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 episode of the You're Not Crazy podcast. I have been working hard behind the scenes putting together a guide. If you follow me over on Instagram, you probably saw on my stories that In the next few days, I will be releasing my guide, Surviving Interactions With a Narcissistic, Emotionally Immature, or Otherwise Toxic Parent, and I am really excited Because it answers questions I get all the time in my DMs and comments, and walks you through how to go from dreading and avoiding thinking about dealing with an upcoming interaction you're about to have with your parent, which we all know takes up an immense amount of mental space and emotional capacity to actually walking you through a clear, repeatable plan that you can go through yourself every time you know that you're going to be interacting with your parent As I like to say, there's not a secret sauce when it comes to navigating dysfunctional family dynamics. It's not magic. It is something you can learn and you can replicate in your own life. Now, all that to say, it is complicated, and it is nuanced, and when you are in it, when you are living it, it is very chaotic, and it is incredibly hard, if not impossible, to see clearly what is going on and what is actually going to help you and where your energy and your effort are best spent in order to protect your emotional capacity and your sanity. That's why this guide is helpful, because it walks you through a plan as to what to think about, what decisions to make ahead of time, how to help yourself prepare so that in the moment when you're triggered, when you're flooded, when your family is trying to bait you into arguments, how you're going to handle those situations in a way that doesn't leave you spiraling in shame for days after. Like I said, it's not magic It truly is something that you can learn and implement into your own life My goal for you, for anyone who I'm working with, anyone who goes through the Cycle Breaker's Vault or works with me individually or grabs a copy of the guide, my goal for you is for you to leave with more clarity and confidence addressing your family dynamics That is something that is achievable. That is something that is possible, and it is something that is a game changer so more about that next week, but just letting you know that is coming out on the horizon. And if you're following me over on Instagram or if you're on my email list, which you can join by grabbing the free download in the show notes, I will be letting you guys know as soon as it comes out Otherwise, I'll tell you more next week. Which brings us back to this week's episode of the podcast where I thought we could talk about what is actually mean. This is something that comes up all the time. When you grow up in this type of complicated and dysfunctional family dynamic You are often praised Or at the very least, you often feel safest When you are doing things to appease your emotionally immature parent, your narcissistic parent, your parent with unmanaged BPD maintaining the calm Appeasing your parent, not rocking the boat, all of those things are what keep you safe, and they are often the times what are referred to as like the, quote-unquote,"right thing to do in your family." And therefore, if you make a decision that is in conflict with those things, with those goals You may be told or it may be implied that you're being mean, that you're not a kind person, that you're a selfish person And what often gets conflated in these types of family dynamics is the idea that it is kind for you as a child to regulate your parents' emotions for them. That is a kind choice. That is a kind behavior. That is a kind act. And it's not. That's not what kindness is about Being kind is being considerate. Being kind is being thoughtful But what we're describing in these situations is not about kindness at all What's happening there and what's being described as kindness is you as a child taking on the adult responsibility for managing the temperature of your household the idea of kindness is really describing that you're behaving in a way that allows the adults outside of your narcissistic parent or your parent with unmanaged BPD It allows the adults to avoid confronting your parent and holding your parent responsible for their behaviors. And in these types of households, that's not a desirable place to be It's not fun to hold someone who's a narcissist accountable for their behaviors. It's not fun. They don't receive that well. That's not something that is appreciated, and it's often met with a lot of hostility, and it can be met with rage and anger and punishment, et cetera. And when you're dealing with a parent with unmanaged BPD, you're dealing with a parent who is incredibly emotionally volatile And aside from it not being a pleasant experience to hold a parent like this accountable for their behaviors It can be really scary too. It can be scary when you're dealing with a narcissistic parent. It can be scary when you're dealing with a parent with unmanaged BPD. It just tends to look a little differently in both situations. And so Growing up in this type of dynamic, you're led to believe that the kind thing to do is to help your parent regulate their emotions, not really help them even, to take on that responsibility for them so that they don't have to do it for themselves. And by doing that, you make your other parent's life easier as well. Kindness in these types of dynamics mean that The adults don't have to confront the reality of what's happening. They don't have to confront the dysfunction. They don't have to deal with the fallout of confronting the reality of what's going on And so if you grow up and you go to therapy and you're working so hard on breaking the cycle in your own life, and you start to learn how to set healthy boundaries and identify what your boundaries would even look like A couple of things happen. One you can feel like you're a mean person for even thinking about wanting to set a boundary or needing to set a boundary. That can be internal, this feeling that I'm not a nice person for doing this. I'm not a nice person for saying no. I'm not a nice person for not helping my parent. And This idea of you taking care of yourself and respecting your own capacity and prioritizing your emotional wellbeing over regulating your parents' emotions for them can also be labeled as mean by the rest of your family And so it gets so tricky because As a cycle breaker You want to be a kind person. That's part of breaking the cycle. That's a big part of breaking the cycle, is not wanting to harm others in the way that you've been harmed yourself And so having this conflict that arises when you go to do something different, when you go to do and implement this thing that is vital for your emotional health and wellbeing that leaves you worrying or believing that you're being a mean person, that's a really hard thing to do. It's really hard to overcome that feeling that, my gosh, I don't wanna be a mean person. This is not a very nice thing to do. And I think it's really important to untangle what it actually means for you and what you were actually told it means to be nice, and to ask yourself Is it actually mean for me to set this boundary? Is it actually mean for me to prioritize myself? Is that mean, or is it inconvenient to my family? Is it undesirable to them because my parent is likely to act out in response to that, and they don't wanna deal with that? Am I being mean, or am I taking care of myself and allowing other adults like your parent and your adult siblings to be responsible for managing their own emotions and their own behaviors. It is not mean to take care of ourselves. It is not mean to allow other adults to be responsible for their own emotional regulation. Now, what would be mean would be doing something that is cruel Attacking someone, shaming them, being incredibly critical or judgmental, those things are not kind. Those are unkind things. But that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about implementing a boundary We're talking about taking care of ourselves. In doing so, when you've grown up in this type of dysfunctional family dynamic, usually has a ripple effect of being inconvenient and uncomfortable for other people in the family. But that's not unkind. There's a huge difference there It's uncomfortable for them, it's unpleasant, but it's not unkind of you to make that shift And so if you've been struggling with worrying that you're being mean, that worrying that you making different choices in your own life, in your relationship with your family that allow you to take care of yourself emotionally is mean I really hope that reflecting on what it really means to be mean and what it actually means to be kind and the messages that you've been sent around those things is helpful It's not going to necessarily make it feel good or safe to do in your body. Your body is probably still gonna feel really uncomfy around doing it, but it's gonna be one less barrier that you have to overcome in order to do the thing that
you want and need to do:set the boundary One quick note before we wrap up. It is July, and July means that we are rapidly approaching our two-year anniversary of the You're Not Crazy podcast. I'll talk more about this next week and my feelings around it, but I am just immensely grateful for all of you who show up to listen every week and For those of you who have reached out to let me know that the podcast has been a helpful resource and support in your own healing journey, it means so much to me. I never in a million years imagined the incredible community of cycle breakers that we would build through this podcast, and I don't wanna ramble too long today, so I'll share more of my thoughts next week. But I just wanted to say thank you very much for being here, and I'm really excited for what the future of this podcast has in store. On that note, take care of yourself, and 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