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Christina Crawford

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The Mommie Dearest Collection: Two Memoirs of Survival Kindle Edition

by Christina Crawford (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 65 ratings

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Together in one volume for the first time: The harrowing #1 New York Times bestseller with a new introduction, and its triumphant sequel.

This volume includes two memoirs by Christina Crawford, recounting the abuse she endured as a child and her journey to recovery as an adult.

Mommie Dearest: An unprecedented memoir of child abuse, Mommie Dearest also chipped away at the façade of Christina Crawford’s alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford. What transpired between a seemingly fortunate child of Hollywood and a controlling and desperate woman was an escalating nightmare and, for Christina, a fierce struggle for independence. This ebook features an exclusive new introduction by the author, plus rare photographs from her personal collection and a revealing one hundred pages of material not found in the original manuscript.

“A horror story that goes beyond showbiz scandal-mongering . . . Delivers an unexpected charge.” —The New York Times

“Probably the most chilling account of a mother-daughter relationship ever to be put on paper.” —Los Angeles Times

Survivor: Mommie Dearest cast a spotlight on the unspoken horrors of family violence, but the years following its publication tested Christina Crawford’s resilience in unexpected ways: a backlash intended to shame her, a film adaptation that compounded the trauma, alcoholism, divorce, and a stroke that left her paralyzed. Staying true to her fighting spirit, the author made a remarkable comeback. Survivor is more than a memoir of triumph over tragedy. For anyone who has suffered challenging despair, it is a spiritual roadmap to recovery, finding peace, and celebrating a fulfilling life.

“One closes this fine, moving read with great respect for Christina Crawford.” —Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christina Crawford is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the memoirs Mommie Dearest and Survivor, as well as the women’s history book Daughters of the Inquisition. Crawford graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, after spending nearly fourteen years as an actress in television, theater, and film. She received her master’s degree in communication management from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California.

Since then, Crawford has worked in corporate public relations, was a partner in a winery, owned and operated a country inn, and spent eight years booking concert entertainment for a North Idaho casino. One of the first people appointed to the Los Angeles County Commission for Children’s Services, she also served one term as county commissioner in Idaho. Her regional TV show Northwest Entertainment has won three Telly Awards for excellence.

Crawford has been a lifelong advocate of issues for social justice, from the early days of child abuse prevention and family violence intervention to issues of the rights of women across the world. She lives in Idaho, where she continues to write and pursue creative projects.

Follow Christina on her Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaCrawfordAuthor

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B076LNBRH3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (November 21, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 21, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 101940 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 964 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #881,588 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #370 in Biographies of Social Activists
- #1,321 in Social Activist Biographies
- #1,376 in Biographies of the Rich & Famous

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4.2 65 ratings

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4.2 out of 5

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Tlm

Why

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2021

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I read both these books before I just wanted to get the box set of this. I thought it would be nice.

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2018

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Amazeing memory Christina has. Very fast reading, hard to put this book down. I wouldn't trade places with her for a second second !

One person found this helpful

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StormyM

but I share the hardship of having a picture perfect life with love bombing moments that made my mom ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2018

Daughters of narcisstic mothers NEED this duo. This story will help validate your experience of hidden abuse.

To the previous reviewer/psychologist - you should educate yourself with NPD and BPD. Your assessment of this story lacks the clinical understanding of a Cluster B personality disorder. This idea of 2 sides to one story is true- however sociopaths are masters of covert manipulation. Reading through your assessment alarmed me that you are oblivious to the key red flags of psychological abuse. I don’t mean to be condescinding, but I share the hardship of having a picture perfect life with love bombing moments that made my mom “seem” loving. Moms like ours had children to extend their own existence, live vicariously and when we stand up against their manipulation and control, we are met with narcisstic rage (the wire hanger sceen)... if we do obey in public, the consequences await when most vulnerable. It’s so difficult to explain this to someone that doesn’t understand trauma survivors, but I hope this book helped.

Back to the story line- this is a must read for survivors when you are seeking validation.. although it can triggering.

25 people found this helpful

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trancelucence

Misgivings...

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2018

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Hadn't read Mommie Dearest until now. I really wrestled with how to rate this- it's interesting to be sure, and I know that others who've suffered parental abuse/neglect have found it inspirational, but I have a few misgivings and caveats to offer. As a psychologist and family counselor, treatment of child abuse is an area of specialization. I have both personal and extensive professional experience with it. I'll try to be brief and to the point. ***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

There's little doubt that Ms. Crawford is sincere and heartfelt, and that her assertions (in Mommy Dearest) are true, from her perspective. However, since we filter things through our subjective points of view, there are grey areas when it comes to assessing others' motives or intent. There's a notion in family therapy called "escalating complementarity", which has to do with people in conflict becoming more and more extreme in their accounts, in opposition to one other. Sometimes in family therapy, when you have the abuser and the abused together, the "truth" ends up being somewhere in the middle (and as therapy progresses, and understanding of the other increases, accounts become less extreme). It's possible that Joan Crawford thought punishments such as keeping Christina at school over breaks, while harsh, might be the best way to teach her lessons she would never forget. Ditto with putting her in the convent. She may not have been a sadist, it may have grieved her to take such extreme measures. There seems little doubt that Joan was a control freak, had an obsessive need to overlook everything, even something as innocuous as thank-you notes. She was overly concerned with propriety, cleanliness, appearances, true, but all of these tendencies bespeak of extreme anxiety if things aren't just so, and DON'T necessarily mean that Joan didn't love or want the best for Christina (at least the majority of the time). The thing that struck me about Mommie Dearest is that it's a hodgepodge of qualitatively different issues, which when all summed, create a portrait of a monster. Christina characterizes her grandmother as a kindly woman, but it's extremely unlikely that Joan herself didn't suffer some sort of abuse as a child, given her seeming extreme anxiety and mistrustfulness. And by the way, the lovely house Grandma had- wasn't that paid for by Joan? Some things just didn't add up for me- Christina included all those lovely letters from Joan, sent in response to letters from Christina, which we didn't see. If Joan really hated her daughter so intensely and wanted to hurt her, the best way to cut her dead would be not to write at all. Christina presented them as attempts to mess with her head, but who knows? Perhaps those letters were a matter of public record (e.g., known of by secretaries, copies on file, etc.), so they had to be explained somehow.

As Christina noted, adding alcohol to the mix sent Joan round the bend, as it does some people. And there's no excusing the ONE terrible beating, the black eye, etc. But there were many anecdotes that also suggested that Joan cared about her children. Anyway, I'm not making excuses for Joan Crawford, I'm just saying there's always two sides to any story and unfortunately we're not privy to the other side.

Frankly, what gives me pause about the narrative are things Christina DIDN'T say. For example, if she was being honest, and truly unburdening her soul, why did she not express more indignation about being disinherited? She seemed quite matter-of-fact about it. A naysayer might suspect that in anticipation of being disinherited, she penned a book to call her mother's sanity into question, with the express intent of using the facts therein to later contest the will. I don't say this, I don't know, but I think it odd that she didn't express more utter betrayal if it indeed came as a total surprise.

As an aside, Ms. Crawford has many times referred to the fact that she had years of psychotherapy. Lord knows it's tough to be a woman in a world that worships beauty, and style over substance, but psychotherapy, especially for child abuse, rape, etc. tends to focus on personal worth, integrity, loving oneself as one is, character attributes etc, so I was surprised at the number of times that Christina felt the need to mention her long, silvery blonde hair and emerald green eyes. This suggests vanity (and/or perhaps, not terribly effective psychotherapy). Ditto with spiritual advancement (the main thrust of the book), which ordinarily breeds humbleness and a lack of concern about external appearances. Odd.

In Survivor, Ms. Crawford details the terrible experience of suffering a stroke, and its aftermath. Between Mommy Dearest and Survivor, we're seeing a very wide swatch of one person's life, from childhood to nearly 80 years old, and no doubt the person who wrote Mommie Dearest is a very different one from the one who wrote Survivor. But I'm not going to excuse her on the basis of age or what she's been through. It is fine for someone in a memoir to recount their spiritual journey. She dabbled in everything from Buddhism to shamanism to past life regression to yoga, the mysteries of Egypt, Tai Chi, and Native American spirituality (with VERY little to say about supposed years of counseling). But finally she recounts an experience after consulting with a mysterious, unnamed woman in Beverly Hills who instructs her in a ritual she must perform alone. Protected by her magical Kachina doll, she travels to a wilderness area with her two large dogs.

"Surrounded by incense, candle, corn meal, tobacco, my sacred bundle, sweet grass smudge stick, flowers, my rattles and the wilderness itself, sitting inside the medicine wheel with little wooden “Situlili” [the Kachina doll], I begin to seek the spirits of place in the early morning.” Hours pass and her efforts are rewarded: “…I am shaken by the new information, moved to tears by the insights, awed by the power I feel around me, inside me, through me. The ancient spirits of place come from the six directions and share much wisdom with my own spirit.” She thanks the spirits and asks them to protect this land which has healed her and loved her from any harm. Note that all the while her two dogs are running around, “ecstatic to be running free again.”

“Less than one month later [though she’s been heavily in debt], the bank released me from past obligations [could this mean her bankruptcy came through?]. Then my interest in the ranch sold for an all-cash payment. I was extricated from all the financial burden, set free from the emotional struggle and released from the people who intended me harm.” [The evil creditors to whom she owed money, possibly.]

She has learned “from the universe itself. Some powerful teachers have been sent from whom I have been privileged to learn in several different realities.”

She’s arrived, she’s on the path: “It doesn’t matter how you get on the path…” “The way you get here is immaterial. Once you arrive it also doesn’t matter whether you’re attracted to the “Course in Miracles” [it’s “A Course in Miracles”] or the medicine wheel or healing crystals or past life regression. The form doesn’t matter.” “I now understand that no learning that makes a difference to my soul’s evolutionary journey will come from outside.” [I assume that includes from Ms. Crawford.] Yet, she goes on to say there’s “A Moment in Time. If you will give us a moment in your time, I will show you a secret space, an opening where love slips through, where passion has no anger, where dreams come true. In that secret space of time, I will kiss the inside of your smile. Not with my mouth, but through my heart, as we share a journey to the stars...." "...I promise to kiss you there, inside your smile… inside the secret opening… through this moment in time. Yet, also in the journey we share to the outer limits, to the edge of the stars.”

First of all, it makes a BIG difference what you draw upon to help heal yourself from child abuse or any other kind of trauma. The paths she lists are all very different, apples and oranges, but space doesn't permit me to go into that, except I will say, after studying A Course in Miracles for a couple of years (people devote entire lifetimes to its study) that although it is intellectually challenging and mind-blowing, it tends to be depersonalizing, not the best approach for people who feel alienated and separate from others already- my two cents worth.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions about Ms. Crawford's motives in writing this book. We are so very fortunate to have this person, who can draw spirits from the sky, from the six directions, one whom can make debts and bills disappear, one with long silver hair and eyes of emerald green who will kiss us inside our secret opening and take us to the stars, walking amongst us mere mortals, why, as close as her facebook page (have a look)!

I'll make this short and not sweet- I think it's highly irresponsible of someone who represents herself as an advocate of people who've been abused, especially at this late juncture, with all her experience, to not recommend counseling first and foremost. Why would someone who's knowledgeable in the field, who's worked with academia, in research and clinical settings, with best practices in mind, who certainly knows better, not do this? It seems pretty obvious. And I speak not from a psychological need to defend my turf, but from knowledge and experience. I've studied a very wide array of healing methods, from clinical to the transpersonal and more esoteric. Some lay practices can be highly beneficial and complementary (e.g., hypnosis for relaxation, Reiki, massage therapy, etc). But counselors who specialize in child abuse and the PTSD resulting therefrom have YEARS of intensive, specialized training in helping people exorcise the extreme pain and hurt that keeps them numb, afraid, and barely functional (even so, get references, read reviews, ask questions, choose a counselor carefully).

In my experience, people are often drawn to "magical" help from which they derive little or no benefit; what they need first and foremost is effective counseling. Self-help groups can be very beneficial too. I worked for several years on a national child abuse and suicide hotline, and I can't tell you the thousands of times clients called in reeling from experiences with untrained, sometimes even well-meaning people who sought to help them with their auras, chakras, using crystals, past-life regression, etc. The effects ranged from bitter disappoint at having spent big bucks and still feeling bad and "less than", to even more serious issues, such as becoming convinced they're possessed by evil spirits. Spiritual questing is a great thing, and it's a worthwhile goal to feel one with the universe, that we are loved in a divine sense and that we matter in the cosmic scheme of things. But it's much easier to focus on, to realize, AFTER the pain from being traumatized and abused has been expunged in a committed, caring relationship with a good counselor who understands and can facilitate the complex process. There are few controls on lay practitioners, no-one is checking their credentials or ensuring their efficacy, and unfortunately, QUACKS AND CON-ARTISTS ABOUND. To advise this course, without qualifying it, without such warnings, to trusting, possibly naive readers, is irresponsible, PERIOD. Shame on her.

If you've been a victim of child abuse, neglect, or trauma, I HIGHLY recommend The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma . It's a bit technical, but well-written and describes the changes that result in the brain from trauma, and the processes that reverse it (and BTW, it doesn't necessarily involve endless talking, or logical processes, but ACTION). The book is wonderful, a GIFT, and incidentally, I think the techniques described therein lend themselves very well to self-help groups. You might even organize one via Meetup dot com.

27 people found this helpful

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Bill Ford

CHRISTINACRAWFORDLIED.COM

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2024

A lifetime of trying to make a buck off of her mother's beauty, fame, and talent. Others have refuted Christina's exaggerations and manipulations, including her two younger sisters and nephew.

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Andrea N

Insightful and Healing

Reviewed in Canada on February 18, 2018

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This book collection has helped me heal my own deep childhood wounds. Only other survivors can truly “get it” and we need to be understood. Christina Crawford understands and her awareness and honesty have given me so much relief. I have shared my story many times only to be criticized and ridiculed. She is brave for sharing so openly. Despite all the pain, we can heal. We can never erase the past. We must face the past. Denial only makes it worse. Like Christina, I didn’t learn how to love myself. I wasn’t loved enough. But as an adult, I’m learning and growing. ❤️ I’m finally giving myself what I never had as a child.

Glamma T

Survival

Reviewed in Canada on April 8, 2019

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I found the second book in the collection to be a slow read. I’ve been wanting to see the Mommie Dearest movie for sometime, but I can honestly say I am no longer interested in the movie. Thank you for sharing your story Christina, and for being a voice for children when the can not speak for themselves

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