Why I chose to re-release Paperdolls

The public relations department at Saprea asked me to provide a statement on why I decided to re-release the book. The following is as succinct as I could get.

Notice: I paused the current missive because it has to do with the healing power of animals, for me, particularly dogs. It's a two part post about Animal Assisted Therapy (AAP), the link between animal abusers and serial killers, and the interesting fact that Animal Control Officers are one of the highest groups to report abuse of children in the home. I paused working on this two part series because I've seen numerous headlines about some political person shooting their dog. I'd like to avoid any similarities to this political story. My two part post about animals to help survivors will go out later.

---

Why I chose to re-release Paperdolls:¹

Long before Paperdolls was released, Carol was active in the therapeutic community. After the book was released she seemed to focus her activism to the issues surrounding childhood sexual abuse. She was on boards, panels, spoke on a routine basis and was even known to carry signs and march for the cause.

Whenever we got together for lunch or to catch up, she relayed the well wishes from others. Carol told stories of how my story helped other survivors get out of the hospital, stop harming themselves and regain their own life. She told me that I'd never know how much I helped people. My own therapist told me the same thing. Both Carol and my therapist tried to communicate how impactful and inspirational my story was.

Most of the time, it soothed the wounds I experienced by publishing the book. You see, from my perspective, I'd lost everything.² My family, my career in finance, and a host of old time friends from my old neighborhood. In my dark moments, I even tacked on Karen's death as part of the legacy of loss from my childhood sexual abuse. In my confabulated thinking, I thought that my case was so huge and so taxing for Karen that it caused her cancer. Or, at least depleted her resources she needed to heal the cancer.

Regardless of my personal losses after publishing the book: hearing the stories, receiving the notes, letters, and thanks always helped. To do something that saved one life, it felt extraordinary. From the feedback I received and the enormous amount of messages and stories I received from Carol and other therapists, it made it all worthwhile. Thank you.

After it was published, there were many events—astounding things— that happened with significant ties to the book, especially my portion of it. Carol and I struggled on whether to write another book. When we finally decided to re-publish the first book and then combine the second "book" containing the majority of the significant events of the subsequent decades, I joked that it would be like the "Old and New Testament."

Almost two decades after it was published, in 2010, we decided to do it. I struggled. Taking the book off the shelf and reading it was a challenge. It felt like I was going back. As I learned from Karen Fisher, feelings lag behind thoughts. I knew it wasn't going back. I knew the abuse would always be part of my life, just not the main part of my life and it doesn’t define who I am. But, taking the book off the shelf, opening it, and reading it, well that felt like I was going backwards.

Oprah Winfrey, photo courtesy of thefamouspeople.com

One spring day in 2011, I was listening to the radio. There was a lot of news about Oprah Winfrey's retirement³ from her daily talk show. A clip of Oprah came on where she said,

“Do the work that comes from your soul. For me, that’s meant always trying 'my best to say something about how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome.'"

Oprah’s comment went right to my heart. My daily work was fulfilling, but nothing to touch my soul--or touch other’s souls. I knew in my heart, to my core, that I would re-release Paperdolls. So we began.

There is an old cliche' in the sales world that people buy emotionally and defend it with logic. ⁴ In many ways, that's what I did. Oprah’s comment went to my heart, then I buoyed my decision up with the facts, of all that had happened since the book was published.

I took the book off the shelf and read it for the first time. ⁵

It was painful and inspiring. Carol's portion was incredible because I knew how well her grandchildren were doing. We decided that —at a minimum— the book would be a testimony to the benefits of therapy. The sooner one can get in and get professional help, the better.

When I dragged out all my journals, we were able to select the most important events: The backlash I suffered personally for writing the book. Then, the tragic events such as Kacie Woody's murder, Elizabeth Smart's abduction, my cousin imprisoned for sexually abusing minors, and the like. It was all pretty grim. As we reviewed, I exclaimed, "This is horrid, who would want to read all this tragedy?"

Carol and I took a break. We moved to my front porch. Neither of us spoke for a moment. I watched the pear blossoms float down to the sidewalk like snow. My tulips were bursting up adding more color to the yellow daffodils. My dog nuzzled my hand. I whispered, "My life is beautiful."

Photo Courtesy of Photo by Joelle Harms

Carol's eyes misted over and she said, "Yes it is. That's what we have to convey."

And, now, to my beloved survivors. That is what we tried to convey. That is why I decided to re-release Paperdolls. It comes from my heart. It is "'my best to say something about how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome.’”

1. The Saprea public relations people asked me to provide a statement about why I chose to re-release Paperdolls. My simplest answer was that I was agahst that it was selling online for over $1500 per book. They didn’t quite understand and mumbled something about "anyone can list a price for anything.” I had to reiterate that it was selling, from several different used book sellers for over $1500. Which was ridiculous—I raged about it here.

At any rate, that statement about why I decided to re-release Paperdolls based on just the price seemed shallow, reactionary and superficial. This post explains how I finally committed to re-release Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots.

2. In this radio interview with Kevin Stanfield, I had started experiencing the backlash. Kevin pushed me for more details, but it was still too painful to talk about. Thankfully, Carol stepped in and talked during the radio interview.

3. https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/oprah-winfrey-key-to-happiness-151689/

4. I describe listening to sales and motivational tapes as a little kid, in this entry:

5. I don't count the organization of my writings for publication as actually reading the book. Not from cover to cover. I didn’t actually read Paperdolls until then.