Good Morning, Monster

~ Live & Learn

Making psychological changes also provokes anxiety. It’s very hard to break a habit, especially when you’ve adapted yourself to a particular pattern that, however maladaptive, has kept you alive. The unconscious is powerful, and it will fight to the death to keep an old pattern in place.

— Catherine Gildiner, Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery (St. Martin’s Press, September 22, 2020)

Notes:

  • Highly recommended.  Gripping stories…
  • Amazon Best Book of September 2020
  • CBC.radio: “Catherine Gildiner is an American-born and Toronto-based memoirist, novelist and former psychologist. In her latest book Good Morning, Monster, she focuses on five patients who overcame their personal trauma, a process Gildiner defines as being heroic.  ‘These five people that I write about always came back to me — out of the hundreds of people that I had seen.’ — Catherine Gildiner.

20 thoughts on “Good Morning, Monster”

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  8. Wish that the youngest of my older brothers would have been able to conquer his demons…he relapsed so many times …his addiction started when I was five years old, he was 13…the physical addiction and the mental tug of war, he died in a big city that is known for its high Heroin Use, he was in his 50’s, he was found with a needle in his arm…a hard core junkie…so thankful that one of his friends let him sleep on his couch…that he didn’t die on the streets (so grateful he had shelter) I remember the last time I saw him, when I was visiting family in the city we grew up in…we stool in the small doorway of the kitchen, with our backs against the jam facing each other..he was so worn out…I said his name, we were eye to eye and said” You don’t have long in this world, please get right with God”…he was safe (off the streets) staying with our elderly Mom at the time…I didn’t make it back home for awhile…by that time our Mom was fighting for her life due to a side effect of Breast Cancer treatment, septic from a radiation burn (a sister had Breast Cancer at the same time) One of my other sisters was with our Mom when the police, my sister explained that our Mom was very ill so she took the notification…Our mom was admitted to the hospital within hours, (she almost didn’t make it, had emergency surgery, treatment…stayed in hospital several days…When we think of our brother we think of the “Wake His Impact Of His Life Made On All Of Us”… he was so intelligent, proud & protective of his sisters, kind to animals, very good-looking, athletic, liked to read and how his potential was never realized…I asked him once what he would have like to do with his life…he said well not this…he said I would have like to be either a Veterinarian, an Architect or an Astronomer…he went to college for a short time, meet his 1st wife had two sons who were born addicted to Heroin…both boys battled Heroin addicted in their teens…So I pray that if any of you has a family member who is suffering from Addiction Do All You Can to Help Them Get The Treatment They Need and Support Them In Their Recovery…Doing an Intervention Is Difficult…as we did this with our brother…Fight Hard for Your Loved One -Their Life is at Stake…

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