Book Excerpt

"It happens quickly. I''m not in that house ten minutes before my world stops making sense."

From victim to survivor, Mary Ann Ricciardi pens from a most honest and heartfelt point of view, sharing what she knows to be true about the emotional ruin that trails behind the silence and myths surrounding intimate violence.

In Screaming Through the Silence: Memories, Truths and a Hope Toward Understanding, Ricciardi writes with a purpose and desire to end the harmful silence of generations past and present.

Presenting the issues simply and logicaIly, Ricciardi''s "gentle rant" comes from years of social observations, her own personal struggle as victim turned survivor and her ongoing work with victims of intimate assault.

Included are the voices of intimate assault and abuse survivors who so willingly share their truths in hopes of encouraging better understanding and awareness.

"Society cannot understand because victims don''t tell; victims don''t tell because society does not understand."