GOING WITHIN

Albright’s memoir tells her story of a life of pain and her later attempts to heal her body and spirit.

The author’s first memory is as a screaming and frightened toddler on a physician's examination table in 1953 as the doctor sawed off the cast he had put on six months earlier to correct the bilateral hip dysplasia she’d had since birth. She had numerous surgeries during her childhood and adulthood, including three hip replacements, a hysterectomy, and eye surgery, and ailments such as tinnitus, prolonged menopause, trouble breathing, and other issues. The author writes that she suffered from benign neglect during childhood, which left her feeling inadequate and unloved. The early part of her book catalogs the slights that, in concert with the surgeries, led to post-traumatic stress disorder. But instead of succumbing to a life of self-pity or addiction, the author writes, she decided to actively seek not only physical health, but also mental and spiritual health: “Because I was in so much pain, I was dedicated to my healing practice.” Albright voraciously read a number healing and spiritual books during her personal journey, which she quotes here. She explored past-life regression, analyzed her own dreams, and says that she learned to rely on a guide from “the other side,” who put helpful messages in her mind and appeared to her occasionally. The spiritual aspects of this memoir may not appeal to all audiences, but people with PTSD may find aspects of the book compelling as they read of another’s personal search well-being: “I made up my mind I was not going to suffer for the rest of my life, so I began getting in touch with myself by asking myself, ‘How does this feel: happy and light or heavy and sad?’ ” At the start of this remembrance, readers may find the author’s account of her many difficulties hard to read, but many of them may benefit from more personal insights into how the medical industry has changedover the years.

A thorough, if sometimes harrowing, account of early trauma and decades of personal growth.