From The Heartstrings of The Inner Children: Poems About the Effects of Complex PTSD - Softcover

Kearney, Karren Kae

Softcover

ISBN 10: 166296563X ISBN 13: 9781662965630

Publisher: Gatekeeper Press, 2025

Synopsis

From the Heartstrings of the Inner Children is a collection of one hundred poems written between 1982 and 2025, tracing the author’s decades-long journey of self-discovery and healing. Through poetry, she sought to understand who she was—and why she once believed something was inherently wrong with her.

The collection is divided into four sections: Karren’s Poems, Addiction, Codependency, and Inner Children. The author’s first therapist, Dr. Ed Dietker, who treated her for agoraphobia, encouraged her to express her emotions through poetry after she wept during every session. At thirty-seven and unable to leave her home, writing became both a refuge and a release.

Over seventeen years, beginning in 2009, she also wrote an autobiographical trilogy: The Unseen Side of Me: A Journey from Disgrace to Grace (2009), The Evolution of Intimacy: A Personal Story (2019), and From Womb to Bloom: Integrating the Inner Child/Children (2025). While each book stands alone, this poetry collection serves as a companion to From Womb to Bloom, expanding on the lives of her five “inner children.”

Through one hundred deeply personal poems, the author offers readers a window into the struggles and triumphs of growing up in a functioning yet dysfunctional family—and the hard-won peace that followed.

About this title

About the Author

After completing her third book, From Womb to Bloom: Integrating the Inner Child/Children, in the summer of 2025, the author decided to publish a collection of one hundred of her favorite poems from the past forty-four years. These works arise from a heart once wounded by emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse and abandonment. Growing up in a dysfunctional family gave her deep insight into healing and recovery.

She first saw a psychiatrist at eighteen, following a painful breakup during her first year of nursing school in 1964, and has spent much of her life in therapy and Twelve-Step Fellowships. Her journey toward health began when she returned to nursing school, graduating in 1981 and becoming a Licensed Vocational Nurse at thirty-six. After years of battling panic attacks and agoraphobia, she regained stability and later became a Registered Addiction Specialist.

Since retiring in 2008, she has devoted her time to writing. Her autobiographies and poetry reflect her recovery from addiction, her work in mental health, and her ongoing spiritual growth. Through her writing, she hopes readers will be inspired to uncover their inner child, embrace the life God intended, and believe that they are loved, unique, and capable of anything-at any age.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 166296563X
• ISBN 13: 9781662965630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 164