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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In The Phoenix Within, Tabitha Polenz recounts a Cleveland, Ohio, childhood marked by instability at home, where she learns early on to watch the adults around her for signs that something is about to change. At fifteen, motherhood gives her a reason to imagine a future for her son. As adulthood brings independence, she creates a home for her children. Fitness provides the foundation for a career that leads to business ownership. Yet the past continues appearing in the way she responds to relationships, even when her circumstances seem far removed from childhood. Therapy eventually gives her a name for those responses through CPTSD. This memoir follows her efforts to understand why old experiences remained present. From there, she considers approaches that help her reconnect with herself as she rethinks what healing can look like.
Tabitha Polenz’s The Phoenix Within is an exceptional memoir, and the author is especially good at connecting events to the language of CPTSD in a way readers can understand immediately. I loved how honestly the author examines what those responses can look like at home, including arguments with her older son Nathan that escalate within seconds as her younger son Anthony retreats to his room. Recognizing her own dysregulation in those scenes gives the discussion of inherited patterns context. When she explains hypervigilance, she uses a shift in someone’s tone to show how a person trained to expect danger can keep scanning long after a conversation has ended. The explanation works because the clinical term is attached to recognizable behavior. Well written and inspiring, readers looking for memoirs about CPTSD and healing will embrace this.
