Lost in the Reflecting Pool by Diane Pomerantz - Audio Book Tour
Author: Diane Pomerantz
Narrator: Katie Mitchell
Length: 9 hours 37 minutes
Publisher: Diane Pomerantz
Released: Mar. 22, 2018
Genre: Personal Memoir
When Diane, a psychologist, falls in love with Charles, a charming and brilliant psychiatrist, there is laughter and flowers?and also darkness. After moving through infertility treatments and the trials of the adoption process as a united front, the couple is ultimately successful in creating a family. As time goes on, however, Charles becomes increasingly critical and controlling, and Diane begins to feel barraged and battered. When she is diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, Charles is initially there for her, but his attentiveness quickly vanishes and is replaced by withdrawal, anger, and unfathomable sadism. What Diane previously thought were just Charles' controlling ways are replaced by clear pathologic narcissism and emotional abuse that turns venomous at the very hour of her greatest need. This is a memoir and a psychological love story that is at times tender and at times horrifying, Lost in the Reflecting Poo chronicles one woman's struggle to acknowledge what she has always seen, to survive within?and ultimately break free from?a relationship with a man incapable of caring about anyone beyond himself.
For more than thirty-five years, Dr. Diane Pomerantz has been a practicing psychologist, teacher , supervisor, and speaker in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Dr Pomerantz has published articles on topics of childhood trauma and personality development. Lost in the Reflecting Pool is her first book and it has received the following awards: 2017 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist; 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards: Gold in the Memoir category
Gold in the Marriage-Relationship category; Silver in Reflection category; Bronze in Life Challenges category; and 2017 Readers Favorite Finalist award.
Dr. Pomerantz is a twenty-year cancer survivor, has two grown children and lives in the woods in Maryland with Rug, her shaggy dog.
Gold in the Marriage-Relationship category; Silver in Reflection category; Bronze in Life Challenges category; and 2017 Readers Favorite Finalist award.
Dr. Pomerantz is a twenty-year cancer survivor, has two grown children and lives in the woods in Maryland with Rug, her shaggy dog.
Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Instagram⎮Pinterest
Katie Mitchell is a southern girl, born and raised in New Orleans. She comes from a long line of dreamers, storytellers, and men who weep. Katie has been an actress for over 30 years in television, stage, and voice-overs. For this career choice she blames Helen Keller. But that is a story for another time.
She has turned her attention to writing, which is what she truly wanted to do all along.
Currently finishing a novel, BIG DADDY'S KNEE, set in 1969 Louisiana. She has 2 essays printed in the book Deliver Me. You can read more of her work on Medium.com .
She lives in Los Angeles with the kid.
She has turned her attention to writing, which is what she truly wanted to do all along.
Currently finishing a novel, BIG DADDY'S KNEE, set in 1969 Louisiana. She has 2 essays printed in the book Deliver Me. You can read more of her work on Medium.com .
She lives in Los Angeles with the kid.
Website⎮Twitter⎮Instagram
Lost in
the Reflecting Pool: A Memoir
Lost in the Reflecting Pool is a memoir about my marriage to a man who was
interesting, brilliant, charming and a narcissist. It is the story of surviving
in an emotionally abusive marriage while going through treatment for an
aggressive cancer and finally breaking free and growing from the experience. A
major theme in my book is how we neglect to pay attention to the things we do
see, the clues, our own internal “watchdog,” which can guide us if we would
only trust ourselves.
1. Why publish a memoir now? What inspired you to do so?
Process
… from the very beginning it has been a process. I started keeping a journal in
1997 when I began psychoanalysis. I was married, we had struggled with
infertility problems, finally had created a family through adoption and a
successful IVF pregnancy, moved into a wonderful house and I was depressed. A
year after starting analysis I was diagnosed with a very aggressive
breast cancer. Initially I thought I would write about that journey. Little did
I know that cancer would seem like an insignificant problem compared to the
mind-devastating, gas-lighting betrayals and mind-tricks I was to
experience within my marriage as I fought for my life medically. Little did I
realize this had actually been going on for years, subtly … this had been my
depression.
So, the
focus of my writing changed …. it became cathartic; it was the raw expression
of the pain and anguish that was my life. Finally, when I separated, I
continued to write but with two children to raise and working full-time,
whenever I returned to write, I found myself re-writing chapter seven over and
over again … this went on for years. Once my children were in college, my
writing became more focused, and with increased understanding came increased
distance from the pain. The narrative of my life began to unfold, and then
that, too, began to change. What’s been most fascinating has been the
discoveries I’ve realized since my memoir was completed and published. The
process of understanding and healing did not end when the writing was done. As
a psychologist, I’m not new to psychotherapy … I have had a lot of it over the
years, and since I have finished writing my memoir I feel more grounded than I
have ever felt before. I discovered that having written my
memoir continues to heal me in ways that astound me. I felt my story was
an important story for many woman who all too often do not trust what they know
in their gut to be true. That was why I wrote this book.
2. When did you suspect, for the first time, that Charles was a narcissist?
Probably not until the very end of the
relationship … despite being a psychologist, when one is in the midst of a
relationship one isn’t really thinking in “diagnostic” terms … at least I
wasn’t … I thought of him as “sadistic” and ”crazy-making” but I really didn’t
think in diagnostic terms until much, much later.
3. Your story explores heavy themes, such as dealing with psychological and emotional abuse. Why did you find this important to do?
The insidious damage caused by
psychological/emotional abuse in relationships to all family members is
profound despite there being no physical bruises or injuries … the trauma is
significant and has lifelong impact on an individual’s ability to function. I
felt it was essential to bring attention to this, to bring attention to the
possibility for healing and to validate the experience of the emotionally
abused.
4. What has the feedback to your book been like, so far? Have you heard from any readers who experienced something similar in their lives?
The feedback has been very positive. My
book has received a number of awards and my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are
very strong. I have been contacted by many readers who have found the book to
be very validating and helpful to them in their own healing journey.
5. Even though you had a lot of bad experiences in your marriage, you started out describing many of the happy moments. Why did you take this approach?
There were several reasons. First, no
relationship is all bad and had the relationship started out with nothing good,
I really would have been crazy to continue in it so the back story was
important. Initially I didn’t include that but it didn’t make sense so I
revised it. Also, in order to understand the narcissist, it is important to
understand that they can be charming and engaging, so it was very important to
show the flowers and the good-times in contrast to the sadism and gas-lighting
and empty-shell behaviors.
6. In your memoir, you reveal very personal aspects from your life. Did you find this hard to do?
Definitely, which is why it took me so
many years to write the book. I struggled with whether to write it as an
autobiographical novel, whether to use a pseudonym, I changed things that I
ultimately brought back to fact in the final memoir form … but it was a struggle.
In the end, I decided that I wanted to take complete ownership for my story, it
was an important part of my healing process.
7. Tell us more about the title of the book. Why did you name it "Lost in the Reflecting Pool"?
7. Tell us more about the title of the book. Why did you name it "Lost in the Reflecting Pool"?
As with everything
about writing my memoir coming up with the title was also a process. There’ve been many titles, mostly in the last few years
of writing … I started writing my memoir about nineteen years ago, But the
title that lasted the longest and was most meaningful, before the final title
was Scheherazade’s Cancer. According to the tale of The One Thousand and One
Nights, many years ago, the king of ancient Persia discovered that his wife had
betrayed him. His distress and wrath was great and, he had his wife beheaded.
He then vowed to marry a young virgin every day and ordered her beheaded after
the wedding night! Finally, he had married and killed all the young women in
the kingdom until his vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, asked her father if she
could marry the king. Her father, was not pleased about this and tried to
persuade her not to do it. But she had a plan.
Scheherazade was beautiful, well-read and intelligent,
and she was a talented storyteller, able to weave together stories with lessons
for her listeners. She married the king and on their wedding night, she told
him with a tale that went on late into the night, but it was so late she
couldn’t finish it and thus the king put off the beheading so she could finish
the story the following night. The clever Scheherazade continued to weave ever
more fantastic and adventure-filled stories, each night leaving the king
waiting to discover what happened next. Her powerful storytelling thus
continued every night, until the king eventually let go of his fear of women,
fell in love with the beautiful Scheherazade … and in his unending love for
her, allowed her to live ...
Scheherazade had
a voice ... but it was her wiles that kept her alive ... for me, the first
title of my memoir, Scheherazade’s Cancer, was my statement that I Tell My
Story or Die ...(initially from cancer)…
But as I wrote I
realized I had lost my voice in my marriage, I did not have the strong voice of
Scheherazade, I was much more like the mythical nymph Echo in the tale of Echo
and Narcissus ...
I was truly Lost in the Reflecting Pool.
I was truly Lost in the Reflecting Pool.
8. What advice do you have for other women who suspect that they might be married to a narcissist?
●
Narcissists will try to isolate you from others … it is
essential that you maintain a support system
●
Trust what you see and trust what you feel in your gut
●
Set/ maintain your boundaries
9. If
writing your story has taught you anything, what has it taught you?
I suppose I would have to say that I have
developed a thicker skin. I realize that not everyone is going to like what I
write, but that’s okay … I don’t like everything I read either… I don’t take it
so very personally and I think that is a good change for me.
10. What changed for you from writing your story.
I believe that overall I feel more grounded
within myself since I have told my story. It has been an experience where
I have gotten to understand myself much better than previously
and that feeling goes far beyond the
story of my marriage but rather it has to do with a sense of solidifying
my own sense of self.
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