Sacred Secrets: Shredding the Shackles of My Shame
Verianne Barker, 2013
The We Care Group Publishers
354 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620505496
Summary
Peppered with beatings, incest, drugs, and murder, this story of abuse sends us careening through the rages and indiscretions of a father, and provokes our own rage at a mother whose efforts were more to cover up her husband’s physical abuse, than they were to protect her children.
Our sympathy pours out, too, when we see how these children of abuse became adults ravaged by a helpless vulnerability to drugs, crime, and any combination of social ills. This book is not casual reading. Be prepared to feel revulsion, anger, shock, fear, pity, and abject disgust, as this sad saga of one woman’s tale of abuse unfolds.
Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame is the true life story of Louisianan, Connie Gilbert, who no longer wants to pretend that her abused childhood and her subsequent social missteps were all a part of normal living. She is tired of hiding who she was and where she came from.
She is ready to shed the shackles of her shame. See more at The Local Christian Town Hall. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Though she is the creator of this work, Verianne Barker never refers to herself as a writer or an author. She just sees herself as someone who has been blessed to be able to express her thoughts in writing, when she feels that itch to talk it out by writing.
Over the years she has responded to that itch by writing about several issues that span several genres, from poetry to politics but has never felt the compulsion to publish, until faced with the social tragedy that is this story.
Verian, as she prefers to be called because it is the original spelling of her name, lives in South Carolina but is originally from Guyana, in South America. Before settling in South Carolina, she lived in New York and New Jersey and worked in several major cities where she started volunteering as a grammar, writing skills, and general educator in helping to equip basic academic skills to those in need.
It was in one of these classes that she met the Connie, the subject of Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame, and was so sympathetic with the story that was her life, that she agreed to help her document its details her to help her to overcome the pain and tell the story that Connie felt would provide the answers to most of the questions so many in her generation and the generation following hers, still have. (From the author .)
Book Reviews
Please visit The Local Christian Town Hall to find reader reviews.
Discussion Questions
1. When a mother keeps her children in an abusive environment she is equally as guilty as the father who inflicts the physical abuse and should be prosecuted accordingly. Discuss.
2. There is a tendency for women to stay with their abusers for reasons that are unfathomable to those looking in from the outside. In this book, the mother stays because she is convinced that one day the Good Lawd will change her abusive spouse and father of her children. One argument is that she stays out of fear but the other is, if she is afraid then why not flee? It is a strange but very common juxtaposition. Discuss.
3. Growing up in an environment where drug use was pervasive and ultimately destructive, it is logical to assume that the product of this environment would steer clear of drugs. Why do you think drug use becomes the chosen path of these children, the products of this environment, anyway?
4. Very frequently, antisocial behaviors seem to pass from generation to generation, giving rise to the contemplation of generational curse. What are your thoughts on why these behaviors follow some families?
5. In this book, we see a generation that has been raised on welfare continue their existence on the welfare system and then raise their own children on welfare as well. There are some that would blame legislators for the institution of this culture of dependency. Using this book as your reference prepare a presentation for Congress to review and revise the welfare system Be very generous with your proposals.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)