Gaslighting & Narcissistic Abuse Recovery: Recover from Emotional Abuse, Recognize Narcissists & Manipulators and Break Free Once and for All Paperback – April 1, 2021

I have been married to a narcissistic personality disorder husband for 40 years. This book is the absolute best in describing what I’ve experienced and offers compassion and ways to heal from the trauma of my experiences. It is a book written in simple language but offers the best explanation of how narcissists treat their victims. It truly helped me understand why I was treated so badly yet offered me hope and advice on how to heal. I cannot recommend it enough!!!

I read this book because I believed I might have been the victim of this type of abuse. After the first couple of chapters I was certain of it. Reading this book affected me physically, bringing me back to these moments in my own life. I also realized that it wasn't the first time in my life.This book highlights all the phases and forms gaslighting and narcissistic abuse takes, and gives concrete ways to help you extricate yourself from the situation and work on healing. It's not a magic book, and the author understands how difficult it is for us to recognize that someone so close to you is actively working against your well-being. He gives concrete examples of behaviors to be on the lookout for, and how to stay out of these traps.The book is very readable, and the author has also suffered from unhealthy relationships featuring NPD partners. He is understanding, and mostly wants you to recognize what gaslighting is doing to you emotionally, mentally and yes, physically. He also wants to give you tools and information to get out of that situation.If you have a friend who appears to be in one of these relationships, ask them to read this book. Hopefully, they will recognize themselves in this book and can try to remove thems.themselves from it.

Very informative and healing

This is the first book I read on the subject of Gaslighting and Narcissistic abuse recovery. This book's focus in mostly on romantic relationships, so only applied to me in that area. I bought it looking for the deeper source of the scars I still carry from a lifetime of this type of abuse from (family, romance, friends, co-workers, bosses, etc.). I was able to identify all of the abusers in my life over my lifetime including a parent, romantic partners, co-workers, bosses, and an adult child).This book covers the narcissist's playbook, a definition of gaslighting, the stages of gaslighting, a high-level view of gaslighting in other relationships, the impact of gaslighting, some tools on how to cope and some basic recovery tools.Since this was the first book I read, it led me to reading more books and I've read 7 of them now. I'd rank this one 4 or 5 only because it did not really contain the information I was seeking, which is childhood victims of narcissistic and gaslighting abuse. But overall it is a good start and covers narcissistic abuse if you are married to a narcissist and gaslighter or dating one.

I found this book clear, well-reasoned, and highly relatable. I have women in my family who struggle with NPD, and this book has been the most useful text, offering examples of how NPD presents and, more importantly, how to respond to the abusive behaviors of those with NPD.While the book is helpful in understanding people with NPD of any gender, the author's personal experience with a (cis female) mother and partners living with NPD seems to have informed his richer understanding of what this disorder might look like (and how it may present uniquely) in (American) women.I've read a handful of similar books on NPD, and all have tended to give examples that feel more "masculine". I understand that this is because the disorder is most often diagnosed in men; however, that has sometimes made it difficult for me to find those texts as relatable or "on target" with the ways NPD abuse has occurred in my particular family.On the other hand, I've found that books on NPD that explicitly center gender (e.g. talking about narcissistic mothering, for example) often spend too much time emphasizing gender at the expense of covering specific tactics of abuse and strategies for response. So, until reading this book, I have not found a text that so clearly speaks to how NPD has functioned in my life. At this point, I would say it is the most helpful book I've read on the subject.Some of the other reviewers have mentioned that the book is too rooted in American culture, but I assume that's true of any book about mental health – especially a text that relies on case studies and examples (as our behavior is always shaped by the specifics of our culture and manifests within and through cultural contexts). I was confused by those reviews but, to be fair, I am American so perhaps the "Americanness" of the examples wasn't jarring for me in the way it might be for Brits or other global English readers.On whole, I found this book perfectly balanced – a casual, relatable, and useful read that I'm glad I purchased. I'm confident that the strategies outlined will prove helpful in identifying patterns of abuse and moving forward.