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A person can be a Toxic Parent in a dormant state. Having been brought up in a Toxic Environment they have got over it (it seems) and got on with life and started a new life, new family, looking forward to a good healthy future.
A parent brought up in a Toxic Environment may have strong feelings against yelling at their own children, or using bad language when yelling at the children.
Yet, as an adult, because the past issues were really not dealt with, this parent finds that she is not using curse words on her children like her parents did with her, but she starts thinking them, and if nothing is done about it, eventually the words will come out of her mouth and be used on her children and she becomes a replica of her mother’s faults.
This is an explanation why the husband says to his wife, “But Honey, you have changed, you didn’t talk to the children like that before. This is not the woman I married!”
The seed of bad language and verbal abuse was planted in the child’s mind and years later grew and took fruit in the child’s adult life.
Like a fruit tree, we need to do some pruning once in a while in our lives. Get old problems removed, mental issues from childhood sorted out and the root of the problems faced.
We should always be mindful of our thinking and what we do and say, especially to those who we love.
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Sadly the child who grew up in a Toxic Environment may, as an adult, blame themselves for their (what may seem like new sudden) toxic behaviour.
If they get therapy, that just changes their feelings about the situation and it looks like they are cured, and does not deal with the root of the problem then the chances of it happening again are greatly increased.
The cause of the problem should be addressed and dealt with. Because if the seed is not destroyed it will just lay dormant ready to grow again.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
26 June 2019
The work of the narcissist parent is very clever and consumes the mind of the children in such a way that they cannot think clear without the input from the narcissist parent/s. I remember being in groups of people, therapy groups and as a teenager and talking with others to a victim of narcissism while we all try to convince this person that they are being used and abused by their own parent and they refuse to see it.
They see some of the parents behaviour as bad and cast it away as, “That’s just mum, that is just how she is, but that doesn’t mean that she s really bad.”
It can be really frustrating trying to liberate some people to freedom.
People care and they try to help the victim see the light but generally the victim just finds new friends, friends who will not upset the balance in the child-parent relationship even though it is toxic and heavily unbalanced in the favour of the parents.
I believe that narcissism should be taught in schools so that the younger people learn of this the more chance they have of recognizing it in their own lives and escaping.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
2019
One way to recognize a Toxic Parent/Child relationship is when the child
is an adult he or she should take over their own life.
If the parent/s are still in a controlling position in the child-adults life or can be a sign of toxic parenting.
One way to recognise a Toxic Parent/Child relationship is when the child is an adult her or she should take over their own life.
If the parent/s are still in a controlling position in the child-adults life or can be a sign of toxic parenting.
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The parent/s can claim that the child-adult has coping issues, mental illness, etc, but this is just a way of making it look legal and caring, the reality is that the child-adult is probably a victim of The Stockholm Syndrome and/or Munchausen syndrome by proxy where the parent makes the child ill and claims that he or she must look after the child, but to stay like this the parent keeps the child ill or mentally ill.
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An adult comes to a stage in life where he or she must cope on their own, if this is not so and you feel suspicious you should look deeper into the parent/child relationship.
Brought up in a healthy environment the adult parents and the adult children should have a good healthy adult-to-adult relationship. The adult-child should not be depending on the parents for support, decisions etc.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Child-adults of narcissists often don’t recognize that their parent/s are toxic and their relationship with their parents is unbalanced and unnatural, after all, this way of life is all that they have ever known.
As an adult they may always be seeking the approval of their parents, and also in the workplace extending that to seeking the approval of workmates who have the same character type (narcissist) as their parents.
This leads to the workmates, manager, boss etc, controlling the child-adult as well – the narcissists know what buttons to press to manipulate the child-adult, especially if they are friends with the narcissist parents. To the child-adult this may all seem natural.
° A clue to parents being narcissistic is the adult-child feeling the same desire to please the people at work as they feel the desire to please their parents, and get approval from both, etc.
° Another clue can be how they feel when told off at work. They may feel the same feelings of rejection and fears as they do with their parents.
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It is well known that children of narcissists can pair up romantically with a narcissist because children victims of narcissists can have coping issues, so they seek (unconsciously) people who can look after them and do for them what they struggle to do themselves, but what their parents have always done for them. They may find it easy to bond with narcissist types.
So it stands to reason that in other environments that the child-adult-victims of narcissist parents could be unconsciously attracted to people like their parents. Such friends, work mates, etc, seem comforting and familiar and what they are used to, so bonding with them would feel like a natural thing to do.
But sadly this also means that the new narcissists can control the child-adult as the parents did, and because it is all so familiar the child-adult is unaware that it is even happening and fit into the roll of being the victim with these other people.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
27 June 2019.
One of the things that a narcissist does is pick at and tease a person in a “joking way” and yet the joking and teasing is toxic and causes the victim the feel guilt, shame, hurt, embarrassed, and that something is wrong with them because they don’t get the joke and don’t want to laugh along with it.
When the victim tries to explain that “the joke” is not funny then the narcissist tries to make out that the victim has no sense of humour. But heaven help you if you do the same back to the narcissist. All is not fair in the narcissist + victim world.
Parents, family, bosses, “friends” and relations can use this tactic to pretend to use fun to prove to the victim that it is the victim who has issues and can’t take a joke (even mental issues) and that the narcissist is just a good person cracking a perfectly normal fun joke.
If those listening, (the intended audience who join the laughter which helps to quieten and shame the victim), all laugh at the joke too then it is often because they fear the same treatment, they fear the parent or boss, or they are also narcissists themselves and they are all working together to keep the victim weakened and constantly feeling guilty so that the victim won’t rise up out of the ashes and burn them all with his or her own courage and walk away.
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Parents, family, bosses, “friends” and relations can use this tactic to pretend to use fun to provoke the victim so that the victim submits in shame or embarrassment or gets angry and looks a fool.
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When I see this treatment I often loudly say something in defence of the victim and boy do I make enemies fast 🙂 And I love it. Those types need some of their own medicine back in and they dislike assertive strong willed people very much, because people who don’t fear the narcissist, the narcissist are very scared of because they cannot control them or trick them, and that means that they cannot beat them.
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If this happens to you, you are not being unjust by wanting better for yourself. You don’t have to put up with this toxic treatment, walk away and leave them standing in their own misery. No one needs these toxic tricksters in their life, no one!
If this happens in a workplace just learn to not react and keep a cool professional mature relationship with the other person/people.
If you don’t bite (react) to their nastiness/sarcasm/humour then they will give up because they are not getting the desired bite back – it might take a while but this is well worth doing.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
July 5, 2017 at 2:13 PM.
The adult-child of a toxic family can feel so worthless from his or her dysfunctional upbringing that they can feel captive to their own shame and guilt and want to help people all the time to combat that feeling of not being complete, capable and worthy.
The child-adult can feel that they are kind, selfless, always there for others and a worthy person because he or she sacrifices their own time for others, but it is not selfless act of love, it is a strong desire to find worth in their life when they feel so unworthy and lack confidence.
The adult-child of a toxic family can feel so worthless from his or her dysfunctional upbringing that they can feel captive to their own shame and guilt and want to help people all the time to combat that feeling of not being complete, capable and worthy.
The child-adult can feel that they are kind, selfless, always there for others and a worthy person because he or she sacrifices their own time for others, but it is not selfless act of love, it is a strong desire to find worth in their life when they feel so unworthy and lack confidence.
The narcissist parent/s can note this and use it to their advantage and keep using the adult-child’s desire to help others to help them. If the parents play the victim and act as if they are needy the co-dependent adult-child will feel that doing what is asked of them is a good thing to do.
The adult-child is completely unaware that he or she is being used and still under the control of the toxic parents who destroyed the adult-child’s confidence in the first place.
This is a nasty cycle that only works out for the narcissist parents.
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Co-dependent people are often putting others wishes before their own and even if it hurts them or takes them well out of their way they will go the extra mile for others while losing out themselves.
Their feelings of self worth are dependant their ability look after and satisfy those around them.
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Because the co-dependant adult-child never matured normally and never grew in confidence he or she can constantly seek parental approval from the very parents who destroyed the adult-child’s adult life. The parents can manipulate this around and have the adult-child always supporting them no matter what they did wrong to their children when they were young. Because of the needy, insecure character of the unhealed, broken and incomplete soul of the adult-child they will always be like the dog chasing his tail, they will be going around in pointless unsatisfying circles for their whole lives never fining what they seek, self confidence, true love and happiness.
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This cycle must be broken between toxic parents and their victim children. Both the parents and the victims need healing, but at a distance from one another because the narcissistic nature of the parent/s will always have them trying to take advantage of those who they have always had control over, and the victims will often fall back into the rut of being abused and used because it is all that they have known, the only role that they have ever played in life.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
4 July 2019.
Toxic Shame is about secrecy, about going into oneself,
about not wanting to share what happened (the family secret etc).
Toxic Shame is about fear, about being anxious about being found out (even if it was you who was abused), shame that the family name will be disgraced, shame that people will look at you weird if the truth comes out and the world knows what really happened behind closed doors, and what skeletons were hidden in the family closet.
Toxic Shame is about secrecy, about going into oneself, about not wanting to share what happened (the family secret etc).
Toxic Shame is about fear, about being anxious about being found out (even if it was you who was abused), shame that the family name will be disgraced, shame that people will look at you weird if the truth comes out and the world knows what really happened behind closed doors, and what skeletons were hidden in the family closet.
Part of the fear of not sharing the toxic past is the fear that people find out that I am not the person they thought that I was, that our family was not really the happy wonderful example that our parents tried to get the world to believe, and/or that I am not the person they want me to be for their own little life fantasies, or that I am not the person who I look like in my nice business clothes and nice car etc. I don’t ant the world to know that I am not the person I have always pretended to be my whole life up to now.
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The good side of coming out of the closet and sharing what really happened to you in your life is that this will help many others. There will be many who suffered as you did and who need your help, comfort and guidance to help them get through what you went through.
Toxic Shame often makes one feel so terribly alone and beaten down. It takes amazing courage and inner spiritual strength to step out of the closet and tell your own story. But please know this, that you will be a far stronger and able person after you let the garbage out of your soul and help others.
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We need to know that as victims of abuse and toxic families etc that we are not the people who should be ashamed. It is the people who did us harm that need to feel ashamed. In this twisted materialistic society it is often the victims who suffer a lifetime of shame and anxiety while the abusers retain a good public reputation and go free living a life of fantasy and pretending (even to themselves) that they did no wrong. This needs to be changed, and it can only happen with the courage of the victims standing up and letting the world know the truth.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
March 12, 2017
From the book Toxic Parents: Control: “It’s For Your Own Good”
Control is not necessarily a dirty word. If a mother restrains her toddler instead of letting him wander into the street, we don’t call her a controller, we call her prudent. She is exercising control that is in tune with reality, motivated by her child’s need for protection and guidance.
Appropriate control becomes overcontrol when the mother restrains her child ten years later, long after the child is perfectly able to cross the street alone.Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate.
Overcontrolled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves. This makes it difficult for them to mature.
When they develop through adolescence and adulthood, many of them never outgrow the need for ongoing parental guidance and control. As a result, their parents continue to invade, manipulate, and frequently dominate their lives.
The fear of not being needed motivates many controlling parents to perpetuate this sense of powerlessness in their children.
These parents have an unhealthy fear of the ’empty nest syndrome,’ the inevitable sense of loss that all parents experience when their children finally leave home. So much of a controlling parent’s identity is tied up in the parental role that he or she feels betrayed and abandoned when the child becomes independent.
What makes a controlling parent so insidious is that the domination usually comes in the guise of concern.
Phrases such as, “this is for your own good,” “I’m only doing this for you,” and, “only because I love you so much,” all mean the same thing: “I’m doing this because I’m so afraid of losing you that I’m willing to make you miserable.”
– Susan Forward.
In toxic families with narcissist parents tend to play the family members off each other, like ruling a Kingdom and playing manipulative chess with people’s minds and lives.
There can be the golden child, the one the parent/s bond with the most.
In the playing off one child against the other the favourite sees nothing wrong in the abuse of the victim child/children, and the favourite can rejoice in her status as a helper and sidekick to the narcissist parent/s and help the parent/s in narcissistic and emotional abuse (Stockholm Syndrome, Gaslighting etc).
As the children grow up the favourite child can look down on the victim child and see her as stupid, weak, a fool, and in a narcissist way just as her parents have groomed her to see people, her younger sister etc.
The victim probably will always feel unconfident, unable to cope, have depression and anxiety, and will always be devoted to the parents and the parents fellow narcissist friends.
The Sibling Rivary can be a parent interfering on a non-stop basis causing suspicion, rivary, arguments, doubt in each other, to keep them from figuring out that they are being used and abused by their narcissist parents.
As long as the children are divided in the narcissist parents home they can be controlled, used and abused.
As adult children of the narcissist parents the bickering, bitterness, confusions, doubts, remains because everyone is now so used to their roles and parents adoration that they can’t see anything wrong anymore.
If one of the adult children figures the abuse out they are accused of being a rebel and the black sheep in the family etc. What is worse is that the other abused and controlled siblings back up the narcissist parents because they are mentally blind to how they are being controlled.
If you had serious Sibling Rivary this may have been what happened.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Toxic Homes.
A toxic parent is almost always paired with a codependent adult child that basically learned the art of enabling very early on in their life, and we have no fault towards them whatsoever, because they’re a child, and what else are they going to do—it’s not like they can stand up to a toxic parent. But the problem is that they become adults, when they actually can stand up against the toxicity, but still don’t, due to the lack of overcoming the issues from years earlier. So now, they start engaging in toxicity themselves, via codependency and enabling.
– Jordan Hall.
You’ve got to be self-aware, and stay true to yourself. And listen to your body. Like, if you feel nauseous around someone, or your heart jumps every time the phone rings, or get a stomachache, or migraines every time you visit someone—that is your body telling you stuff.
– Lia Prusha.
Escaping reality is a result of instability.
What I mean by that is that people who don’t want to escape reality are a product of a strong, stable upbringing that taught them courage, gave them confidence, a feeling of being worthy, peaceful with their lot, in love with life, and wanting the best for themselves because they know that they are as good as any other and equal to all, none are above them.
Those who seek ways to avoid reality are struggling with life, struggle to believe in themselves, and have a shaky life foundation below them.
If our life-foundation is weak then it is like a house build on sand, each time a storm hits the foundations shake, are unstable, and the whole thing can collapse.
Some causes of a Weak Life-Foundation:
Children growing up in such homes have breaks in their Life Learning. They suffer as adults, often being crushed mentally or can be forceful.
What happens is that the toxic, unhealthy, unbalanced environment causes the child to be formed physically but not so well mentally.
As adults they can function at work, be highly educated, rule a nation, teach, yet still be immature, especially in the choices they make for entertainment, how they communicate with people (especially when upset), and “fun” etc.
They will seem fine, but will collapse mentally from time to time unable to understand why our what is wrong.
A well formed mind is mature, not immature. Because of this there is no desire for drugs, alcohol, extreme sports, public adoration.
No desire to hoard money and things, no desire to be more important than others, no desire for power, control or greed.
A well formed mind is content to be
A mature mind can only come from good wholesome parenting, a home where the children grow up feeling loved, cared for, encouraged, supported (to a degree), and a family that teaches the value of good moral standards, the value of being a decent reliable responsible adult who is a blessing to the community and all who know them.
When parents put themselves first the children’s Life Learning suffers and as a result the children grow to be adults who struggle, have mental health issues, are immature and seek to avoid reality.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
If we were not given boundaries as a child, not allowed to have boundaries, spoiled, left to bring ourselves up, had toxic parents etc, and we were not punished/corrected or over punished and corrected, etc, then the best thing that we can do for ourselves now as adults is to set boundaries and force ourselves to stick by them no matter how they upset others around us.
It is a test of our own courage, faith in ourselves, and desire to do the right thing now and become the person we were born to be.
If we were not given boundaries as a child, not allowed to have boundaries, spoiled, left to bring ourselves up, had toxic parents etc, and we were not punished/corrected or over punished and corrected, etc, then the best thing that we can do for ourselves now as adults is to set boundaries and force ourselves to stick by them no matter how they upset others around us.
It is a test of our own courage, faith in ourselves, and desire to do the right thing now and become the person we were born to be.
Particularly, say with a narcissist, where a child wasn’t allowed to have boundaries, or the punishment for it – even in adulthood… …Part of the empowerment – part of rising into their full, true adult self – is being able to set boundaries, just as we do with all sorts of people. – Dr. Laura Goldner.
We won’t get everything right first time, but with practice, stubbornness, strong desire to be a better person, time, experience, effort, and the like we will come out a far stronger, courageous, capable person knowing what we believe in, knowing what we stand for, and a force to be reckoned with.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
When my daughter Rachel was about 3-4 years old she was going through a very naughty stage. I was a single parent at that time. Rachel was often getting into trouble and causing trouble, all of which to her was her just having fun.
I got into the bad habit of yelling at her or smacking her, but I hated yelling at her or smacking her, it felt wrong, a bad thing to do.
I would sometimes yell at her then go to my room and cry my heart out because I felt like a bad person, a bad parent, yet I was doing what I knew.
I got into the bad habit of yelling at her or smacking her, but I hated yelling at her or smacking her, it felt wrong, a bad thing to do.
I would sometimes yell at her then go to my room and cry my heart out because I felt like a bad person, a bad parent, yet I was doing what I knew.
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This was the problem, “What I knew”.
I was “acting out” what my parents were, and there was this battle between my Soul and Spiritual Heart. The Soul full of childhood history of being yelled at and being physically punished in various ways, and the Spiritual Heart within me crying in anguish at what I was becoming and how I was hurting Rachel and myself.
What I knew at that stage in life was limited by what I had been shown about parenting from two Toxic People, my dysfunctional parents. So with this appalling historical parenting background I was making many mistakes because I had no idea what to do, and unconsciously I was resorting to what they did with me with my own children.
I sure don’t want to turn out like my father or mother or to treat my own children like my parents treated me.
My heart was demanding change, and I didn’t want to quieten my heart, so I sought other answers to my parenting dilemma that would put my heart at ease.
I also realised that if I was the adult then I was supposed to be the mature one and more capable. To blame the child (as I have seen many parents do) is to pretend to myself that the child was out of reach and uncontrollable, when in reality I was unprepared for my role as a parent and was struggling to find positive effective results that would suit my children and myself.
The fault was with me not my children.
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I needed to change, be born again to parenting, re-educated, and to find other more loving and effective ways to be a parent. From this positive change Rachel and I improved as people, our relationship got better, and the situation in the home changed for the better.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Trusting Yourself:
When you were young, like all children, you used your parents’ approval or disapproval as a gauge to determine whether you were good or bad. Because the approval of your toxic parents was so distorted, that gauge often required you to sacrifice your own version of reality in order to believe in something that didn’t seem right to you. As an adult you may still be making that sacrifice…
You will discover that even when your parents don’t agree with you or don’t approve of what you are doing, you will be able to tolerate the anxiety because you don’t need their validation anymore.
The more self-defined and independent you become, the less your parents are going to like it. Remember, it is the nature of toxic parents to be threatened by change. Toxic parents are often the last people in the world to accept your new, healthier behavior. That is why it is so important for you to trust your own feelings and perceptions…
…it is up to you to free yourself from the destructive rituals of your family behavior patterns.
As you gain more control over your past and present relationship with your parents, you will discover that your other relationships, especially your relationship with yourself, will improve dramatically. You will have freedom, perhaps for the first time, to enjoy your own life.
– Dr Susan Forward.
When society is dysfunctional, with toxic and childish reasoning at the top, we should not become what is wrong, but instead renew ourselves and base our new character on what is love, good, and natural.
Romans Chapter 12, verse 2:
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
About Anxiety:
My take on this is that most children today get more academic teaching than Life Skills and Life Lessons. Parents are not teaching their young as they were taught 150 years ago. Especially we are not being taught about decency, good moral standards, ethics etc.
I noticed as an adult I was always going through anxiety every time something new happened in my life. I would react to fear, stress, anxiety in a physical way and that would just make things worse. This was a constant repeating experience and made me miserable.
It felt like as soon as life got better I would collapse all over again, never was I feeling like I was really happy and content with myself, life and others.
It comes from having a toxic childhood and a lack of life skills and lack of parental support.
The result is a weak mental foundation, like a house built on sand, and so when “life happened to me” I mentally and physically collapsed.
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Today this does not happen to me any more because as an adult I gave my self the life lessons and skills that I needed and now I have a strong mental foundation below me.
It took some years to figure all this out but the results are faith in myself God, life, people, love and a better world.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
I was thinking about children and how they are brought up in a society that is Atheist mostly and that means that there is no real reason or purpose for their lives.
Many children have parents who are toxic, and many of those toxic parents have no idea that they are toxic because of how they grew up – it all seems normal to the parents.
Sometimes we need to deal with other people’s children and that can be a challenge if the children have no manners (were never taught them and their parents have no manners), and some use bad language (copying family and not told not to use bad language), are destructive, and even are reckless because “they just don’t care” about people and their own safety.
Before I was 9 years old I tried to commit suicide at least once. I disliked life so very much. And my heart is broken for the children of today when I see how some of their parents treat them.
If we bring up the parents behaviour or bad parenting to the parents to try to help them, things like partying all weekend etc they get very upset because they just don’t care (no one really cared for them, so why should they care etc), or have no idea how to care, their parents were selfish so they are following suit etc. They defend the little that they know.
In reality it is not the parents fault when the atheist society has not decent moral standards and preaches selfishness.
Sometimes it is up to us to bring the children hope. Even if the child is badly behaved. If the child is misbehaving then one needs to consider the child’s home-life and what the child is going through.
In many cases it is the school teacher that is the one who needs to break-through and reach that suffering child. Please always remember that the bully is often a badly treated child at home, or at least a child that has some mixed up values and knows no manners or love for others.
The children need to learn of hope. They need to learn of respect and the value of respect. The class could even “act-out” respectful situations etc. A good imagination can bring up ideas to do this and to reach the children.
If a child learns that he or she is worthy, and that they have hope for a better more happier future (than what they have at home) then the child will come to love and respect that teacher/adult. Sometimes we, the adults who are not the parents of that child, need to help inspire the child/children and to give them the hope in life that they so far have not found yet.
We all need hope to function well in life. We all need to feel that there is a reason for us to live. We all need to believe in ourself, and that we are going to have a future that will make a difference, something to live for, something to be excited about.
Please if you find yourself in a position to help children, then please find ways to challenge yourself to challenge the children and to find ways, all the time that you are with them to inspire them and to bring out the best in them.
I pray that God Bless you in such a worthy work!
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
February 11, 2015.
Keeping Children Dependent: No Separate Identity
Parents who feel good about themselves do not have to control their adult children. But the toxic parents… …operate from a deep sense of dissatisfaction with their lives and a fear of abandonment.
Their child’s independence is like the loss of a limb to them. As a child grows older, it becomes ever more important for the parent to pull the strings that keep the child dependent.
As long as toxic parents can make their son or daughter feel like a child, they can maintain control.
As a result, adult children of controlling parents often have a very blurred sense of identity. They have trouble seeing themselves as separate beings from their parents.
They can’t distinguish their own needs from their parents’ needs. They feel powerless.
All parents control their children until those children gain control of their own lives. In normal families, the transition occurs soon after adolescence.
In toxic families, this healthy separation is delayed for years — or forever. It can only occur after you have made the changes that will enable you to gain mastery over your own life.
– Susan Forward.
We need to realize that every child and baby in a toxic environment/society has a high chance of being an addiction, being mentally ill, a criminal etc.
All these people came from homes where it wasn’t even thought that something bad would happen to such a beautiful baby.
All parents should be, right now, taking an active role in charge for the better for our children to live in, in the future.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
December 7, 2017.
Some of us have a low self esteem. Things have happened in the past that didn’t go well with some people’s lives and they have come to have a low opinion of themself.
Something to consider is that each and every one of us is a human being, a part of a divine Creation.
Wisdom and common sense show you and I that if we were brought up in a home where we had strong loving parents and a stable home there is a very high chance that we would be very loving, confident adults.
It is trauma and toxic families etc that cause issues in our Path of Growth.
If we are feeling low it is so easy to blame ourselves for our current bad beliefs and we dislike ourselves, and are ashamed of the past and our current life.
I want you to realise that you have hope. But even if hope is there it is no use to you if you refuse to see it or accept it.
You must give yourself a chance. You must lift your soul to do the right work and believe you can make it.
You must leave the past behind. You must not turn back.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
28 November 2014.
Taking Toxic Parents down from their pedestals:
When you deify (like worship) your Toxic Parents, living or dead, you are agreeing to live their version of reality. The big problem is at first realizing that you have Toxic Parents when they are all you have known all your life and as we all know Toxic Parents are great manipulators – they know which buttons to press to get their children to do as they want – even when the children are adults.
When you bring your Toxic Parents down to earth, when you find the courage to look at them realistically, you can begin to equalize the power in your relationship with them – Dr. Susan Forward.
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When we bring forceful, demanding and strong-willed parents down to our own level we will find that they are just human like the rest of us and don’t know everything. Toxic Parents try to get us to think that they know everything so that they can control us. Or they are possibly hiding something and so they make up lies sprinkled with truths. We must stop them from trying to control us or we will never have our own confidence, and we will spend our life making confusing choices – especially when pushed by them – or they control us with guilt. They will destroy our future marriages and our life with constant interfering.
To stand up for yourself you have to be you. To live your own life you have to make your own choices, and not have others in the family make them for us. An older sister can be a Toxic Sister who with the backing of the parents can lead you astray – the more people the more convincing the lie is. Be careful ad look around yourself.
When we are in our later teens and onwards we need to exercise our own judgments, theories, feelings and social contacts. Sometimes we have young people who want to come to church and overbearing parents stop this and demand that they don’t go.
The relationship between parent and child is meant to be healthy and fruitful with the younger person learning and growing under the guidance (not demands) of the parent.
The same for husband and wife.
The Bible makes it clear that the male and female are to break away from the parents to start a new family – so that parents don’t manipulate and interfere in the new family.
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Genesis Chapter 2, verse 24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook
March 20, 2017.
Our natural instincts as children are to enjoy life, to have a go at whatever looks interesting, exciting, and whatever will challenge us.
Our natural instincts as children are to enjoy life, to have a go at whatever looks interesting, exciting, and whatever will challenge us.
For instance the challenge of learning to walk. No matter what pain we suffered, no matter what setbacks we had to deal with, we gladly, as a small child, eagerly did what was required to walk. And when we fell, got bruised, felt pain, and even in tears, we got back up and tried again. And we tried and we tried until as true champions we succeeded.
We didn’t care what the professionals said, we just did it. We were packed with enthusiasm and desire to walk. We instinctively knew that walking brought with it discoveries, adventure and much fun.
Nothing was going to stop us from walking.
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Sadly many children get the adventure and fun kicked out of them either emotionally or physically, or both. Many years of people putting mental negative barriers in front of a child can finally convince the child that he or she is not capable of coping in life, is a reject, worthless, hopeless case, incompetent etc.
Once those deeply set emotional self defeating barriers are set solidly in place the young adult struggles with life. And even when he or she does well this person still struggles with courage and confidence. A person who feels defeated tends to not care about their own health, future or happiness, many just give up and accept what happens to them, even avoiding good people and good choices because he or she does not believe that they are worthy.
With every foolish choice or self defeating thing he or she does, they feel even more worthless and defeated.
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Toxic Parents, narcissists, domineering bullies etc and an uncaring society can take all the hope from a person’s life and leave the person with a sad lifetime of struggle and defeat.
The barriers put in by other people may be mental, but they are as real as any physical jail built to the person who does not believe in themself.
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One of the duties of all people in the community is to help give others hope and encouragement, to listen to them without judgement, lending a helping hand to the fallen. This is what we must do for our children and grandchildren and for the future and progress of our town.
If we are not there to help our family and friends when they are sinking in misery, they will be forced to turn to drug addiction, alcohol addiction and possibly worse.
A good society is an understanding collection of people who look out for one another, even the fallen, even the criminals. We have no idea what they have had to live through, so the least that we can do is be there in heart and soul to help out.
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And if a person has been a bad person half his or her life, but now wants to change, then that person can have a second chance, and for the second half of their life being a blessing to others and making up for all the wrongs of the past.
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A good community of caring people heals people’s souls and creates for them a new beginning. This is a wonderful thing.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
February 10, 2016.
Unhealthy families discourage individual expression.
Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of the toxic parents. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of family members. On an unconscious level, it is hard for family members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another’s individuality. – Susan Forward.
If the person before you is a bully or is pushy, please try to see that person as they are and understand that you have a fearful person before you who is as an adult acting this way because he or she has personal issues with which they have not dealt with yet. Know that good people who are mentally strong, secure and mature, do not bring people down and try to crush their spirits, only damaged people do that. Only damaged people with “problems” abuse others, and especially badly damaged people abuse the young who are not able to defend themselves.
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Instead of reacting to any toxic unfair treatment, wonder about them, be distant, be professional (if it is at work) and continue to be the wonderful soul that you are. Their negativity is about them, not you.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
July 20, 2018
By the way, if you lived in a home that was or is dysfunctional, and the family members gang up on you and inform you that it is you that has the issues, mental problems, sickness and coping issues etc, please know that you can be completely fine (except for a few things, we all have some issues of some sort and flaws in our character) and it is that entire family group, friends etc that are all together as one against you because (“birds of a feather flock together”), it is them that has the issues.
Please know your worth and don’t allow those who taught you how to be dysfunctional to try to tell you that there is something wrong with you when you change from being as they are. They are just trying to keep you like them. Be brave, move on, no one needs that kind of toxic negativity in their lives, no one.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
August 24, 2018
People who have fears sometimes don’t know why they have fears.
But when a person is afraid of something, or is afraid of doing something, then they will avoid it and by doing so they will deny themselves a normal life.
People can deny that there is a problem, or even when told that they have a problem they refuse to believe it. And in some cases other people may confuse the issue by playing the “Blame Game” or “Label” them.
Nothing can really be done to help a person until they realise that they have a problem. An important step is to come to an awakening where we discover that all is not what it should be in our life. One must not blame others for our own problems.
People who deny they have fears etc can become anxious, even chronically anxious. And as time goes by they get used to being like this. People with phobias are anxious but this can be cured.
People who struggle a lot with fears and stay at home a lot can have fears and worries of being isolated or of being alone. They worry, and they cause other people to worry about them and wonder what to do with them.
These people with fears can expand simple tasks into situations which frighten them, and this can make it very difficult to live with them. They can be frightened of being away from home or frightened of people. They may want to avoid crowds. And they can doubt their own abilities.
People with phobias can be cured. It takes time and fears need to be dealt with. The Bible mentions many times that we shouldn’t be afraid.
If a person has a part of their childhood taken away from them then they will have missed out valuable learning experiences and lessons which would have given them the basic skills to deal with adult life.
Sexual abuse, emotional abuse and toxic parenting can cause a child to lose important growing skills.
Christians need to be aware of these issues and should be able to offer help when we come across people who are in need.
We shouldn’t judge people who have many fears because it is not their fault that they have problems. They need genuine love and help.
The human mind is a complex machine and needs to be treated carefully and encouraged the right way. A person must learn to love themselves and believe in their worth as a part of God’s creation.
We must believe that we are worth being helped.
All the best from James M Sandbrook.
August 18, 2013.
Many people don’t seem to realise that the life that they live may make them sick and unhappy because they deep down inside may want something better.
But to please others they try to fit into a life that is toxic and unnatural for them and will will eventually kill them and bring them years of misery.
One thing that school and science do not teach, and most parents today don’t pass on to their children is for them to learn from their body reactions and to trust their feelings, and instincts and gut feelings.
It does not matter who is trying to instruct you to follow them, if it is driving you crazy, making you unwell, not what you want deep inside, then that lifestyle the world is trying to push you into is not for you.
Trust your mind, body and soul, pray, because negative reactions, mental and physical illness can be signs that you are doing what is wrong for you and that is why you are feeling this way.
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Stop allowing others to guide you into what is bad for you and then see how you react physically and mentally. Everything could change instantly in the right environment, like a flower drying up, as soon as you water the flower it stands upright and blooms in all its glory.
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When we humans deny ourselves our basic needs and allow others to push us we will wilt and die as sure as that starving flower, and it will be a long slow miserable death.
Show yourself some love and take care of yourself, listen to your mind, body and soul because they are trying to tell you something, and if that something does not align with what family, friends and the experts say, then go against them all and do what you know instinctively what you need the most.
Your life, your heart and soul. Your future happiness and life are at risk here if you don’t listen to your needs and heart!
Look after you! You need this!
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
July 8, 2017
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