Childhood Trauma and Adult Addiction Memoir, “Stepping Stones” by Marilea C. Rabasa

Publication day for memoir “Stepping Stones,” about childhood trauma and adult addiction, by Marilea C. Rabasa is tomorrow, June 16, 2020.

If you had been Marilea Rabasa’s childhood neighbor, you may have envied the material comfort that her attractive parents provided for her and two older siblings. You would not have dreamed that she could do anything less than travel the “…happily ever after” road until the end of her days, especially if you witnessed her entry into her beloved teaching career, marriage to a handsome, talented diplomat for the Foreign Service, the arrival of three bright children, her international travel, and so much more…. Those events would probably have cemented your perceptions. For, no one, including Rabasa herself, could have dreamed that the still-unknown secrets she carried within from her earliest days of life would later lead her into a terrifying tangle and excruciating abyss of multiple addictions. Or that there would be a connection between her as yet unknown childhood trauma and her adult addiction.

The structure of Stepping Stones is especially fitting for this story. Overall are three parts: Sleepwalking, Muddling Through the Middle, and Waking Up. Also, the numerous brief chapters—vignettes, really—are titled with simple words that might reflect what a child would remember about that time in her young life: Spiders, Walls, The Woods, Blueberries, Nut Pie.

The first vignette (or stepping stone, as I experience each chapter) is titled Photographs. Rabasa sits at her desk at the start of writing this story, then pauses to bring her reader intimately into her life as she views and shares feelings about various family photos in her office. As she describes each, she reminds us of how helpful it is in adulthood to revisit those early photos where we frequently discover the deeper truths of our childhood lives.  

 …the photographs are revealing. In my family, people didn’t talk about feelings; that’s just the way we were. These pictures help me recall events and my feelings attached to them.

You may soon discover that occasionally, as is especially true with this memoir, an author reaches out and takes your hand to walk with her on the life journey she has traveled. This was my experience in moving through Stepping Stones, the account of Rabasa’s addictions, losses, and eventual hard-won transformation. I found the title, Stepping Stones, so apt for her story. As I stepped from one stone to another with her while she experienced her world, I had a sense of walking along comfortably at first but by the time Rabasa was eight-years-old, I started to hesitate and then tiptoe as we approached further stones. In an early vignette, Walls, for example, my heart suddenly felt deeply sad, as I read:

“Mary, go outside and play. I need to lie down for a while,” Mother pleaded, on the verge of tears. “Click” went the door latch as I approached her bedroom, the red light telling me to stop, turn around, and look elsewhere for attention.

 So, Rabasa and I slowly step onto the next stone, Spiders.

“Daddy, can I come down and help you?” I called to him in the basement, my plaintive tone echoing off the basement’s damp wall.

“Not now. Go check on your mother.” He sounded tense and angry, in no mood for an intrusion. That’s what I felt like in his and in my whole family’s life—an intrusion.

“She’s in bed. Told me to go outside,” I responded, the wind knocked out of me by a man who preferred to be doing something else.

“Do what your mother told you,” he barked, uninterested in haggling with me. What was he doing down there…? Why wasn’t I welcome to come to join him? … I longed to be closer to my father….

Thus, I’m with Rabasa as she races upstairs, finds her coat, and stomps out the front door, sobbing and indignant.

As one stone leads to another, she and I become aware of a mysterious silence in her home that will gradually unfold into deeper clarity many, many stones ahead. Addiction… Eating Disorder… and more. Unexpectedly, I felt at times that I’d slipped back into my own young, foggy life while moving along stones with the author. I attribute this to her nuanced and very engaging writing, which is also excruciatingly honest.

And so, on this publication day for memoir Stepping Stones by Marilea C. Rabasa, this is what I want you to know. Stepping Stones is a spectacular gift from Rabasa’a heart to, first of all, herself. And now she has generously shared it with the world. You will not forget this 5 star, exceptional and beautifully written memoir.