Fallen From Grace
Fallen From Grace:
How I Dealt With Character Assassination As A Result of the Gaslight Effect, (by Kimberly Marasco)
Fallen from Grace is the tale of how one woman personally had her education, employment, and private life sabotaged by certain individuals, after working as a recruitment consultant for a particular American Corporation. The stress of the author’s experiences led her to develop a vestibular disorder, which made her life a living hell for many months.
Definition of Gaslighting:
To manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.
Story (Non-Fiction)
The author speaks about many stressful experiences she had after working for a specific corporation in the US. She discusses how people would treat her poorly, attempting to get her fired from jobs, to sabotage her personal relationships with others, even going so far as to damage her car and have doctors deliver near-lethal doses of chemicals to her in hospital.
All these things are connected, yet the author has no idea why anyone would want to sabotage her. All she knows is that strange things began to occur after she was forced to resign from working with that dodgy corporation.
Marasco talks about the ‘spider trap’ of obstacles she faced and how insecure people would seek to damage other people in the work environments she witnessed. At every step of the journey she recounts, her life was sabotaged, sometimes in small seemingly insignificant ways and other times, in ways that endangered her life.
We learn about the author’s pursuing a degree working with special needs kids, only to have the university staff write lies about her on her assessment form. We also learn about her experience of having her laptop hacked with threatening messages linked to her employment and relationships posted for her to see. Not only that but suspicious mishaps in hospital, someone tampering with her car, and the FBI showing up at her parent’s house for no reason at all, feature.
Marasco’s experiences demonstrate just how much corruption exists in the real world. She writes: ‘We are losing our civil rights, including privacy rights and we must put a stop to it.’
How I Felt Reading This
Marasco’s experiences made me shudder. The thought of someone sabotaging my life in so many ways (making me doubt my sanity and whether I was ever safe) has me so angry on her behalf.
Learning that Marasco is likely on the Autism Spectrum (as I am) had me feeling even more angry at how she was treated by others during these difficult times. Her story connected with me in many ways: I could feel the hopelessness through her descriptions of the events that took place, so much at times that I became anxious and had to stop reading to take a few deep breaths.
Writing Style
Marasco writes in a direct style, detailing her experiences in a simple way, while including any essential details needed to fill us in on the big picture. Her emotions from those memories come across on the page in a powerful way, something I love when I pick up a new book.
A Powerful Quote:
‘I knew that I would not be able to have a normal relationship with anyone because of all the work politics. I could not live a private and normal life.’
This quote sums up the hopeless feeling Marasco experienced during these distressing events. She felt she couldn’t lead her own life without people interfering in ways that would have drastic consequences.
Overview
Reading Marasco’s story, I have become inspired. No matter how much evil people try to put us down in this life, we can still rise above their awful behaviour, to show the world that we are made of stronger stuff, that we matter and that we will have our voices heard.
I’d like to leave you with one more quote. This one really hit home for me:
‘The only way for change to occur is if people unite and fight the illness of society. We are the divine intervention. It is up to us to make change happen.’
I’d never read anything so empowering. I believe Marasco is right: if we want positive change for the world, then we are the ones that need to fight for it. We deserve to live in a better world than this and if we’re able to come together, instead of dividing ourselves, then we can make a difference.
Would I recommend?
Yes I would. I finished the book in a few hours and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I rate this book 5 stars.
I believe it’s important for stories like this to be seen as the more we learn about our world (even the darker parts of our world), the better.
Thank you for reading my latest review, for Fallen from Grace.
If you enjoyed it, please let me know by leaving a comment below.
You can learn more about Fallen from Grace at its Goodreads page.
