I am a first time author and I have written a book about my own personal experience. My direct web page http://www.teresajoyce.comThrough the writing my book, I have found the strength and hope to come back from a very dark place. My greatest wish would be to impart that message to others. We can all achieve that. There is a place deep inside of us that remains untapped, unless you reach your lowest point, and allow the soul within you to take hold. Today my outlook on life is so very different, instead of the glass being half empty, the glass is half full. It was time to heal the child within me, she had suffered enough.There is always a light at the end of the tunnel; my aim is to reassure that.After an accident in which I injured my back, I was ill health retired. This has given me the time and dedication to put pen to paper. My life was no longer full, and I found myself with an abundance of alone time, to sit and reflect everything I had tried so hard to bury. Although this has been extremely difficult for me, my hope is that anyone finding themselves in the same type of situation may take some strength from its content. If this book were to be catalogued where would it fall, a true account, a personal autobiography or self-help? The real truth is in all three.Whilst writing, I was forced down a road that I never really wanted to walk again. It’s an insight to the lengths someone will go to achieve their goal. At times I had to walk away to deal with the emotions that it invoked. To say this person was very unhinged would be an understatement. Teetering on the edge of insanity, and crossing over more times than I can count. Where everyone else involved just became fall out. It was as if I were being pursued by the devil himself. Overly more there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop him and the destruction he left in his wake.The facts within are very hard to believe, but believe it I must because I was there. It’s still incredible to me to think that I came out of it the other side. That said only just. I have spent many years under the mental health care umbrella, while trying to deal with the enormous sociological and psychological residue it has left behind.BioTeresa Joyce was born on the 15th December 1958 the middle child of three. After losing her father at a very young age; this was to set the pattern for the rest of her life. Losing was something she would have to get used to. Today she still has some memory of her father, but in truth it’s all a little hazy. Her mother through no fault of her own after that loss had no other alternative, other than to return to her parent’s home with her children in tow. This family unit were to spend only a few years there, until the wind of change came around once more. Her mother was set to meet the man that was to become her stepfather, and they moved once more to a new city with the promise of a new life. Hopefully it would be a happy one for all concerned, but it became a place for Teresa that felt far more like a prison. One in which she would spend many years months days and hours hating. She swore to herself that she would leave all this behind at the first possible occasion.Teresa Joyce - There’s a fine lineISBN 978-1-84991-185-6www.chipmunkapublishing.co.ukPublication date – 16th February 2011Summary/DescriptionCovers – Memoir/Mental health system/Abuse/SexualityPeople would be hurt both physically and mentally. No one was safe if they stood in the way of my stepfather and what he claimed was his. I would be abused and blackmailed unable to stop or control anything going on around me; I felt that the only way out would be to check out on life completely and it seemed a welcoming prospect. Running from memories of all those years living by his rules, buried so deep within me I never really remembered or faced until I was forced to do so.I would find myself in a situation that I had no control over and in the grip of a complete madman, who was hell bent on destroying my life. Running from memories of all those years living under his rules, buried so deep within me I never really remembered or faced until I was forced to do so.I saw myself delving deeper and deeper into my own unconscious thoughts, revealing to me memories which seemed so alien. Happy memories for me are something that I hold in short supply, and I always thought that they were in my childhood, but that was about to be blown out of the water.But the problem with opening Pandora’s Box was that once opened, I could no longer close the lid and I am still carrying it along with me - like an uninvited guest at a party that never knows when it’s time to leave. It has left me with an enormous sociological/psychiatric residue.The onset of a set of circumstances beyond my control would stamp its seal, rendering my marriage unworkable. Engineered by the involvement of the one man I had learnt to hate - my stepfather.I myself would spend many years within mental health care; in fact I am still under their care umbrella. I would move from a heterosexual relationship into a lesbian relationship. Firmly believing that anything controlled or even remotely integral to men, was something I never ever what’d part of again.