Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for adults with narcissistic, emotionally immature, and otherwise toxic parents. I'm your host, Tori Wicksell, a therapist and boundaries coach with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. I also happen to grow up with a narcissist mom and know a thing or two about how crazy-making these relationships can be. I'm so excited to show you the light at the end of the tunnel and what it actually means to break the cycle of dysfunction that we grew up in. Now, let's jump into the show. Welcome back to this week's episode of the You're Not Crazy podcast. Over the weekend, I put out a second episode of You're Not Crazy, the private feed for January. And in that episode, I talked about embracing the villain role. It's been a minute since I've talked about that on the podcast, and it comes up so much in my comments, in my DMs, in the conversations that I have with people throughout the day. So I wanted to circle back and revisit that conversation because I think that it's a really game-changing mind shift set to have as a cycle breaker. And I think we get so hung up in worrying about being painted as the villain and that not being an accurate representation of us, which it's not. So I totally understand not wanting to be painted the villain. And at the same time, I think learning to embrace the fact that you're going to be the villain in your toxic parent story is so important to your overall healing, to navigating your relationship with them, just to managing the entire situation with your toxic parent and your family dynamics. So if you're interested in that, definitely click the link in the show notes to check out the private feed. For today's episode, I want to talk about boundaries with our families and our toxic parents and the many complicated layers that go into that. If you have been a longtime listener of the podcast, you probably remember that last year I released an online course called Confident Boundaries with Toxic Parents, where I take you through how to effectively set boundaries with the toxic parent. It is quite literal, the name of the course and what it does. The unique thing about that course is I don't just tell you this is how you set a boundary with a toxic parent. There is a workshop. It's an hour long in there where I do tell you that and I teach you how to go about doing that. But it also expands on that in that the beginning of the course, I really talk about the aspects of toxic family dynamics that are really important for everyone to understand if they want to effectively set a boundary with a toxic parent. And then I also go into dealing with manipulation, forms of manipulation that really lead so many people to backtrack on their boundaries. Things like the guilt that comes up for us, cycle breakers, and gaslighting, which can be so unnerving and confusing and really make us doubt ourselves. That course is still available if you're interested in it. I'll also throw the link into the show notes and you can totally check it out. It's self-guided and you can go at your own pace. You can circle back whenever you need a refresher. If you wanted to power through in a day, you totally could. And if you wanted to spread it out and do chunks at a time, you could do that too. But it's not this huge time and energy investment, which I know can be super intimidating and overwhelming in and of itself. On that note, though, let's talk about boundaries for today's podcast episode. Boundaries are so interesting. I think that a lot of the time when we're talking about boundaries, people get confused as to what a boundary really is, what it looks like, how to go about setting it. I think a lot of people think that they're setting boundaries effectively or they're setting a boundary. And in fact, they're not really setting a boundary. I think they're far more complicated than it seems that they are. So for today's episode, I want to talk through some challenges that I notice coming up time and time again for people when they're wanting to set a boundary, when they're trying to set a boundary in their complicated and dysfunctional family system. And just my thoughts around those things. And hopefully you will leave this episode feeling a bit more clear on why certain things might have made boundaries more challenging in the past, or maybe some things that you can do differently moving forward if it's something that you're actively working on. When you go to set a boundary with anyone, but especially with a toxic parent, I highly recommend you do not use the word boundary at all. Don't say, this is my boundary, I'm setting a boundary, anything along those lines. You do not need to use the word boundary in order to set a boundary. That word is irrelevant. Boundary is a great word to use when talking with your therapist. It is a great word to use when we are referencing that we are trying to set a boundary, like in the course or on this podcast, but it is not a great word to use when you are actually trying to set a boundary because it is extremely triggering for a lot of people, especially toxic parents tend to get incredibly triggered by the word boundary. They hear it as you're telling them what to do and what not to do. And it's a super triggering word. And so get that word out of your vocabulary. Do not use the word boundary. And remember that it is not a necessary word to use in order to communicate a boundary. Boundaries are really you communicating to someone that moving forward, this is how my behavior is going to shift so that you can have clarity as to how you can expect to interact with me. And I know that probably sounds a little ambiguous, but essentially that's what a boundary is. So, for example, if you have a parent who is notorious for calling or texting you late at night repeatedly, this is something that can be really common with toxic parents, is them blowing up your phone way too late at night when you're trying to relax and expecting you to have a response to them in that moment. So a boundary around that would not be you saying something like, I have a boundary around when you can reach out to me. That's not going to be a boundary that you set with them because that's just going to be super triggering for them. But something that you could say to your parent is, I'm not going to be responding to texts or voicemails that I receive after 7 p.m. from now on. I would appreciate it if you didn't reach out to me that late. But if you do, I'll circle back with you within two days. What you want to do is you want to say, I'm changing my behavior. What I've done in the past, I'm not going to do anymore. You can totally ask them to work with you, collaborate with you by not calling you, but you can't control their behavior, right? You can control yours. I'm not going to answer my phone. I'm not going to respond to text messages, and I will circle back with you when I have the ability to. That is a really appropriate boundary to set with a toxic parent. Now, sometimes the toxic parents, they escalate their behavior when we set a boundary with them. And so if that is the case, you want to make sure that you're prepared for that. And before you set any boundary, you need to know how you're going to enforce that boundary. If your parent starts leaving berating messages because you're not answering, you're not responding right away, they're not respecting this boundary that you'll get back to them within a couple of days or a week, then it is really important to have a game plan as to how you want to proceed. Are you going to remind them of the boundary? Remember, I told you that I'm not doing that anymore. And I'll circle back to you within blah, blah, blah, X amount of days. I think this is a really appropriate first response when someone violates your boundary, especially a toxic parent, because toxic parents lack healthy emotional regulation skills. They're not going to, in the heat of the moment when they feel really passionately that they need to get a hold of you, they're not going to suddenly be able to regulate their emotions, stop themselves from texting you or calling you. That is very unlikely to happen because of the fact that they are dysregulated. And so they're probably going to do something that people who are dysregulated do, which is act impulsively and panicked and have this very emotion-driven response. And so I think giving them an opportunity to course correct and to say, remember, I'm not going to be reaching back out to you for a day or two or a week, whatever it is really helpful because you are also going to be wanting to enforce the fact that you're not going to suddenly respond, right? Your parent might not change their behavior. If they continue to overload you with messages and phone calls, that's a different situation that you're going to have to figure out how you want to address. But what often happens is someone sets a boundary at the toxic parent. They tell them, I'm not going to be responding to calls. If you text or call me, I'll get back to you within a couple of days or a week. And then their parent is pushing back on that boundary by like the next day texting, are you okay? I'm worried about you. What's going on? These types of things. The really panic text, right? Or you don't even care if anything happens to me. How do you even know if I'm alive? Really intense things, right? Emotionally dysregulated parents, toxic parents do not have healthy communication skills. They don't have a healthy way of getting their needs met. They have very dysfunctional ways of getting their needs met. And so it is really common when you try to set a boundary like this, your parent is going to amp up, like I said, before things change for the better. What that means for you is that you're likely going to get triggered, right? If things get worse before they get better, it's going to be really distressing before it calms down. And what is very common is that when it gets really distressing before it calms down, what often happens for cycle breakers is that we go into survival mode too. Our parent is really flooded, they're dysregulated. That is super upsetting and triggering for us. And so we go into this like historical response that we've had to survive, where we're just trying to put out the fire. We just want them to stop, to calm down, to make this stop so that we can finally breathe and feel grounded again. And when we do that, when we immediately respond to them, we're communicating nonverbally to them that that boundary that I just sent, where I said I was gonna circle back to you within two days or a week. You know that I just said that, but I don't really mean it. Because if you panic and you violate my battery by bombarding me with text messages, I'm not going to enforce this boundary and I'm going to engage with you before I feel ready to. So it essentially what that's saying to your parent is if you keep doing the thing that feels better to you in the moment, when you're flooded, if you keep reaching out to me because you unconsciously expect me to regulate your emotions for you, then I will do it. You just have to go far enough that it upsets me enough for me to put my own needs to the side and regulate your emotions for you. That's what's happening there. That's the dynamic. And so when you don't enforce boundaries, when you don't have a plan to enforce boundaries, your parent learns that anytime you set a boundary, you don't really mean it. And if they just push hard enough, you'll back down from that. They can still get you to regulate their emotions for them as long as they make you uncomfortable enough. Obviously, these aren't like conscious thoughts most people are having, but this is like the cycle that is happening and unfolding. And so it's really important when you go to set a boundary with a toxic parent that you have a plan for enforcing that boundary. Part of that plan for enforcing that boundary has to be understanding and walking yourself through how you're going to regulate yourself when your parent pushes back and triggers that survival response for you. When your body reacts, when it feels like you are going to drown in guilt or fear or stress or anxiety, if you don't cave and just reach out to them and respond to them and call them, if you don't have a plan for how you're going to help your body manage through that, it's going to be really hard to navigate through that. It's going to feel almost impossible to navigate through that. But if you have a solid plan for the fact that this is likely to happen, the pushback, and you are capable of managing that. And these are some ways that you can do that. Even though your parent calls you 30 times in a row and leaves really stressful messages for you, you can still wait those two days to return their call. You don't have to be on call for your parent, period. But when you have set this boundary that you need a day or two to circle back with them, you have every right to take that day or two to circle back with them. And even if they're panicky, you can still wait the day or two to circle back with them. They might be angry about that, but that doesn't mean that you can't do it. Enforcing the boundary is waiting the two days and not engaging when your parent is panicked. Because the reason you're setting this boundary to begin with is because it's so distressing for you to be in this cycle, right? The boundary only gets set when it's necessary, when it's worth it to do the work to change the dynamics in the relationship, because not changing them is so toxic and unbearable and has such a negative impact on your life. If it wasn't that big of a deal, you probably wouldn't go through the effort to set the boundary in the first place. But it is a big deal, which is why it's so important for you to have that plan. So that is my very quick tutorial of setting a boundary, what often goes wrong, what is helpful, what to keep in mind. I really hope that this was helpful. I hope it was somewhat enlightening for you, which I'm sure is probably all of us who have a toxic parent who have tried and failed to set boundaries that work in the past. Like I said, if you're looking for more support, creating a clear plan for setting effective boundaries that really work with toxic parents, you can check out the confident boundaries of toxic parents course. I'll drop that link in the show notes. And until next time, you guys take care and I'll see you soon. Bye. 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.