City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Unravelling us, Renee McBryde

eng

autobiography

portraits

no index present

non fiction

Unravelling us

Renee McBryde

Working as a child welfare oï¬ cer in the outback communities of Alice Springs was never going to be easy. Renee knew she would have to work hard to win the trust of the families and kids she'd be working with, but what she did not expect was that she would have so much more in common with the families aï¬ ected by intergenerational trauma and inherited cycles of abuse than she could have ever imagined. Motivated by her confronting experiences at work, Renee begins to delve into her past to ï¬ nd the source of neglect and abandonment that shrouded her own childhood. As a mother herself she is deeply afraid that she will inevitably repeat the parenting failures of her own mother, and her mother before that. How can she break the cycle, given that is all the experience of mothering she has ever known? And what if the history of trauma runs so deep in a family that it can't be overcome? Trying to reconcile her determination to forge her own path as a mother while being surrounded by echoes of her troubled past and obligations as a daughter and her work is near impossible. And then the unthinkable happens. Unravelling us is a rare experience: a gripping storyline combined with searching questions about overcoming trauma cycles and what truly constitutes a 'good' mother

adult