The Little Girl in a Box: Recovering After Trauma

By Marie Brown

The names have been changed. And so have the places. 
Everything else in this book is true.

Marie Brown has lived through every woman’s nightmare. Sexual assault. Molestation. Domestic violence. Now she wants her story—her voice—to speak for the countless women who cannot cry out for themselves… b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marie BROWN
• Release date: Feb 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643399201

Marie Brown

"Marie Brown has lived in many locations across the United States, but spends most of her time exploring the realms of imagination. Currently located in Colorado, her brief moments of free time are spent in front of her computer, frequently covered in cats."Blah.Yeah, okay, that's all true. But I'm tired of hiding behind a bland, third-person pseudo-bio, utterly lacking in personality.Hi! I'm Marie Brown, and I write a lot. I self-publish through Smashwords and Amazon because I got tired of getting "well-written, but not our thing" rejection letters. Because, you see, most of my fiction tends to include characters that are either bi or just plain homosexual, and despite increasing acceptance of human sexuality and its many variations across the world, heroes and heroines are still supposed to be straight.Well, mine aren't. So if you're brave, and you don't mind that the main character of a story either isn't interested in sex at all, or is quite likely to hop in bed with someone of the same gender, then give my writings a chance. Come explore my fantasy worlds, or my science fiction worlds, or even spend some time with an occasional random love story set on Earth.And by the way, just this once, I wrote this entire blurb without a cat on my keyboard.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

When you’re a child, life should be safe, secure, and full of love. Our early experiences as children mold and shape us into who we are today. The things that happened to the little girl in the box affected her whole life. As adults we can either choose the path that was our norm as we grew up, or we can change that path and not continue to be the product of our abusive environment.

As a child I would fantasize that I had truly been switched at birth and was a real princess. Perfection was a must in my parents’ eyes, everything had to perfect. I did not fit in; I was not a perfect child. I had to have a special shoe brace to correct a turned-in foot; I had to be in special reading classes. You would think that as a parent of an imperfect child, you would encourage more and give extra attention. That did not happen in my family. From the outside looking in, we were a picture-perfect family. But abuse doesn’t just happen in poor homes. Abuse happens in wealthy families, middle-class families, and poor families. We lived in an allotment in a good neighborhood, but no one knew what went on in our home.

I had three siblings: a brother eight years older than me, a sister three years older than me, and another sister three years younger than me. My dad worked in a steel mill while my mom was a housewife until we three got older and then she got a job outside of the home. As an adult, I used to try to rationalize and try to understand the reasons why things happened the way they did.

My dad was a domineering, stern, abusive man. My mother was an enabler and abused my older sister. My parents had their favorites. My brother could do no wrong. My baby sister was just that; the baby of the family. Our daily lives consisted of school, homework, and chores—not really a bad thing. However, when everything had to be perfect, it was a bad thing. I was not allowed to sit on my own bed for fear of messing it. We all had to answer the phone a certain way. Of course, I was the one who screwed that up. And I always seemed to screw it up when my dad called. Everything had its place including us children. Good posture, good manners, good grades, no talking at the