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    Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like
    Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like
    Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like
    Ebook262 pages15 minutes

    Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like

    By Rosalind B. Penfold

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “In this deft, honest work, writer-illustrator Penfold documents how she traveled from successful businesswoman to abused wife and back again.” —Publishers Weekly
     
    Rosalind B. Penfold is an appealing, successful thirty-five-year-old businesswoman running her own company when her parents, worried that she works too hard, invite her to a country picnic-party one weekend. There she meets widower Brian and is swept off her feet. Romantic and exuberant, with four loving children, Brian seems like everything a woman could possibly want, and Roz falls deeply in love. But soon Roz begins to notice troubling signs that Brian is not what he seems. A pattern of lies and petty cruelties begins to emerge that, over the course of their decade together, comes to encompass a litany of physical, mental, and sexual abuse appalling in its scope and malevolence. Often too traumatized and ashamed to admit the true extent of what she is experiencing, Roz instead pours her anguish into a series of graphic diaries that provide a touching, profoundly shocking, and completely original portrait of domestic abuse.
     
    An extraordinary visual testimony, Dragonslippers presents the many warning signs of abuse and offers a frank examination of the psychology of both abusers and victims. Above all, this is the story of a woman who fights for and finds the strength to break free.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802199393
    Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like

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    Reviews for Dragonslippers

    3.5/5

    30 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Reading this books made my stomach turn that is how well this graphic novel is written. I read this novel in a a few hours which says something about how compelling the story is. The author uses a pseudonym not only for her her own privacy but also to illustrate that fact that "Rosalind B. Penfold" can be any person who goes through and survives domestic abuse.
    • 3/5
      As a graphic novel, this is not great. The artwork is very basic, like quick doodles with a fat marker. I know that many of the pictures were done in real time, during the abusive relationship, but the ones done later are equally slap-dash and it's almost impossible to tell which is which. It might have been more effective if Penfold had drawn the introductory and explanatory illustrations better and let the basic, wobbly sketches indicate emotion, instead of having the whole book look badly drawn.I also have some issues with the content. I've never been in an abusive relationship so perhaps I'm not qualified to judge but I was shocked that she did nothing when she suspected that one or both of her stepdaughters were being sexually abused by her partner even after the girls' paediatrician urged her to contact the police. Not only did she not take any action, she didn't even speak to either girl despite the fact that the older one started showing clear signs that she was "disturbed" at a very young age. And yet she claims she stayed partly to "protect" those kids.I don't understand why she got together with a man who, right off the bat, belittled her career and showed warning signs like vindictive jealousy but books like this help educate lucky women like me and everyone else who've never been in an abusive relationship.

    Book preview

    Dragonslippers - Rosalind B. Penfold

    This Is What an

    Abusive Relationship

    Looks Like

    WHEN I MET BRIAN, I fell deeply in love. I thought we were going to have a fairy tale romance. And we did … briefly … UNTIL THINGS BEGAN TO CHANGE. I ignored the early humiliations and subtle mind games, and refused to believe what was happening, until I was lost in A QUICKSAND OF VERBAL, EMOTIONAL, SEXUAL, and, ultimately, PHYSICAL ABUSE. My denial and shame kept me with Brian for 10 years. I clung to his promises, rather than what I saw and experienced. I spent all of my time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and how I could make things better. I COULDN’T ALWAYS REMEMBER the abuse. There was NO PREDICTABLE PATTERN, and it seemed like my brain erased each instance—because it didn’t fit in with my hopes. I didn’t want to let go of the relationship—I JUST WANTED BRIAN’S BEHAVIOR TO CHANGE. I thought of myself as strong, but in this relationship I became so deeply confused that I BEGAN TO LOSE ALL SENSE OF MYSELF. People in abusive relationships often mistake intensity for intimacy. It feels intimate because it is SO PERSONAL, but intimacy requires trust—and there is no trust in an abusive relationship. The pattern feels like this: KISS! SLAP! KISS! SLAP! KISS!

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