Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

Wonderful read. I went through half of it in one afternoon! And I do not read fast. Very insightful. It was very useful for me in understanding myself and others.

This book reads as if a friend wrote it to you. Gave me such a new perspective. Validated so many things that I was made to feel crazy about. This book helped me out of a very dark place and helped me see what I couldn’t due to the abusive relationship I was in. I am forever grateful to the man who wrote it. May God rest his beautiful soul.

Whole Again offers Sunshine, and Jackson's thesis is that we find it not at the end of some tunnel, but inside ourselves. Jackson did a great job clarifying what it means to be whole again with an emphasis on personality disorders, which seem to be more and more a cultural norm. I've been eating up all the PD content I can because it causes damage in my family and I don't want any of that damage to come from me; I want to be a part of the solution. This was the first writing that I have read so far where he really clearly guides the reader into what healing looks like instead of just talking about the problem and different coping techniques. I loved his honesty about where he was at on his spiritual walk. I'm a Christian and it was good for me to differentiate my perspective from his in certain moments in his book; where he talks about "unconditional love" I see as 1 John 4:7-8 "God is love," God is agape (the term agape means unconditional love in Greek)... so it was a pretty clear parallel although we might have some different things to say regarding the ins and outs of what unconditional love is and means. I loved the part about our hearts being "unstruck," I loved your painting of the "protective self," and I really needed to hear about how we don't have to constantly be in the healing process, but that once we're out of our shells we'll just know it. It was the lightbulb moment I needed to break out of the rest of my shell. Yay! As a Christian, I see that once I have accepted Jesus (unconditional love) into my heart, the protective shell is no longer needed, since the love of Jesus (unconditional love) will heal me enough to allow me to see and even sometimes repel or avoid altogether situations and people who are unsafe for me, and to make it more of my identity to stand up for myself to create healthy, loving boundaries, and to just transparently and freely be who I am. I appreciated this book and not a week went by after I finished it that I gave it to a friend of mine who was going through her own recovery process. In fact she probably would not have accepted it if it were written by a Christian since she's been burned by some, so it was a good bridge for the two of us. Thank you, Jackson! xo

An incredible book that talks about healing from trauma and cluster B disorders. I think there are some blanket over-generalizations here, but overall a very good book and easy to read.

I purchased this book in 2020, and I have read it four different times in two years. I have read other reviews from people who said that they found this book confusing or discouraging to read and they do not recommend the book. I wholeheartedly disagree. I believe these people are blocking/dismissing the content out of fear. This book has many layers within it. It examines core wounds, shame, abusive relationships, boundaries, personality disorders, self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and forgiveness. I read this book four different times in two years because I realized I had to be ready to receive and understand the content within the book. When I first read it, I appreciated one angle, but could not register the other angles. My brain blocked out abstract and painful concepts. Every time I took a step forward or experienced a painful yet significant growth in my healing journey, I reread this book. The a-ha happened. The next layer of content within the book registered for me. It clicked. The content notes that a person needs to sit with discomfort and pain in order to grieve the loss of a relationship, as well as come to a radical acceptance that the relationship was abusive and that it is non-repairable. I had to be ready to digest that truth and experience, and it takes time to get to that place. I have many books on healing from toxic relationships. I’ve attended many hours of therapy and workshops. This book affirms all that I’ve learned about healing from a traumatic relationship: self-examination, self-acceptance, grief, mindfulness, and boundaries. I hope this book helps you as much as it helps me. I read it whenever I need to get back on track and/or feel affirmed. I’m grateful for this book.

My therapist shared with me an excerpt from this book about the protective self behaviors and that helped me move forward tremendously. When I read the book after, I started to understand what was fueling the protective self and had to learn to love on the shame and hurt inside me by giving it space and not trying to silence or distract myself from it. I felt BAD for several days and now I notice I don’t feel as bad as I used to when things happen. I really feel like this was critical healing work that wasn’t just understanding of changing but actually healing. And I learned so much about my pervasive codependency. He talked about it such detail that I am able to consider how this construct shows up in various areas of my life. Great book.

Very very helpful book! Highly recommend! I feel better after this read, the information is real, I can attest to the suggested processes to clear bad feelings/ memories.

Especially valuable are the separate sections for Codependency and Cluster B Abuse Survivors, which means the survivors among us with codependency get twice as much worth out of this book. Then again... I guess we do have twice the damage. Nevertheless! Awesome book and wish there were more like it.

Such a delight to read - it just flows.

I struggled to get into this book at the beginning but it’s definitely worth reading. I’ve read several books on similar subject matter of Narcissism, Sociopathy & Psychopathy, but all written by experienced psychologist, they are experts within their niche fields. Jackson, seemingly wasn’t an expert or a psychologist, but this doesn’t diminish his works and contributions (actually that is what is so appealing). I like his writing style, the layout and chapters are less structured and organised as the books written by psychologists. Yet, this book is incredibly insightful and I think that’s the reason it’s so good, it’s written by someone that isn’t a psychologist. He’s clearly done vast research and reflecting upon his own personal experiences. He was clearly a very intelligent and observant person. I’ve read some amazing books on similar subject matter but this one is helping me understand her and why she abandoned me and why she hurt me internally so much. When I first purchased this I learned of the authors suicide and I insensitively wondered if that would diminish his work… did he give up on the struggle of life… so how can he be lecturing us about healing ourselves and remaining to heal our core wound??? This seems to be my ignorance and insensitivity as this book is worthy. I can’t help but think Jackson had so much to offer us all and so much life could of offered to him, in return. Such a loss. Update: having since finished the book and am beginning to read it again. Such a remarkable human being. Jackson’s’ compassion, understanding and insights have transformed my mindset and have helped me a lot. I doubt that empty internal feeling that appeared after meeting a cluster-b girl, will ever fully dissipate. Although at least I have a realistic understanding of what happened now. I’ve learned about myself but mainly about her too. I’m healing myself and it’s not my obligation to heal her. I’m sorry that she is deeply wounded, I genuinely tried to heal her but she abandoned me and that’s fine. That’s absolutely her choice and people ought to be free to do whatever they want to. People have no obligation to treat you kindly, they can treat you like garbage if they wish to. You can also be emotionally destroyed as a result of their behaviour towards you, you can (and should) search for answers as to why this occurred and I’m glad that I was internally hurt so deeply by her, as it demonstrated to me that I do deeply care, I posses a sensitivity and desire to learn and a willingness to love… even if it’s not reciprocated.

Even though I’m a published writer with an an MFA from a top-ranked program, I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t write reviews often. However, I absolutely must write a review for this book I just finished reading. My god. I actually cried when I read the last sentence of the book—CRIED at the end of a self-help book! I mean, I cried throughout the book because this book makes you do a lot of emotional/psychological work. Why else would you get this book if you didn’t need to do that? I’m assuming that you need to do a lot of work psychologically if you’re looking at this title, and I’m guessing that maybe you’ve looked at and probably read a lot of books like this. Let me tell you that this book stands out from the rest in the way this author speaks to his reader. Forget the fact that he is not a licensed psychotherapist or psychiatrist. His personal experience as an abuse survivor and the work he did on his first book, Psychopath Free, and the nonprofit he created stemming from that has allowed him to develop the frank, no-bs, straight-talking voice that he uses to impart the great stores of knowledge, wisdom, and research that he shares with his readership. And he makes no claims to how easy or quick your recovery is going to be. This is hard work—but oh so worth it. I take copious notes, and that is why the Kindle edition worked best for me. I love highlighting, in different colours for different types of notes, the amazing passages in the book. The author’s writing can be beautiful, lyrical, and amazingly poignant and insightful at times. I was just stunned by the way he creates images that really struck me and stuck in me, so that his important concepts would not be lost. My deep depression often has often caused memory loss and brain fog, but his sometimes poetic style—which is not to be confused with convoluted or pompous language, but rather just vivid and crisp—really makes you remember his key concepts that apply to your context and situation. He employs conversations and scenarios with clients to provide examples of different personality disorders and how concepts like “protective self” and “core wound” play into contexts of abuse, reactions, and how to heal oneself and keep up the healing. I recommend this book to anyone who has grown up with a narcissistic parent like I have, who has been in a toxic relationship like I have, who has had a narcissistic boss or teacher like I have...any sort of abusive relationship, and is feeling long-term effects that basically destroyed you. I’m not bragging but merely stating facts when I say that by all accounts of my friends, I am an attractive, intelligent (I have two Master’s degrees from highly reputable universities), multitasking and highly globally networked, strong-willed woman with three children, yet because I grew up with a narcissistic mother and alcoholic and violent father, and all my partners were narcissistic to varying degrees, I have nearly all personality disorders listed in this book and have been going through the deepest depression and avoidance disorder of my life. But for all my achievements, I feel like a giant zero, nothing, smear on the ground. I want to crawl under my bed. I give myself an F in the mom category... Yes, that’s oversharing, and that is talked about in the book (LOL), but I’m also a memoirist, and so this is okay by me. The point is, I also am into helping people a lot (which is also talked about in the book), and I’m here to tell you to get this book because it was my light in the longest tunnel of my life. The author also runs a vital Facebook page based on his first book, Psychopath Free, and I recommend you liking that if you’re on Facebook. I will now step off my podium. Thank you.

Un libro espectacular, le doy un 10!!