Michelle Taja Miller’s candid memoir provides a heartfelt reflection on the trauma and losses she experienced as a child and young adult, along with the therapy that helped her begin healing.

The memoir begins with the shocking scene of her foster mother punching Miller, then a young child, in the face. It then flashes back to her family background and describes how, at nine months, she was put into foster car situations around Paris after her parents’ divorce. Miller describes a sequence of neglect, abuse, and heartbreak leavened by occasional moments of joy and escape. She details physical attacks from a cruel foster mother, molestation by her foster father, the pain of feeling abandoned after her mother’s visits, and the emotional manipulation of her stepfather, whose coldness caused her shame and deprivation. These episodes are interspersed with reflections and insights into therapy sessions in which Miller confronts deeply painful emotions.

Moving into adulthood, Miller discusses her romantic struggles and heartbreaks, particularly the loss of a beloved boyfriend; her struggles with housing insecurity; and panic attacks that plagued her until she finally began seeking help. Eventually, Miller finds understanding, if not peace, around her earliest wounds and describes the tenets of Primal Healing, the therapy that worked for her.

While the book contains narrative gaps —a reconciliation scene with her parents seems glossed over, for example, and her mother’s own mental health battles are never explored—the theme stays focused on hurt and healing, and Miller is frank about her experiences in a way that asks for understanding, rather than pity. The prose is compelling and evocative, and when Miller describes scenes of natural beauty and its healing effect on her, the imagery is nearly poetic.

While abuse memoirs are distressingly plentiful, Miller provides a different vantage point centered on the premise of her title: the formation and preservation of the invisible self. Her memoir is moving, lyrical, and ultimately uplifting.

Also available as an ebook.