Whether or not you've been to hell and back, have a great or toxic relationship with your parents, have a dysfunctional family or not, Susan Forward's Toxic Parents serves as an insightful book that lets you exorcise the spectres and demons of the past, overcome the baleful impact of toxic relationships, and finally have the personal liberty to enjoy life with love, hope, peace, and much-needed healing. "Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you,

Our parents plant mental and emotional seeds in us—seeds that grow as we do. In some families, these are seeds of love, respect, and independence. But in many others, they are seeds of fear, obligation, or guilt.As you grew into adulthood, these seeds grew into invisible weeds that invaded your life in ways you never dreamed of. Their tendrils may have harmed your relationships, your career, or your family; they have certainly undermined your self-confidence and self-esteem.Few people make a con...

Honestly, someone bought this for me because they thought I 'needed' to read it. I was so ticked off - the nerve of that person! that I filed it away for about a year. Actually, until I recently unpacked from a move, I thought I'd pitched it while packing, out of sheer anger and disgust.But I didn't throw it out and it is actually full of helpful insight and suggestions. There's chapter called, "No one in this family is an alcoholic" (or close to that) and it caught my eye while thumbing through...

Society responds to those suffering from physical illnesses, like cancer; we have become more receptive to those fighting certain mental illnesses as well, like depression. But we often turn a blind eye to the scars created by child abuse - we want to believe in the sanctity of family, even when millions of children grow up battered both inside and out. Susan Forward's Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life provides a much-needed guide on how victims of abuse can...

This is a great book about how parents can really screw up their children.The author breaks up abusive parents into 6 categories: inadequate, controlling, alcoholics (or addicts), verbal abusers, physical abusers, and sexual abusers. Between my parents, step-parents, and an adult relative I was often left with, I had the fun of experiencing five of the six types. Fortunately, none of them wanted to poke around in my swimsuit area.The first chapter brings up a point that really explained a lot fo...

look the other way guys 🤡

Edit:I forgot to mention one thing. This book is of course aimed at children of toxic parents, showing the different forms of abuse and manipulation, teaching how to handle the horribleness and find somewhat closure or rather start a healing process.Even though it's meant for victims, I HIGHLY recommend this book to everybody!Someone who has not experienced toxic parents first hand might not really understand the severity of mental and physical destruction. By dismantling and analyzing every for...

I wasn't going to make my completion of this book public. I thought it would be an insult to my parents if I did. Then I realized that it would be an injustice to others who may need to read this book, but dont know it exists, if I didn't. Not to mention doing things to please or placate my parents is one of the many reasons why I needed to read it in the first place soooo....fuck it! lol The book is exactly what the title implies. A book to help those end the vicious cycle of self-loathing, low...

Powerfull in its own right and ironic because those who deal with toxic parents most often feel powerless. I can’t speak for anyone else, but dealing with toxic parents is like walking on eggshells. Every day is different from the next except for one thing, the anger, the pain, confusion, the sadness, the fear are always still there. If you are carrying around a heavy burden based on your relationship with your parents, please read this book. They say, “The sun also rises,” well, so does the dar...

It took me far too long to recognize the emotional manipulation and humiliation I grew up with. Once I did, a friend of mine recommended this book to me and I read it 2 years ago. I liked it a lot and it's helped me gain the courage to expect respect from my family. Just spent 10 days with them and I actually had the courage to speak up against the sexist, racist, and otherwise offensive comments and degradation. Unfortunately, I don't think I can do that for long. I need to re-read this and re-...

This book pulls no punches. Reading it is an important step for anyone that had toxic parents in their lives. The exercises are insightful and the 'advice' is excellent. It doesn't focus on general abuse, but digs deep down into the different kinds of abusive parents (neglectful, alcoholic, sexual, physical, etc), so reading the entire book from cover to cover may not be 100% necessary. You can fine tailor your reading to the situations that most closely apply to you.This book also helps with th...

I was originally going to move up the start of my reading date for Susan Forward’s 1989 and pretty heavy hitting self help book Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life. However, since I have indeed been reading and rereading my personal copy of Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life since early 1990 (not only for necessary reassurance, self help and the comfort of not being alone with encountering family dysfunction but also simply...

Very insightful and confirming of suspicions you may have had/ still have but refused to believe.Ever felt any of these feelings below in the back of your mind growing up in a family that gave the impression of perfect happiness? But never understood why or couldn't bare to think that your 'loving' family would try to cause you (mental/emotional/ and or physical) pain intentionally?Like you were:Being manipulatedBeing spited by a parent ( said things knowing it would hurt your feelings)Being cri...

This book was given to me about 8 years ago, maybe more. Reading the cover, I thought - what a ridiculous sounding book; I had always scorned the concept anyway... the idea that I would "excuse" my life/ self-image/ relationship issues due to my "difficult" upbringing and by placing the "blame" on my ongoing relationship with my parents. And then I read the book.The author's layout of the book, her easy-to-read style, and her not too harsh tone earned my trust. It's a sensitive subject and she h...

This was a quick read but really didn't offer any useful, or real world, advice on how to overcome toxic parenting and reclaim your life. The book mostly focused on realizing and confronting the toxic parents. I would have given this book 2.5 stars if I could.

tl;dr: This book is very, very, very dated and has many incorrect and harmful stereotypes about abuse victims, abusers, and gay men. However, this book is potentially useful for those who had abusive parents and are still coming to terms with it.Ultimately, this is a useful book. It's a dated book, though, and many things need to be taken with a grain of salt. A hefty portion of salt. An entire pallet of salt.In particular, the author's insistence on apologizing for an abuser's actions by bringi...

In my opinion, the single best book written on the subject of childhood abuse. I read this book originally fifteen+ years ago and it is still as powerful and as relevant today. The modern methodology for dealing with those who have been abused is much different than it was in days gone past, and Susan Forward makes a clear, concise and compelling point throughout about the strong feelings of guilt, of blame, and associated behaviours. How to deal with it, and how to reclaim your life. This is a

I think everyone should read this, regardless of what kind of relationship they had with their parents. It can be used to detect toxic people and relationships in life and also shows what kind of damage it can cause. EDIT: 6/30/2017This book gave me a new perspective about forgiveness and I still think a lot about this particular passage: "I also believe that forgiveness is appropriate only when parents do something to earn it. Toxic parents, especially the more abusive ones, need to acknowledge...

wow! this book really did help me to recognize how certain things affect/affected me throughout my childhood, and to the present. and i really like the first rule "you do not have to forgive." if you truly have not recovered from a parents toxic ways, you do not have to forgive them, cuz forgiving the toxic parent w/o addressing how they harmed/ affect(ed) you is like just sweeping the issue under the rug.. so not healthy. i highly recommend this book to anyone who had or has to deal with toxic

Healing and insightful but painful to read. Life's a bitch, I guess. No matter what you do, you'll still be on the wrong side, in the wrong life and in therapy.

Becoming a true adult is not a linear process. It will take you upward, downward, forward, backward, and inside out. Expect to falter; expect to make mistakes. You will never be totally free of anxiety, fear, guilt, and confusion. No one is. But these demons will no longer control you. That is the key.This book is very important and essential, not only for adult children of some parents who didn't do as good as they were supposed to but for any adult or parent, because even if you can't relate t...

I had my first counselling session today, and mostly she just wanted me to read books, once she'd got some idea of how I'm feeling and why. This was one of them. I've always recognised that my parents were not the best possible parents they could be. While much of this book didn't apply to me, much of it could help me. While it does seem to set out a bit of an only-one-way attitude to it, which I don't think is true, it can definitely be helpful. It includes case studies as examples, some of whi...

Wow. Unbelievable. This book explains you.It opens your eyes. It teaches you.It helps you.I almost cried after reading some painful experiences in the book.It's so sad to see how a bad parent can damage his/her daughter/son.I totally recommend this book to anyone. Even if you didn't have a toxic parent.Susan, you're my hero.

This a very difficult book to read. I was prompted by two different people in my life to read this book and listen to what it had to say and I found that after reading it I was much more aware of problems I had that I was not aware of. The way this was written was very positive and helpful, nothing making me feel like it was my fault I grew up the way I did, but also not telling me that I was completely without blame, because be honest. If I do not stand up for myself and try to change my life,

This book was so painful for me I had to stop reading it. I picked it back up a few more times with breaks in between. You have to be ready to handle a book that makes you look at these very difficult issues. I do believe it's essential to read if you are going to work with children and or come from a background of abuse of ANY KIND.

Warning: here comes a cliche. This book changed my life. OK. Cliche over. But seriously, it did. Don't let the old publication date or cheap/plain cover fool you into thinking this is a book to overlook on the self-help isle of your bookstore or library, because it is definitely a book to pick up and read and absorb. If you read it with an open mind and heart and truly hear what the author says and feel the feelings these truths bring up in your spirit and gut, it will change your life. I am sti...

Never has a self-help book been more self-helpful and poignant. Once I picked this up, at the suggestion of my therapist, I was swept away. I saw myself and my life in ever page and the book helped me to recognize why many of the things that have gone wrong in my life have happened. Through the stories of the case studies, one begins to feel a developing sense of compassion and understanding for these injured people that eventually helped me to feel the same for myself. Ms. Forward's logic is so...

Such an informative and well-written book.Adult children of toxic parents tend to have chaotic and confusing definition of love due to the fact that they were manipulated, controlled and harmed in the name of love. It is a lot tougher to see how hurtful and toxic parents are if they aren't overtly abusive but this book help to trace the origins of this inaccurate definition of love.In a nutshell, trying to get toxic parents to love you and accept you for who you are is such a foolish thing to do...

As I read this for a second time (my first go around being three years ago), I was reminded why I liked it so much to begin with. I sat down with the intent to not only read the entire book again, but to commit myself to doing all the exercises in the book. There is letter-writing, role-playing and rehearsing for a confrontation. I feel ready for the challenge of completing all these assignments. I will update when I finish them.

Susan Forward has done such tremendous good in writing this book. I'd advise all my Desi kid friends to read this. Our parents are classic "Controllers." And we are all fucked up because of it, tbh. But Forward helps set forth the work we have to do to be better.