Customer Reviews

Triumph: A journey of healing from incest

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"Triumph" is indeed an appropriate title for Trysh Ashby-Rolls' tale of overcoming childhood incest. One wonders how the author managed to come through it all as well as she did.

Ashby-Rolls walks us through horrifying memories of being molested and raped by her father from the time she was in a crib all the way through her childhood. She shares how her father forced her into group sex with a child prostitution ring of other men just as lurid and inhuman as he is.

These events inevitably taint her choices in adult life. She seeks therapy from a man who re-victimizes her. She marries and eventually divorces an insensitive brute who devalues her and her son. She struggles with heavy addiction problems. She develops unhealthy, overdependent attachments to the men in her life while throwing her body away in casual sex. It is clear that the incest has made its ugly mark.

Eventually, however, she begins to remember things she'd blocked for years while in survival mode. She decides she is not going to let her monster of a father win, she will not let what he did destroy her, she rightfully realizes she deserves a better life.

With that, Ashby-Rolls embarks on a journey to healing. Over the years she finds a therapist who respects her and is genuinely helpful to her recovery. An on-again, off-again boyfriend provides support, even after their relationship ends. She finds rituals and methods of working through the painful past that comfort and support her.

She confronts both of her parents in a series of letters where she holds her father accountable for his heinous behavior, and her mother for not protecting her and living in denial. Furthermore she takes the brave step of reporting her father to the authorities when she is aware of his contact with other children, as a step towards protecting others from becoming potential victims.

Unfortunately the outcomes of some of Ashby-Rolls' efforts don't all have ideal or happy endings. There are losses, there are dead ends with no justice. But through it all Trysh continues to heal and keep moving forward with the help of her therapist and an ever-growing circle of friends who validate and rally behind her unconditionally - a valuable tool indeed.

This is a story that is very, very difficult to read simply because of what Ashby-Rolls went through. That is nothing to criticize, but it is an observation I wanted to put out there. I am an incest survivor and even though Trysh's story is an extreme I couldn't imagine going through, it was still very emotionally triggering. I felt deep rage and disgust.

Some who hold certain morals may also find details she shares about her healing process to be disconcerting. In such cases it might serve best for the reader to suspend their judgment by bearing in mind everyone's healing process is individual. Incest is extremely difficult to recover from in the first place, much less from the place where Ashby-Rolls comes from. One also must consider here that she is merely letting us know what worked for her, not dictating what everyone else should do.

All in all I think Triumph is a very brave story to tell, and in the end provides some hope for those who may have gone through some of the most harrowing types of abuse. However, I would only recommend it for those who are in a place where they are strong enough to read Trysh's story as it is very painful.