Bad Childhood—Good Life audiobook

I'm somewhat embarrassed to like this book so much due to Laura's history of homophobic B.S. while she was doing her 5-year stint as an Orthodox Jew, her "family values" empahsis, and that she also wrote a book called "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands". Blech. Plus on her show she comes across as kinda mean.But it's a good book. It's straightforward and contains a lot of good examples from people who called or wrote in about what it takes to basically "grow up" - to accept that while you childhood sucked, and may have left you with various problems or permanent scars, it's your life now and if you want it to be good you've got to accept that you are responsible for your actions and your life period - no matter what happened to you as a child. To stop suffering requires you to accept that your parents were how they were, you can't change them and being mad doesn't help, and that if you choose to fail to get back at them you are only hurting yourself. And you always have a choice. The same is true of relationships - if you end up trying to get someone to change or love you and they just aren't able to or don't choose to - that's something you have to accept. You can't fight reality and win - but you can accept and deal with reality and make a good life for yourself no matter what other people are up to. I also like how she emphasizes that recovery involves finding a focus outside of yourself - being involved with other people in some capacity where you give of yourself. I find that many self-help books tend to encourage the self-absorption with personal pain that people with problems already struggle with. And it's not about being of service out of guilt or trying to deserve something by being "good"--it's about choosing to be part of the human project instead of stuck in your head forever. And she does this without sounding harsh or abrupt or simplifying complex situations - which I expected given her demeanor on her show. Perhaps she comes across better when she has more space to explain things, or perhaps it's just that she has this preachy tone on air that turns me off. In any case, the book is compassionate and clear.Great book. And I guess Laura is "gay-friendlier" of late. So OK.

This book really hit home for me. I don't consider myself to have had a bad childhood, but I think we all carry attitudes or traits, or hurts that we wish we could rid ourselves of. There is a tendency in our society to point the finger if blame at our "bad childhood," or to blame parents for our bad character traits, or inability to make good decisions. Whatever the case, this book is excellent at showing us how important it is to live deliberately, no longer acting as a victim of whatever, and taking personal responsibility for the course of our own lives.I only have 1 real beef with this book, and it has to do with Dr. Laura's stand on forgiveness. She says that you are not required to forgive someone who hasn't done their part to repent. I disagree. She seems to omply that in forgiving, we are letting someone "off the hook," or letting them get away with the offense. However, in the very next breath, she says that you do have to move past it and get over it. Essentially, this is forgiveness. Moving beyond past hurts and not constantly viewing a person through the filter of past offenses. She calls it moving on, I call it forgiveness.

The good journey from victim to conqueror is not a slide on ice and doesn't take you to some magical place of pure happiness.the good journey is Asymptotic !which is a mathmatical term for a curve that continuesly approaches but never quite arrives at the destination free from horrible memories and their resultant current challenges...this paragraph was definitely one the bests I've read in this book .i finally finished it and remember reading some pages over and over again and actually that was the reason why it took tooooo long for me to put an end to this soul touching and astonishing book....the most important thing i noticed by reading this book which helped me pease a lot was that there are a loooot of people out there like me ...i know it may sound like something so obvious but when your emotions intervene it's not anymore!!!!so it helped a lot and there are a lot of people who have noticed it and dealt with it so why can't I ?and I'm over satisfied to read this book at this young age cause I can also consider myself lucky to have enough time and apportunity...i definitely loved the book but the reason I didn't give it a 5 star is because of the monotony in some parts that dr.laura kept repeating the same things for more than enough !!and the last part of the book which she mentioned some virtualities of her own life made me think of her as such a strong willed and courageous woman...and the last thing i wanna say that despite the monotony it was definitely helpful...thanks to Dr.laura

My brother in law gave this book to my sister because of the things we experienced. After my sister read it, she gave me my own copy. I can not emphasize enough if you had trauma growing up this is a must read book. The chapter about not seeking love from the Devil because the Devil can’t love was what I needed to hear to break the cycle of trying to do anything and everything to please my step mom. This was the most liberating chapter for me to finally let go of the guilt that everything that happened was not my fault but choices my step mom made and that no matter what I did, it came done to her just not loving me and that she truly did enjoy being the “wicked stepmother” as she would tell me daily as she would call me Cinderella whenever she called me. I was always referred to the other woman’s child when introduced to any of her extended family. This book helped me recognize habits and patterns I developed basically from the fight or flight our body creates to deal with trauma when you are doing everything you can to survive the moment but habits are not always healthy. Strongly suggest if you’ve experienced a bad childhood or know someone that has. This book will help you start to understand.

I feel kind of odd for reading this book--I'm not necessarily saying I had a horrible childhood, but self-help is kind of fun to read through. A lot of the advice is pretty spot on like don't let the crappy past effect how you are going to behave in the future. Although I don't think we can just let things go like in a day like Dr. Laura seems to believe. Sometimes we end up letting things go over time.

Probably better read than on audio....her tone and style seemed condescending to me at times, but LOVED the premise of the book! I really believe that we have power in changing our circumstances. I also enjoyed hearing examples from her callers and people who wrote in about their experiences. Appreciated the shift of being a victim to looking at "in spite of what happened..." and ways to move forward. I could see this as being a helpful resource to many of my adult therapy patients.

Solid, no-nonsense advice on how to have a great life even after a bad childhood. This is the first Dr. Laura book I read and I chose it because it seemed to have transcripts of radio calls which I thought would be more interesting than generalized advice.

Even though I do not consider that I had a bad childhood, my mother certainly did, and this book gave me insights into some of her struggles, which have had an impact on me. Highly recommend this book!!

A great book! It seemed a little harsh at first, but I stuck with it and it was amazing. Great insights into my own behavior and how to move forward from past heartache. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to heal from a horrible past.

If this book triggers you, read it twice because it was meant for you.

There were some VALID things I needed to read in this book, both for myself and my children.

Always a good ideas to look back in order to move forward!