Monster & The Daughter Who Loved Her

<p><strong><em>MONSTER & THE DAUGHTER WHO LOVED HER: a true story </em></strong></p><p>by Linda Ford Ayres</p><p></p><p>This book is about being raised by a cunning mentally ill mother and a father in denial and</p><p>my road from hate and distrust to understanding sympathy love and ultimately unexpected</p><p>forgiveness. Written with voices alternating between my own voice and my mother's voice her</p><p>mental illness becomes more fascinating than terrifying and mystifying. Strangely I was her</p><p>confidant. I had access to her thoughts plans deeds and disturbed reasoning behind what</p><p>usually would be seen from a moral point of view only as evil.</p><p>My story begins with my first memory...my mother stomping my turtle with her foot until</p><p>she killed it. My mother's voice begins with her belief that she died in childbirth which resulted</p><p>in her trip to heaven and back the Virgin Mary having given me to her to raise on earth. I</p><p>brought my mother the only joy she had ever known until I went to school where her sadism</p><p>worsened and escalated to her attempt at murdering me in my sleep at age eighteen as I was</p><p>about to graduate from nursing school.</p><p>Leaving Ray the boy I had fallen in love with I escaped to San Francisco and studied</p><p>creative writing supporting myself as a nurse. I dropped acid ending my faith in the only</p><p>solace I had left the Virgin Mary. Falsely accused of killing a patient my depression deepened</p><p>landing me in a locked-down psychiatric ward and released to psychotherapy. I wanted to save</p><p>lives like Dr. Bauer had saved mine. I returned to graduate school and became a successful</p><p>psychotherapist in New York City for many years.</p><p>I married adopted my son and divorced when he was three. I eventually did marry Ray</p><p>the boy I deserted forty-nine years before who had retired as a Marine three-star general.</p><p>In the end my mother and I made our peace. Just like love and maybe even because of it</p><p>forgiveness mysteriously just happened.</p>