Crooked Angels by Carol Lee
Crooked Angels traces how memories of terror and neglect from childhood became stored in a woman's muscles. A fit, healthy and successful journalist wakes one summer's morning to discover something is terribly wrong, unable to move she is seized by excruciating paralysis. In a personal account of the link between past and present, body and mind, the author gradually discovers the root of the mystery illness that has held her trapped in a cage of pain. With almost forensic skill, Carol Lee follows a trail that starts from the still, confinement of her armchair leading her back to a childhood of Tanzanian landscapes, patriarchal oppression and an all-seeing, unforgiving God. Then on to a hectic life as a newspaper journalist, perpetually on the run from the demons that haunt her. It is only when she suffers this physical break down and with the help of a wise osteopath that she can begin to uncover the history that her body has stored and remembered for her; 'the story of your life, your history is written in your body.' As forgotten memories and old injuries are slowly unlocked so too does the body begin to recover.