With exceptional candor, author Stacey Hettes invites readers to take a seat in the office of her new therapist as she chronicles the painful but beautiful dialogues working toward finally exorcizing the serpents a church deacon let loose in her kindergarten self.
Stacey has what she believes to be the perfect life, that is until she slips on the psychological equivalent of black ice. At an emotionally charged forum on sexual violence, Stacey takes a stand against a colleague’s reckless verbal assault, outing herself as a sexual abuse survivor in the process. The event sends her tumbling back into her fractured childhood, one she has already spent years trying to reconcile through cycle after cycle of therapy. But Dr. Hettes, the neuroscientist, must continue her work, even as Stacey Hettes, the abuse survivor, finds herself submerged in the sights, sounds, and smells of her painful memories.
This memoir may have started out as a therapeutic writing exercise, but with its publication, Stacey hopes to build empathy, understanding, and solidarity for everyone who has suffered through or witnessed the effects of abuse. Dispatches is for abuse survivors who are struggling to communicate where they are, for survivors’ partners to help them understand and support their loved one, and—most importantly—for those survivors who never felt safe enough to tell anyone to let them know they are not alone.