Charleston County Public Library

The girl behind the door, a father's quest to understand his daughter's suicide, John Brooks

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-215)

collective biography

no index present

non fiction

The girl behind the door

bibliography

929331698

John Brooks

a father's quest to understand his daughter's suicide

"A candid, compelling story of an adoptive father's search for the truth about his teenage daughter's suicide. Early one Tuesday morning, John Brooks went to his daughter's room to make sure she was getting up for school and found her room dark and 'neater than usual.' Casey was gone, but he found a note: 'The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sorry.' Within hours, a security video revealed Casey stepping off the bridge. Brooks spent several years after Casey's suicide trying to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter to take her life. He examines Casey's journey from her abandonment at birth in Poland, to the orphanage where she lived for the first fourteen months of her life, to her adoption and life with John and his wife, Erika, in Northern California. He reads. He talks to Casey's friends, teachers, doctors, therapists, and other parents. He consults adoption experts, researchers, clinicians, attachment therapists, and social workers. [This book] shares what Brooks learned and asks, 'What did everyone miss? What could have been done differently?' He came to realize that Casey might have been helped if someone had recognized that she'd likely suffered an attachment disorder from her infancy--an affliction common among children who've been orphaned, neglected, and abused. This emotional deprivation in early childhood, from the lack of a secure attachment to a primary caregiver, can lead to a wide range of serious behavioral issues later in life. John Brooks's hope is that Casey's story, and what he has discovered since her death, will help others."--Jacket flaps