Books: Memoir Chronicles a Woman's Flight Through the Fires of Childhood Abuse

"A Freed Woman's Dance" is an inspiring, tell-all memoir of courage, strength and in the end - resilience.

A Freed Woman's Dance is an inspiring, tell-all memoir of courage, strength and in the end - resilience. Out of her personal and compelling story of neglect and abuse, Author Doris Cope has found her way to healing and embarked on a journey to help other childhood sexual abuse survivors find voice, freedom and empowerment.

Her story starts in Chattanooga, Tennessee where her father was a disabled railroad worker and her mother was a cook working double shifts to make ends meet. With an absent mother and unreliable father, Doris and her younger siblings were often left in the care of their mentally unstable sister and epileptic brother, whom regularly beat them.

To supplement her mother's meager wages, her parents went into business for themselves, converting their home into a splo house - a bar where illegal moonshine, fried fish and chitterlings were sold. Their home became a place where drunks as well as police called one of their favorite local spots. It wasn't long before 9-year-old Doris was being molested by her parents' customers.

Doris joined the local church on her own in fifth grade and began to attend regularly. The ladies there gave her the love and care she desperately needed and, as a result, she blossomed from it. In time, the minister's wife asked Doris to baby sit their young children and she moved in with them. Soon after, Reverend Parks took a personal interest in her development and education. He also began grooming the young girl for a more sordid role in his household.

The nightmare with Reverend Parks began just after Doris turned fourteen, when touching and kissing became fondling and sex.

Her hero and safety valve had betrayed her. She was angry, scared and utterly confused, but as many victims often do, she remained silent as the abuse continued.

Eventually Doris' mother moved to another part of town, and Doris joined her to care for her younger siblings. There she became friends with an elderly woman and her 19-year-old grandson. When one of her sister's friends tried to molest her in her mother's house, Doris moved in with the elderly woman. A relationship blossomed and she married the grandson soon after at the age of sixteen. When her husband began physically and verbally abusing her, the three-year-old marriage unraveled. Eventually, Doris called her former high school English teacher and his wife, who gave her sanctuary for six weeks.

In 1971 Doris joined the U.S. Air Force. During her military days, she picked up a life-long habit of working while attending college at night. After her three year military stint, Doris used her GI Bill benefits to get a solid education and professional mental health care to soothe the wounds left from Chattanooga.

News of Reverend Parks' death forced Doris to confront her remaining skeletons. Her incredible inner drive allowed her to heal old wounds and reclaim her past.

A Freed Woman's Dance is a book about Doris Cope's journey through grief and fear to find freedom. It's about what it takes to reclaim the tenderest and most vulnerable parts of ones self and also, what wasn't taken away by the abuse. The book is helpful to those whose lives have involved any forms of abuse - sexual, violent, verbal or mental. The book is intended to let victims and survivors who remain silenced know that they are not alone and that healing is entirely possible if they open their mouths as a first step.

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