Book Review: Mom, Mania, & Me

Just how is a child cope when her mother goes off the handle in fits of rage, often leaving painful welts on her arms and legs, only to, days later, dress her up, buy her new clothes and take her to the theater? How is a young mother to cope when her mother regularly sends her three pages lists of her shortcomings? Questions such as these inspire Diane Dweller’s new book, Mom, Mania, and Me: Surviving and Changing a Volatile Relationship. Dweller begins her story in hiding. Often hiding under the kitchen table, ducking behind doors, or simply trying not to be seen, she describes living in constant fear of the one person who should love her the most — her mother. And yet, Dweller’s mother is not the typical abusive mother. Her spells of anger are often followed by erratic, and often extravagant, behavior. “How pretty we looked ranked high on Mom’s checklist…,” Dweller writes as she describes her mother sending her to a beauty salon for a perm which burned her scalp and, for Dweller, felt like torture that lasted forever. And yet try as she might, nothing Dweller does seems to please her mother and dinnertime becomes a nightly ritual of criticisms directed at Dweller. When her father stands up for Dweller, telling her mother, “Dinnertime is not the place for correcting Diane,” Dweller senses a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak world. The criticisms, however, do not stop and only became more frequent and more severe. Finally, teen rebellion overwhe...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Bipolar Book Reviews Children and Teens Disorders Divorce Family General Grief and Loss Medications Memory and Perception Parenting Personal Stories Psychiatry Psychology Relationships & Love Self-Esteem Treatment being t Source Type: news