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, Torie Wiksell, a therapist with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. I also happened 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'm recording this on Tuesday morning, so thank you for bearing with me, getting this out a little bit late to you. I am freshly back from my first actual vacation in like, four years, so I am feeling very happy and refreshed. At least as refreshed as one could be after returning from a vacation with a toddler Welcome to everyone who joined the Cycle Breakers Vault last week. It's very exciting to see new people going through the course, and like I mentioned last week, I'm in the process of updating the workshops that are in there, updating the slides, cutting them down, and adding in them so that you can power through them as quickly as possible, which is an art form in itself, cutting down a workshop into the least amount of information that you need to fully walk away with the understanding and direction that you need to take that concept and run with it in your own life. So that is a work in progress But my goal is to be done with that in the next couple of weeks. So keep an eye on it and And I'll let you know when it is officially done. Today I want to talk about self-doubt and gaslighting. When you grow up in a dysfunctional family system, when you grow up with a parent who has unmanaged borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, as an adult, it is very common to struggle with self-doubt, to question yourself, these feelings are so common when you grow up in this type of family dynamic, and there are many reasons for that. But a big one of those reasons is the gaslighting that is really commonplace in these types of family dynamics. So let's talk about gaslighting, because people hear this term and it gets misused and it gets misinterpreted And what's incredibly common is When you have a parent like this and you confront them about something that they did or said that was upsetting to you, that was hurtful towards you they tend to not take accountability for that. And so they'll deflect, they'll blame you they'll question your memory. They'll say things like,"That's not how that happened. You're being so dramatic. You're too sensitive. I don't know what you're talking about." All of those responses deny reality. And when we're talking about gaslighting, essentially gaslighting is this concept that describes when you're in a relationship with someone and that other person denies reality and insists that what actually happened didn't happen. And they do it with a straight face, and they do it in a way that is really unnerving because when you are typically talking with someone about something that happened and you both were there to experience that event, the last thing on your mind is that the person that you're talking with is going to pretend like the thing you both know happened didn't. But when you grow up with a parent who is emotionally immature, who is who is manipulative, who goes about getting their own personal needs met in really dysfunctional ways. When you grow up with a parent like this, you're growing up with a parent who does not take accountability and it's even more complicated because with an emotionally immature parent, yeah, they're not taking accountability maybe they're embarrassed and they lack the skillset for handling the really uncomfortable emotions that come up for all of us when we're embarrassed about a way we behaved, or we feel shame, or we feel like It's confusing and upsetting to have someone that we care about Explain that we have hurt them in some way. That's what it's like for an emotionally immature parent to deny reality. It's this immaturity in their ability to have this very adult interaction where they've been told that they have intentionally or unintentionally, oftentimes unintentionally, hurt someone that they care about in some way, and they don't have the skill set to handle that appropriately. And so they deflect, they blame, they deny, they do all these things. But when you're dealing with a narcissistic parent, when you're dealing with a narcissist parent, a parent with unmanaged BPD, it's different while they also may deny or rewrite history, while they very well may also gaslight you in response to this, the intent is often different with a narcissist parent, there's this grandiosity. There is this belief that they know best, that they are not subject to follow the rules that the rest of us are because they're smarter and they know better and whatever their goal is in their mind, it's always justified to do the things that they do in order to meet their needs, to achieve their goal, whatever it is. And so when you're dealing with a narcissist parent, a lot of that deflecting, gaslighting, blaming, shaming is coming from this perspective of, " I don't owe you an apology. I don't owe you accountability. I don't owe you anything," because their was a valid reason for why I did what I did, and I'm not sorry about it. When you're dealing with a parent with unmanaged BPD, they may sometimes take accountability, they may sometimes deflect. That can be even more confusing because you're not exactly sure what version of your parent you're going to get at the moment. If it's going to be someone that's gonna be really explosive and feel really scary around, who's gonna deny reality, who's going to attack you, or if it's someone who might be able to hear and process what you're saying. But in those moments where your parent does act out and become really emotionally volatile and does the same thing that we're talking about with emotionally immature parents and narcissist parents, deny your reality, rewrite history, pretend what you both know happened didn't happen, it is equally disturbing and jarring And with a parent with unmanaged BPD, there could be various reasons for why they respond in this way. But one of the things with unmanaged BPD is the intensity of their emotions. And so your parent may feel hurt by you confronting them about something that they've done that has hurt you. And I know that is probably crazy-making to hear, but it's very well a reality in some of these dynamics. And when you have a parent with unmanaged BPD and they're feeling hurt, their pain can be so intense that yours is irrelevant. It's like this idea that no one can experience the level of pain that they're feeling in that moment. And so How you're feeling? Not only does it matter, but in some cases your parent can be acting out in this way that they want you to feel an ounce of the pain that they believe that you've just inflicted on them. And that is very dysfunctional and very toxic and very abusive. And so you're dealing with these types of parents where when you're trying to address something that's happened that has impacted your relationship with them, right? This-- these are the reasons why we confront. And when I say confront, I don't mean attack. That hopefully is not getting miscommunicated here. But when you confront your parent, it's going to them, it's saying, "Do you remember this event, this thing? It hurt me. This is how I'm feeling, and this is why." Those are attempts at repairing the relationship because you care about the relationship. You want the relationship to be better. You want them to understand you. You want them to see where you're coming from and to validate you, to learn from this experience so that you can have a healthier relationship. And when in turn they respond by denying reality, rewriting history, it is very unnerving. It is very confusing for our brains. Our brains aren't set up to handle a world in which people operate like that, and the reality is most people don't. When you're going about the world, the reason why your brain doesn't expect this is because this is a very abnormal, unusual, interaction. Most people can agree about the thing that's happened happening. Even if there's some different interpretations of intent or the way something happened, maybe you recall someone wearing a blue shirt and the other person recalls them wearing a red shirt. There are, like, subtle differences like that but this idea that an event didn't happen at all or happened in a way that is completely different than it actually happened is not something that we typically experience your brain doesn't know what to do with that, and it's really confusing, it's really upsetting, and your brain tries to make it make sense. How can you have this one perspective and the person that you're talking to, that you care about, your parent, who is supposed to be this person that unconditionally loves you more than anyone in the world, how can they have this completely different perception and experience? And one of the ways that your brain tries to make this make sense is it starts to question and doubt your own recollection. Maybe you're the one that's misremembering. Maybe there is some truth and validity to what your parent is saying, especially when they say it with such a straight face, with such conviction, with such confidence. It's really unnerving. That is essentially gaslighting and what gaslighting looks like. That is where a lot, not all, there are other things that contribute to self-doubt, but that is where a lot of self-doubt comes from, and that is largely the phenomenon that cycle breakers experience when they feel crazy, and they feel like they can't trust themselves, and this bleeds into so many of the things that are necessary for breaking the cycle This self-doubt makes it really hard to set boundaries. It makes it really hard to make complicated and tough decisions, are you going to go to a family function? Are you not going to go? You start to question, are my decisions valid? Is my perspective on this relationship in its totality appropriate? Is it accurate? Self-doubt bleeds into so many aspects of our cycle-breaking journey, and it makes it so much harder to do the work that we need to do in order to live a healthy, peaceful life and heal from the trauma and the abuse and the dysfunction that we've grown up in. I will circle back next week to talk to you about another fun topic having to do with growing up in a dysfunctional family dynamic. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to leave a five-star review. It truly helps the podcast grow and I'm so grateful and appreciative of it. Thank you to everyone who has shared the podcast with a friend. Thank you to all of you who continue to share posts about the podcast on social media. I so greatly appreciate it. And I wanted to take a quick second to thank you once again So until next week, take care of yourself and I'll talk to you soon. 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