Dysfunctional Adult

The ACA Fellowship Text was anonymously written by ACA members and provides guidance on working the 12 -step ACA program, leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA WSO has adapted AA's steps (with permission from AA) to address the effects of childhood trauma and neglect and offer hope to ACAs worldwide.

Do you have a toxic family member? Do you feel like cutting ties with this person—even as painful and scary as that may sound—would dramatically increase your well-being and improve your life? You're not alone. In Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members, psychologist and toxic family survivor Sherrie Campbell offers effective strategies for setting strong boundaries after ending contact with a toxic family member, and provides powerful tools to help you heal from shame, self-doubt, and stigma. You'll find the validation you need to embrace your decision with pride.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents' emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you'll learn how to create positive new relationships so you can build a better life.

The Complete ACOA Sourcebook is a compilation of three of Dr. Woititz's classic books, addressing head-on the symptoms of The Adult Children of Alcoholics syndrome and providing strategies for living a normal life as an adult. Listeners will find help for themselves: at home, in intimate relationships, and on the job. They will discover the reasons for the way they think, believe, and feel about themselves; ACOAs often feel isolated, have difficulty in relationships, in the workplace, and in feeling good about themselves.

In this compassionate guide you'll find tips and tools to help you set boundaries with others, honor and validate your emotions, and thrive in the face of life's challenges. You'll discover how to protect yourself from hurtful behavior, stop making excuses for others' limitations, forge healthier relationships, and feel more confident in your life. Most importantly, you'll learn how to stop putting others' needs before your own and manage daily stressors.

In this important sequel to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents.

Did you grow up with a parent who has borderline personality disorder (BPD), or you suspect they did? Was your parent's behavior unpredictable or scary? Did it seem like they were angry one minute and happy the next? Were your basic needs ignored? If so, it wasn't your fault. This compassionate guide offers a trauma-informed approach to help you recover from your toxic childhood and discover the person you were truly meant to be. You'll learn how to identify emotional and developmental wounds, and discover why interactions with your parents were so harmful to your sense of self.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

When your parents are pathologically self-centered, manipulative, or emotionally abusive, the pain they cause is deep and often difficult to put into words. You may experience anxiety, depression, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), low self-esteem, addiction, or other mental health conditions as an adult. But it was not your fault, and there are tools you can use to heal the trauma caused by your childhood.

Every family has a dirty uncle. In my family, it was Uncle Dan. Pour a couple beers in him, and he’d start telling inappropriate jokes in front of the whole disapproving family. “A girl only has one heart, so playing with her heart is wrong,” Uncle Dan advised. “Play with her boobs instead -- she’s got two of those.” “I’m feeling a bit depressed today: I just noticed I’ve got a gray pubic hair,” he said. “I didn’t freak out too much when I found it, but the people in the elevator with me looked horrified.” Uncle Dan shook his head sadly and said, “Some people say...

It is estimated that as many as 34 million people grew up in alcoholic homes. But what about the rest of us? What about families that had no alcoholism, but did have perfectionism, workaholism, compulsive overeating, intimacy problems, depression, problems in expressing feelings, plus all the other personality traits that can produce a family system much like an alcoholic one? Countless millions of us struggle with these kinds of dysfunctions every day, and until very recently we struggled alone.

Have you ever heard of your inner child? Well, this is the classic book that started it all. In 1987, Charlie Whitfield's breakthrough concept of the child within - that part of us which is truly alive, energetic, creative. and fulfilled - launched the inner child movement. Healing the Child Within describes how the inner child is lost to trauma and loss, and how by recovering it, we can heal the fear, confusion and unhappiness of adult life.

If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met or dismissed—and you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, and abandonment. As an adult, you have fought hard to establish your own sense of self, and heal the wounds caused by your upbringing. But what about other emotionally immature people (EIP) in your life? As an adult child of an emotionally immature parent (ACEIP), you may be particularly vulnerable to EIPs.

An insatiable need for sex and love. Periods of overeating or starving. A pattern of unstable and painful relationships. Does this sound painfully familiar? Trauma counselor Kelly McDaniel has seen these traits over and over in clients who feel trapped in cycles of harmful behaviors - and are unable to stop. Many of us find ourselves stuck in unhealthy habits simply because we don't see a better way. With Mother Hunger, McDaniel helps women break the cycle of destructive behavior by taking a fresh look at childhood trauma and its lasting impact.

Introducing a 10-hour blueprint to recovering from narcissistic abuse from your mother and avoiding toxic relationships and people as an empath moving forward. It's time for you to realize you are a beautiful person and a beautiful soul. It's time for you to break generational trauma and blossom into the incredible woman you are meant to be. You deserve to be happy. You deserve happy relationships, and to be confident, you can be an amazing partner, spouse, mother, sister, and friend.

Those who have had a narcissistic parent can testify to how damaging it can be to one's psyche. Narcissistic parents lack empathy, show a severe sense of entitlement to micromanage the lives of their children, and often subject their children to neglect, as well as emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. From the unique challenges daughters of narcissistic fathers face to the ways in which adverse childhood experiences affect our brains, Shahida Arabi's insightful essays resonate deeply with those who have been raised by narcissistic parents.

If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. This breakthrough audio course was created to help you revive your self-confidence and sense of self, value your own needs, and move forward in your life. Your instructor, Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, has dedicated her professional life to helping adult children of emotionally immature parents (ACEIPs). She speaks to you from the heart with a warm, empathetic tone as she takes you on a journey of self-discovery and transformation.

Shadow Daughter tackles a subject we rarely discuss as a culture: Family estrangements, especially those between parents and adult children. Estrangements - between parents and children, siblings, multiple generations - are surprisingly common, and even families that aren't officially estranged often have some experience of deep conflicts. Estrangement is an issue that touches most people, one way or another, one that's still shrouded in secrecy, stigma, and shame.

The best news on the planet is that your mother doesn't have to change in order for you to be happy. In fact, author Karen C.L. Anderson will take it a step further and say your mother doesn't have to change in order for you to be free, peaceful, contented, and joyful. You can emotionally separate without guilt: Inspired by her own journey, Anderson's Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters shows women how to emotionally separate from their mothers without guilt and anxiety so they can finally create a life based on their own values, desires, needs, and preferences.

Was your mother preoccupied, distant, or even demeaning? Have you struggled with relationships - or with your own self-worth? Often, the grown children of emotionally absent mothers can't quite put a finger on what's missing from their lives. The children of abusive mothers, by contrast, may recognize the abuse - but overlook its lasting, harmful effects. Psychotherapist Jasmin Lee Cori has helped thousands of men and women heal the hidden wounds left by every kind of undermothering.