Self-Help - Memoir
Winner
Book Title:My Father's Suitcase
Author:Mary Garden
Published:2024
How is your book helping others?
My Father's Suitcase explores my troubled relationship with my younger sister Anna, who died in 2023. It shines a light on sibling abuse, the most common form of family violence occurring 4-5 times as much as spousal or parental child abuse. Like any other abuse, sibling abuse can be emotional, physical or sexual (the most common of intra-familial sexual abuse) and have far-reaching, long-lasting harmful effects on everyone involved. And yet it is the forgotten abuse, under-researched and seldom discussed in the media. It is often dismissed as sibling rivalry.
Sibling abuse occurs mostly in a dysfunctional family, such as my birth family, where parents have not learnt to process their own trauma. There may be spousal violence and parental child abuse, including neglect, already occurring.
My story will help others who have suffered at the hands of a sibling feel less alone, and encourage people to talk about this important issue.