YOU WILL NEVER BE NORMAL

In this frank debut memoir, Klatzker excavates suppressed memories of an abusive childhood.

During a meditation session, Klatzker, a pediatric intensive care specialist, began to experience auditory hallucinations. She noticed a familiar tingling sensation, but she didn’t slip into her customary stillness. Instead, she heard voices pleading, “Please don’t hurt me!” The experience was followed by a bout of incontinence, and the author was left questioning her sanity. Battling chronic insomnia, Klatzker began to identify and refer to the voices as “parts” or, more specifically, parts of her childhood that had “split off” so that they felt separate from her. Seeking psychological help, the author began to confront years of childhood abuse. She describes having dual visions of her father—“Good Daddy,” a “loving and proud father,” and “Bad Daddy,” a “raging tornado of fury” who sexually abused her. The author grows to understand her “parts” and realizes that the dissociative disorder with which she was later diagnosed opened a pathway to her salvation. Klatzker elucidates complex psychological states using clear, descriptive prose: “I glided upstairs in my inner house and noted the changes....I used to creep around in the gloom, the walls felt cold and I could barely see my way. All the years of darkness, of not knowing where my voices came from.” The author courageously revisits moments of abuse that may prove too upsetting for some readers: “I’m having trouble breathing through his hand—it covers both my nose and my mouth, keeping me quiet.” Klatzker also succinctly pinpoints how an abuser shifts guilt to his victim: “He pretended he was good, as if he never did those things, making me think I was wrong, crazy, dirty, until the next time.” On occasion, the author’s descriptive style could be considered vague and digressive: “The bottoms of his loafers had those little metal things to extend the life of the soles and heels.” This doesn’t detract from a lucidly written memoir that documents the devastating psychological impact of childhood abuse while offering hope to fellow survivors.

Distressing yet powerfully illuminating writing.