Ordinary Wonders: Living Recovery
from Sexual Abuse

by Lilian Green, Women's Press, 1991
Review by Loralee Elliot

Lilian Green has written a personal disclosure of her own story which gives a strong sense of hope to other incest survivors.

She is a survivor of sexual and physical abuse by her brother and grandmother. She married thinking all was well, but it was not. Her husband was also abusive. His abuse was more emotional and verbal so it was harder for her to realize that what her husband did was abuse. It was when she recognized that the way her husband treated her was abuse that all her memories started to come back. This book is her personal journey through her healing process.

She writes to let other survivors know that you can recover from abuse, no matter what type of abuse or how deep the wounds. No abuse is right and no one has the right to use or abuse anyone else.

Lilian writes, "I wrote Ordinary Wonders to give back something of the many gifts that were given me along the road to recovery. I had a resource I wanted to share, the words that chart my journey, words of pain and joy and discovery. I offer you my experience and understanding in the hope that it will make your journey a little easier" (p.10).

She tells about her feelings of powerlessness and abandonment, and about how she is torn between feeling guilt, feeling that the things done to her were because she was bad, and feeling that she should be strong. Her parents and grandmother were strong people; as Jews, they lived through a number of hardships during the holocaust.

This book is made up of some of Lilian's journal entries and poetry that she wrote throughout her recovery. I found it very moving and inspiring. As a survivor myself, this book said a lot of the things I cannot yet write myself. At some points, I felt as if I was reading my own story.

I think that any survivor or partner of a survivor or anyone working in or interested in learning more about the effects of childhood violence would find this book a welcomed resource.

Loralee Elliot is a single mother living in Toronto.