Suicide rates are rising and religious practice rates are dropping in the younger generations of Americans. “Motorhome Prophecies” tells the personal story of Carrie Sheffield and her struggle with mental health and religion after escaping her father’s cult.
Sheffield addresses intergenerational trauma in her book by sharing her own trauma. Though she grew up in a complete, nuclear family, she suffered in poverty and abuse at the hands of her parents and siblings for much her life. As a result, Sheffield grew up to become “a traumatized adult.”
Her experience led her to question family norms and religion, to enter a series of toxic relationships, and to become suicidal for much of her adult life. She chronicled her story and struggles in her new book to help the growing number of other individuals in America who are experiencing similar trauma.
“What’s happening right now is intergenerational trauma, and that’s why I wrote the book is that I want it to help sever the bonds of intergenerational trauma,” she explained. “And by that I mean, if you’re born in the inner city and you’re surrounded constantly by violence, gangs, drugs, single parenthood, you don’t know any different. That’s all you know and so it’s a traumatic environment and so when you grow up, you become a traumatized adult, which is what happened to me, which is why i ended up dating abusive, drug-addicted, alcoholic men because its all that I knew.”
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