Spots on a Leopard

The title of this book was born the day I walked into my therapist’s office, believing that there was no hope of healing for me. The scars I carried were embedded in me from infancy, and I asked her: “Are we trying to change the spots on a leopard here with me? Are not some of these negative traits so deeply imprinted that we’ll never root them out, no matter how hard we try?”

And she replied, without a flinch, without hesitation, and with full confidence, “You were raised by leopards. Those spots were never yours to begin with. Those spots belong to them and we will root them out, one by one.” That moment changed my life. Right then and there, I turned a corner and faced the sunlight for the first time. There was hope. I could heal. I could become whole again.

Deborah was raised in a very rural farming area of Pennsylvania by extremely abusive parents. While the phrase ‘extremely abusive’ tends to indicate physical abuses, today, we have come to understand the deeper levels of abuse that verbal and neglectful parental behaviors can inflict. Deborah survived them all. This book goes on to describe the behaviors Deborah grew into that both preserved her and nearly destroyed her at the same time.