Finding Hope After Trauma
Stories of healing, resilience, and reclaiming your life.
“Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.”
— Nora Ephron
Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness and Healing from Complex PTSD
Coming September 15, 2026
“Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is for anyone needing help putting the pieces together around what happened to our families and ourselves. Amy Smyth Miller helps us process the confusion and disconnection between our past and our present through her story. A wonderful resource for those who have experienced childhood trauma.”
— Patrick Teahan, LICSW, psychotherapist and expert on childhood trauma
Part investigation, part love letter to survival, HOME is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you’re searching for is the one you build inside yourself.
In my research, I discovered that while my experiences had left me with long-lasting trauma, they had also resulted in talents and skills that would serve me later in life.
This, I believe, is the greatest aspiration for those who have suffered complex trauma – to find hope and meaning within the events we were unable to control. Home is a memoir of survival, belonging, and the hard-won truth that healing is possible.
“I suspected that something from my past was reaching into the present and hijacking the happy life I’d carefully built.”
After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller’s panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past—childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her life: her wise great-grandmother’s teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory—one that holds the key to her deepest fear.
Latest Articles
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Writing About Trauma: A Memoir’s Journey
Memoir as a Slice of Life When my memoir about my journey through trauma is released, some people who were in my life won’t find themselves in the book. They may wonder why. A memoir isn’t a full account of someone’s entire life like an autobiography. Instead, it’s a “slice of life” story that includes
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Understanding Complex PTSD: Fear, Shame, and Healing
Fear & Shame: The Toxic Roots of Complex PTSD Confused about the difference between PTSD and Complex PTSD? You’re not alone. Knowing that a single traumatic event causes PTSD, and Complex PTSD has its roots in prolonged and repeated trauma, doesn’t fully explain the difference between these two disorders. What is important to note is
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Resilience of the Scapegoat: A Path to Healing
I can still picture myself sitting in front of the TV, watching Dr. John Bradshaw on PBS. He was talking about family systems and used this brilliant metaphor — a mobile hanging from the ceiling. Each piece of the mobile represents a family member. When one part moves, all the others shift to keep the
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