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.

Ms. Forward had to been hiding somewhere in my closet to have written this book. My goodness you mean to tell me there's a name for a parent who treat their children this way? For the most part parents love their children unconditionally and as we know there is no such thing as the perfect parent. This is not what this book is talking about as parents we all make mistakes. My mother drove me crazy I couldn't win for losing with her. No matter how hard I worked or how much money I gave her it wasn't enough. She called me crazy, dared me to hit her so she could call the police. I never hit her even when she pushed me when I was 5 months pregnant. I cried and washed myself several times when she wanted me to touch her in places no child should touch their parent.This book describes the parent who goes beyond normal (Narcissist)to their child that uses guilt to scare the child to the point they are insecure even when they become adults. This book addresses abuse emotionally, physical, mental, sexual and I might add financial my mother used on me and my siblings. My mother used religion Jehovah Wittiness as guilt and this instilled a fear that we would be destroyed at Armageddon if we didn't do what she say. I decide before I read this book to do NC(No Contact) If you're not sure even as adult if your parents are toxic you need to read this book. You have options how to deal with toxic parents and still have a life. If you're ready to change things in your life and take control this is the book to help you. I know that Ms. Forward wasn't in my home to write this book but this book hits home on so many levels. You would think the hard part of not have No Contact is getting away from the abuse of my mother but it wasn't. It was the relatives who didn't know what my mother was doing to us who felt because this was my mother that I needed to forgive her and get the hatred out my heart to feel better. One relative ask how could I do this to my own mother since she was the one who gave me life? I don't share my story anymore because this raises a debate and most people tell me I got to forgive and move on. What my mother did to me, no mother who loves their child would never do. The scars of the abuse may be a lifetime and you may not fully heal but this book can help with therapy. As long as no one knew about the abuse everything was fine. When I got out and started talking to family and friends about the abuse my mother started sending her flying monkeys-you have to read the book as to who are the "Flying Monkeys" and how they can affect your decision on how to deal with a toxic parent. This book didn't miss a beat. Thank you Ms. Foward!

I enjoyed reading this book very much, and became very emotionally affected by the terrible abuses some parents bestowed upon their own children. I picked this book initially to see how to deal with the abuses that my parents have put me though unknowingly, and by the time I finished reading the book, I am relieved that my parents were not that terrible. Although I have to say that the confrontation is the hard bit, and when I came to do that I could not be very calm and neither were my parents. Confrontation is necessary for reconciliation, though it was not easy when we both believe the other is wrong. My first attempt did not work, and it took me a few tries later (and I believe it may need to be an on-going thing). One day after my first attempt, while I was still angry with my parents, I felt a lot of love for them despite the hurts that I felt from them, and I come to see that from their perspective I was hurting them too. I prayed to God to forgive the hurts that we caused each other due to our limitations, and to help us grow and learn to relate to each other better. One month later, something drastically changed in my life and I learned the importance of acceptance. As my parents came to my aid, I shared with them my understanding that they were not perfect as parents though they did the best they could, and my willingness to do the best to accept them and love them. Things has been a lot easier between me and my parents since, although at times we can still feel the compulsion to lash out at each other due to our limitations to accept. After that happens, I usually resort to praying for forgiveness and God's healings for all of us, and positive results followed. I enjoyed reading this book, and I hope I could shed some light on the matter with my own experience, however I do acknowledge that my parents's problems may not be as extreme as some of the worst cases in the book. Hope I can share with you a quote I got from another book by Gary Smalley about relationships : "It is only natural that when something terrible happens to us, we become even more aware of and sensitive to the sufferings of those around us. Awareness and sensitivity then become the basis for genuine love - being able to detect another person's need and having the motivation to meet that need in the most effective way." Sometimes suffering can be blessings in disguise, may Love heal us all.

My Christain counselor recommended this book. My husband devoured it from the day it came in the mail. I, the victim, had to sit it down at times so I could sleep. It is very thorough and eye opening. The Lord knew the suffering in my heart and gave me just what I needed. My counseling continues and my enormous load gets lighter each day. As far as gifts from God, I rank it second only to my salvation. If you're the victim, take this life preserver and free yourself from the undeserving guilt you've been living with. Get a Christain counselor and start this book. 5/2010 I've given this as gifts. After reading reviews of the book Hush by Nicole Braddock Bromley I realized I needed to look at this review and make is more usefully objective. Although it has been a while since I read this, I still remember it very well! What I like Dr Forward gives clear directions on how to be honest with yourself and the abuser(s) thereby freeing yourself to heal. The last chapter gives a step by step guide on how to confront your abuser(s) with details on where, who and the option of a letter if need be. The truth shall set you free! This book is not just filled with miserable stories that, while they can seem to alleviate the pain because you know you're not alone, they actually can add to the burden of pain if you read too many of them. Dr Forward gives actual psychological explainations of why victims react the way they do. It's liberating to know my reactions made sense and were not signs of insanity. What I don't like Some of those miserable stories had such graphic details, I felt like I was there. Sadly, those details are sometimes needed to show the extent of the pervereness, but now I have one that sometimes plays over in my mind. NOT something I needed! Comments that Dr Forward makes is obvious she is not Christain. While I can truly understand why people would lose their faith after such misery, I personally know how important my faith was in keeping my sanity. I even told my adoptive father (my abuser), "It's a wonder I didn't end up a lesbian and athiest because of you!" A person's faith is too personal and she should have stayed neutral in that arena. Dr Forward should have given a suggested time line on reading this book. Myself, I could manage about 1 chapter in a day then lay it down for a month. There is so much pain with childhood abuse and plowing through this book at break-neck speed could possibly hurt more than heal. Take little bites, and then "chew" slowly.

This is an awesome book. My wife and I had been in marriage counseling with a PhD for a year when this book was recommended to us with the caveat of "It may not all apply, but see if some of it fits." We arrived at this point after doing sort of the standard marriage counseling stuff and trying many different things in therapy when the counselor started noticing things about my wife's childhood and the way she was raised that he suspected may have contributed to an inhibited sexuality and inability to prioritize the needs of her own family in relation to the family that raised her. There were also issues with her parents' inability to relate to her (and the other adult siblings in her family) as an adult and parent which were causing significant problems in our marriage. I thought some of this was 'normal' and I was just being a jerky husband at times for not wanting to be around her family a lot and wanting to focus on her and my son apart from my in-laws, but I was really struggling. At times I'd feel very confident that the relationship governance I was seeking would be beneficial for us as a family and at other times I'd feel like a jerk for telling my wife exactly what I thought about how her family acted. I didn't feel like I had any kind of example to point to about how to manage the situation. I had trouble putting a lot of my emotions about it into words without it being a contention point in our marriage. This book spoke volumes to me in the first few chapters and really validated some things I was feeling and struggling with as a husband, a father and a man. I found myself highlighting sections that sounded almost like direct quotes from my in-laws. I couldn't put the book down because I felt like this author had been watching videos of the dysfunction in our extended family events for some time. My wife has been reading it and has already put some tools from it to good use. I finally feel like our marriage is getting the air it needed to survive. This book was probably the best thing that happened to our marriage and I was able to use the tools in it to help my wife navigate some very sticky family drama recently. She was also able to put the approaches in the book to good use in order to help out her sister who has been struggling and has been in therapy for a few years.

Speaking as a retired pastor and therapist, this book should be read by every individual on the planet. It reminds me of a prescient book I had to read at Yale Divinity School, "The Idolatry of Family," for which I have remained eternally grateful. To those who continue to believe in the myth of "family values," this is your book. Had I read this marvelously enlightening guide to life in my late teens or 20's, I would have saved myself 50+ years of continued verbal and emotional abuse that I suffered at the hands of my mother, all the while thinking "If I'd just do this or that our relationship will somehow get better." It never did, and finally, at the age of 54, I cut off relations with her and my equally verbally abusive brother. Sadly, my mother passed on the abuse that she received from her self-righteous Souther Baptist parents. Who knows what sort of abuse her toxic parents suffered back in the say where criticism of family was not tolerated in any form. Not only does "Toxic Parents" clearly delineate the many forms of parental abuse beyond the physical and the sexual, the author offers clear advice on how one might effectively turn that abuse on its head and pass it back to its source without resorting to victimology and self pity. I recommended this book to my 22 year old son, who suffered years of emotional abuse by another member of his family who is no longer a part of mine. He devoured this book overnight while recovering for six plus weeks in my home. Shortly thereafter, with a smile on his face and a song in his heart and head, he headed back out west to find his own path in life, and I could not be happier for him. If you think you cannot challenge your abusive parents, and/or your siblings that may be in denial, no matter what form of parental abuse you may have suffered, if you are willing to take this book to heart and embrace some new behavior techniques, your life can only get better. And so might the lives of your toxic parents.

If you are a child of a toxic parent you will find Susan Forward's book both validating and empowering. Forward says that healing is most effective when you proceed down the double track of changing self-defeating behaviors and disconnecting from traumas from the past. The goal of the book is to reverse the balance of power in your relationship with your toxic parents. Forward says all parents are deficient at times but Toxic Parents have consistently harmful effects. Focusing on their own problems Toxic Parents expect kids to take care of them, turning their children into mini-adults. Unable to control their own deep-seated rage, they blame their children. They control their children via guilt and manipulation. They are extraordinarily insensitive to both the pain they inflict and the lasting damage they do. They overtly or subtly abuse their children with constant put-downs and rob them of self-confidence. They may abuse alcohol or drugs and are mired in denial. Forward says Toxic Parents cope with problems such as communication by pretending "nothing is wrong" (denial), blaming the child (projection), enlisting and ally (triangling), making the family a private club (keeping secrets), or rescuing or care-taking (sabotage). Forward gives specific techniques and behavioral strategies to change your self-defeating beliefs, feelings and behaviors that keep you enmeshed with your family and prevent you from being independent. She shows how to stop feeling responsible for your parent's toxic behavior and how to respond to their negativity. She recommends that forgiveness come at the conclusion-not at the beginning of your emotional housecleaning. Forward says the most healing act is the confrontation of your toxic parents via constructive criticism in person, in a letter or symbolically and shows how. Forward says the healing comes not from your parents reactions (which is usually negative) but because it works. It works as you are facing your deepest fears, which is enough to begin to change the balance of power between you and your parents. She says what you don't hand back you pass on. If you don't deal with your fear, your guilt, and your anger at your parents, you're going to take it out on your partner or your children. The alternative to confrontation is to live with these fears, to reinforce your feelings of helplessness and inadequacy and undermine your self-respect. Forward says, "There's no such thing as a bad confrontation...no matter what happens during or after any confrontation, you come out a winner because you had the courage to do it...the fear that kept you trapped in your old role with them can no longer control you."

In this very sane and easy to read book, Susan Forward and Craig Buick lay out various problems with parents and ways to deal with them so as to break the cycle of generational abuse. It’s an excellent roadmap for confronting what’s going on and becoming self-defining. This kind of inner work isn’t for wimps. It takes enormous courage and the authors are clear about the fact that it upsets the apple cart of family dynamics. So much so that many people end up having to minimise their interactions with parents or even disconnect entirely. The payoff is freedom from guilt and shame and more energy to live an authentic life; to give and get genuine, healthy love instead of the counterfeit version you grew up with. It was written quite a while ago, but it’s as relevant as if it came out yesterday. Can’t recommend it enough.

All I can say is wow. What a brilliant book. I had been in denial about the abuse I'd suffered and the damage it had caused, thinking I'd dealt with it and left it in the past - and not really understanding how deeply it affected me and all my adult relationships and decisions, and ultimately how much my depression and anxiety and self-loathing has been caused by my childhood. Because of this book I was able to face for the first time not just the overt abuse by my father, but the damaging passivity and guilt induced by my mother, and how much I needed a mother to protect me and mother me, and how instead from age 3 I took on the role of mother for her; always trying to save her from him and comfort her when she was crying. Meanwhile no one ever comforted me or cared for me, and Dad was known to me and my sister as' the ogre', as this terrifying figure we always tried to hide quietly from before he unleashed his anger at us. I feel in touch with my feelings now, and free of the crushing burdens of guilt and resposibility towards them both for the first time. I realise now I was an orphan really as I have been trying to rescue my mother since as far back as I can remember up until I read this book, and I was tring to make Dad love me, which will always been impossible. I was giving love to them both but receiving nothing but anger and callusness and selfishness back, and jealousy too. They have both saboutaged me in my careerand my hobbies, under supposed looking out for my best interests. I have been brutalised and have lived in fear my whole life and felt some how that everything was my fault and somehow if I kept trying to please them they would love and care for me the way parents should. I have been controlled and manipulated by them both, cancelled plans, forced not to move more than a couple of miles away, and coerced into doing what they want even as an adult. I feel at last able to see reality clearly and calmly, and put the responsibility for their behaviour where it belongs, which is on them. It is not up to me to make them happy, and what they both did to me and my sister was so wrong and we did not in any way deserve any of it. I feel free enough to make my own decsions without fear of their judgement or anger or tears, because at last I can see how it's my life not theirs, and they have taken enough of me over a lifetime. This book really shone a light on what my toxic parents did to me, and it was like a revelation. This book made me sad, it made me angry at them both and angry at myself for being blind for so long, but unltimately after grieving, it made me free. I'm 39 years old, but feel as though a weight has been lifted and I can start my life properly for the first time, with hope and strength and a vastly improved self-esteem. I can't recommend this book enough. I am so glad I bought it, not just for me, but for my sister too who found it as helpful as I did.

This book is absolutely amazing. For me the author has very un traditional approach and ideas that resonnate with me. This book really helped me understand why I act the way I act, better understand my fears and help me dealing with them. At the beginning I was a bit disapointed because there was no solution given in sight. But be patient and get to the end. The author structures the book the following way: 1) you can identify your issues (examples are provided) 2) she explains why people act one or the other way 3) she provides a recovery plan (that is fantastic in my opinion) You just have to be open minded

This book was recommended by my Wife and I will be thankful to her forever :) For starters, this book is NOT about parent-bashing. This book clearly explains what makes parents toxic and what does not. We have been conditioned by society to put parents on a pedestal, but we need to come out of it. We need to understand that they too are as human as their children are. An example : the father of one girl, told her, "you'll always be my little failure". This destroyed her, and for the rest of her life she felt inadequate and suffered from serious low-confidence It is true that we may have learned good manners from our parents. Almost everyone is vocal about it. But what they are not vocal about or deny, is the fact that deep down, most negative characteristics we have, can be found in the way our parents treated us when we were kids ..... and continue being toxic to us even when we are grown-ups with a family and our own kids .... and the cycle continues ... ... but you can heal yourself. In very simple language, Dr. Susan gives real life examples of parental toxicity and its ill-effects, along with steps to heal yourself. Everybody should read this. I mean everybody.

I am going thru a very difficult time with my parents and have been struggling to figure out what is going on. Reading this book made the lightbulb go on, wow. There were specific examples that mirrored our lives and really made me see how 'toxic' they were and how unhealthy our relationship is now. (And always has been) I motored thru this book in about 12 hrs, I couldn't put it down. It was a constant "omg, yes!" I wasn't beaten physically but the emotional abuse was out of control. I now know how manipulated I was, and still am! This book was enlightening. I feel way less crazy, way more aware of what is going on in my relationship with my parents and have ideas on how to move forward and deal with these issues. If you are wondering if you have toxic parents and how to deal with them, get this book. Now.