Overview

Being Mean is about learning how to acknowledge and live with incomprehensible experiences in the healthiest ways possible. Told in vignettes relative to markers of age and experience, Patricia Eagle reveals the heartbreak and destruction of sexual abuse, from age four to thirteen, by her father. Eagle uses dissociation and numbing in response to his abusive behavior, her mother’s complacency, and as a way to block her own sense of self. How does a child come to know what is safe or unsafe, right or wrong, normal or abnormal? How does a young woman learn the difference between real love and a desire for sexual pleasure stimulated by abusive childhood sexual experiences? Careening through life, Eagle wonders how to trust others and, most importantly, herself. As a mature woman struggling to understand and live with her past, she remains earnest in her pursuit of clarity, compassion, and trust.

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9781631525193

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Reviews

2020 CIBA Journey Book Awards Finalist 2020 Colorado Independent Publishing Association (CIPA), 3rd Place in Memoir 2019 Foreword INDIES Finalist in Adult Nonfiction: Autobiography & Memoir 2019 Colorado Author's League Finalist in Adult NonFiction: Historical, Autobiographical Being Mean excavates the caverns of the author's childhood trauma to expose how its tendrils tormented her long after the horrible fact. Eagle's account is harrowing in its honesty. Traumatic as the shaping circumstances of her childhood are, she never uses them as a shield. Such frank analyses are refreshing and may provide empathetic assurance to other victims who are still in the gauntlet of recovery. --Foreword Reviews A deftly written work of commendable honesty, exceptional candor, and impressive personal courage, Being Mean: A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival is a riveting, honest, and ultimately life-healing memoir with a highly relevant underlying message given today's #MeToo climate that is slowly bringing to justice even the most powerful and wealthy of pedophiles and sexual predators. --Midwest Book Review Being Mean: A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival is a painful story with a message of hope for readers; a message that tells readers that they can heal and that they can reclaim their lives after sexual abuse. It's a captivating story that makes a powerful case for the millions who suffer the pain of sexual abuse in silence. --Readers' Favorite Not since Alice Sebold's Lucky have I read a memoir that leans into the soul-shattering experience of early sexual trauma with such courage and intelligence. Patricia Eagle elevates the difficulty of her subject matter through her clear prose and a cohesive narrative that weaves recurring themes of betrayal, devotion, the secrets that keep us, and the redemptive wisdom of love. I wept real tears at the complexity and beauty of the healing. This book will rinse you clean. --Kathleen Adams, LPC, author of Journal to the Self and Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice and founder/director of Center for Journal Therapy Inc Patricia Eagle's extraordinary memoir, Being Mean, is a testament to the power of the human spirit to prevail over childhood sexual trauma, heal itself in the act of truth-telling, and emerge from the depths of confusion with survivor's wisdom and an open, generous heart. Eagle's humor, candor, and determination to bring compassionate understanding to the darkest of crimes separates this book from the majority of abuse memoirs; so does her spirited refusal to sacrifice sexual freedom and pleasure to the fire of childhood incest. Daring, beautifully written, and filled with unforgettable moments, Being Mean is one brave woman's story of soul retrieval and finding her way through the mysteries of love. It deserves a place on your bookshelf next to Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss, Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, and Bass-Davis's The Courage to Heal. I could not recommend it more highly. --Mark Matousek, author of The Boy He Left Behind and When You're Falling, Dive When I first began speaking of my sexual abuse, I looked for just one woman who had relived her experiences and her feelings, and who had survived and thrived. I became that woman whom I was looking for, and Patricia Eagle can now count as another. --Marilyn Van Derbur, author of Miss America by Day

Not since Alice Sebold's Lucky have I read a memoir that leans into the soul-shattering experience of early sexual trauma with such courage and intelligence. Patricia Eagle elevates the difficulty of her subject matter through her clear prose and a cohesive narrative that weaves recurring themes of betrayal, devotion, the secrets that keep us, and the redemptive wisdom of love. I wept real tears at the complexity and beauty of the healing. This book will rinse you clean. --Kathleen Adams, LPC, author of Journal to the Self and Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice and founder/director of Center for Journal Therapy Inc Patricia Eagle's extraordinary memoir, Being Mean, is a testament to the power of the human spirit to prevail over childhood sexual trauma, heal itself in the act of truth-telling, and emerge from the depths of confusion with survivor's wisdom and an open, generous heart. Eagle's humor, candor, and determination to bring compassionate understanding to the darkest of crimes separates this book from the majority of abuse memoirs; so does her spirited refusal to sacrifice sexual freedom and pleasure to the fire of childhood incest. Daring, beautifully written, and filled with unforgettable moments, Being Mean is one brave woman's story of soul retrieval and finding her way through the mysteries of love. It deserves a place on your bookshelf next to Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss, Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, and Bass-Davis's The Courage to Heal. I could not recommend it more highly. --Mark Matousek, author of The Boy He Left Behind and When You're Falling, Dive When I first began speaking of my sexual abuse, I looked for just one woman who had relived her experiences and her feelings, and who had survived and thrived. I became that woman whom I was looking for, and Patricia Eagle can now count as another. --Marilyn Van Derbur, author of Miss America by Day Being Mean: A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival is a painful story with a message of hope for readers; a message that tells readers that they can heal and that they can reclaim their lives after sexual abuse. It's a captivating story that makes a powerful case for the millions who suffer the pain of sexual abuse in silence. --Readers' Favorite Being Mean excavates the caverns of the author's childhood trauma to expose how its tendrils tormented her long after the horrible fact. Eagle's account is harrowing in its honesty. Traumatic as the shaping circumstances of her childhood are, she never uses them as a shield. Such frank analyses are refreshing and may provide empathetic assurance to other victims who are still in the gauntlet of recovery. --Foreword Reviews

Not since Alice Sebold's Lucky have I read a memoir that leans into the soul-shattering experience of early sexual trauma with such courage and intelligence. Patricia Eagle elevates the difficulty of her subject matter through her clear prose and a cohesive narrative that weaves recurring themes of betrayal, devotion, the secrets that keep us, and the redemptive wisdom of love. I wept real tears at the complexity and beauty of the healing. This book will rinse you clean. --Kathleen Adams, LPC, author of Journal to the Self and Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice and founder/director of Center for Journal Therapy Inc Patricia Eagle's extraordinary memoir, Being Mean, is a testament to the power of the human spirit to prevail over childhood sexual trauma, heal itself in the act of truth-telling, and emerge from the depths of confusion with survivor's wisdom and an open, generous heart. Eagle's humor, candor, and determination to bring compassionate understanding to the darkest of crimes separates this book from the majority of abuse memoirs; so does her spirited refusal to sacrifice sexual freedom and pleasure to the fire of childhood incest. Daring, beautifully written, and filled with unforgettable moments, Being Mean is one brave woman's story of soul retrieval and finding her way through the mysteries of love. It deserves a place on your bookshelf next to Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss, Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, and Bass-Davis's The Courage to Heal. I could not recommend it more highly. --Mark Matousek, author of The Boy He Left Behind and When You're Falling, Dive When I first began speaking of my sexual abuse, I looked for just one woman who had relived her experiences and her feelings, and who had survived and thrived. I became that woman whom I was looking for, and Patricia Eagle can now count as another. --Marilyn Van Derbur, author of Miss America by Day

Author Information

Patricia Eagle discovered language with her first word, “bird,” later finding great solace in nature. Six decades of journaling served as a life buoy―tangible evidence of a life explored in earnest while being tossed by experiences of childhood sexual abuse. She followed her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas-Austin with graduate studies in Multicultural Education at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, completing her master’s research on using journaling as a method to better understand self and others. Patricia maintains an unyielding commitment to excavating and acknowledging what is resilient about her life and the lives of others. She lives in south central Colorado where she watches the Milky Way splash across night skies. Being Mean is her first book. www.patriciaeagle.com

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