Demons Hidden Within: Lifelong Impact of Child Sexual Abuse

This is Susan Montgomery’s true story of trauma, abuse, an abduction, an affair, and suicide. It is also a love story. When eleven she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her father. With virtually no resources available, she buried the memory, which seemed moderately successful in that she finished college, married her childhood sweetheart, and had three wonderful children. But as a young adult, her behavior began exhibiting self-destructive tendencies, the first being a life-threatening loss of weight. If queried, she would have been unable to explain this or other aberrant behavior. Devastated by the suicide of her 16-year-old son, she sought psychotherapy, where she began to better understand the underpinnings of her bizarre behavior. This quest became the basis of Demons Hidden Within . Here, over 80 references from the psychological literature clearly link her strange behavior to the underlying, but unrecognized effects of the sexual abuse.