Reddit reviews The Christian's Guide to No Contact: How to End Your Relationships With Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Abusive Family and Friends, and Still be a Good Christian

I am not a Christian, but heard about this book recently: https://www.amazon.com/Christians-Guide-Contact-Relationships-Narcissistic/dp/1546336664
Maybe it can help?

That’s great you’re getting in touch with your gut instincts and recognize they’re there for a reason. It sounds like you’ve suppressed a lot of your true self, voice and thus anger due to your parents. For me it wasn’t until I distanced myself from my parents and started working on myself, journaling, reading books, blogs and watching videos on narcissistic abuse where I got in touch with a lot of my anger. It’s almost like you need to distance yourself first before you can start seeing anything clearly. Educating myself on narcissistic abuse helped me get angry as well.

How much in contact are you with your parents currently? Do you have a spouse that is supportive?

I don’t know specifically what will work for you but I’ll share what worked for me.

What worked for me was to go LC, VLC then eventually transition to NC (instead of NC cold turkey). VLC gave me enough distance to realize that even having minimal contact with my parents was exhausting and stressful. I still had anxiety because they were still in my life and even though it was minimal contact I could not get peace of mind.

I didn’t get in touch with my anger until about 6-7 months into VLC when I began educating myself on narcissistic abuse, reading books and blogs, etc. The distance from VLC gave me some space to be angry without backlash and reflect on my abuse (something my parents would never allow) which gave me the strength to finally go NC. It’s almost like you’re mentally chained when in contact with toxic parents and you need the distance to help break the bondage.

If you’re the scapegoat then reading about that and journaling about your own experience can help you get in touch with your anger as well. Maybe a validating therapist who is trauma trained and knows about narcissistic abuse will help you as well. Make sure they’re validating though as many therapists are not.

A couple resources that helped:

The book that started the NC journey for me was “The Christian’s Guide to No Contact.” This helped me work through my guilt (which you can imagine Christians who cut their parents out of their lives feel) tremendously. I’ve heard many non-Christian’s and atheists find the book helpful too. Here is a link to the book: The Christian's Guide to No Contact: How to End Your Relationships With Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Abusive Family and Friends, and Still be a Good Christian https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546336664/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_41bQAbNC5Y6J7

She also has a blog “Luke 17:3 Ministries” that has helpful info on NC. It’s not visually the best but the content is pretty good http://www.luke173ministries.org/

Shahida Arabi’s blog “Self-Care Haven” and books on narcissistic abuse helped me as well. When you learn about their manipulation tactics it’s almost hard not to get angry. I enjoyed the book “Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare.”

YouTube channels like Narcissism Survivor are good too. Here’s a video on narcissistic grandparents: https://youtu.be/t7RIl4SyFP

I’m not sure what will work for you and I can’t pinpoint exactly how I got back in touch with my anger, but I hope the above resources are helpful to you. For me it really was going NC where I started finally getting my self-respect back which also gave me strength to make wiser decisions for myself instead of putting others’ needs before my own. There are a lot of lies we believe when we’re in relationship with toxic people, and separating ourselves first is sometimes the best way to see the truth.