After having coffee with a friend one day she lent me this book. I almost didn’t read it, and I almost didn’t open it. I am glad that I gave it a whirl.

Toxic parenting can be cyclical. I recognized some of the behavior of my own toxic parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles in this book, and started to recognize some of that same behavior in myself. This book is designed to help you go thru the stages of healing and overcome the damage done by those toxic relatives, but it can also help you fend off some of those same tendencies within yourself to stop the cycle once and for all. This is the part of the book I found most valuable.

While one chapter suggests that confrontation is important, that isn’t always a possibility for those of us with toxic parents since deceased, but I believe the different coping and healing mechanisms that Dr. Forward teaches are valuable to those brought up in a toxic age. I would definitely recommend this book to victims of any childhood physical or verbal abuse, it was quite the eye opener for me.