Mystic — Therapist Giulia Jaramillo says she's short, squeaky-voiced and blind as a bat.

Then she laughs and says that, without humor, she would have been completely overwhelmed by the tragedy of her life.

In her newly published autobiography and self-help manual, "Navigating in the Dark: Personal Stories and Techniques for Overcoming Challenges and Saying Yes to Life," Jaramillo, 58, provides harrowing details of being abused by her parents after the family emigrated from Italy to Westerly in 1968. Then she reveals a formula for those who are disabled or broken in some way — basically everybody, her publisher says — to find their power and become victorious.

She guides readers through the "eight practices" she uses with herself and clients: Be honest with yourself; let go and forgive; trust your body wisdom; build your self-confidence; stand up for yourself, speak your truth and find your power; be kind and helpful; use humor and laugh through the pain; and don't take anything personally.

Jaramillo learned how to cope with a severe vision impairment due to Stargardt dry macular degeneration, went to college at age 35 and is a licensed therapist with a thriving private practice in Mystic. She is married to Dan Jaramillo, a New London police officer, and the couple have two adult sons, Jacob and Lucas.

More than 60 people attended Jaramillo's publishing party on May 18 at Filomena's restaurant in Waterford, where she told her story and handed out roses to all those who helped her become a whole person. Her book was published by Flower of Life Press, a boutique Old Saybrook publishing company run by Jane Ashley and Scott Watrous. To see her moving around the restaurant in a flowered dress, hugging her loved ones and making sure everyone had food and drink, one would never know she had a vision problem.

The book, said Watrous, was more than a year in the making and is bringing readers to tears.

Jaramillo, who has no central vision, uses adaptive reading equipment that was unavailable when she attended school. Her parents were ashamed of her disability and forced her to pretend there was nothing wrong, even though she could not see the blackboard in school and was labeled as "dumb." She found a way to get to eye appointments in Providence but was told she needed more help than they could provide. Her parents refused to take her to Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital.

Her mother told her, "You should have died when you were born," and not to tell anyone about her vision problem "because she needed to get me married off," she writes in "Navigating in the Dark."

Able to see objects up close, she became a hairdresser after graduating from high school, but her heart was really in psychology, Jaramillo said. She finally went to Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital as an adult and attended the University of Rhode Island at the same time as her son Jacob, who introduced her to more services available to help her study, including books on tape and proctors who would read material for her during exams.

Soon, she was tapped as a motivational speaker for other psychology students. She wrote about overcoming her disability, and others told her they were inspired.

"I have heard many times, 'You need to put this out there because you are a disabled person who thinks she's not disabled,''' Jaramillo said in a phone interview this past week.

She's quick to credit those who helped her along the way. Her husband drove her around and stayed up at night helping her type her papers, and on her journey toward licensure as a therapist, many frends and coworkers provided the help she needed to succeed.

In the book, she reveals the shocking secret she learned at the Boston eye specialist after genetic testing. Her parents were either first cousins or brother and sister, and that's why she had macular degeneration. An aunt confirmed the truth, and now Jaramillo has shared her secret, including the verbal abuse and beatings she endured as a child, with the world.

"The vulnerability of having my patients know what I went through is difficult because it puts them in the position of wanting to take care of me," she said. "But it's a therapy book to help others come through."

Jaramillo was born in Italy in 1960. After emigrating in 1968, she started losing her vision. As the disease progressed, her vision deteriorated; she started having trouble seeing colors about five years ago. She uses closed circuit television and other adaptive reading technology, including a computer program called "Magic," to read.

Along the way, Jarmillo said, she learned to forgive her parents. In the book, she recommends writing a letter to those who have wronged you, then burning it, and shares the letters she wrote to her mother and father.

Above all, Jaramillo says, people should be kind to one another.

"If the people who have wronged you ever need you, show up for them anyway," she writes. "There is freedom in getting out of your own story and focusing on being in service to others."

k.florin@theday.com