Description

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Abuse moves in cycles. When you're born into it, you know nothing else. Kindness, warmth, and love are foreign to you-it scares you-even though you long for it. When you escape abuse, it's all you seek because it's all you know.

Deidre Ann lived through these cycles, starting with an abusive childhood in Victoria, British Columbia. With four siblings, she often faced the brunt of her father's physical and emotional trauma, and her mother's lack of affection due to her own abusive relationship and depression. Such a childhood rocketed Deidre Ann to the streets of Victoria, seeking a way to forget her past and present through drugs, alcohol, and prostitution.

With a few prison sentences under her belt, her heart and mind began longing for that break in the cycle. Her friends were moving on, and she found herself growing and seeking new experiences to make her feel whole. Yet, her childhood life followed her, leading her to complex relationships that ended with more physical and emotional abuse towards her but now, her two daughters.

With confessions from her children, Deidre Ann relived her experiences with her father and could not fathom putting her children's lives down the same path she faced. She snapped-and was charged with aggravated assault in 2003, with three years in prison.

Forced to face her demons with her prison sentence, Deidre Ann begins to come to terms with her past as she searches for her true self, while creating a new life for her and her daughters.

Poisoned Mind: The True Story of Deidre Ann is a powerful memoir that breaks the stigma behind addition and prostitution, serving as a life lesson to those facing abusive cycles of their own.