Lost in the Reflecting Pool

A psychologist trained to recognize manipulation fell into the carefully constructed trap of a charming, volatile man—and spent years unable to see her own cage. In this unflinching memoir, Diane C. Pomerantz excavates the architecture of emotional abuse from the inside, examining how intelligence and professional expertise offer no immunity to gaslighting, control, and the slow erasure of self. Through fragmented, visceral prose that mirrors dissociation itself, she traces the cost of silence within a marriage, the weight of protecting children from truths they shouldn't carry, and the difficult, non-linear path toward recognizing complicity without surrendering to shame. This is not a story of easy redemption, but of a woman learning to trust her own fractured reflection.