As a writer, we are often told to write about what we know, as the words will follow.
This reminds me of such praise because this memoir releases that heartfelt and pinned up emotion as it's healing not only for Mikel but for his own readers who related on a subsequent level.
Speaking truths shall set you free but it sure as hell is painful to report.
"So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic."
It need not matter how you began but how you end and what you accomplish after the dash.
What will be your legacy?
How will your tombstone read after that ever important dash?
This brings to mind his rocky beginnings as Mikel battled demons not of his own making but rather 'branded and sold' upon him.
Narcissism has been a term that's been linked to selfishness, vanity, and ego but rarely to parents, scapegoats, and black sheeps.
I know because I shared the same fate, had similar results, and now help others to heal on my FB page,"The Lost Self Life After Narcissism."
Abuse takes on many forms and many view abuse as only physical rather than the more deeply disturbed scars that stem from verbal, emotional, financial, sexual, and beyond.
The hideous 'branding' and 'brainwashing' of children to do as told and not embark on their own journeys but rather to aim to please is sickening and hurtful.
You must give up everything you know, your own self worth, your own visions, to try to stay in line with what's being sold by the Jekyll and Hyde persona or else risk smear campaigns, retaliation, blame and or shame or worse.
The golden child is just one set example of this personality trait disorder in which the fairness goes towards one creating anger as the scapegoat can only dream of such support and attention.
It's a vicious cycle and I'm so glad that Mikel was able to rid himself and separate from this toxicity as it's highly recommended that the distance be utilized for one's own sake of mind.
I'm 47 and still wish I had a loving supportive system or network of connections, friends, and family.
It's hell on Earth to live a life of false accusations, always feeling a need to disprove the enablers, always on defense while trying to maintain safety and peace.
The constant eggshells and fight or flight responses are exhausting and this author notes that until the separation he wasn't able to see the totality of circumstances.
Hollywood Park is an excellent reminder that narcissism takes years to recover and rebuild but that hope is on the horizon if you dare to dream and dream BIG!
The cycle of abuse can be broken but it has to start and end somewhere so why not be the change you wish to see.
A great read that I was lucky in securing from the publisher in exchange for this honest review.
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