Susan Montgomery

Susan Montgomery was raised in an upper-middle-class family in upstate New York. When she was eleven, her father sexually abused her. With essentially no resources available, she tried to bury the memory. On the surface, her life seemed under control in that she married her childhood boyfriend, completed college, and had three children. However, upon closer examination, her behavior had begun to deteriorate in early adulthood when she undertook the seemingly inexplicable action of severely...See more

Susan Montgomery was raised in an upper-middle-class family in upstate New York. When she was eleven, her father sexually abused her. With essentially no resources available, she tried to bury the memory. On the surface, her life seemed under control in that she married her childhood boyfriend, completed college, and had three children. However, upon closer examination, her behavior had begun to deteriorate in early adulthood when she undertook the seemingly inexplicable action of severely restricting her eating until she was emaciated. At the time--and throughout much of her adult life--she could give no reason for this and other significant displays of self-destructive, aberrant behavior. Her son's suicide in 1985 devastated her, forcing her to seek help from a psychotherapist. This event, along with her detailed analysis of the psychology literature, enabled her to link her bizarre behavior to the underlying, unrecognized effects of the sexual abuse experienced decades earlier. See less