Trauma and Relationships: Reading Between the Lines

”I didn’t realize how bad it was because we were living it…” 

Deeply personal and jarring details about amnesia, anger, and homicidal thoughts are shared in this memoir of Dissociative Identity Disorder and its effect on relationships. Robyn shares raw, vivid aspects of the psychological impact of childhood trauma on her partner, Brian, and how she stayed by his side.

Trauma and Relationships: Reading Between the Lines is a memoir of rage, denial, and multiple personalities. In this ground-breaking book, Robyn Maciejewski, a speech-language pathologist specializing in the influence of trauma on cognition, describes how she navigated unknown territory when Brian’s puzzling behavioral shifts led to psychiatric hospitalization. Robyn’s original perspective into three weeks of life-altering events begins when Brian talks to her about himself in the first person and culminates in her battle for trauma-informed psychiatric care.

In this astonishing true story, trauma leads to hope as Robyn diligently chooses to remember the man that swept her off her feet—not the one plagued by childhood abuse. Robyn’s experience highlights the importance of trauma-informed care and the devastating impact it has when institutions don’t adopt these policies.