A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

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.