Laurie Ann Smith, 'A Life of Death: The Redemption'

Laurie Ann Smith, 'A Life of Death: The Redemption'

My Book is Available Everyone!!!

Wow!! Do I ever have some exciting news!! My book, my story is published and available for purchase! All proceeds from the book are going directly to Dreamcatchers For Abused Children to help in the education, awareness and prevention to stop child abuse! It is my wish, and Dreamcatchers For Abused Children are honoring it and that makes me happy. I do not want money for this book..I want to help save children's lives and help get the word out that child abuse is so so wrong and we need to stop child abuse now! I hope you will pass the word on ....share the link...purchase a copy..and save a child's life!! Bestselling Author and President of Dreamcatchers For Abused Children Donna Kshir saw my blog, read it, and asked me if she could publish my story. I thought that was a nice offer, but could not believe that she was serious. I waited a month or so and thought, hey..how many times does a bestselling author offer to publish a story..?? So, I asked her if she still wanted to publish the book and she said yes and the rest is history. CEO and Founder of Dreamcatchers For Abused Children, and Author Sandra Dawn Potter and Donna Kshir edited the book and left it in my voice. They left the story as I had written it, from my own voice!! How great is that..they literally handed me the key to the locks on the chains to my prison door of silence and allowed my voice to be heard, for this I am eternally grateful. I know that the proceeds from this book will be used to help further the work being done to provide vital services to child abuse victims and survivors everywhere and I am so happy they are allowing me to donate all proceeds to Dreamcatchers For Abused Children! This makes me very happy! Money just cannot buy this kind of happiness or relief to know that many childrens lives will be made better as we continue to fight against child abuse, and fight to get the word out to the public and raise awareness, and educate the public on the issues surrounding child abuse!! Thanks everyone for all your support and mostly for your friendship..it means everything to me...

"A Life of Death: The Redemption" (A True Story) by Laurie Ann Smith is available at Lulu..and soon Amazon and other publishing companies..

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/a-life-of-death-the-redemption/8500324

Busy, Busy, Busy......

Wow! I have been so busy lately that I have not been on here posting any new blog entries since the middle of February....lots going on...so much in fact that I have a hard time staying organized, perhaps trying to do too much..but I don't want to stop now..I only want to do more...I will have to learn how to get better organized, manage my time, work on things that are time sensitive and then let the other things wait for a more relaxed day..I hope you are all well..I hope that this blog will eventually be a place where people will feel free to post their thoughts, and their ideas and resources, books, other blogs, and poetry, anything that has been a source of comfort in their healing process...I have so much to say and will continue to write here as often as I can. I expect that April will be more about Child Abuse Awareness as it is the National Child Abuse Awareness month this year. I am hoping to get involved and possibly do some public speaking and awareness for Dreamcatchers For Abused Children..so I have to get busy on that to make the connections necessary. So I hope you will feel free to post here and include photos, and other things to really make it your blog as well as mine..and I hope you will just remember to keep reaching out..keep that HOPE alive...stay with it...and a bit of good advice that I need to follow first...make time to just breath..to just relax..to just allow ourselves to look at what is working in our lives and build on it..not rushing past what is helping us to cope but really examining these things and mabey journaling them for future reference...now if I can only get myself to follow that advice!! Take care everyone...
Laurie

Just Keep Holding On and Reaching OUT!!

Hi everyone! I love Fridays!! They make me happy!! It's the day when most of us who work a regular day job at the office begin to feel a sense of freedom coming...a week of busy workloads and just trying to get everything done at work and in our personal lives! It can be a great time to just think about the weekend and the possibility of getting some much needed rest, or just time to read a good book we started and have not finished, or to catch up with friends we haven't seen in a while. For me, it is a time of reflection and a time to spend with my sweetheart who is terminally ill. We always spend at least one day together on the weekend and just enjoy sitting together, cooking dinner and watching a movie or some sports, his favorite thing to do..not mine, or just talk...and for me this weekend brings another chapter in my blog Not So Fond Memories,Growing Up in an Abusive Home, you can read it if you like...it is GRAPHIC and I do warn people to be aware of that before reading it..I am ready to write a new chapter which means looking back on some times in my life that were very dark, and very disturbing to recall, but I do it for the purpose of letting other survivors of child abuse of any kind, that they are not alone and that by me speaking up and sharing my story, they too might know that what happened to them was not their fault and that they did not deserve to be treated the way that they were. None of us do, and none of the children out there right now who are being abused as I write this blog entry deserve to be abused. It is my hope that my personal story will encourage others who have experienced child abuse to reach out to someone, anyone they feel trustworthy and not suffer in silence. My thoughts are with you this weekend! Be safe in all you do!

The ASCA's Adult Survivors of Child Abuse Survivor to Thriver Workbook

Hello everyone...here is a great website and resource for adult survivors of any type and all types of child abuse. The ASCA, Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, A Morris Center Program has a Survivor to Thriver Workbook that I am working through right now and you can find this at http://www.ascasupport.org

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, it's that day again...the day when love is in the air...all around...and sadly so many people just are not experiencing love of any kind in their lives...I know what that is like and went through so many years of no love towards me of any kind, so I can honestly say...I know what it feels like to be unloved...and to not love myself...I never trusted people, so I would not let anyone in as a young adult and had no close relationships with people from 25 years of age until I was 30 or so and even then when I met people I held them very far away...just in case they were untrustworthy as I knew I could not take anymore abuse...not even an abusive word or my heart would just die...so I lived a very sad and lonely 6 years and then I met a man who would change all that for me...it took me a very long time to learn to trust him and I even broke off the relationship for a year which meant no contact at all, not by phone, or mail or anything...until I was sure that I really wanted to be in the relationship and the reasons why...I had to do some real soul searching. Today we still love each other very much and he is in fact my soul mate, my better half, my protector, my friend, my confident and my cheering section..so I encourage you to find out what you need in this life to be happy, to have a good life..and then learn to trust yourself and as you do that you will learn to try to trust others and if you find that one person who loves you for who you are and truly wants only good things for you then you know that person deserves your time, your love and your friendship! All the best to you my friends. Have a good day! Take GOOD care of yourselves as so many times no one else will...so it is really up to us to take GOOD care of ourselves okay?

One Child Abuse Survivor 2 another....

Welcome, this blog is ulitimately a place where people such as myself who have experienced child abuse of any kind can come together and share our stories, share our triumphs, share our pain, share our compassion toward one another and hopefully find some healing and hope along the way....anyone can post on this blog, although I will be moderating comments due to the sensitivity of the issue of child abuse, and the fact that I want everyone to feel comfortable here, and not have to be subjected to more abuse from anyone. Please feel free to share resources that you found helpful, other blog sites for survivors like us who are in search of more healing material and keep in mind that this is a PUBLIC blog and many people will hopefully be a part of it, and sharing it as well, so make sure that you are okay with your posts being on a public facing blog...and most of all, I hope that you will find some healing and some hope and just know that we must keep reaching out...for professional help, for support from other survivors, and for the possibility of having a good life, a healthy life, a life we deserve to have...a good life...