My heart hammered in my chest when I read this Buckminster Fuller quote: “What can I do that isn’t going to get done unless I do it, just because of who I am?” GITA, definitely GITA—the first YA fiction about the realistic beginnings of the fallout of prolonged, repeated childhood sexual trauma, an entirely different beast than the fallout of circumscribed sexual trauma. A different beast I’ve spent 20 years helping many of my patients begin to tame (it’s always a lifelong task). A different beast I’ve endured, survived, and still tame daily. A different beast that needs to be exposed in the YA world, the way Judith Herman first exposed it in all of its biological complexity in the nonfiction world in her seminal book TRAUMA AND RECOVERY:
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Page 119.
