Abuse survivor to speak at Mission Hospital

Esther Adler, author of “Breaking the Chains to Freedom,” will speak at Mission Hospital Laguna Beach from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 16.

Adler’s book details the abuse she says she suffered from a young child to a victim of domestic abuse as a wife, and how she overcame the self-defeating patterns in her life to become psychologically strong.

Adler said she became a caregiver for her mother, a stroke victim, at the age of eight. While she says she resented losing her childhood to care for her mother, she now believes the experience enriched her.

In adulthood, Adler says she ended up in an abusive marriage after leaving a fanatical religious society. She had four children by the time she was 27, and then divorced her husband, alienating her children in the process. As if that weren’t enough, she was also diagnosed with a life-threatening disease — which she also survived.

Now she teaches women how to break the self-defeating cycle of abuse using tools that helped her, such as positive thinking, forgiveness and yoga.

She is making a number of stops in Southern California, visiting homeless shelters and hospitals in Orange County and Los Angeles.

For more information, visit https://www.EstherAdler.com.

—Cindy Frazier