Every Shitty Thing: One Woman's Journey Through Brother's, Betrayals and Botox

By the time Marcia was 15, she had been betrayed by every male figure in her life. Her father, her brothers, a boy she had a crush on, and even a group of strangers.

She grew up feeling unworthy, full of insecurity and self-loathing. As a result, she learned how to disconnect and keep her mouth shut. Except when it came to food. Her lifelong weight issues began around this time. She filled the void, like most overeaters, with comfort foods: carbs, fast food, cake and lots of chocolate.

After a dreadful incident of double treachery when she was a teenager, she resolved never to marry or have children for fear history might repeat itself. Addiction was in her family's DNA. She wouldn't risk passing it on.

Then she met George, a sweet Greek boy who seemed so different from all the other men she'd ever known. She agreed to marry him on condition that they would never have kids.

When she accidentally fell pregnant, she thought her world had ended. After agonizing over the decision, she knew she had to have their child because George wanted more than anything to be a father. Thank heavens they had a daughter. She still doesn't know how she could have coped with a son.

A phone call in March 2007 changed everything. Her 19-year marriage was over in 24 hours. She found out that George had been leading a secret double life. How had she missed that? The worst part was that it wasn't the first time he'd left them destitute. In 2001 she had uncovered his gambling habit. Despite secrets and shames of her own, somehow they had managed to keep their marriage on track.

But there was no recovery from this second stab in the back. What unravelled plunged her into levels of darkness even deeper than her shitty past. There were times she contemplated ending her life like her brother Tony, but she couldn't bring herself to abandon her daughter.

Every Shitty Thing is a memoir about betrayal, deception, heartbreak and endurance, with humour between the threads. It's about hope and never giving up on love. This is Marcia's story of learning to trust again after a lifetime of betrayal, and how she came to embrace the understanding that the shit we go through no matter how awful leads us exactly where we need to be.

Dettagli