Self-awareness, self-care, and self-respect are necessary qualities we must develop in order to be fully actualized and confident in who we are and what we want to achieve. One day, we may have this package intact. Another day, life simultaneously produces barriers and challenges, missteps and missed opportunities, illness and ill partners, love and loss. Decisions can be fatal-not signaling our last breath but our last shred of dignity, security, strength, sanity in some cases.

Death by internal self-destruction only begins to show mercy when we have left that abusive relationship or job, stopped turning to food, drugs, and shopping carts to soothe us, and stared the culprit in the face with the determination to fully overcome. And start over.

Such is the case of Dr. Danielle DonDiego. She was a rising doctor in family medicine, whose fitness training endeavors gave her the physical strength and confidence to master her professional priorities. But beauty and brawn could do nothing to thwart the dangers of loving the enemy, a narcissist. The gravity of being involved with a narcissist, however, is only captured through tumbling down the stages of this highly menacing relationship. And as Danielle reminds us, domestic abuse is as common in white-collar-wearing couples as it is in the blue-collar world. She wants to ensure that every reader can spot the earliest signs of an abusive predator-partner, leave before their sanity is disrupted, and live a rich life that is sealed from entering another toxic relationship pattern.

In Self-Care Rx: A Doctor's Guide to Transformation After Trauma, she steadily and compassionately achieves this with the help of narcissism expert, Weatherly Camacho, LPC, and yoga and meditation icon Diana Guy, who shares her own self-care journey.

If you've wanted to learn about a multitude of themes that may be present in your life-codependency, violence, OCD, narcissism, PTSD, addiction-and how to get back on the road to healing and fulfillment, Self-Care Rx is your promise for a better future.

Danielle DonDiego, DO, MBA is a doctor, athlete, survivor, and self-care advocate. Board Certified in both Family Medicine and Obesity Medicine, she works with professional clients to evaluate and implement self-care practices so they can show up their best in life. She also works with patients via telemedicine with SteadyMD.com to educate and treat various chronic medical conditions. Self-Care Rx is her debut as an author.