Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonizing past.Helen’s first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account. He alienated her from friends and family and even from their three daughters. Eventually, he threw her out and she painfully began to rebuild her life.Then, divorced and in her early forties, she met Franc. Kind, charming, considerate Franc. For ten years she would be in his thrall, even when he too was telling her what to wear, what to eat, even what to think.Look What You Made Me Do is her candid and utterly gripping memoir of how she was trapped by a smiling abuser, not once but twice. It is a vital guide to recognizing, understanding and surviving this sinister form of abuse and its often terrible legacy. It is also an inspirational account of how one woman found the courage to walk away.

    Most of the time he was just violent but then he started making her do things to him she knew were wrong. Soon he was visiting her at night. Lisa begged her mother for help but she just shrugged, telling Lisa he would have his way. It was the greatest betrayal of all.At first Lisa's step-father would just make her stroke and massage his feet, hitting her if she stopped, but he soon wanted more. Much more. By the time she was 12 he was regularly abusing her. One day, when Lisa turned 16, she came home to discover that her mother had swapped bedrooms with her. 'You're my girlfriend now', her step-father told her. Lisa turned to her mother for help, but was met with a shrug. She wouldn't hear a word against her husband. 'Don't blame me,' she said. Her step-father's abuse was horrific but what completely tore her apart was knowing her mother knew and encouraged it.Trapped and increasingly desperate, Lisa tried to find a way out. But her isolation was complete. A few months later her mother told her she'd arranged for Lisa and her step-father to move into a flat together down the road. It was too much for Lisa to bear. 'Please don't make me, please,' she sobbed. But her mother just ignored her. Lisa was marched around to the flat with her possessions and her nightmare was complete.Alone with her step-father, Lisa's life became even more unbearable. Then one day, finally, she got the chance she'd been looking for to escape. Lisa bravely struck out on her own, petrified her mother would find her and hand her back into the waiting arms of her step-father. But Lisa's mother had no idea how determined she was to break away…

    Seven men, all from the town’s Pakistani heritage community, were jailed for selling vulnerable young girls for sex. The convictions made national news, but for one girl the chilling headlines were all too real.      Holly Archer was just fourteen when her life changed forever after becoming embroiled in a frightening web of exploitation and abuse. Enduring countless violent rapes and death threats, she was forced to sleep with several men a night. As her abusers’ grip tightened, she fell into despair, twice becoming pregnant. Hours after her last GCSE exam, she took an overdose in a desperate attempt to end the nightmare that had become her life.      Her escape eventually came when, old enough to leave home, she fled to Birmingham. She moved house every six months, fearing her abusers would hunt her down. She eventually found the strength to return to Telford shortly after giving birth to a daughter, around the same time the police launched an investigation into the exploitation of young girls in the town. She underwent hours of rigorous police interviews but in the end decided she could not face her abusers in court.      Nonetheless, seven men were convicted of sex offences and jailed as a result of the investigation. Holly slowly began to pick up the pieces of her life and was given a job with a rape prevention charity. Having survived her ordeal, she now tells her full, shocking story for the first time.

    A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside.After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.Everything feels as though it’s looking up; Richard is put into local authority care and regains his health. However, after nearly five blissful years in a rural care home filled with loving friends, it soon unfolds that his turbulent start in life is only the beginning…Based on a devastating true story, this inspirational memoir follows Richard’s traumatic birth, abusive childhood, and search for the truth.

    Two loving parents, a backdrop of 1960’s Britain; life had provided for her, at least with the riches of modesty.Keri herself however, would often confound teachers with her erratic behaviour, which was at best sullen and withdrawn; at worst violently disruptive. When challenged, she would only exacerbate her growing reputation as a fantasist; weaving terrible tales about the “abuse” she was suffering at the hands of her very creators.But it was the much-celebrated age of innocence; the childhood of our modern culture. Big brother had not yet been born and Nanny was only looking out for her dearest, as opposed to the entire State. Who would take the word of child on such matters? After all, she was just a bad egg… wasn’t she?Well, no. She wasn’t. She was indeed, for over a decade, the victim of an abuse so staggering that merely to read about it is enough to freeze even the thickest of blood. “Keri” is the story of what happens when truth is imprisoned in a little glass jar and buried deep within the Earth, condemned to a sentence of eternal silence. For truth may be repressed, but never supressed. It will always find light eventually. And, in this gut-wrenching account of her early life, author Kat Ward takes the reader through every shade of darkness, whilst never allowing the candle of hope to fully extinguish, so as that truth may indeed find its rightful freedom.

    She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and physically. In his chilling memoir, Alex describes how he received the most unnecessary and appalling treatment in mental institutions because of her actions, to the point where his mental and physical health deteriorated to a perilous state. Covering her tracks with cunning deception, his mother began by beating him repeatedly and forcing him to take a dangerous mix of amphetamines and Valium. His health already in balance, and raped by an uncle, the professionals believed his mother's lies. Mental asylums in Greece and the UK followed, as did isolation cells and ECT. But his mother's hatred was to take a more sinister turn still - how much more could Alex take and still survive? Not since Sickened has there been a book that catalogues a child's experience of being made devastatingly ill at the hands of their mother. Dramatic and uniquely shocking, this is a memoir that will haunt the reader long after they close the final page.

    Offaly.Though the home was dysfunctional and all the children suffered at the hands of their parents, Kenneth and Patrick were singled out for horrific abuse at the hands of their mother.Starved, beaten and sent out to steal, their story is a catalogue of abuse. It also implicates the authorities, who had pages upon pages of reports on their situation, and yet never stepped in.

    For all those years while people judged me, I protected those closest to me. Now it's time for the real story to be told. It's time for healing and forgiveness.'Tressa Middleton made UK history when she became Britain's youngest mum in 2006 aged just 12 years and 8 months. Her case provoked shock and outrage - but the truth behind the headlines was far sadder than anyone could ever have imagined.Born into a life of poverty and neglect, Tressa was forced to grow up fast when she taken into care at just four years old. She was returned to her mother's chaotic world but by the age of seven, she was being abused by her own brother and at 11 years old she fell pregnant with his child. For years she kept his dark secret in an attempt to hold her family together until the truth threatened to destroy her completely.In the years since the birth, Tressa has gone through more pain and turmoil than most adults experience in a lifetime - yet today she survives a brave, strong and compassionate young woman. Now, for the first time, Tressa Middleton tells her own harrowing yet poignant story - a story of hope, forgiveness and above all, love.

    As she awaited the verdict, she looked at the man who robbed her of so many years, who never showed any remorse, and realised that she was the one who was strong, she was the survivor. Caryn knew that it was time for her to tell her full story - and that of her dead sister, Jennifer. Against all the odds, she fought. And she won.

    Good looking and charismatic, he was classic schoolgirl-crush material. Hayley was flattered by the attention he gave her, and he soon befriended her parents. Little did they know they were all being groomed. Hayley allowed Mr Willson to do unspeakable things to her, and after the relationship ended it took almost 20 years of guilt and crippling self-esteem issues before a complete breakdown prompted her to tell her parents, and they went with her to the police. This is the shocking true story of a schoolgirl groomed by her teacher, and her courageous journey to heal the wrongs of her past.

    I am more afraid of her than ever...I get in more trouble for anything I do or say. Now I find that I'm always in trouble and I don't know why. Now that David is gone, I'm afraid that she will try to kill me, like she tried to kill him. I'm afraid that she will treat me like an animal like she did him. I'm afraid that now I'm her IT. The Pelzer family's secret life of fear and abuse was first revealed in Dave Pelzer's inspiring New York Times bestseller, A Child Called "It," followed by The Lost Child and A Man Called Dave. Here, for the first time, Richard Pelzer tells the courageous and moving story of his abusive childhood. From tormenting his brother David to becoming himself the focus of his mother's wrath to his ultimate liberation-here is a horrifying glimpse at what existed behind closed doors in the Pelzer home. Equally important, Richard Pelzer's touching account is a testament to the strength of the human heart and its capacity to triumph over almost unimaginable trauma.

    Urzila talks candidly about her childhood with a great family, apart from her abusive dad, and about growing up in South Africa. She shares crazy but true tales about her OE, her move to New Zealand, coming out, getting married and having children, and her life in comedy. This is a great listen from one of our most loved and most popular comedians.

    Plunged into a care system that neglected them, Isobel and Alex were expected to come to nothing, and had only each other to rely on.Isobel and Alex’s mother used to do everything with them. A full-time teacher, she dedicated herself to her children, partly in order to give them every possible opportunity in life, and partly to keep them out of the way of their increasingly eccentric, erratic and unpleasant father.Their father, a violent and frightening man, spent most of his time locked in his bedroom, a room the rest of the family never ventured into. He became increasingly bitter and angry at the outside world in general, and at his wife and children in particular. The local community feared his outbursts as much as Isobel and Alex did, but the neighbours saw far less of him as he became increasingly housebound. No one came to the Kerr’s house to visit.When Isobel was 15 and Alex 13, they came home from school to find police everywhere. Their father had stabbed their mother between fifty and sixty times with a sharpened chisel. As far as anyone could tell the attack was unprovoked and of incredible savagery, but the children were given the minimum amount of information. No one wanted to upset them unnecessarily.Their mother had been an only child and they had never been in contact with their father's family. There was no one else for them to turn to - except each other.This is an inspiring story of a brother and sister who only had each other, and a powerful testament to what can be achieved through courage and love.

    But instead, separated from his siblings, young Tommy was thrown to the wolves.Tommy Rhattigan takes us, in his own inimitable way, back to his own childhood of pranks, cruelty and laughter grown from a need to survive his daily torment and to stick two fingers up to the system that was failing him so spectacularly.

    But how else do you cope when your mentally ill mother has killed your little brother and sister by scalding them with boiling water?This is a harrowing true story of how one little girl endured the most tragic of childhoods. But it's also the ultimate tale of forgiveness.Follow Nikkia on her heartbreaking journey, as she attempts to find answers and rekindle a relationship with her mother behind the gates of a secure psychiatric hospital.Deeply moving, Mummy is a Killer proves that love really is the strongest emotion of all.