Q&A with Geoffrey R. Jonas, author of BEING BROKEN

A young woman dies alone in a hotel room, her fentanyl-poisoned cocaine still on the desk. She had been missing for nearly 2 weeks. Social Services had been trying to find a place for her to live with her 3-year-old son, whom she had left with her parents. Six months later her father fights for his life in intensive care, but succumbs to his illness because of a lifelong use of alcohol and tobacco. A month after his death her mother is assessed by doctors to be unable to care for herself because of her Alzheimer's and mental health issues brought on by benzodiazepine and alcohol addiction.

The son, brother, stepson is the only one left to pick up the pieces. He begins a journey of the self and finds out the truth of his family. After going over letters, notes, emails, videos, and text messages, he uncovers a disturbing picture of the abuse his sister suffered at the hands of their parents. He also begins to better understand his own struggles with mental health and substance addiction because of the trauma and abuse he also suffered from their parents.

Follow the son as he looks through his family history to discover the generational abuse that trickled down through the years. Learn about how parents who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder emotionally abuse and manipulate their children. See how the abuse and trauma becomes mental illness in the abused, and how they fall into vicious traps of addiction, eating disorders, self-harm, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Witness the transformational change of the son as he works on the recovery of his inner child and tries to become the man he was meant to be.

WHATWAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS BOOK?

Simply put, thedeath of my sister. After her death, I began to research how such a thing couldhappen. I had already been studying Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and trauma formany years; however, this was the first time I started looking directly into myfamily. The writing began as essays, discussing the abuse and trauma and how itrelates to SUD. Once I started connecting the dots between trauma and SUD, Iwanted to incorporate real-life examples of our experiences to bettercommunicate that relation.

 

HOWDID YOU COME UP WITH THE TITLE FOR THIS BOOK?

The title has adouble meaning. First, to represent the process of how one becomes brokenthrough abuse and trauma. Second, to describe living with Complex PostTraumatic Stress Disoder (CPTSD), as it feels to me. There’s a process to beingbroken by our parents, and there’s living with the consequences of the feelingof being broken.

 

DIDYOU DO ANY RESEARCH FOR THIS BOOK? IF SO, WHAT?

I did a lot ofresearch for this book. Authors, studies and research, videos, courses: I didmore than I could name here. I have studied trauma and SUD for almost 10 yearsnow, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) for more than 3 years. While Ido not have an alphabet of diplomas and degrees behind my name, I feel that Idid my best to educate myself to the facts and evidence so that they would bewell represented in the book.

 

PLEASEDESCRIBE YOUR WRITING JOURNEY FOR THIS BOOK. TELL US WHAT A DAY FOR YOU WASLIKE.

As mentioned above,it really started with the essays. As a man of science and evidence, I neededto understand what happened. I had been writing essays about my own journeywith SUD and it evolved into understanding trauma and child abuse.

The writing processfor me is about both writing and editing at the same time. While many authorschoose to write everything that comes to mind for extended periods and thengoing back and editing, my process is typically to write and edit at the sametime. I will write a sentence or paragraph and then go back and edit it untilit is perfect before moving on.

Writing this wasdifficult though. Writing about your own trauma, and that of my sister, couldbe very overwhelming. I would tackle a difficult topic, which may only be acouple of paragraphs, and I would have to stop for the rest of the day, or acouple, before I could get back to the keyboard.

HOWIS YOUR BOOK DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER BOOK IN THIS GENRE?

I believe that theinclusion of the science alongside the relative experiences sets my book apart.Similar to Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry’s book What Happened To You?,where they take Bruce’s research and apply it to real-life experiences ofOprah, I wanted to show the correlation of my, and my sister’s, experienceswith the evidence of the relation of trauma and SUD.

 

WHAT CRITERIA DID YOU USE WHEN SELECTING THE COVER FORYOUR BOOK?

I wanted to honour my sister’s love for creating collages with the angstshe felt towards what was happening to her. I also wanted to have it reflectthe chaos of her life.

 

WAS THERE A MESSAGE IN YOUR BOOK THAT YOU WERE TRYING TOCONVEY?

That we need tochange the collective mind of how we approach SUD. We need to look at SUD asnot a cause, not a disease, but as a symptom, a behavioural disorder that canbe unlearned. A vast majority of people with SUD have suffered some kind oftrauma in their lives and they are using street drugs as a form of medicationto manage their untreated mental illness. Addiction is not about ‘partying’ or‘having fun’, it is about trying not to feel bad, to feel normal. However, leftuntreated, or mistreated like my sister, the addiction spirals out of controland the result of my sister’s case was her death.

We have to change thepublic view of people with addiction to not see them as criminals anddegenerates, but individuals that are suffering from horrific traumas and needour help, not condemnation.

 

WHATARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES YOU FACE AS A WRITER?

Perfectionism andImpostor Syndrome. My perfectionism is a result of the abuse where I wasregularly criticized and judged if everything wasn’t perfect, or made to feelshame about mistakes. My Impostor Syndrome, also a result of the abuse, is whenI am complimented or positively judged for my work and I can not accept itbecause I feel that I do not deserve it.

The consequence ofthese two factors is procrastination. I will avoid the work so that I do notfeel the shame and low self-esteem that occurs when things are not as good as Iwant them to be, or the anxiety of a review that isn’t perfect.

 

DOYOU FEEL THAT YOUR BOOK IS CONTROVERSIAL? IF SO, IN WHAT WAY?

I am challengingthe status quo when it comes to my view of SUD and recovery, which can be quitecontroversial. For so long, the belief was that addiction is a disease of thebrain as a result of the drugs changing the brain; however, while drugs can causechanges to the brain, those changes can be reverted, through neuroplasticity,by a cessation of the drugs. We can unlearn the adaptive behaviour of usingdrugs to treat our mental illness caused by trauma. The root must be pulledout, so to speak, and the desire or need to use drugs will lessen.

Challenging 12-stepprograms is another controversial topic. Some people believe in the 12-steps soblindly, due to its societal prevalence for so long, that it causes greatcognitive dissonance. I have had people lash out or even threaten me because Italk negatively about the 12-steps. The steps, and the Big Book, are a100-year-old theory that doesn’t hold up to today’s addiction science. Wouldyou ask your doctor for a 100-year-old treatment for an illness when there arenewer and better alternatives?

 

ISTHERE A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE FOR THIS BOOK? IF SO, WHAT?

I wrote this book for people suffering from similartypes of abuse, as well as SUD. Many people in abusive relationships,especially caregiver relationships, are not even aware that they areexperiencing abuse. I wanted to portray that they are not alone with what theyare going through and that there is hope for recovery.

As for SUD, Imentioned previously that challenging the status quo views on addiction mayallow people to see that there are alternative treatment options out there andthat it is not something that you have to live with forever. SUD can beovercome and we can live a life free of the cycle of substance use.

 

WHYSHOULD READERS GET THIS BOOK?

I think people whoare interested in learning more about NPD, narcissistic parental abuse, andtrauma and SUD would be interested in this book. People who feel that there areimprovements that can be made in recovery treatment programs for SUD and CPTSDwill find key, and alternative, options in this book.

I also believe thatthe information in my book is helpful in recognizing NPD abuse, the symptoms ofCPTSD, and the science of addiction to allow people to protect themselves fromthe harms of these types of abuse and the resulting disorders that may result.

 

IFYOU COULD DESCRIBE YOUR BOOK IN THREE WORDS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?

We can heal.

 

AREYOU WORKING ON ANOTHER BOOK? IF SO, TELL US ABOUT IT.

I am not currently working on another book. This book was very difficultfor me to write. I do have some ideas rattling around in my head, perhaps afollow up called “Getting Fixed”, but most likely I will be trying my hand atfiction. I am an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction and have manycharacter backgrounds, stories, and ideas written throughout the years that maycome together into a science fantasy series.

Thank you.