It Didn't Start with You

I really wanted to like this book. I kept reading hoping it'd get better but it just kept sinking for me the more I read. I DNF at around 89%.

This book started out SO STRONG. I was relating. I was loving what I was learning. But then about mid-way it took a huge turn.

I definitely believe some trauma is inherited. But I do NOT believe the solution to ending inherited trauma is to forgive your parents. This book got super triggering for me, hence the stoppage. I tried to just finish it but I just don't think I can sit through the author telling me essentially that my only hope to relieve myself of any trauma is to be in contact with my parents. Or, to use visualization and accept/forgive. My history isn't even that rough but while reading all I could think of is how vile some parents are to their children. Criminal even. And how absolutely triggering and traumatizing it'd be to read this.

Definitely don't recommend. Like I said, beginning was awesome but I truly think there isn't anything salvageable. Usually I say to read and take what resonant3s but I feel like this is bad advice depending on what your history is.

DNF. It had some parts that were interesting, but the continuous insistence of the necessity of repairing my relationships to my parents (who are completely self-centered and unrepentant about ways they severely mistreated me, and who continue to gaslight me today) was extremely off-putting. It felt like the author didn't anticipate that a reader might genuinely have had an unempathetic, selfish parent who valued their children's well-being drastically less than their own self-identification as a “good parent.”