s my turn to give back. It’s my turn to write it out so others can read it and see themselves. Maybe there will be one thing in these pages that will assist you in putting one foot in front of the other tomorrow, and to just hold on enough to carry on into the next new day.
In one of my darkest hours, I bargained with God. We agreed that I would write out the entire process of my suicide. I would write down the most recent events that led up to it. I would also write the note to inform others that my death was intentional and by my own hand.
Then, I would package it all up neatly in an envelope, with the farewell note clipped to the envelope, and I would wait one more day. If I got up the next morning feeling the same way, I was permitted to go through with it and I had God’s forgiveness.
And today, I am so, so very glad I waited that one more day!
Perhaps this will give you the courage to finally reach out to a therapist and get the help you deserve as a living human being on this earth. Find an EMDR Therapist in your area. Please do it.
Because tomorrow may just be the first day of change that will adjust your path enough to shift you from going nowhere to getting somewhere, and you have to be there for that. Don’t let yourself miss your own success!
Chapter One

The Formative Years
I was born in 1953 and raised in a farming community just outside the booming metropolis of Reading Pennsylvania. Yes, this is the one and the same Reading that appears as a railroad in the Monopoly board game or, at least, the one I am familiar with. And the area I speak of that was just outside of that city; if you’ve seen the movie ‘Deliverance’ with Burt Reynolds as ‘Lewis’, then you’ve seen some of my relatives in the woods as extras in the movie.
Well, okay, so they were not actually my relatives but they sure looked like them!
Being the first of three, and a successful pregnancy after a previous miscarriage, there was a great deal of pressure to be everything my parents anticipated. Yet, I had already failed miserably by being born female.
My father came from the harsh, backwoods, German (Pennsylvania Dutch) autocratic, old-school way of thinking that men are the king of the castle and women were put on earth to serve men according to their every desire. He firmly believed that firstborn females were destined to serve the family as housekeeper, babysitter, farm hand, and extra-curricular sex partner for all the blood relative males in the family. My dad had 9 brothers.
My mother strongly opposed this perspective and, therefore, I was spared the lattermost responsibility. However, while being spared that wound, I suffered being positioned in the family as the scapegoat.
You see, in those days, they did not yet know about lactose intolerance in people, much less in babies. Due to this condition that was diagnosed only in my 40s, I was what was commonly known then as a colic baby – one that cries all the time.
Since the doctors could not find anything physically wrong with me, I was diagnosed as ‘spoiled’. Well, you tell two new par