Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD

by Amy Smyth Miller

Her past held the answers—if she was brave enough to face it.

After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller’s panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past—childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her her wise great-grandmother’s teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory—one that holds the key to her deepest fear.

Part investigation, part love letter to survival, Home is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you’re searching for is the one you build inside yourself.

" A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is for anyone needing help putting the pieces together around what happened to our families and ourselves. Amy Smyth Miller helps us process the confusion and disconnection between our past and our present through her story. A wonderful resource for those who have experienced childhood trauma."

— Patrick Teahan, LICSW, psychotherapist and expert on childhood trauma

"Amy Smyth Miller's inspiring memoir shimmers with honesty, tenacity, and her ability to find beauty among the shards of a painful history. While there is no simple formula for understanding and addressing intergenerational trauma, this sensitive book offers meaningful glimpses of hope."

~Elizabeth Rosner, author of SURVIVOR The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, and THIRD Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening

301 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 15, 2026

About the author

Amy Smyth Miller graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in Special Education and from Northern Arizona University with a master's degree in counseling. She has worked in the education field for the past 30 years, most recently as an intervention specialist. Amy currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband "Captain Crusty," her son, and her rescue dachshund, Oscar. She enjoys puttering in her herb garden, making soap, and writing. Her essays have been published in The Healing and CPTSD Chronicles, Persimmon Tree Magazine, The Muleskinner Journal, and several other publications.

Reviews

[Jen’s Book Village · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s hard to know where to begin when reviewing and talking about Amy Smyth Miller’s, HOME: A MEMOIR OF FAMILY, FORGIVENESS, & HEALING FROM COMPLEX PTSD. Miller has laid herself bare for readers to learn from. She is honest but not blaming, open but not exaggerative, effective in telling her story and not making excuses. I think it is brave and courageous to put these hardships out there for the world to read. There really is no throwing anyone under the bus in this memoir. Miller tells the facts of her childhood, the neglect, the homelessness, the use of pills and alcohol by her parents, the multitude of moves and school changes, and the overall tough and impoverished life of a large family. Somehow, the thought, “poor her” or “poor them” isn’t what comes to mind, instead it is, “wow, look at what she has overcome.”
HOME is the telling of Amy’s life as a child and young person, but more than that, this is a story of healing. Miller worked hard with a therapist to sift through her past and the difficulties she was slapped with. The hardships shaped her and her inner workings, but she also came to realize that there were individuals in her life, such as her grandmother and specific teachers, who cared and were on her side. This is a story of determination, self-realization, and resiliency. Miller was shaped by her upbringing, but she does not mirror it. She has built her adult life, learned the life lessons, done the hard work of healing, and forgiven others their faults in order to overcome the trauma that lived within.
All in all, HOME is an excellent book. I would be remiss not to mention that Miller is a fantastic writer allowing the reader to visualize, feel and even smell the things she writes about. HOME is educational, but also accessible. It spotlights the hardships that some families and children go through and also explains the work of therapy and diagnoses in an approachable way for the layperson to understand. While investigating herself, Miller succeeds at putting this process to paper which will undoubtedly help others. This is an important book and one which I wholeheartedly recommend.

This book was read as an advanced copy.

[Book Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home follows Amy Smyth Miller from a present-day crisis in a Bellingham ICU back through a childhood marked by poverty, neglect, and intergenerational trauma in the Midwest. The book opens with her husband’s heart attack and her spiraling panic, then moves into three arcs, “Roots,” “Rootless,” and “Transplanted,” tracing a line from her great-grandmother’s steady care, through her parents’ addictions and constant moves, to her later work as a teacher and her search for effective trauma therapy. Along the way, she threads in clear explanations of complex PTSD, especially the idea of it as a problem of how memory is stored, and she shows how lifespan integration and other somatic approaches help her piece her life into a coherent timeline and finally feel at home in herself.

The writing is gripping. The scenes are built with simple images that stuck with me. The plastic seat covers in the Buick, the smell of Pond’s cold cream and peppermints in Granny War Bonnet’s room, the dragonflies over the pond, the housekeeper ironing a floral dress on the night of a suicide. These details felt precise, not decorative, and they kept pulling me back to the emotional core of each chapter. The structure works well, too. The prologue sets a very tense, contemporary problem, and then the book steps backward into childhood and returns again to the present with more context. Sometimes the metaphors pile up, and the prose becomes lush. Overall, though, the voice is steady, kind, and unflinching, and I trusted it.

I appreciated that Miller does not turn her parents into simple villains, even when she describes clear neglect, hunger, and frightening behavior. She sits in the mess of loving them and being hurt by them at the same time, and she lets that tension stand. I liked how she shows what grounding or timeline work actually feels like in the room, and how she owns her missteps, including the painful texting episode with her husband. There were moments when the interplay of narrative and research slowed the pace, but I felt grateful for the educational layer. It made the book feel useful as well as moving.

Miller is very clear on the notion of complex PTSD as a long shadow cast by many smaller and larger wounds, and she keeps returning to the question of meaning. Not in a tidy, everything-happens-for-a-reason way, more in a “I refuse to let this be pointless” way. Her focus on protective figures and small stabilizing rituals, especially her great-grandmother’s stories and “angel crowns,” pushes back against the common narrative that survival is purely individual grit. I also liked her insistence that healing is not erasing the past but putting it in order so it stops crashing into the present. As someone reading this as a memoir rather than a clinical text, I appreciated how accessible the psychological parts felt. She explains concepts in plain language and grounds them in specific episodes from her life, so I never felt lectured at.

I would recommend Home to readers who come from chaotic or painful families, to people living with complex trauma, and to therapists, teachers, and caregivers who want a lived-in portrait of what CPTSD can look like from the inside. It is not a light read, and there are frank depictions of suicide, emotional abuse, and neglect, so I would be cautious recommending it to someone in a very raw place without support. For readers who can hold that weight and are looking for a story that blends honest hurt with genuine hope, this memoir feels like a companion, not just a case study.

[Leslie Oberhaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Home was emotional, informative, and also comforting.

The author opens the book detailing her husband’s heart attack and recovery, which led to a spiral of outsized panic and a pattern of problematic reactions to interactions throughout the different relationships in her life. This experience led her to return to therapy and eventually to a diagnosis of complex PTSD.

This opening introduces the techniques used to help Amy navigate through her difficult childhood and recognize the roots of her trauma responses as well as the more positive factors that helped her thrive in adulthood.

The bulk of the book contains memories from throughout the author’s childhood woven with information on complex PTSD and the process Amy went through with her therapist to access and process these memories. Amy endured a childhood full of upheaval, neglect, emotional abuse, and uncertainty (due to poverty and her parents’ addictions). Some of the memories only came back in detail as therapy continued. The book ends with the recalling of a pivotal memory that was previously not accessible in detail. This moment led to a breakthrough in understanding and comforting Amy’s young self, strengthening her ability to manage her reactions and be in control of her life.

I found the way the book was structured very helpful. I’m new to understanding complex PTSD and I learned a lot about how therapy can be used to address it. My particular experiences and trauma are differnt than Amy’s but it was easy to relate to her experience working with her therapist. “Seeing” how this unfolded and imagining myself going through a similar process was very comforting. My heart broke for young Amy as I read so many painful memories but I also felt inspired by her, as she kept going, adapting and enduring and striving for happiness.

I highly recommend Home for anyone with trauma in their background or who wants to understand more about how trauma stays with you.

Thank you Amy for having me as an ARC reader and for sharing your experiences!

(I'm leaving this review voluntarily and all views are my own.)

[DeAndra Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Home by Amy Smith Miller
I don’t even know where to start with this one.
I’ll be honest. It started a little slow for me and I was nervous. I thought please don’t let this be one of those memoirs that never really takes off. But wow once it picked up it really picked up.
This book felt personal. Not just for the author but for me as the reader.
There were so many moments that punched me in the gut because I could relate so deeply. The line about believing what happened to us was our fault stopped me in my tracks. That belief is something I have personally wrestled with in my own healing journey.
And when she wrote about one of the most devastating consequences of abuse being the belief that she wasn’t worthy of love or care that one sat heavy. That is the kind of lie trauma plants deep.
What I appreciated most is that this was not just a trauma story. It was layered. It was about family dynamics, sibling roles, survival, forgiveness, and what healing actually looks like when it is messy and slow and real. The grandmother felt vivid and real. The dragonfly symbolism was beautiful without feeling forced and ill
never look at dragonflies the same !!!

As someone actively walking through my own PTSD healing this book felt like a God thing that I came across it when I did. It made me feel less alone in some of the hardest parts.
For a debut memoir this did not feel amateur. It felt brave.
If you have ever struggled with complex trauma, family dysfunction, or the lie that you are not worthy of love this one will probably hit home and make you wanna see a therapist and dive deep
Thank you to the author for the ARC copy. I am truly grateful I got to read this early.
I received an advance reader copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems almost weird to say that I REALLY liked this book when it is a memoir of the author's life that deals with so many hardships and childhood abuse. At times, this book is very heavy and heartbreaking. The bright side is that in the end, she has found healing and forgiveness from complex PTSD, and she shares methods. Thru out the book she cites different methods that are used to help people heal and move forward from childhood traumas. At the back of the book, there is an entire section that goes chapter by chapter, giving references as to where to find help.
The beginning of the book is a delight to read. Amy is a great story teller and you can visualize the different settings very easily. I loved her stories about different childhood memories, and especially enjoyed Granny War Bonet! It reminded me of my granny. I always have a soft spot for any book with a loving and wise grandmother character. You will want to take notes from page 31 where she goes into detail about making pie crusts! (Amy had also sent me 2 recipe cards, one for her grandpa's biscuits & sausage gravy, and another for her Aunt Jane's chicken noodle soup. I'm looking forward to making both of those. . . .and also making a pie using her grandma's method.) I am very much a foodie, so little things like this from authors are so cherished.
Amy thank you so much for my copy of HOME!!! Your book is one that I'll always remember.

"Home is not a place; it's a feeling you carry with you where you go."

One of my fav parts of the book: "With a single breath, I was her beloved great-granddaughter again, in that house that anchored me to her and my aunts, uncles, and cousins, to dragonflies, and to summer afternoons spent in her and grandpa's room. All she'd taught me came rushing back. I remembered who I was supposed to be."

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read an ARC of "Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing From Complex PTSD" on a Sunday, as I could not put this riveting book down. Amy Smyth Miller's writing style is beautiful and meaningful in this heartbreaking, heartwarming, and healing book. I was extremely invested in the story of her life and her family history. I am beyond inspired by the choices she made everyday to listen to the important people in her life in order to persevere and move forward throughout her childhood trauma and adulthood. This book is not only her story, but a guide and commentary on trauma and PTSD.

[Shannon Babin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was beautifully written. I was drawn into Amy's story from the very beginning. It was reminiscent of The Glass Castle--a young girl whose family constantly moved around, child neglect, family trauma. By the time I got to the end, I was bawling. I can't imagine being at my high school graduation and no one in my family is there in support. Although my family situation was very different, there were several things I could relate to, such as verbal and emotional abuse. If you love memoirs, I highly suggest reading this one, especially if you are a teacher. Amy mentions several teachers who were instrumental in her success. I think it would be so helpful for teachers to be able to identify students like Amy who are victims of poverty and neglect.

Special thanks to Amy for the review copy!

[T]

This book was amazing and I could not put it down! I have already passed it on to a friend. Hope she writes more