Boutaina’s Reviews > Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life > Status Update

"The single most dramatic difference between healthy and toxic family systems is the amount of freedom that exists for family members to express themselves as individuals. Healthy families encourage individuality, personal responsibility, and independence. They encourage the development of their children’s sense of adequacy and self-respect.
Unhealthy families discourage individual expression."

"Many people are shocked when I say that the incest victims I’ve worked with are usually the healthiest members of their families. After all, the victim usually has the symptoms—self-blame, depression, destructive behaviors, sexual problems, suicide attempts, substance abuse—while the rest of the family often seems outwardly healthy. "

"The legacy of Freud’s error is that thousands, perhaps millions, of incest victims have been, and in some cases continue to be, denied the validation and support they need, even when they are able to muster the courage to seek professional help."

"Incest is perhaps the cruelest, most baffling of human experiences. It is a betrayal of the most basic trust between child and parent. It is emotionally devastating. The young victims are totally dependent on their aggressors, so they have nowhere to run, no one to run to. Protectors become persecutors, and reality becomes a prison of dirty secrets. Incest betrays the very heart of childhood—its innocence."

"Children soak up both verbal and nonverbal messages like sponges—indiscriminately. They listen to their parents, they watch their parents, and they imitate their parents’ behavior. Because they have little frame of reference outside the family, the things they learn at home about themselves and others become universal truths engraved deeply in their minds."