Author Brian F. Martin Reaches Out to Help Adults Recover from Childhood Domestic Violence

New York, NY, October 16, 2014 --(PR.com)-- October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and author Brian F. Martin is on a mission to move beyond "awareness" and into healing for adults who grew up with domestic violence at home. His book "Invincible: The 10 Lies You Learn Growing Up with Domestic Violence and the Truths to Set You Free" was published just in time to help this year's domestic violence awareness campaigns make a real difference.

Martin's approach is not simply an academic one. He grew up in a home with domestic violence and has devoted his career to learning about its life-long effects and how to deal with them. In Martin's most recent blog post, he says "… those of us who grew up living with domestic violence learned it was easier to stay silent most of the time. However this is one of many lies we learned; now it’s time to embrace the truth."

Traditionally, domestic violence is one of those topics that people just don't talk about, even years later, as adults. In more recent times, it has been brought to light in published memoirs and dissected in clinical work. What's missing, though, is a way for adults who were victims of domestic violence to unlearn the lies they accepted about it as children.

It isn't just physical violence toward a child but also verbal assault or living with violence against a parent that affects children throughout their lives. Martin says, "bearing witness to domestic violence has the same psychological effects on a child that being subject to that violence itself would have."

Martin's work emphasizes healing for individuals and for our culture. He goes on to say, "we must address this vicious cycle of violence that breaks the spirit of our future generations when they’re too young to do anything about it. We must create a new future where our children stand a chance so that they can enter adulthood with their spirits intact and their sense of worth, strength, and hope flourishing."

For those adults who lived with violence as children, and whose spirits are not intact, and who live with a low sense of self worth because of the lies they learned early in life, Martin also offers support through his organization, CDV – Childhood of Domestic Violence (cdv.org). CDV offers education and training to fight the epidemic of domestic violence in addition to partnering in research and advocacy projects.