Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the adult children of parents with narcissistic and unmanaged borderline personality disorder. I'm your host, Tori Wicksell, a therapist with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. I also happen to grow up with a narcissist mom who had a lot of BPD traits, and I know a thing or two about how crazy making these types of relationships can be. I'm so excited to show you what it actually means to break the cycle of dysfunction that we grew up in and help you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for joining me. Now let's jump into the show. Welcome back to this week's episode of the You're Not Crazy podcast. Thanks for joining me for another week to talk about navigating and surviving complicated family relationships. I am so excited to see people continuing to go through the cycle breakers vault. It's so great to watch you guys go through the course. And I love getting messages about what parts have been especially resonant or helpful to you. So thank you to everyone who takes the time to just send a quick note on what you're finding is helpful. I'm always so grateful and appreciative for the feedback that I get around the helpful and kind, constructive feedback, I should say, that I get around the podcast and things like the cycle breakers vault. So thank you so much for that. I want to quickly mention that I just added a four-month payment option to the cycle breakers vault too to make it a bit more accessible. I'll drop the link in the show notes. But let's pivot and talk about what we're here to talk about today, which is how complicated Mother's Day can be when you have a very dysfunctional relationship with your own mom. I want to start by saying this is like an overused phrase, but there's really no right way to feel this situation. If you're feeling perfectly fine heading into Mother's Day, then great. That is wonderful and there is nothing wrong with you. If you are feeling really stressed out heading into Mother's Day, I totally see you, and you are definitely not alone. If you are feeling a complicated mix of feelings, that is very normal. If you are feeling sadness, anger, grief, all of these things are completely understandable and completely normal when you have a relationship that is very layered and dysfunctional and complicated with your own mom. The reality is, Mother's Day is a very hallmarky holiday. It is like the toxic positivity holiday of all toxic positivity holidays. It is meant to display what wonderful humans mothers are. And just like any human being, some are great people and some are more complicated and not so great. People are complicated. Being a mom doesn't necessarily make someone a wonderful human or this compassionate, empathetic person. But that is the message that we get from society that moms are all very loving, that they are all very empathetic, and that they should all be very appreciated, especially on Mother's Day. There's the societal public pressure of people posting these like love posts on social media and just collages of how wonderful and how lucky they are. And for some people, that is true. Some people have wonderful relationships with their mom. And that is a wonderful and beautiful thing. And that is not true for those of us that are likely listening to this podcast. That definitely wasn't my own personal experience. It is complicated and layered. And I think that one of the things that's most complicated and layered is that you very much might love your mom, right? You might like a lot of aspects about, and you might also recognize at the same time that there are a lot of abusive layers and dynamics and really toxic and unhealthy and very damaging aspects of your relationship with your mom. Those two things are very hard to hold at the same time. When those two things coexist, it is very complicated and it is very challenging and it is very hard. But that is often our reality. With cycle breakers, we don't just grow up not wanting a relationship with our parents. We desperately want a relationship with our parents. We just want a healthy relationship with our parents as adults. And that is why it is so profoundly complicated because that is not always possible. And even when it is possible, the reality of what relationship with our parent is possible is not always a relationship that we are willing to accept or tolerate. So heading into Mother's Day, very normal to be having a variety of different feelings. Regardless of what you're feeling, you're probably not feeling the hallmarky positive excitement and like gratitude that you will be exposed to likely in copious amounts over the next little weeks, but definitely on Mother's Day. And because there is that very real and honest disconnect for those of us that have had complicated relationships with our moms when we're being told we should be so appreciative and look at all these wonderful things. And there are things that we love about our mom. It is very complicated, it is layered, and it is a recipe for us to be really mean to ourselves or to self-gaslight or to feel really isolated and alone. And I want you to know that you're not alone. There are like a couple thousand people that listen to this podcast every week. And so I promise you, you're really not alone. This is something that a lot of people out there are dealing with and struggling with. It's just not fun to talk about. And right now the media is really obsessed with demonizing adult children in these situations and really normalizing and minimizing the abusive dynamics that occur in these types of family dynamics. And so I think just from so many angles, it's a really hard time to be, it's always hard to be a cycle breaker. It's a really hard time to be a cycle breaker and heading into a holiday that's full of pushing this like propaganda that is being shoved down our throats is just not always the most pleasant thing in the world for us. It's just not the greatest. Let's talk a bit about the different layers here and some things that you can do to take care of yourself. This is gonna look really different if you still have a relationship with your mom versus if you're no contact or if you're like me and your mom has passed away. These situations are all complicated in different ways. It's not like you don't have a relationship with your mom, and then you suddenly don't ever have any feelings about that relationship ever again. Of course you do. This is your parent, and this is devastating that you don't have a relationship with your parent because the parent that you have is not the parent that you deserve and is not a healthy person to have in your life. Same with when your narcissistic mom, when your mom with BPD traits, passes away like mine. It's very complicated in different ways. People expect you to have certain feelings about a parent who's passed away. And when you have this type of parent relationship, the feelings that you authentically have about your parent who passed away aren't always aligned with what is societally expected or acceptable. And so it's complicated in other ways. It's complicated for all of us going into this holiday. And I will say, if you're really struggling this holiday, I want you to know that it likely will not always feel as intense as it feels right now for you. When people continue to work on themselves and set boundaries and process what they've gone through, there is more peace to be found in that world and in that chapter of our healing journey. That is very true. And so if you are in the thick of it right now, if you feel like you're drowning, if you are struggling and you are worried that it will always feel this way, I promise you, it does not have to. It is very possible to get to a point where it is not so consuming. And we're human and it's complicated. And I don't know how I'm gonna feel on Mother's Day. I know that I've had Mother's Days that are very complicated for me personally, where I have complicated feelings and emotions. I don't know if this is gonna be one of them. Some Mother's Days have been okay for me. Are they wonderful? I have to imagine that someone who grew up with a healthier relationship with their own mom probably has a different perspective on Mother's Day than I do and a different experience with Mother's Day than I do. So I don't think that, even though I'm a mom myself now, I think they're different for me. And likely that is true for many of you listening as well. It's just a different experience for us. But that doesn't mean that it's all consuming or that it's bad. Now, if you are in contact currently with your mom, that is complicated for different reasons, more obvious reasons. You may be anticipating seeing your mom on Mother's Day. You may be trying to figure out if you're going to see your mom on Mother's Day. You might be worried about how Mother's Day is gonna go. Do you call? Do you visit? Do you send a gift? What do you do? All of these decisions are really complicated and they're loaded. And the reality is that there's not a perfect decision here. The perfect decision would be that you have a relationship with your mom that doesn't take up the amount of mental space and physical energy that your relationship with your mom takes up. We're supposed to have to rack our brains trying to figure out what the right thing to do is so that we don't trigger our parent, so that we don't feel guilty and like a horrible person. That's not how this dynamic is supposed to work. Our parent is supposed to be a source of support and encouragement and love and kindness and compassion, not the source of our worry and anxiety and stress and fear. But when you grow up in this type of dynamic, that is absolutely reflective of the relationship with your mom. And that is oftentimes a driving force behind the panic decision making around what do I do, what don't I do, what is the right thing, what is the wrong thing, what am I going to be able to tolerate and live with? And I want to offer you a very streamlined way of trying to make a good decision for yourself if you are very much spiraling right now. This is something that I broke down into a very simple worksheet inside the cycle breakers vault, but a really good go-to exercise when you are struggling with making a healthy decision when there are no awesome decisions to be made. When there is a clear winner decision, it is easy to make decisions. But when decisions are layered and complicated, it's not easy. It's very hard and it's very complicated. And oftentimes we'll spiral and we'll procrastinate, we'll avoid, we'll beat ourselves up, but we will just be so distraught over trying to make a good decision. So I offer you this: something that can be very helpful is to do a cost-benefit analysis around what your options actually are. So, for example, if you're debating whether or not to go to, let's say, brunch with your mom on Mother's Day, what are the costs of you going to brunch? What are the benefits of you going to brunch? But you don't stop there because this isn't a pro con list. What are the costs of you not going to brunch? And what are the benefits of you not going to lunch or to brunch? Sorry. So you have these four lists and it's a representation of the nuance here behind making a decision. Because, like I said, there's not often a right decision to be made. There is just a decision that serves us more in this situation that aligns more with our value system, allows us more mental and physical space for our own sanity. There are important reasons why we make the decisions that we do with our types of families, but there's not necessarily a good or bad decision or a white right or a wrong decision, because it is far more nuanced than that. So hopefully that is helpful for you if you are feeling really stuck and really stressed out about trying to figure out the right thing to do. You could do the same thing with sending a gift, not sending a gift. You can go through this process with many nuanced situations. If you are no contact with your mom, you might be having mixed feelings, you might be feeling okay about it, you might be feeling relieved. That makes a ton of sense. You might be feeling a lot of different things. The emotions themselves all probably make a lot of sense. Some are trickier to sit with than others. You might be feeling guilt. Did I try enough on the relationship? Were there other things that I can do? Those are the self-doubt thoughts, right? I lovingly-ish refer to them as self-gaslighting, though that's not entirely accurate. It's not questioning, it's the doubting that our perspective is real, that it's valid, that our experiences were serious or significant enough to warrant distancing ourselves from that relationship. All of these thoughts are so common to come up on a day like Mother's Day because, or even surrounding Mother's Day, because again, there is this like strong societal pressure that you're supposed to feel a certain way and that you're supposed to do a certain thing. And with all of the really abusive talk in the media and social media around family estrangement and how that is so manipulative and really normalizing. And in so many instances, like promoting emotional abuse within families, it's so bizarre. But again, I don't want to go off on a complete tangent. Let's focus on Mother's Day here. But it totally makes sense that you would question yourself at times, that you would have these conflicting feelings. All of those things make so much sense because you're getting so many messages from your family that you've gotten. If you're still in contact with some family members, probably still some of those, like questioning, doubting, are you sure you don't want to reach out to her? All of those things feel so overwhelming and intense. The pressure that you've gotten before going no contact, the pressure from the bigger society as a whole, all of that. I think it's really important to just acknowledge for yourself what you're going through, to talk yourself through it. Now, this is like being your own coach or your own like mini therapist. It is not a substitute for things. I highly recommend talking to a licensed therapist, but this is a way of helping yourself through it, is to say, of course I feel this way. My feelings are valid here. Of course, I'm questioning things. It would be surprising if I felt a hundred percent confident about navigating every family-centric holiday or period of time after the complicated mess that I've been through with my family. And even if you're feeling okay about Mother's Day, I imagine there have been other times where you've also had these feelings of self-doubt and confusion and worry. And it's okay for you to be feeling confident today. You don't have to be having this. But what I'm saying is on our healing journey, all of these things are normal and they ebb and flow and they come in different intensities at different points in our journey. And as we continue to heal and work on ourselves and gain new coping skills and understanding of dysfunctional family dynamic, we start to have more confidence in our ability to navigate them and to cope with them. And we start to have more clarity around why we're making the decisions that we're making. And we start to feel less consumed or less frequently consumed by the stress and chaos of this all. One thing I cannot recommend enough to anyone who feels like they are personally struggling going into this holiday is to be extremely mindful as to how you are going to expose yourself or limit your exposure to the toxic positivity on Mother's Day. Be very mindful of are you going to go on social media on Mother's Day? If you are, why? What is the purpose behind that? Trying to make really intentional decisions. I'm not telling you that you can't. I'm just saying to make an intentional decision around that. Because when you open that app on Mother's Day, it is very likely that you will be served a bunch of posts related to moms. And that might be a variety based on what your algorithm is. You might get a bunch of posts on Mother's Day that feel validating and supportive, but you also might be exposed to a bunch of families looking picture perfect and hunky dory. And even with those validating posts, Mother's Day might just not be the day that you have the capacity to emotionally go there. And that's okay. It might not be the day that you want to sit and process all of this and reflect on it. It might feel too overwhelming to do that on Mother's Day. And that's okay. We don't want you to dissociate indefinitely as like a coping skill, but to say this one day, it's just too much for me. I need to have distraction. I need to have connection to people who care about me. I need to have you fill in the blank with what feels good to you, with what feels right for you. But I think planning this a bit before the day is really helpful because what so many of us do is we wake up on Mother's Day and what do we do? We hop on our phone, we open up the apps, we look at things, and then we think as we start going through the day, wow, I really feel horrible. I hate this. Why am I torturing myself with this? But trying to make thoughtful, intentional decisions around how you can take care of yourself that day, how you can make decisions that honor where you are in your own healing journey, what your capacity is, how confident you are in your ability to cope with some of these challenging things. All of that matters so much in how we move through these days that can be really challenging and hard. So what I'll leave you with is this there are some days that take a bit more intention and effort and energy for us to feel okay navigating. And that is human and that happens for so many reasons. And for many of you listening, for many of us cycle breakers, Mother's Day might just be one of those days. It makes so much sense if it is. And there are genuinely things that you can do that don't require excessive amounts of time or energy or effort or money, like deciding not to go on social media that day or planning that day to add in some distraction or happy activities that keep you busy or feeling good or feeling grateful for the things that you do have in your life. There are things that we can do, these little tweaks and little intentional efforts that we can make that really do make a huge difference. So that we start to move through some of these harder periods of life. This is what it looks like to be a cycle breaker. It doesn't mean that things are suddenly perfect, that you never have any hard feelings ever, but it means that you start to understand what are potential things that might be really hard and upsetting for me. And how can I make life a little bit kinder or more gentle for myself? How can I validate for myself that what I'm feeling and struggling with is real? And how can I support myself through life? So on that note, take care of yourself. Spend a couple of minutes over the next week just thinking about how you are going to help yourself through Mother's Day if it's something that you feel like you're struggling with a bit right now. Or if it is your relationship with your father that is far more distressing, hopefully there are some takeaways from this episode that you can apply next month during Father's Day. Regardless of what your situation is, thank you so much for allowing me to be a small part of your own healing journey. If you're liking the podcast, please take us. Second to rate it five stars and leave a kind comment. It really does matter and helps other cycle breakers find the show. So thank you so much to everyone who has taken a second to do that. I really do appreciate it. I'll see you next week. Bye. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the You're Not Crazy podcast. If you like the show, please leave a five star review to help other cycle breakers find it. And make sure to check the show notes for other ways I can help. Thanks again for joining me. I'll see you next week.