We Are All Wounded: Addicted to Romance

By Juell Krauter Brown

My experience in the 1960's Civil Rights Revolution in New York City changed my life. Idealism instilled by Christianity and literature motivated me to search everywhere for passion. My years of high school and college were happy. I participated and excelled in everything, and felt rewarded and affirmed by teachers, classmates, boyfriends, and God. But deep inside, unknowingly, I was numbed from my home life. My family problems were never made conscious or public. I lived through my Hero Role, as my parents had done. We were all wounded. I learned from my father to go out into the world. I learned from my mother to push myself in educational pursuits. I left my home, graduated from The University of Texas, and became an exile in New York City. I searched through universities, churches, professions, therapies, and romances for the answer to my longing. Entwined with my search for love from men was my search for love from God and from therapists, an inextricable tangle of the romantic, the spiritual, and the therapeutic. I became addicted to intense and ambivalent romance which broke through the repressed numb feelings from my childhood of chronic shock. My character structure based on achievements crumbled as I hit the bottom of a deathly addiction. I acted out my emotional turbulence. I could not overcome the barriers of my society and my heritage. To cross racial lines in American society was a rejection of my own family. My descent into my soul exemplified the harsh realities of surviving our inheritance. Eventually I had to return to my Southern hometown to find my own roots. I researched the path of my ancestors to find the cause of my chronic shock, and to come to terms with the Oedipal triangle, to heal the original wound. The fall-out from the New York years impacted all my relationships. Would I ever be able to find peace in Texas which has not changed since the Revolutionary War? How many times would I repeat my addiction? Would I go into exile again, taking my son with me? Will my son forgive me? Will my life of many struggles end in pain or in God's favor?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1477446567
• ISBN13: 9781477446560
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"