EP 85: Gaslighting Teaches You to Distrust Your Mind—Here’s How to Take It Back with Lisa Sitze

We talk with Lisa Sitze (#1 international bestselling author) about growing up with a mother later diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and how gaslighting teaches a child to distrust their own mind. We break down what actually helps you heal: naming the pattern, setting real boundaries, and choosing responsibility without slipping into shame or victimhood. 

• Lisa’s story of a late NPD diagnosis and how it reframes a lifetime of confusion 
• Why narcissism is a buzzword and how NPD differs from everyday narcissistic tendencies 
• How manipulation can fool authority figures and deepen self-doubt 
• Golden child and scapegoat dynamics and how they affect feedback, trust, and identity 
• Why healing requires holding both the negative and the positive 
• Boundaries as actions we control and why an information diet can be necessary 
• The risk of labels becoming excuses and how agency prevents codependency 
• “Demons” as limiting beliefs built to protect us and how to let them go safely 
• RAD tool: Recognize, Acknowledge, Decide 

Links:

Instagram: lisa_sitze

Facebook: Alyssia Rhys

LinkedIn: Lisa Sitze

Email facingyourdemonsbook@gmail.com

Website facingyourdemonsbook.com

Bio:

Lisa is a writer, mother of five grown children and granny to seven grandchildren. Her favorite hobbies are playing Enshrouded, exercising, sewing, and gardening. She homeschooled her five children for sixteen years and ran a successful homeschool group for three of those years. She has been life coaching since 2021, being certified through Dr. Sears Wellness Institute. Lisa’s individualized program, to help people do deep dives into themselves, teaches clients how it is possible to use their agency to create their life their way while still respectfully balancing the needs of others.

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Transcript

Gaslighting And Reality Doubt

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the things that a full-on narcissist will do is that they will convince you it's like, oh, you're they it's the whole gaslighting thing, right? This isn't really the truth. And the and the hard thing for me was when I look back on it, and I still look back on it, and it still hurts my heart to think about how many people go through this. It's like not only is your parent gaslighting you, the world is gaslighting you.

Welcome To The Upside Of Bipolar

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome to the Upside of Bipolar, where we uncover the true sources of bipolar symptoms and share proven tools for recovery. I'm your host, Michelle Reitinger, number one international best-selling author of the Upside of Bipolar Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder. In this podcast, I bring you solo insights from my journey and guest interviews with leading researchers and experts. Join us to transform chaos into hope and reclaim your life. Let's heal together. I am your host, Michelle Reitinger, and I have a phenomenal guest today. Lisa Seitz is my guest. Lisa is a writer, mother of five grown children, and granny to seven grandchildren. Her favorite hobbies are playing enshrouded, exercising, sewing, and gardening. She homeschooled her five children for 16 years and ran a successful homeschool group for three of those years. She has been a life, she has been life coaching since 2021, being certified through Dr. Sears Wellness Institute. Lisa's individualized program to help people do deep dives into themselves, teaches clients to know how it's possible to use their agency to create their life or their life their way while still respectfully balancing the needs of others. And you are a number one international best-selling author, am I correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

That is correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yay! I'm so excited for you. And your book is phenomenal. So I'm super excited to talk about that today. But why don't we start with your story? Welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy you're here. And let's start with your story.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Well, I'm glad to be here because you're one of my favorite people ever. So my story started. I was born into I was born to a mother who had narcissistic personality disorder, but we didn't know any of that at the time. It's interesting because narcissism became a coined was coined in 1956, but didn't get put into the DSM V, which is um this diagnostic diagnostic statistical manual, I think I said that right, um, until 1984. So it it's it's it's a definitely, you know, and they and they don't put it things in there until they have a full thing about what they are and and all the stuff behind it. So it wasn't something that people really understood, and people still don't fully understand it. And that was one of the reasons why I wrote the book. I when my mother was diagnosed, I was um, I believe 54, and it was it what it just it changed my life. I didn't, I mean, I at first I didn't have a clue, and I went into researching it, and the more I learned about it, it was I was the more it was like my life started, my childhood started to make sense. It's like I see things now that I didn't see before, and it's not all me. I'm not really as much of a problem as I was normal, you know, and that was that was just life-changing for me, that I was a normal kid instead of some punishment from a past life, which is what she told me, and other things. But it's the kind of thing that you don't know about because when you're born into that kind of, I'm gonna call it abuse, when you're born into that kind of parenting or that you you don't understand because you've never known any different. And so when people would say, you know, how wonderful mothers are and you know, and how much they love you regardless. And I just didn't, I thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn't see my mother in that same light. And now I understand why. It wasn't that she was bad or a horrible person, it's because she had a psychological disorder. But then I had, as I did my research, I had to come to terms with, well, what does that mean for me? And what do I do about that? And, you know, I chose to to not hate her. I did have to hate her for a time. I had to give myself some space and let myself, that was how I was able to process through, you know, the grief and the and the anger and all the stuff. But that luckily that only lasted for about a year and maybe a little more, but I I didn't want to live there. I like to say I didn't want to set up a house and get my ad, get my mail there, you know. I didn't want to live there forever because I don't like hating anything or anyone really. I want to understand where they're coming from, and then if I need to, I can put them over there. You know, it's like I can set my boundaries, right? But I don't didn't want to forever. And so I chose not to. And that meant I had to set my boundary, I had to figure out how to set boundaries, and I did that for a while, and then and she died and not too long ago, a couple years ago, and uh now I'm free from that. I don't I don't have to cater to her manipulations, but that was the boundaries I had to set, is on the manipulations and stuff like that.

Why She Wrote The Book

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah. Okay, so you wrote a book. We talked, we I talked about that at the very beginning. Your book is Facing Your Demons, Healing Beyond Narcissistic Fist uh Family Relationships. And when I first met you, you were in the process of writing your book. Yes. What what led you to write the book in the first place? What what and that's a very vulnerable thing to do. So what made you feel like I need to do this?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I um really felt like there was a lot of people that talked about what narcissism is and that, and and it's a buzzword. And a lot of people see it, you know, they they use the term very loosely. And I the more I did the my research, the more I understood what this was, what this psychological disorder meant uh for my mother and for me, I really wanted to clarify that for myself. And so, like every people say the first draft that you write is for yourself, right? And so my first draft was literally so I could flesh out like how do I feel about what does this mean for me? How do I what you know, how do I go from what do I do from here? And how do I live my life now that I'm not have somebody manage micromanaging every time every part of my being? And it really, you know, I got met more and more people that just didn't really fully understand what narciss what narcissistic personality disorder really is. And so I was able to flesh out the difference between oh, I wrote it down, narcissistic personality disorder versus narcissistic tendencies.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah.

NPD Versus Everyday Narcissism

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And so we we all have narcissistic tendencies, all of us, you know, part of it is survival. We need to survive, you know, we're gonna like push somebody away while we're trying to not drown. It's just a natural thing, right? But at the same time, somebody with narcissistic personality disorder has um so they're they're they're not they're not born, they're created. And in a sense, we create our if we're to become, let's say I become a narcissist, I'm gonna create myself. I'm going to protect my ego. I'm gonna protect myself because something bad happened and I just need to protect it. And we all do that, right? That's just natural, human, we need that. And so we I make this protection, and then maybe something else happens, I make another protection. And then, but then a narcissist, somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder, creates so many of those protections. It literally builds and builds and builds and builds and builds on itself to the point where they can't even reach their own ego anymore. And we cannot make changes to our thinking, to our lives, to our we cannot make those changes without being vulnerable. Because to make to be in a different space than we're familiar with, we have to be vulnerable and they can't do that because they've that's what they've done is they've protected themselves from being vulnerable and they can't do that. So that's why it's that's why people say they can't change, because they've they really can't, because they can't get to their own ego to change themselves. And so I wanted to be able to clarify that in my book, and that's why I think I did. I had a number of people who have read it, and a couple a number of psychologists actually have read it and said, Yeah, that that you've you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. So I feel like I've done it.

How A Rare Diagnosis Happened

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah. And I think that it's important to to distinguish, like you said, it's a buzzword. It is, you know, I you hear on social media all the time, and you hear it in in conversation with people. My boyfriend is a narcissist, or my mother is a narcissist, or my brother is a narcissist. Like we hear people say that all the time. And I think that we it has it has diluted the understanding of what narcissism is because it's like you said, we all have narcissistic tendencies. Narcissistic tendencies are self-preserved, self-centered, self-yeah, well, and self-self-focused. Like it's it's viewing the lens through how does this affect me, and without without the capacity to view how it's affecting other people, and without without the ability to have empathy for others, without, you know, and so it's I think that there are varying degrees of narcissism within the population, right? Because because I think that there are people who become, and you know, I think that there's lots of reasons that it happens. I think our society kind of fosters narcissism in uh in people. We have social media tends to um kind of feed narcissism, you know, when people are so focused, we we become disconnected from other people because we're not seeing that the way that what we're saying or doing is affecting others, and we're not considering, you know, we just are like want the dopamine hits from you know, likes and clicks and you know, and and so I think that we've got a lot of uh a lot of things that kind of reward narcissistic behavior, but that is a big, there's a big difference between choices and behaviors that are narcissistic, like self-centered and self-focused, and the the extreme situation what you're talking about, which is narcissistic personality disorder. And can you can you talk a little bit more about, first of all, it's very as as far as I understand, it's very uncommon for somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder to actually be diagnosed, right? Because they're not introspective, they're not somebody who thinks that there's anything wrong with them.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

There's nothing wrong with me. I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So are you okay sharing like how this happened?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Because this is kind of an unusual situation, right? It is a big deal. And and I've often said that when I've mentioned that when mom was actually diagnosed, and that was because she had tried to commit suicide for I don't know what time what time this was, how many times, you know, it's been it was multiple times. And it's and I understand that it was a a need to be focused on, and she wasn't feeling like she was being focused on enough, but she was so at this point time she had put herself into a coma and my stepfather, not knowing what else to do, had her admitted into a hospital, and they diagnosed her there while she was there. So that's how she got diagnosed. So it wasn't even on her, um, on it, it wasn't even something that she'd went in and asked for because my what I've been told by people, multiple people, is that a narcissist um will never ask to be evaluated.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

They just won't. Because that requires vulnerability. That's one of the things that yeah. Well, that's one of the things that I've like the more research, my own personal experience and the more research I've done with bipolar, you know, is which is the whole point of my podcast, is somebody who's struggling with these symptoms, we are there are people who are good with getting the the diagnosis and then just suffering for the rest of their lives because they don't, you know, and and often I think it has it has to do with wounding, you know, they're so deeply wounded that the re the level of vulnerability that would be required for them to go back and look at their life and be willing to face trauma and face, you know, unhealthy thought and behavior patterns, and that is is too much for them. And they don't, they're not willing to go there. And so I think that they're you know, it's it's understandable when somebody's been deeply hurt, you know, it's it's kind of like an animal who's been deeply wounded, and they're like, you go you keep trying to go to help them and they keep like fighting you, right? Yep. Uh it's sensible.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

It's natural for us to fight back when we are afraid of something. That's just yeah, that's just like ingrained in in our human nature. Yeah.

When Help Systems Get Manipulated

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah. And so I one of the reasons why I love your book is that you talk about, because most people will never be diagnosed, you talk about what your experience was as a you know, as a child, as a youth, you know, like you talk about your experience, you talk about what you experienced from your mother. And and there's a few things that I want to actually talk about with your early story, because you, as you mentioned, when you are, when you're raised as a child, especially when you're little, you have no other frame of reference. Your life is is your life, and that's what is normal to you. That's what you think everybody else has. It's only when we get out into the world that we start noticing differences and start to question, like, wait a minute, why is you know, like you were saying, like people talking about how loving mothers are, and you're thinking, you know, and and you, your tendency to look back at yourself and think there must be something wrong with me that my mother doesn't love me. Like it's instead of looking at your mom and saying there's something wrong with my mother, like she's not a good mother, she's not a kind mother, she's not, you know, she doesn't, it's always looking it back at yourself. And I think it's super helpful to people to understand the psychology behind what happens to you as a as a person being abused by somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder. So can you talk about like when you first started recognizing that there was something different or something wrong and and what it felt like you with you, because you talk a little bit about like the dissonance it created within yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah. The first time I experienced like, wait, something's not right. What my mother's doing is abusive. And I started questioning, right? And I went to uh a school authority, and because I kept being told, well, it was promoted, you know, if you're being abused, tell somebody, you know. So I did. And my experience was the the, you know, they they have to have the police go. So the police went, talked to my mother, but my mother, you know, is beautiful. She has very, very good with words, and she she was able to convince, and she's very, and that's what narcissists, full-on narcissists are. They are very good at manipulation. And so she just explained to them that I was this, that, or the other thing. And they came to me and told me to my face that I had been getting my friends to beat me up to um so that I could get my mother in trouble for all the bruises that I had. And it was it was something that at the time just proved to me that there really is something wrong with me, not not wrong with my mother. Okay, so it's really not abuse, it's just me. I'm just I'm just broken. There's something wrong with me. And um, but it it it was years later before I um just decided, I don't know, somewhere along the line, I just decided to just sort of live my life and and not worry about abuse. Just, but when she was diagnosed and I started researching it, that's when it really, really kicked over. So in my childhood, I had questions, but I I kept having experiences that proved that I was wrong, you know, and and and I think that's one of the things that a full-on narcissist will do is that they will convince you. It's like, oh, you're you're they it's the whole gaslighting thing, right? This isn't really the truth. This is and the hard thing for me was when I look back on it, and I still look back on it, and it still hurts my heart to think about how many people go through this. It's like not only is your parent gaslighting you, the world is gaslighting you. Oh, mothers always love their children, they love their children completely. There's nothing, there's no way your mother would ever say what you know what you're saying she said. And so it's like, but I did hear it. I did hear that. And yet I'm being told my mother would never say something like that. So I know I never did record what she said.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Right. Well, and you gaslight yourself. Like you start you have there's an inability to trust your own, your yourself to, you know, you don't feel like you can trust your mind, you don't feel like you can trust your feelings. Can you talk about what that felt like?

Golden Child Scapegoat Whiplash

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And yeah, and then when you get authorities that tell you, like the police that tell you to your face that you're the one that's in the wrong, you know, I that's that's the tough part was coming to terms with all of that. And like the year that I was studying and researching what narcissist narcissistic personality disorder actually was, and what the DSM contains about it, explains it. That year I went through all sorts of grief, you know, and all sorts of all the levels of recovery and that kind of healing and stuff, because I just I had just put that on the shelf, you know, from my experience and from others that I had prior and before and after, that I just put that on the shelf. So um just spelling it out in my book really helped a lot because it gave me the confidence to be able to say, okay, this really was my life. And even, you know, though I have family members who didn't have the same experience, because backing up a little bit, where when I was born, I was an only child for the first seven years. And from the time I was two until I was five, my mom and I were the only, you know, she was a single parent and I was the only child. So I was the golden child and the scapegoat, all rolled up in one. And so I could sometimes in the same sentence, she would tell me how wonderful and awesome I was, but I wasn't going to amount to any, I wasn't going to amount to anything because she had, you know, she she just she played both sides. I was in both sides. So I still to this day struggle. If anything, anybody compliments me, I like I back off. If anybody tells me a criticism, I back off. It's like I can't, I have to really focus my mind on the present moment and say, okay, where am I? What is this? What is happening right here? You know, this is it's okay, you know, and allow for either side and just say, okay, how do I receive this? And all of this happens within a half a second, you know, because I've learned to be able to process a lot faster now. But it was for for a minute there, there it was like I had to just sort of get out of there, whatever wherever I was. It's like, don't compliment me, don't tell me I'm wrong, nothing. Just don't do any of that. Just don't do anything. I don't care if it's you know, positive criticism, just don't give me anything. Just don't talk to me. Yeah. It was really hard to figure out how to balance that. But that that was that first year of figuring out what all of that meant. And then fleshing out my book was just like the answer to my prayers, because that was it where I was able to show, you know, yes, these things really happened. Yes, I really feel this way. And and I learned how to balance both the negative and the positive. And so the there's a lot of talk about like we got to be positive, which yes, we need to be positive. But if we completely ignore the negative, then we are negating to use the term, negating the experience. You know, you can't just look at a problem and say, this happened, this bad thing happened, so I'm gonna ignore the bad part and I'm gonna just look at the good side side. And you can't do that and and and have a whole experience. You know, we have to balance both sides so that we can have a complete experience. And sometimes the negative is more than the positives, and you have to just sort of look at it and decide for yourself whether you want to accept what it really was, or do you want to just sort of throw that out and be only positive? And to me, for myself, that just takes away from it. I need I need to find I'm I'm living in the negative. I was born and and was taught very negative thinking. And uh to to create the positive thinking, I had to say. And okay, see the glass is half empty, but the liquid is disgusting and I'm halfway done. So I had to like find my way towards positive. And I still do that sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, okay, you know what? I can't see this as anything but negative. But you know, but maybe something, something good is coming. You know, I have to, I have to be able to balance both because if I push away only the if I push away all the negative, then I lose the the meat of the experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

So can you talk about, I I think we need to probably for our audience who haven't read your book yet, which everybody needs to read her book. It's phenomenal. Thank you. Can you start with what your growing up looked like? So when we talk about narcissistic narcissistic abuse, what what did that look like for you? Okay. So can you share with our audience what that what that was like for you?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Sure. Um let me see how I can phrase this. When I was a child, I thought like a child, but I I was a normal child. And when I was being what I was being told was everything that I was doing was one of the things she liked to say was, I would find the worst place to stick the knife in and then twist it and make it hurt the most for her. And I kept wanting to like, no, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. I'm trying to do, you know, I'm trying to be. It was hard to see things the way she explained them to me. You know, when I was two, she told me I was the adult in our relationship. And at two, I didn't know how to adult. And so I all the every time I did something wrong, I just felt like I was wrong. And there was something bad in me. And sorry, the the name is escaping me, but there's a a doctor that, and I have it in my book. He he said that as a child, we need to see our parent as godlike. You know, they have we have to see them as godlike. So what we will do is we will trans um transpose anything that happens as it's all our fault, because then we can keep them in the God role and we're the devil. That way they're not, you know, because we can't we can't process the idea that we're living with the devil as our leader, you know, as the person that's having charge over us. We have to see them as godlike. And so we will always take the poor side, like it's it's my fault. I did it wrong. Somehow I'm the wrong. And I look back and I no longer am angry for her about that. I just just it just it breaks my heart that she couldn't see the value in having a child and and and the beauty, because I've loved my children, and I I just I just like my children aren't like my world, you know, and I just can't imagine not experiencing that beauty. She missed that. So as a as a child, I just thought I was wrong, but I look back and I'm like, no, I wasn't wrong or bad or a mistake or a problem. But even though she saw my independence as a fatalistic flaw, I can still look at it as it is what got me through. My independence got me through all the abuse. And now I can use it for something positive and something good.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah. Most people, when they go through that kind of dissonance, develop symptoms of like anxiety, depression. Can you talk about what kind of symptoms developed around the abuse and the like constant dissonance in your life where you're, you know, you talk about the need to feel connected with your mother, and and you talk about constantly working to try and please her so that she would want to connect with you? And what is that? I mean, that kind of thing creates anxiety in people because you never you're wanting to approach and you're wanting to feel close and also afraid at the same time because you never know what you're gonna get from them. So, what what kind of symptoms developed around the life experience that you had growing up that way?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

So, my my book is called Facing Your Demons, and the demons that I talk about are our limiting beliefs. So we are amazing as humans. We have such capacity, our our minds are so incredible, our bodies have an amazing ability to heal. You know, we cut ourselves. People can like, you can get cut ourselves, and we know generally we know, like, okay, well, it's gonna heal, and there's gonna be a time to process through that, but we don't understand, you know, the internal are all everything is connected, and all the parts that need to heal are going to heal over time. We just need to allow that and give ourselves the space to do that. And I think I went off your question. What was your question again?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Just like what kinds of symptoms developed around like growing up with this like constant, like wanting to approach and feel connected, but being afraid of what might come. Like it's that creates like constant fight or flight. You're constantly, you know. So can you talk about like what kind of symptoms developed around that? Thank you. I was going there, I just had forgotten where I was. Yeah, yeah. That I've done the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

I do have ADHD. So that that has been an awesome discovery because now I know why I go off track. Anyway, so when when I was learning how to process what happened, I was able to get move towards allowing the disconnects that I learned and moving towards, I think I lost it again. I don't know why. Moving towards the ability to recover. I have lots of demons still left over. And I like to say I had 15 mountains, now I only have like two or three. So I've gone through a lot. And there are gonna be some that probably stay with me through to the end of until my death. And it's what I've come to is it's okay. I can work with them. I've learned now how to work with them as they show up. You know, I don't have to get rid of them. It's like that, like I have to recognize the negative and the positive and balance it, you know, and figure out how to balance because those negatives are with me. Those demons are going to be with me. All the disconnects are still gonna be with me. I'm still gonna go into something new that I'm not familiar with and question can I do this? You know, am I really capable of this? Is this something that I can actually do anything about? Or should I do anything about? Maybe I should just let it be. Sometimes things just process out through their themselves. And sometimes our minds can cycle and sometimes we just need a day off, you know, we just need to take a day. Sit with a hot mug or, you know, maybe read a book, maybe I don't know, watch a movie, whatever we're doing, you know, just just sometimes we just need to back out and stop moving forward so fast, especially. And we talked about earlier about, you know, in our world where things are, it it creates, it's it's very good. Our world is very good at creating narcissists. Yeah, but we don't have to be one. Right. We can choose to allow our needs to be met without harming other people.

unknown 29:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Right. So when I get to a moment where I'm like, the demons are overwhelming me. I'm gonna lash out if I'm not careful. I will, I will literally find my way back to my home in my little office where I'm safe. I like plants, as you can see, and I just nature, nature, I just need nature. So I will just get around nature and and recenter. Sometimes I only need 10 minutes. Sometimes I need a whole day. But I just allow myself to be wherever I need to be, and I just gotta keep tuning in and just keep tuning in to where my brain is at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

And you you talk about how you had your mom had modeled this kind of parenting for you your entire life. And so when you became a parent, that's that's what you knew. That's how you that's how you so you but you recognized, you started to recognize this isn't healthy. So can you talk about like how do you how do you recognize this isn't healthy? And then how do you change? Especially if you don't have an understanding of what was wrong in the first place. That's really important because a lot of times we don't always understand entirely where our dysfunction or the unhealthy thoughts and behaviors are coming from, but that doesn't mean that we can't do anything about it, right?

Parenting Wake Up And Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Absolutely. That is so true. My personal circumstance was I call it a personal Armageddon because I literally bottomed out. I had been, I use the word obsequious to my mother and then to my first husband, to basically giving in to whatever they wanted because that was my job. As the adult in the relationship, I had to um be, you know, give in to whatever they thought was best because I couldn't do, I wasn't capable of making the good choices. So in my particular situation, I had a literal bottoming out. And so um from that moment, I was, I was, um, I'll describe it. I was, I literally woke up and I was sitting on the floor and rock with my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth and sobbing convulsively. And my daughter at the time, I had only one child at a time. She was uh a year and a half or so. She was standing over me, patting me on the back, saying, it's okay, mommy, it's okay. And I'm like, oh no, no, no. That like woke me up. I'm like, I am not going to have my daughter raise me. Like I was raised, I was sanctioned to raise my mother because no. So I had to figure out, but at the time I didn't know how to be an adult. I I mean, I was still not able to be an adult because I'd never kind of moved on from giving my power to everybody else because everybody else knew better, right? And so I still I didn't know how to do that. So I had I had to start at that moment and move forward. And it doesn't matter whether you have a personal Armageddon or not, if you decide that something needs to change, then you're the one that needs to decide that needs to change. And you can only, I love Becky Kennedy, Dr. Becky Kennedy. She talks about boundaries and that boundaries are something you tell somebody you will do, but it requires the other person to do nothing. So regardless of whether they make changes or not, you have to set your boundaries for you. And if that per and you have to decide for yourself whether that person crosses that boundary or not, then you got to decide what that means for you. So do I leave? Do I, you know, set a different boundary? I mean, like that's the thing is don't don't change, set your boundaries. And yes, they need to adjust because life happens and you grow and you change and you mature, but you got to set certain boundaries and they have to be solid. And sometimes you need to set a boundary that as you grow, you'll never have that boundary again. You know, I chose some people who will completely separate themselves from their narcissistic parents, narcissistic personality disorder parents. And other people like me will set my boundaries. And when my mom would call and I was not in a good place to be taking her stuff, then I wouldn't answer. You know? And and that's okay. That was okay. I had to give myself the grace to not answer, and I didn't have to give her every aspect of my life. In fact, at that point, I had multiple children, and I wanted to give my my energy to my children, you know, and and it was still a bit disconnected, but I wanted to give what I had to them, and I had no longer had that space to give to my mother all the time. I had, I chose to give some of it to her, but I would have to again check in and limit what I gave her and what I didn't. I didn't have to tell her everything. I didn't have to give her my whole life story at the moment, whatever was happening in my life. You know, I could give I I learned, I got really good at learning what I could say and what I didn't, what I couldn't say, you know, because she would react to certain things. And I, but I already knew most of that. So there were times when I thought I could share something, as you were talking about earlier, and I wanted to connect. So I would say something, and she wanted, she was like, I want you to be able to tell me anything. I was like, no, she did. She wanted to be a meter to be able to tell her anything, but I didn't want to be able to tell her anything because I knew that she would use it against me. So I had to learn what was safe and what was not safe, and just allow it to be. And if she found out something I didn't tell her, it's like, why didn't she tell me that? I guess I, you know, I just had I sometimes, yes, I lied. Sometimes I would be like, I just forgot. And that was, I mean, I like literally gave myself grace to to be able to lie to my mother, which I would never have done as a child.

unknown 36:20

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Ever.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

That was just not allowed. So you had this kind of like awakening experience. Well, tell me what what things look like after that, because you're not just trying to figure this out for yourself because your way of looking at the world wasn't healthy at the time. So, what things did you do to try to learn how to unwind this dysfunction in yourself and the unhealthy thought and behavior patterns and learn how to set boundaries? Talk about what things look like after that point.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

That's a hard uh question to answer because I was so disconnected from reality that I had to literally create my own reality, realize that that wasn't still quite reality. So I had to change it again and again and again and again and again. And it was more persistence that got me to the place where I could finally see, okay, this is reality, you know, and I would meet people, and the interesting thing is meeting people, and they're very a lot of people are very good at presenting. And we talk about this on on the internet and and um social media, people will present this perfect picture of how things are, and they're not. And so I had to learn, especially growing up in the world, as as social media was just beginning to take off, right? And so I was learning as this was all coming into play how to see things for what they were and learn how to distinguish, okay, that's somebody's perfect picture, but I know them personally, and that's not what their house looks like, or that's not what they eat, or that's not what they actually say, you know, and I and it was a good time for me to be learning that because, like I said, social media was just starting to take off, and it was something I could learn as social media was beginning to blossom. I could learn how to distinguish the difference between right and wrong for me and what I was willing to present and what I wasn't, and and see, and see the truth in things. But it took me a long time, and and that was where the grace I kept giving, I had to give myself grace to get it wrong multiple times. Wasn't I wasn't good at making mistakes and allowing my daughter to make mistakes was really hard because I just wanted her to do it all right and have everything right. And it was like I was taking away her childhood again, like I had been, my child had been taken away just because out of okay, well, let me make sure you did all right so that you can have a good life. And just like that's not a good life. Experience, mistakes, falling down, scraping your knees, all the things, all the negatives along with the positives. That's the balance, that's the important part of of living this life and and becoming whole. We can't become whole if we only take the positives.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

You know, we have to have negatives as well. Did you have tools that you used? Like, did you go to therapy? Did you journal? Like, did you use any tools that helped you to unwind any of this, or was this all just intuition and you just worked through it yourself?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

I just it well, it took me years and years and like you know, decades, and and I worked through it myself. I did go to therapy when I started having trouble in my second marriage, and we went to therapy, and I then especially after my mother was diagnosed, I did a lot of research and started seeing things that that's how it is. That's that's that is the reality of the things. And you know, I I had this, so I had to take this attitude. Something can work for me, whether it's right or wrong, it doesn't matter. If it works for me, I can utilize it. And then when it doesn't work for me, I can adjust and change and grow. As long as I'm not harming other people, that was just my personal, you know, motto. I don't like doing things that are harming other people. I wanted to adjust and change for myself without hurting other people. So if I so I tried to give my children the space to be able to make mistakes, but I just had a visit with my daughter this last week, and she made it pretty clear there was once or twice where I absolutely did not allow her to make mistakes because I'm like, no, you can't do it that way. And it's interesting because I can look back and I'm like, yeah, I can give reasons and excuses for why I did that. But the truth is she had every right to make mistakes, and I had the responsibility and the stewardship to allow her to make mistakes. And I didn't in that moment. But there were a lot of other times when I did. I keep, you know, I can I can just hope that she can look at those someday too and see that I was, yeah, I made mistakes. Yeah, I I made mistakes. Don't we all? We all I like to say a lot of us, a lot of my friends and I like to say, yes, we put our kids through therapy because we give our kids reasons to go to therapy as parents. That's just that's just part of parenting. It's like we sign a contract or something. Yes, I will make sure my kids go through therapy.

Agency Accountability And Codependency Traps

SPEAKER_00 41:49

I know my aunt and uncle used to joke that they were already saving up for the therapy their kids were gonna need when they were done with them. Right. All of us make mistakes as parents. Like we're we're we're humans that make mistakes that are that were raised by humans that made mistakes. Like it's just everybody is gonna struggle, right? Um, but one of the things that I wanted to talk a little bit about is I think I think that one of the trends that I see with like describing everybody as narcissists online and in in social media and that is relieving themselves of the any kind of personal accountability or responsibility. And I think that that's one of the dangers of some of these diagnoses, most of these diagnoses is the person who receives the diagnosis, whether it's a narcissistic personality disorder or bipolar disorder or anxiety disorder, it ends curiosity into what actually is going on. You think, oh, I I'm just I just it's just the way I am, right? And and so it creates it turns them into victims because they don't feel like they can do anything about it. And so they kind of give up their agency in the process. They kind of surrender, I feel like we we, your agency is still available to you, but people kind of surrendered, surrender their agency. I know that I, in some ways, feel like I surrendered my agency a bit when I was, when I was diagnosed because I I would believed what I was being told. I believed that bipolar was incurable lifelong. I would have it for the rest of my life. And so when I would experience symptoms that led to behaviors that were unhealthy, you know, I I didn't like it, but I didn't feel like I had any control over it, you know. Right. And I had a I had a you know a crisis moment where I like all of a sudden things shifted. I started realizing I'm ruining everybody's lives. I can't end my life because I will ruin my daughter's life if I do. Something's gotta change. Nobody's coming to save me. I gotta find a way to save myself. And that was a turning point for me in my life where I started like I thought I was being responsible for by going to the doctor and taking the medication. And I didn't have any control over the other stuff, right? I think the other side of the Well, and I think the other side of that is. That we tend to give, make excuses for the people who've been diagnosed. Yes. You know what I mean? Like we, we well, they can't help it. You know, they can't help it. That's just the way they are. They have this disease, they have this disorder, you know. And so we surrender some of our agency and we make ourselves victims because we feel like, well, they can't help it. And so I just have to make allowances for it. I have to, you know, and we end up with these super unhealthy relationships. It's very common for somebody who's struggling with any kind of disorder, any of the kind of these mental health disorders, to end up in really unhealthy relationships because they don't, they're not taking responsibility for themselves. Yeah. And the other person doesn't feel like they can take the responsibility for themselves. And so you end up with codependency. And so sorry, that's a long way to say that I think that it's unhealthy for us to go around labeling people as narcissists because why does that matter? And what am I going to do about it? Right. Yeah. And so can you talk about you've talked about boundaries. Can you talk about what it, you know, you were able to see your mother through through a more compassionate lens once you saw what she was, that she had a psychological disorder. But you then accepted responsibility for your own healing.

unknown 45:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

You made a choice to heal. You you had already started establishing boundaries, even though you may not have clearly understood what you were doing at the time. Exactly. So can you talk about what why it's so important for us to take responsibility for ourselves and be accountable to ourselves and make choices that are, you know, helping us to choose to be healthy and not to be victims?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Well, that's just it. If, you know, one of the things um a a full-on narcissist will do is blame everybody else. It's not my fault. I didn't mean to. It's not, you know, that was that wasn't my intent. It's like it doesn't matter what your intent is. If if other people are harmed, then you can take responsibility for that, apologize and and and move on. But they won't. You know, they don't take responsibility for that. So I had to realize that my mother was not going to take responsibility for the things that she did to me, you know, because she couldn't only all she could see is telling me at two years old that I was the adult in the relationship was that she was boosting my, you know, my my self-esteem. And that was the last thing that that did. You know, parentifying a child is not helpful. I don't care what age they are. And she would not see that. So, you know, we can only, you know, live our own lives. We live with other people. So we have to decide for ourselves what are we going to do when that person does these things or that the other thing. And we have to decide if somebody is going to cross our boundaries or limit our needs. Maybe we have a need for compassion and we have a friend who's compassionate, but for whatever reason, they're in a they're having a bad day and they're not going to be compassionate today. You know? So we can decide for ourselves, but only we can decide this. We can decide, okay, she hates me forever. She's always hated me. I can't believe that I've ever been friends with her. Or we can decide, she's having a bad day. Like I will go to a grocery store, I will buy something, and the cashier sometimes will be like, she's just having a bad day. And I can try to, you know, say something positive. You know, I will, like I said, I will check in and I will like, is this something I should say anything about? Or should I just sort of let it go? But I don't need to take it personally. I can choose to take it personally. Okay, she hates me. No, it has nothing to do with me. And sometimes somebody can lash out at you, and it's very personal when they do this, but maybe it's very personal that when they do this particular lashing out, and and they're just, you know, all over the place about how bad you are at this or that or the other thing. And it's like you can listen to what they have to say and decide to take on that baggage or not. That's all on you. You have complete control over what you take from other people. And if somebody is willing to hear you, maybe you can help them through it. Maybe they're not willing to hear it. Maybe they just need that moment. They didn't have a way to go home and get away from people, and they, you know, we're just maybe their dog died. I don't know. I like to say maybe, maybe something really in close to them, right? Somebody really important to them died and they just don't know how to handle it. And so, you know, I'm me yelling back at them is not gonna help their situation. And it's not gonna make me feel better. I'm just gonna, you know, lower myself to their their current thinking at the moment. And it's like you choose, we choose for ourselves where we stand in relationships. We can we can have a relationship for decades and you know, best friend, and then for whatever reason, they decide that you're an enemy. You know, maybe you don't even know why, but do you you don't have to go the same route and start hating them? You can say, well, hopefully one day we can work this out. But it's hard because especially when we're that attached to something or someone, you know, to let go of those feelings that we have for that person. Had I went, like I said, I went through that year of hating my mother. And I had to, I had to figure out where I wanted to land with that. But in the moment, but in that moment, I literally hated her. I just like I wanted nothing to do with her. I didn't even want to think about her. I didn't want to say her name, nothing. I just didn't, I didn't even want to, I didn't want to talk to her. It was, it was a really tough time because I felt like I was wrong and I was bad. And there was something wrong with me for not giving her the space to be where she was. And yet I didn't even understand what that meant at that time in my life. So I have come to understand that now. And that's where I was able to finally say, she's she is who she is. I will never have a relationship with my mother like everybody talks about on Mother's Day. I will never have that. And I can decide to continue to hate her, or I can just finally just say, you know what, I just won't have that and learn to be okay with that. But I had to take, I had to process that. That had that had that needed process time. And I had to give myself the grace to process through all that pain and all that loss and that grief and you know, all those the five, the five steps of grief or something that you go through. And I went through them multiple times and I landed on, you know, acceptance finally.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

But I chose to land on acceptance, and that's the thing is we choose to land where we land. And sometimes we can stay in a place for a very long time. Maybe we're angry for years and years and maybe decades, but we can choose to move on to the next space. And that's we can always choose. We don't just because we've been there for 20 years doesn't mean we have to stay there forever. We can choose.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

And you talk about choice. I love the language here because I want you to talk about why you call them demons. You change you, you named your book facing your facing your demons, right? Sorry, I just it just went out of my head all of a sudden, facing your demons. And and I want you to talk about why you call them demons and what you what it means to you, what that meant to you, like facing your demons, what does that look like? And you talk about how you've resolved, you know, some demons and there's still some hanging out. So can you talk about that that language and why you chose that and what that what that actually looked like in your your healing journey?

Facing Demons As Limiting Beliefs

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Sure. When I was younger, and I describe some of this in my book, when we have a problem or a trauma or something bad, like let's say something simple seems not simple when we're going through it. Say we fall off our tricycle, you know, we're three, we'd fall off our tricycle, and that is the end of the world, right? You know, we just we're gonna die. My gosh, I I scamed my knee and you know it hurts, and I'm gonna die, and everything's awful. And when you don't have somebody that can acknowledge you where you are, because at that moment, it really is the end of the world for you. You feel like it, right? And so you need to allow time to process through those emotions and get to the point where you realize, okay, I didn't die. I'm I'm alive. And then you skin your knee the next time. If you are able to process, you skin your knee again, and you're like, okay, well, I didn't die last time, so I should be okay. But man, it hurts. And so you can cry about it. And, you know, and you maybe you never stop crying. And I'm like, if I fall, I still cry. Sometimes I'm like, okay, that hurt. And there's, you know, a tear coming down. I'm 61 and I still sometimes allow myself the ability to just have a moment, and it's okay to process through those things. But when we have that trauma, if we're not able to process through it, we have we create a little picture around it and what it looks like and what that means to us. And when we're not able to get through that process and see the other side, oh, well, I didn't really die, then, you know, if we're not able to do that, then we have what I call the demons that kind of show up and they they start becoming real to us because it's like, oh, well, you're fine. The world is horrible, but but you know, this is I will protect you. I've got your back. It's good. I've got you here. And because you need somebody to do that for you. And when you don't have anybody to do that for you, you create somebody to do that for you. And and I call them our demons. We create our limiting beliefs. Well, you know, if if I ride a tricycle, I'm gonna fall and I'm gonna hurt, I'm gonna die. So I can't, I can't ride tricycles anymore. You know, I'm I'll never ride a bike because I'm just I'm gonna fall, I'm gonna die. And so that's kind of an obvious one that as an as adults, we can look back and think, yeah, okay, that probably wasn't, we weren't gonna die. But we didn't know that at the time. And when we're not able to process, we don't ever believe that. If we if we do grow and we change and we have some a much worse trauma and we create a limiting belief around it to make sense of it, because we're trying to make sense in our thinking at the moment, wherever we are at that moment, in our three-year-old self, you know, that that thinking in the moment is this is the world, this is what it is. And so we make sense of it by creating these beliefs. And maybe they're limiting beliefs, maybe they're real beliefs. I don't know. But as we process through them, if we don't change the perspective of how to view it, because we've got, let's say we've got new information and we've never accept the fact that riding a tricycle and falling off doesn't mean you're gonna die. If we never accept that, then those, those, those limiting beliefs become something so nefarious and and they just grow in, you know. So we then then we're like, oh, well, I can't walk on a sidewalk because I'm gonna fall off, or I can't walk, you know, I can't climb a mountain because I might fall. You know, and and it just as we get older, we do harder things. We can't do those things because we might fall, and then we'll die. You know, we can't do this because we might die. And and it literally starts taking over our lives. And we have to choose. At any point, we can choose. We just gotta do the hard thing. It literally is a hard thing, especially if we've had it since three years old. You know, we can look back and we say, okay, as an adult, we can look back and say, that's not probably not gonna happen. I'm pretty sure at this point that it's not gonna happen. So we can get back on that tricycle. Maybe we actually go back to a tricycle, you know, maybe we just get on a bicycle, maybe we just climb a mountain, maybe we, you know, have a friend hold our hand while we do something really hard that for us means we're gonna die. But they can help us through that. And that's where we we can choose. That's where we can choose to keep our keep our limiting beliefs, our demons close, or we can let them go. And sometimes we need to hold on to them. Like, you know, I needed to hold on to the one for a while. I needed to hold on to the one that like I'm responsible for my mother. And I wasn't. I never was. I should never have been responsible for my mother. But even when I saw the difference, I had to like, okay, I'm not ready to let that one go because I've got some others I need to hold on to. I mean, to let go of. And then those letting go of those other ones gave me the space to um to let go of that one because that one was a big one. I was, I was responsible for my mother, you know? And if, and that's ingrained in your mind it too. You hold on to that one because that is your life blood. You know, if I if I don't take care of my mother, I might lose her, I might, and then I'll be then then who's gonna take care of me? Then how am I gonna live? You know, where am I gonna go? I'm gonna sleep in the ditch or oh my god, who's gonna feed me? I don't know. It's gonna be awful. So I can't do that. So I I had to hold on to that one for a very short time until I could let go a few others that were um kind of carrying that one. And then once I let go of those, then I could let go of that one. And it was so freeing.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Yeah, and I think that's I think that's a really important thing to understand is that when we're trying to heal long-held deep-seated emotional, mental beliefs that are unhealthy and and ways of experiencing the world that are unhealthy takes time. The way that I described it one time is like trying to pull the weeds out without ripping out the garden. Like you're trying to, you're trying to unwind the weeds from the plants because you don't want to rip the plants out. Yeah, you don't want to rip the plants out, but they're all the weeds are designed to destroy life, right? They they go in and they spread their roots and they wind around and they choke out the good plants. And so when you get in there and decide, like, this is a mess, I gotta clean up my garden, you know, your brain, you have to go in and take the time to unwind so that you don't rip the good things out with the bad things. But it's really hard to tell the difference a lot of times. It's hard to see like what's what's healthy and what's unhealthy. And and so it's so important to be intentional and patient with healing because it's because it takes time. You're you're changing the way that you interact with the world. I've talked before about how there's two pieces to the healing. You have to heal the trauma, but you also have to change the habits. You've got all these habits that you've lived with your entire life that were designed to protect you. They're not doing a great job, but that's what they were doing. They were trying to do it, you know, even if they were doing it in a poor way.

unknown 59:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

You know, and so you can't do one without the other and and expect to actually heal. You can't, you can't just change the habits because if the underlying trauma is still there, your brain is going to keep going back to the trough to, you know, try and you know or going back to these habits because that's what it knows. It knows that this is hurt and this is what how I protect. But we also can't just heal the trauma without changing the habits because the trauma might go away, but we've got these habits that have are deeply ingrained in us. And if you don't actively change the habits, you'll keep doing that and you'll keep living with the unhealthy thought and behavior patterns and unhealthy way of interacting with the world. Absolutely. So I first of all, thank you so much for coming on today. I love your book and I want everybody to read it. So I I'm gonna have that linked in the show notes. Please go get a copy of it. It is really phenomenal. And I think you said that audiobook is the audiobook out yet or is it coming out?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

Audiobook is out. Yes. Yay. So excited about that. Yes. I'm a big audiobook fan, so I listen. Well, I had to get it on a wheel because that was how I listen to books.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Yes. Yes. Yep. I I unfortunately don't have a lot of time to sit and read anymore. And so I am a big fan of audiobooks because it's a great way to be able to still read and listen and gain new information and knowledge and enjoyment. Um, so please go get a copy of her book, Facing Your Demons. And can you give us one? What is the one thing that you would encourage the audience to do today to help themselves move towards taking responsibility for their own healing? What is a tip that you can give that will help people to make a choice today that will help them move towards healing and taking responsibility for themselves?

unknown 1:01:36

Yeah.

RAD Tool Plus Resources

SPEAKER_01 1:01:38

I have a tool I call RAD. It's recognize, recognize the problem, the the issue, the disconnect, acknowledge your part in it. So, you know, it's like you have responsibility to make changes. Nobody else has can change things for you. You change yourself. So what you know, acknowledge your responsibility in it, whatever that is, and then you decide what you want to do with that. Maybe you want to just leave it alone. But, you know, once if you recognize it and it's a problem, then you you get you after you've acknowledged and you decide what to do with it, that's where you decide. Is this something that I'm like, okay, actually I'm okay with that? Or no, I really need this to change, then you can decide how, you know, take the steps to make that change, but be okay with the process of whatever that means. Because if it's big, you're gonna take time more time to process than than you know, than if it's a small thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

That's my that's one of my favorite tools. I call it RAD.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

I love it. And that's I like acronyms too. They always make it easy to remember things. Lisa, thank you so much. You're amazing. And I'm so grateful for your book. I'm grateful for your vulnerability and your willingness to share your experience to help others. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

Thank you. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Absolutely. And you can get the link in the bio. I have I have Lisa's information linked there, so make sure you connect with her. Where can they connect with you? I'll have you share that on here, and then I'll make sure it's all linked in the bio.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

Sure. Um, I have a website called facingyourdemonsbook.com. And so and an email, uh facingyourdemonsbook at gmail.com. So you can use either one. I'm also on Instagram with my name and LinkedIn. So I mean, I got a lot of, I'm in a lot of different places. Yeah. But my website is a great place to start because it's got a lot of different I've got all the connects there, and I'm still in the process of changing my website. So it's a little small right now, but I'm I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

That's fantastic. I'll make sure I'll make sure all of that's linked in the show notes so you guys can go there and and connect with her. Thank you so much, Lisa. I really appreciate your coming on today. I'm so glad I have you as a friend. Absolutely. It's mutual. All right, until next time, upsiders. Thanks for joining me on the Upside of Bipolar. Your journey to recovery matters, and I'm grateful you're here. For more resources, visit www.theupsideofbipolar.com. If you're ready to dive deeper, grab my book, The Upside of Bipolar, seven steps to heal your disorder. If you're ready to heal your symptoms, join my monthly membership, The Upsiders Tribe, to transform chaos into hope. Until next time, Upsiders.