Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

You know that handful of books you think of as your top five keepers if you had to get rid of all the others? This is one of mine.Growing up, I hated my mom. I was abused in every way except sexual. As victims of abuse well know, the mental abuse is much more damaging than the physical. I thought moving out as a young adult would end the tyranny, but no... Only the physical abuse stopped. When my first child was a baby, I was still dealing with my psycho mother and was very close to removing her from my life forever. Then I found this book. I was in tears on almost every page, as my feelings were validated so intimately I thought she had to be writing about me personally. It was like she reached into my soul and called out my deepest hurts and said, "You are allowed to feel this way. I understand how you are affected by this toxic person, and I am going to help you make it stop."Now, this book isn't designed to help you feel better about everything that is going on internally. It is not going to tell you how to be okay with everything that happened and how you feel about it inside your mind. It is written with the intent of taking real action to affect REAL CHANGE in your relationship. In order to overcome the hurt caused by those in your life, you will learn how to take control of the situation by setting boundaries and changing the rules of how you will be treated in the future.It is not for the faint hearted. The advice in this book will be difficult, and you will be tempted to resist her advice. It will make things harder for awhile, depending on how much control your parents have and how willing they are to let it go. In the case of my mom, she resisted this change with all her might. It wasn't very pleasant for awhile there. But I will tell you it was ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT.Now, my relationship with her is pretty darn good! We aren't as close as she'd like us to be, as it is hard to let someone that hurt me that deeply into that vulnerable space again, but it's no longer a source of pain. Now, along with this book I also inserted some therapy in the mix, so please continue the work on yourself to be at peace with your past.I have referred to this book SO MANY TIMES over the years, and I recently bought the Kindle version as well. There is a young adult in my life that is currently dealing with her own toxic parent, and I felt this book would help her. I offered to loan her my paperback copy, but she is still living with her very controlling parent and they would find the book in their occasional random invasion of her privacy... So, I downloaded the Kindle version and gave her access to my Kindle app. She read the book and is working on utilizing the advice now.You can overcome your toxic parent, and if you are truly willing to reclaim your life, this book is a must have.

Toxic Parents is a great resource for anyone who is suffering abuse at the hands of a parent. Susan Forward is an internationally recognized therapist and writer, who has also hosted her own ABC talk radio program.As the director of Luke 17: 3 Ministries, a ministry for Adult Daughters of Abusive or Controlling Birth-Families, I must say that, next to the Bible itself, I have found Toxic Parents to be an invaluable resource for dealing with relatives who will destroy you if you allow it. When you love a family member, and treat them with love, it is hard to understand, or believe, that they would return your love with abuse and maliciousness. But unfortunately, that is reality for many of us, and this book helps us to come to terms with that, and protect ourselves from our family's destructiveness.Do your parents still treat you like a child? Do they control you with threats or guilt or manipulate you with money? Does it seem that no matter what you do, it's never good enough? As a child, did you have to take care of your parents because of their problems? Do you still?Toxic Parents explains the dynamics of a dysfunctional family in a very easy-to-read format. Types of toxic parents are discussed in detail, such as inadequate parents, controllers, alcoholics, verbal, physical, and sexual abusers, as well as the family system and why parents behave this way.Some topics covered are: Spoken and Unspoken Rules, Obedience No Matter What, I Don't Know Where You End and I Begin, No One in This Family is an Alcoholic, The Family Balancing Act, and Fear of Anger. We are shown the rigid mechanisms by which toxic parents cope, such as Denial, Projection (accusing or blaming the child), Sabotage, Triangling (confiding in or enlisting the child against someone else), and Keeping Secrets.The reader is given steps to reclaim her life and instruction on assertiveness, how to state what you are or are not willing to do, and how to confront your parent, including old, ill, or deceased parents. The chapters on confrontation are especially valuable, teaching what to expect and how to handle your parents' reactions( 'It never happened', 'It was your fault','I said I was sorry', 'We did the best we could','Look what we did for you', etc.), as well as your siblings' reactions and reactions from other assorted relatives.Toxic Parents teaches you that you are not responsible for your parents' behavior, teasing, neglect, abuse, or unhappiness, their problems, or their choice to do nothing to solve their problems. Your parents are responsible for their own lives and their own actions.This book will help you decide what kind of a relationship, if any, you can have with your parents. It helped me recognize much of what was going on in my own dysfunctional birth-family, and is a very valuable tool for anyone who needs help in understanding and freeing herself from a situation that is poisoning her life. It will open your eyes- and I highly recommend it to anyone dealing with "parent" issues in their adult lives.