A powerful true story of overcoming trauma and PTSD.
This is a complex and sometimes horrifying book detailing the life of Tracey Brame, a West Point graduate who was brutally raped by her fiancé and suffered from PTSD for years as a result. From the very beginning of this story, Brame holds nothing back – be warned, the first pages make for difficult reading as they outline the immediate aftermath of the rape. But what follows is an astonishing story of one woman’s journey through PTSD and the dawning realization that something truly awful had happened to her earlier in her life. Brame, whilst a highly intelligent child and teenager, seemed to lack what I would call worldly awareness. Her naivety left her in a number of difficult situations from an early age, and even at West Point this lack of awareness of the cruelty and deceit that other human beings are capable of led to yet more awkward incidents. Her fiancé, who she met at West Point, was a psychotic drug-dealer, yet very intelligent and able to manipulate Brame and many other people into doing exactly what he wanted them to do. He, strangely enough, was aware of Brame’s true sexuality long before she was. Whilst she knew she liked girls, it never occurred to her that there was a name for that, or that there was a way to live that lifestyle if you wanted to. Read More