A woman recalls her winding path to healing from sexual abuse and childhood trauma in this debut memoir.

With an M.D. from Mount Sinai medical school, Sosne was a psychiatric resident at the Bronx VA Hospital, having amassed an enviable academic record. “But I didn’t feel like any other resident,” she writes. “I felt conspicuously invisible.” The victim of childhood sexual assault, the author had long dissociated through denial and an intense obsession with studies, hard work, and perfectionism (she would later be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder). This book, a poignant—if often disturbing—exploration of Sosne’s internal thoughts, emphasizes how “trauma intertwines with other traumas…reproducing itself like a cancer.” Indeed, too often, abusers can sense trauma and tragically feed off their victims’ weaknesses. Such was the case with Sosne, who would face additional abuses into adulthood. In addition to addressing her physical and psychological abuses, often told through flashback vignettes, the author highlights the role uncompassionate medical professionals can play in exacerbating destructive, trauma-fueled responses. Even after meeting her doting husband, Ben, Sosne describes how her past negatively affected her sexual and reproductive health. Shockingly, she would become pregnant with quintuplets and had to save her own life by undergoing a selective reduction abortion. A nuanced reflection on motherhood as well as an impassioned defense of reproductive rights, the book highlights the ways that traumas compound across time and circumstances. Eventually, given the triggering nature of her job as a physician, Sosne would leave the profession and find solace in practicing yoga and mentoring college students. The volume’s emotionally raw writing style does not shy away from graphic descriptions and comes with ample trigger warnings. Yet the author’s gripping, novel-like prose is rife with dialogue, internal monologues, and other literary elements. The memoir’s dizzying narrative, wherein flashbacks are interwoven with the present, can make for a fragmented read, but powerfully evokes the chaotic state of Sosne’s psyche during episodes of panic, shame, and abuse.

A formidable rumination on the impact of childhood trauma into adulthood.

Sosne’s guide to resilience prioritizes mindfulness as a tool for survival, creativity, and self-trust.

The author outlines an approach to healing and working through trauma that resists productivity-centered wellness culture by establishing a core principle: Resilience is not about returning to who you were before challenges or pain, but about learning how to live, adapt, and move forward through altered terrain. At the heart of this book is the sustained metaphor of the tree as self, which invites readers to understand their inner lives through their roots, trunks, branches, seasons, and soil. This imagery serves as both a grounding visualization and an analytic framework for examining safety, trust, control, grief, and growth in the aftermath of trauma. Structured as a flexible and encouraging guide, Sosne’s text encourages readers to move intuitively among its exercises, reflections, and journaling prompts, assembling a toolkit that can evolve alongside their personal needs. The author—whose voice is by turns compassionate, unsparing, and quietly humorous—acknowledges the realities of anxiety, depression, and survival-mode living without flattening them into abstractions: “This book provides meaningful and hopefully helpful ideas, perspectives, movements, approaches, and skills that will help you to alleviate stress, panic, [and] anxiety [by learning to]…apply learned coping skills and techniques to your life.” Notably, Sosne also writes that the personal work of moving past trauma cannot be outsourced to self-help formulas, insisting that evidence-based practice ultimately requires embodied attention, reflection, and choice. The author models a posture of honesty, patience, and self-efficacy, reminding readers that “forward is a direction,” even when certainty feels out of reach. Sosne is also clear about the importance of professional support while reaffirming the idea that we all can learn to become our own first responders.

An uplifting guide for anyone struggling to stay grounded on shifting earth.