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. I have been very busy putting together resources that I've created for the Confident Boundaries membership into a single like database, if you will. I'm gonna call it the cycle breakers vault. My intent with putting together this resource database is for you to get clarity on what it looks like to navigate these types of relationships in a healthy way, to navigate the different types of manipulation that happens, to get clarity around how to be an emotionally healthy adult when you grow up with a narcissist parent or a parent with unmanaged BPD, how to get clarity around who you are versus the person that you were told that you were allowed to be. I want it to be essentially a hub of information for you so that no matter where you are in your healing journey, you can go in there and get a bit more in-depth knowledge and education about that particular area that you're struggling with, that you feel stuck on. So the Cycle Breakers Vault, full of supportive resources, workshops, worksheets, videos, guidance on navigating your complicated family relationship and healing and growing as a cycle breaker, will be available in the next day or so. I will drop the link to grab it as soon as it's ready in the show notes. And for the next week, you'll be able to get it at a discounted price. So definitely circle back and check that out. If you're following me on TikTok or Instagram, I recently changed my name on both over the weekend. So I'm now on both TikTok and Instagram at Cycle Breaker Therapist. Should make it a lot easier. I know it was a little confusing there for a while, but if you follow me on TikTok or TikTok or Instagram, I'll also throw the link in my stories. So if you're on those and not following me, make sure to give me a follow if you want to see that. And if you just want to see any of the other videos that I put out throughout the week. So hopefully by the time you're listening to this, that link is in the show notes and you can just click it and grab it and get going. Okay, today I want to talk about intention. People get really, really stuck on this idea. Does my parent mean to make me feel badly? Do they mean to make me feel like shit? And this is such a common loop that people who grow up with a narcissist parent, a parent with unmanaged BPD get stuck in. And it's one that I think is really worth breaking down. So let's do it. One of the very, very confusing things when you grow up with a parent like this is often that not everything is bad. Not every single memory that you have with your parent is bad. In fact, there are oftentimes a lot of good memories in addition to really stressful and scary ones. And as humans, as living beings who have parents, we want to feel connected to our parent. We want to be loved by our parent. And so when you have these moments, when you have these memories where you felt so connected and so good with your parent, and you have these positive memories that you reflect back on, it gets really confusing when you're trying to untangle the layers of your relationship and set boundaries, heal, learn what actually are healthy things, what aren't. Try to really unravel all the chaos. It gets really, really confusing. And a lot of that confusion really tends to come from these things that feel like they can't coexist, right? My parent must love me because I have these memories where it feels like they love me. And my parent also is not a safe and scary, is not a safe person, is a scary person because there are also many times I can point to where I don't feel safe around them, where they've done things that really hurt me, that have really negatively impacted me. Our brains are trying to make sense of this world where both of these things feel very true, where we have memories that align with both of these things. A parent who seems loving and connected and supportive at times, and then also is punishing and scary and feels very unsafe at others. And one of the ways that our brain tries to make sense of this and our brain tries to like create a case for the fact that our parent really is at their core this loving parent who cares very deeply about us, but who struggles in their own way, is that we really go back to intent. Did my parent mean to hurt me? Or do they just not know better? Do they just lack skills? Do they just have their own trauma and struggles, which we know to be true in these dynamics, right? We talk about breaking the cycle because this is a generational cycle of trauma and abuse that continues until someone comes along and decides I'm not going to make this my norm. I'm not going to just accept this as the status quo. I'm going to figure out how to do things differently. So we get stuck in this loop where we're going, does my parent mean to hurt me? Because if they do, then that gives me some level of clarity, right? If my parent is meaning to hurt me, then I can set the boundary, then I can push back, then I can do the really hard thing that I need to do. But if they don't mean to hurt me, then maybe I should give them another chance. Maybe I should cut them a break. Maybe I should let this go. Maybe I shouldn't be so hurt by their actions. Our brains try to make sense of this world and we go back and forth and back and forth. And do they mean to hurt me? Do they not mean to hurt me? Are they this big scary monster? Are they an imperfect human? And it is crazy making to go back and forth between the two things. And I think that no matter how much we want clarity as far as what our parents' intention is, we can't read their mind. We can't jump into their brain and say, do they mean to hurt me? And get a definitive yes or no answer. We're not going to get that clarity. And the reality is that what is far more important than their intention is that when we're dealing with these types of parent dynamics, we are typically dealing with a parent who engages in repeatedly harmful behaviors, repeated behaviors where they are doing and saying things that are really cruel towards you, and where that should be clear to them because you have said that those things are hurtful, you've cried in response to them. There are indicators where if you were talking to an emotionally healthy person, there is a reasonable amount of information being exchanged that this repeated behavior of theirs is harmful to you. It is hurtful to you. This is a very, very, very common thing with a narcissist parent, with a parent with unmanaged BPD, is that there is this pattern of harmful behavior. It is made clear to them, although there is oftentimes a denial on their end, right? Or a refusal to accept that their behavior is harmful. Your parent might say, You're being too dramatic, you're too sensitive, it's not that big of a deal. I didn't mean to hurt you, but all of that is irrelevant because when someone gauges engages in a pattern of behavior, not like an isolated incident, but a pattern of behavior, doing the same thing over and over and over again in a relationship, that is hurtful. And they don't take a step back and say, I really care about this person. I don't want to hurt this person. So I need to seek out support and help and guidance to learn and understand why I continue to hurt them when I don't want to hurt them. When your parent doesn't do that, they are choosing to engage in a pattern of behavior that is harmful to you. And so their intent doesn't really matter because intent goes to, well, do they mean to hurt you? They might not think that you should be hurt by their actions, but they know that their actions do hurt you. And they're still not motivated enough to take action to learn how to do things differently, to learn how to engage with you in a way that isn't hurtful or harmful. That right there is the mindset shift that so many of us benefit from is it doesn't matter if they want to hurt us. It doesn't. And I know it feels like it does. I know it feels like that answer has meaning and that we need to know it because there's hope if our parent doesn't want to hurt us and that hope is lost if they do. And it feels it can feel like there's so much meaning in that. Do they want to hurt us? Do they not want to hurt us? And that oftentimes is just so far out of the information that we have access to. And I think it's so much more complicated, and also it's so much less significant than it feels like it is, because we have to operate in the world of what is really happening here. We have to operate with radical acceptance of this is the dynamic. It doesn't matter if their intent is bad, if they continue the behavior they know has a negative impact. If they continue the behavior that they know hurts their child, the intent doesn't matter anymore. And it doesn't matter because it's irrelevant. If they intend to hurt you, they're doing it. And if they don't intend to hurt you, they still aren't willing to inconvenience themselves, to make themselves uncomfortable enough to seek out support to change their behavior. And we have to operate within the world if we want to be healthy adults ourselves, of this is the reality of what is happening. And so whether or not they want to hurt me, they are hurting me. And what do I want to do in response to that? That's the world where we start to make more active decisions around our boundaries, around how we're going to engage with our parent, around how much information we share with them, around what types of information we share with them, what types of information we don't share with them. This is how we start making more active decisions that are reflective of who our parent is today. And it's tricky and it is hard. And that is one of the reasons why it is so helpful to learn more about things like radical acceptance and grief and identifying our own emotions and processing those and understanding the deeper layers of these family dynamics, which is why, if you are feeling like you are struggling to fully grasp the reality of what's going on with your parent, if you feel like you're struggling to accept this dynamic for what it is, to grieve the parent that you deserve but didn't get, I really encourage you to check out the Cycle Breakers Vault with the worksheets, the workshops, the videos that I've recorded over the past year for the confident boundaries membership, because I go into more detail in those things about actively moving through the practice of radical acceptance, actively grieving the parents that we deserved, but we didn't get, whether you're in contact with your parent, whether you're in no contact, whether your parent has past like mine. These things are so complicated. And yes, this podcast, we can go into a lot more detail than I can on TikTok or Instagram, TikTok videos or Instagram reels, but there is still so much more to be said. So if you're looking to go a bit deeper, definitely click that link in the show notes and check out the Cycle Breakers vaults. And until next time, take care, you guys. I'll see you guys next week where we dive into a whole new topic on breaking the cycle and dealing with narcissistic parents of parents with unmanaged BPD. I'll see you then. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the Your 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.