Are you ready to become your trauma mentor, coach, and therapist? Wendy Kier’s inspirational book Bemorewolf offers you insights to help you heal your deep emotional scars and traumas. Bemorewolf touches your soul. A true story of childhood neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, rape, emotional abuse, poverty, addiction, domestic violence, and dyslexia discrimination. Wendy Kier’s own personal story starts after she was removed from her alcoholic parents when she was 3 years old and taken to a UK care home. She lived in over 30 foster placements, with some adoption breakdowns in between. Over the years, she developed anxiety, depression, addiction, and complex trauma because of her negative experiences.
Wendy Kier was born in Redditch, Worcestershire in 1977. Her parents Maureen and Edward were both alcoholics. When her father was sent to prison, her mother looked after her and her brother. When her father returned home, her mother left home permanently. The father completely failed in parenting: going out for drinks and leaving 3-year-old Wendy alone in the house to look after her 1-year-old baby brother. When her nursery finds out about it, they acted by getting social workers involved. The social workers removed both children from their family and placed them in a care home. Her brother was adopted much sooner than she, so she lost her both parents and brother. Her aunty Carol did visit her in the care home from time to time. Her Grandma use to write to her, but that was all really. When Carol moved to Canada, she stopped any contact with Wendy.
Parental childhood neglect did continue with traumatizing care home life. She sometimes got locked in the cupboards by staff in the care home because of being naughty. Wendy was adopted when she was 8 years old, but she never had a permanent home. People found her behaviour too difficult, and she kept changing places. Her last adoption, which was a total disaster, was when she was 13. In total, she was taken to 35 foster placements, which was overall a traumatizing experience. Running away from care homes compounded her traumatic encounters, resulting in sexual abuse and rape, which further damaged her psychologically and emotionally. She lost her brother and never saw him. There is no information about him given in the book. When she turned 17, she left the care home. She faced homelessness for some periods of her life.
Spurred by her experience, she chose to work in the social care sector. Wendy travelled to Australia, Israel and other countries. When she returned, she enrolled on a care-related course where she specialized in working with young people at risk. After qualifying, she took a job in Central London. Busy working life or studying did not stop her from feeling isolated and alone. Having therapy did not help either. She threw all her energy into full-time employment, deciding to embrace workaholism to evade her emotional struggles. Overall, her life was characterized by never having long-term relationships, flashbacks, nightmares, loneliness, dissociation, negative emotions, aggression, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, fear, overtiredness, sexualized behaviour, anti-social behaviour, self-harm, low self-stem, paranoid behaviour, inability to connect with or experience love, compassion, joy or other positive emotions. She was stuck in a traumatized dysfunctional reality bubble.
Her multidimensional suffering encouraged her to work out for herself a person-centred Trauma Recovery Method. The process is easy to understand and gives a clear route or map for personal development. Wendy hopes her readers will find their own ‘tune’ while trying her method.
The method was specially designed to help her get ‘under the skin’ and manage heavy emotions. She refers to the Trauma Recovery Method as self-coaching. Wendy demonstrates this throughout all the stages of her novel method. The author seeks to increase your level of consciousness, so you gain a new perspective by following her proposed method step by step. Are you brave enough to ask: if you let go and get rid of trauma, who are you? This is the key question to ask in order to reach our full potential.
The author’s language is very unpretentious, simple to follow, and easy to read and understand. Her survival story is very powerful and hard-hitting. Reading her book is a learning journey. The book’s cover was the first thing to captivate me. It utilizes an excellent real-life example of learning to heal from our buried complex traumas. She describes her experiences while acknowledging them. She outlines how she managed to stop the triggers, the hijacking, and the emotional grip that trauma has had on her. In this book, you will learn strategies, tools, and techniques that will empower you to deal with such issues. The book’s story suggests that those who grow up in compelling circumstances are more likely to face living with long-term complex trauma. Also, the book reports that 25% of people who have been looked after by social services end up in prison (source-prisonreformtrust.org.uk). Without doubt, this is devastating.
As a future social worker, l very highly recommend this book, especially to those who want to make a difference in people’s lives and help them. This book will help you to empathize, to be reflective, and to be more effective in your future careers. Nevertheless, the book provides a valuable and absorbing window for self-healing. By and large, I do not think there is anyone who would not benefit from reading this book. The key points written in big punchy headlines catch readers’ attention and trigger motivation for well-being. For instance, YOU 100% HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO RECOVER AND HEAL FROM TRAUMA AND MAKE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE!
However, there is no book without some shortcomings. This book contains some repetitions. Nevertheless, the book does accomplish its aim, which is ‘to break the cycle of trauma in a safe, compassionate, supportive way, leading to emotional freedom, love, joy, peace, fulfilment, and happiness’. On the last page, the book has this: ‘Immediate Emotional and Mental Health Support’, giving information and sharing some helpline websites which I found very useful. Reading such a dazzling story as Bemorewolf motivates me to continue to aspire to achieve my aim of becoming a social worker.
I want to share the author’s dedication: ‘To the forgotten children and adult survivors of the UK’s Care System. May you find love, peace, and happiness, and live a long and abundant life’.
Shall we start together!?
So, ask yourself!
WHO ARE YOU?