Caring for Aging Narcissistic Parents: How to Protect Your Peace After No Contact | Part 1 ⭐

What happens when an abusive parent grows old?

For many survivors of narcissistic abuse, this is one of the most complicated questions they'll ever face. Society tells us to honor our parents, but very few people talk about what happens when those parents were the source of lifelong trauma.

In Part 1 of this conversation, Katherine shares the story that led to one of the hardest decisions of her life. She opens up about growing up with a malignant narcissistic father and a covert narcissistic mother, becoming a cycle breaker for her own children, and the unexpected phone call that changed everything.

After years of estrangement, Katherine and her siblings suddenly found themselves responsible for navigating the legal system, healthcare, finances, and elder care after her father attempted to kill her mother. What followed challenged everything she thought she knew about boundaries, responsibility, and protecting her own peace.

This episode begins an honest conversation about something few people are talking about: caring for aging abusive parents.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Growing up with narcissistic and abusive parents
• Becoming a cycle breaker for the next generation
• Why childhood trauma can remain hidden for decades
• The role of healthy relationships in healing
• Going no contact with abusive parents
• The phone call that changed everything
• Being thrust into managing aging parents' legal, medical, and financial affairs
• Survivor guilt, family expectations, and protecting your peace
• Why there isn't just one "right" way to navigate caring for abusive parents

If you've ever wondered what happens after going no contact, or you've worried about what you'll do when an abusive parent can no longer care for themselves, this conversation is for you.

Be sure to subscribe because in Part 2, Katherine shares practical options survivors have, why you don't have to choose between abandoning your parent and sacrificing yourself, and the resources she's creating to help others facing these impossible decisions.

Reasources mentions

Kong, J., Kunze, A., Goldberg, J., & Schroepfer, T. (2021).
"Caregiving for Parents Who Harmed You: A Conceptual Review."
Clinical Gerontologist, 44(5), 507–519.
DOI: 10.1080/07317115.2021.1920531

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to the Beyond Mommy Darius podcast, where we talk about growing up with narcissistic moms, how it shaped your nervous system, your relationships, and your sense of self, and how to heal without shame.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I'm your host, Nelani Pearl Hernandez. This episode is sponsored by the Happy Cannabis, body products designed to help you on your healing journey by supporting your nervous system with every application.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

When the parent who abused you grows old, in part one of my conversation with Catherine, we explore one of the most difficult questions survivors face and the journey that prepared her for it. Catherine, thank you so much for being here today. You know, one of the things that people don't get to see is that we get to like talk before. I usually plan out like an hour and a half for the time that I have with somebody because we're usually just meeting each other for the first time. And we only have one thing in common, which is psychopath narcissistic people in our lives. And for Catherine and I, yeah, I know, right? For Catherine and I, it is our mother, and then for you, you also were estranged from your father, too. And we'll get a little bit more into that. So um, thank you for being here. Thank you for being willing to share your story. And um, what I would love to do is just can you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your story and why you have started uh talking about it a little.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

First, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be able to communicate with people in this community. Um, I'm new to it, and I'm really finding that I'm interacting with some very, very wonderful humans, and I'm enjoying connecting with people, and their stories are so important, and I feel honored to be able to share mine. So thank you for having me. Um I was I was raised in the in the 70s in a Midwest college town, and I was part of a six-person family, three girls, uh, plus me and um my parents. One of my siblings was born assigned male at birth and has since transitioned. So I have three sisters, so four girls. Wow. Um, yeah. So um we grew up in a household that I just describe as violent. It was a violent household. There was my father was aggressive, he beat my mother for our entire lives in front of us. We were often between them, separating them, grabbing someone's neck, pulling them back. Um, it was a really violent way to live. Never knew where it was gonna come from, when it was gonna come. I was never able to identify triggers. Um, and then after an eruption like that, everybody was told to sit at the table and eat dinner as if nothing existed. Um, so uh then the the abuse flowed downward. So we were physically abused um by both of our parents. And um, and then both of them I did not realize until later in life, until this was a discussion that people were having. But both of my parents are narcissists. My father is a malignant narcissist and my mother is a covert narcissist.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Oh, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

So it was a cocktail of a lot of messed up stuff. Yeah, yeah. But as a child, I think um what made it hard to identify, what took so long for me to be able to identify it was that excuse me, it was also mixed up with so much love.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And those little bombs, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So much normalcy, so much support. I I had a good education, I ate very well, we went on vacations, we had a vast network of friends. Um, my parents were really respected in their community and they were um very connected with people and integrated into the town. And um I had exposure to lots of wonderful things, but when the doors closed, it was a powder keg.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

That's a great description. Yep. I'm sorry, that's I you know the thing that saved, I think saved me from being really fucked up was the fact that I had one maybe emotionally immature, but one normal parent. Um but I what I do have to say is with a malignant narcissist father and a malignant person is someone where you can really tell that empathy is not there. They're uh seditious. Yes. Um and it is like the things where you're like, holy shit, you see on TV, that's what a malignant narcissist looks like. Um, where a covert narcissist is um an odd that they found each other. That must have I can't even think about that.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

But bad combination. Bad never should have happened.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, right. Because a covert narcissist will act like a victim, will do all the things, will act amazing, go on vacations, um, be a leader in the community, do all those things. And as soon as the door closes, it's a totally different story. So I first just want to say I'm incredibly sorry that you went through that and you didn't deserve anything, didn't deserve any of that. And uh now you're this wonderful person who's outspoken about it, but you have three amazing kids that you describe yourself as a cycle breaker, an abuse survivor. So tell me, I already know what it means, it looks like because you have three really great kids, but tell me what does that cycle breaking mean to you personally?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

So um I I was still very much within a fog of um my parents' relationship with me, with each other, with the world when I got married. I got married in my late 20s. Um, my husband and I had three kids, and I was very, very close with my parents all the way through my entire adult life.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Oh, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

So this was not a rupture that happened, you know, at an early stage of my life. I was very much enmeshed with my family of origin for my entire life until about 50 years old. But um what I realized, what I thought I was gonna do in the beginning was raise my kids very much the way that my parents raised us. Because I looked at the four of us and I thought, we're we're good, you know, we're okay. I'm okay, you're okay, everybody's good. And and I and I idealized the the positives that happened in my family because there were plenty. But as I've since learned, a child will grasp onto those things because it's they don't want to see the bad stuff because you can't not love your parent. They are there to supply love and protection and safety for you. So even if they don't give it to you, you're going to imagine it's there because you need to. It's a survival instinct, right? So I was very attached to my parents and thought they had done a lot right. And then I started having my own kids. And my first child was a difficult infant, baby, toddler, teenager all the way through. Super overstimulated, very bright girl, but could not regulate herself. And I didn't know it at the time, but I understand now that I found myself very, very over-stimulated by her over-stimulation. And this child screaming in my face was very much like my dad screaming in my face or my mom screaming in my face. And so I um lost it a couple times. And then I had another kid and I lost it on her a couple times. And when I lost it on her once, I looked at her face and I saw fear. I can't do this. These little people who I made who are more important to me than anything in the whole world, I'm not going to fuck them up. I'm just not going to do it. Whatever force of will I can assert, I'm going to assert to make sure that I raise kids who are okay. Um, so I threw myself into books because I couldn't feel my way through it because I wasn't in touch with my feelings, right? Because I had disavowed them and been gaslit out of them for my entire life. Exactly. They were way down there. Yeah. Yep. They were wedged between the couch cushions. So I, but I could rely on my intellect. Yes. So I spent years just reading books and picking a piece from this and a piece from that. And oh, I was I see this in my kids, or I really relate to that, or I think this is something I can do. I think this is sustainable in my family. And I created an approach. Um, and luckily, my husband is the quintessential partner. So I would come home. This was before internet, right? So I would go sit in the parenting aisle on the floor at Barnes and Noble and pull shelves off. Yeah. And um, and I would get home and I would say, okay, I have an idea. We're gonna try this. So we would, and he was like, Yes, ma'am. And we would institute all of these strategies and procedures and approaches. And I noticed two things that fed my journey and made it easier to go on. The first was I recognized that the guilt that I felt when I lost it with my kids was so much worse than the effort I had to put into controlling myself so that I didn't have to do the wrong thing and feel the guilt. So it's kind of like I liken it to, you know, when you have a boyfriend in high school and he dumps you and you drive by his house and you call him and hang up and stuff like that. I just take it myself by going like this, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

1970s and 80s. That's how I answer the phone too. So it's okay. And this this I can't do it. You're good. And this totally you're good.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Can't do it. Sorry, guys. Um, but then you you pick up the phone and you have a conversation with him, and he's a dick to you, right? And you feel terrible about yourself, and you're like, why did I do that? That was so stupid. And then you do it again, and then you feel even dumber. And then the third time, you're like, you know what? Am I figuring this out or not? Because every time I call him, I feel like a jerk. So it was like that for me. I was like, every time I lose it with my kids, how bad I feel isn't worth the release that I feel by just refusing to control myself. Like, what am I? So I realized I felt more in control, more centered, better for them, a better parent when I rejected the anger and the violence that my parents had shown me, I thought was the right way to parent small people.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

You know, that's it's really interesting that you say this. I think, you know, one of the things I want to pick up on is quintessential partner, because I think for a lot of, and and I'll I'll gender this a little bit. I think for a lot of women, and I say this because I am a woman, when they have a partner who understands this and the dynamics of this, even if they didn't experience it, there is a comfort in knowing that you can mess up. Because the other thing that comes with the, you know, recovery from narcissistic abuse is this overachieving, you can't fuck up. It's a constant like in your head. Oh that was right. And so knowing that you have a partner who number one is gonna call you on your shit, like that, that for me is a big thing. Do it gently so that you don't always feel like a fuck up and then love you afterwards and then work with you to get there. That that uh when I say my husband saved me, I say that because that's just an inkling of that, right? And I think the other thing I want to point out is the fact that you felt bad after it. After like you not a narcissist, right? Feelings of being, yes, right. Whereas your mom, my mom, and your dad didn't at all. In fact, I would go even as far to say, because a malignant narcissist, your dad got off on that. Your dad was like, okay, right, this is what we're gonna do. And even covert narcissists, too. You know, I watch I it it's a flicker, right, in their eye. Like I watch my mom, I watch other people who I have um self-proclaimed that they're a narcissist because they usually don't get diagnosed, but I'll I see them and there's a flicker. You can always see that flicker in their eyes where it just turns. And it's crazy. It is, and I say that not in a way like I don't want to be and they like talk about disabilities and or anything like that, but it it is crazy when you see it in your face. Like, let's remove crazy from being a negative thing, um, and uh labeling someone to seeing that like it it you can't uh it's hard to explain it in until you meet someone uh like us where I can say did this happen, and you're like, oh my god, that happened all the time. Because when we say these things, when I say that my mom beat the shit out of me, or I say my mom locked me out of the house, or I say my mom called the police on me for questioning, like for having a question, and then lied and said I had a knife when she had a knife, so that when I came out to the door, they had guns drawn on me thinking that I was crazy, right? You're like, of course she did, and other people are saying that doesn't seem right. Well, no, it's not right, but it also happened. It also happened, and these are the things that I've that I think are really absurd because on the outside, if you and it sounds very similar, high achieving, you know, got good grades, was in sports, all those things, and then on the flip side, you have this constant internal struggle, and then the the cycle break very similar. You know, I was I had my daughter younger, I was, you know, I write out of high school when I had my daughter, and they kids don't come with books or guides, and she was, you know, very overstimulating. She had she feels big, and um it was definitely for me really hard because I was so young. And so there were a lot of mistakes that I made, and we have really come to terms with a lot of those mistakes where we've had conversations, she's now 30, and we've had these conversations where we can say, okay, that probably wasn't the best thing. And I still revert to those things where I, you know, I get triggered and I'll like very authoritarianly say something and then have to walk it back with her. Whereas my three youngest ones who are my bonus kids, so uh it's a little different, but still similar as a parent figure. I'm a very different parent with them. And and my our youngest daughter, my youngest daughter, very similar to like highly sensitive and emotions as my older daughter, they're like two peas in a pod. But because of my older daughter, I was able to really understand the younger daughter. And so um, I just first want to applaud you. Breaking the cycle is very difficult. Well, we'll applaud to we'll celebrate together. Um let's see if I can get um Apple to there we go. We'll celebrate together. Um, and you know, one of the things that you've mentioned, um, and I know I saw it on social media because it was one of the reasons why I reached out to you, was um being estranged from both your parents and um caring for them as they were older and transitioning, um going through the transition of their lives. And so what led you to that estrangement um in regards to that?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Um so it was a decades-long crawl. Um in my 30s, I started to because I had my own children and went through this sort of awakening through parenting my kids. I started to be able to see my parents for who they were. Um, they could not help it. And so I saw. Um, there was one time. Here's a really interesting little story. We we all vacationed together up on a lake um in northern Michigan every summer. And my husband and I would rent a cottage, and my parents actually lived on their boat. Um, they retired on, yeah. And so um I had three kids, and we rented a house one year that had a yard and then a road and then the water and the the sand, beachfront, and everything. And the road was a busy road, and it was 35 miles an hour, cars were whipping by. Right. And my kids were old enough so that under normal circumstances, they would go down to the water by themselves. But I was worried about this road, and I'd seen the pictures on the rental, you know, posting. And so I thought, how am I going to address this? And I went into the shelves in the garage and I grabbed those little orange cones that you get when you're a soccer coach, right? Yes. And I loaded them into the car before we left. When we got there, first thing I did was I took the cones out, I walked the kids down to the line between the yard and the road, and I laid the cones out. Yeah. And I said, here's the deal. You cannot cross unless there's an adult with you. If I'm not with you, yell, I'll come down. Someone will be down in a minute. You might have to wait, you might have to sit in the grass for a couple seconds, but you cannot go, do not cross this line. This because I wanted them to have a visual reminder, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

So my parents um pull up to have dinner with us the first night. My dad walks into the house and he says, What are those orange cones for in your yard? So I explained it to him, and he said, Well, why don't you just let him try to cross the road and then hit him? Oh my god. And I was like, uh, because I'm setting them up to be able to meet my expectations. Because I don't want to hit them. So it was it was lots and lots of stories like that. Um so, and then my husband and I um went through like a crisis together in our couple life, and my parents treated it like gossip around town and went so far as to say, really, just cracked out lies that were just not even remotely true, like so unbelievable that I wonder if when they were on the dinner party circuit, were people looking at them like are you not? Like, what were they even saying? Yeah. But um I sort of started to shield my heart against my parents in my late 30s, really. So I had a very functioning relationship with them, but I really did not do a lot of sharing about anything difficult in my life at that point. Fast forward to um my late 40s, and my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and one of my siblings is an oncologist, and she had my parents move in with her near the hospital where she practices, so that she would be the person administering his chemo. So you can do a lot of stuff with that, right? Her caretaking, the you know, the fact that my parents had always been such a mess that we as children felt like emotionally we had to we were safe, they were not. Um, and my dad was so incredibly verbally and emotionally abusive during this stay that there was one time. I was visiting for the weekend that he was becoming so violent. This is with cancer, like in like I don't even know how does somebody like that scream? I don't know. But he was so violent and horrible with my sister that I had to remove her four children from the house and then get her husband to go in there and break it up. So this is she's trying to actively save his life. Right, right. And he cannot even ungrateful, unbelievable and just ungrateful, yes. You know, I would expect ungratitude, like a lack of gratitude, but it was it was just like blatant abuse. And she's sitting there crying, and I'm thinking, what in the actual hell is yeah? So then what happened was um in one weekend, uh, we found out my mother was a very, very severe alcoholic. And I had to take her to rehab. So I have my dad who's post-op with cancer, my mom, who is an active alcoholic, and I am managing all of this. I find all of these prescription medications in their medicine cabinet. They're both taking a just a plethora of things they should not be taking. I went to a pharmacy in my hometown, and they let me behind the desk so that I could see all of my parents' prescriptions and tick off all of the things that I didn't want them to have anymore and have the necessary pills bubble wrapped and everything. In the middle of this, my dad decides to lose it on me. He's screaming at me, you never loved me, you've always been terrible, everyone hates you. The people in town feel so sorry for me that you're my daughter, just making up while I'm literally barely functioning because my parents are so messed up that I can't. And I'm 49 years old at this point, like I can handle myself, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

And he's like, get out, never come back. Um, so I said, Okay. And I tried to sit them down and say, You, this is a mess. You you're both a mess. And yeah, we can't help you anymore. We've been trying to save you from each other for 30 years, and I it's not working. So close the doors, figure your stuff out, and get better. Yeah. And um, because we would not stay and take their abuse, that's when they got complete, they went completely off the rails.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah, yeah. That's usually when a narcissist will go batshit. I mean batshit. I it's crazy. I, you know, it's been about 11 years, 10 years, uh, 10 to 11 years that I haven't talked to my mom. And I still get phone calls. We were just talking about it. I still get phone calls, but she goes straight to voicemail. I don't get her text, I don't see anything. And if I I ever need to be reminded of how crazy she is, because it takes 15 seconds. That's all it takes. Yep. It's hi, I love you, I love your husband, I love Albert, which that's a whole nother thing because she's a psychopath in regards to that. I love Albert. Why haven't you called me? You're a horrible daughter. I can't believe this. Your grandmother's saying this, your daughter's. I'm like, okay, that didn't take long. You know, and I usually time it, right? To see how long it takes. And for her, she can't fathom that it could be my strength that is keeping me away from her. And I I mean, it is my strength, and she met my husband. My grandfather met my husband first, and he was like, Don't mess this up. Because my grandfather was like super savior, super sweet. I love my grandfather, and he passed away when my husband and I like within the first year of us starting to date, and he was my dad's dad. But because my mom immigrated from the Philippines, my dad's family was really her family, like her chosen family, but really kind of took her in. And so my mom came out for my dad's funeral, and you know, my husband's so respectable, super like very tall, very handsome, 6'3. I'm 5'1. My mom's like 4'10. And he comes up to my mom to say hello and to introduce himself. And he's like, Hi, I'm Albert. And my mom, all 4'10 over, takes her hand and puts it right in his face and says, I don't want to talk to you. I only want to talk to my daughter. And I was like, Oh my god, why? Oh my god, oh my god, because she wanted to torture me. She went through that funeral. I I'm the oldest grandchild of my grandfather. And she went through that funeral and literally talked shit about me to everyone. And people were like looking at her like, what is wrong with you? I had um one of my cousins, my um older cousin's wives who I worked with, and she's like, What why are you saying this? She's, you know, she's doing all this great stuff for us at um where we worked. Why, why are you saying that? And more recently in the last like year and a half, I've connected with a second cousin who said, who's a therapist who said, Oh my god, yeah, she's crazy. And I'm not gonna diagnose her because she's not my patient, but your feelings are valid, is what she said. I said, I fucking knew it. I I didn't need you to say anything. How old were you at the time? When this how old were you with the so when my mom did that at the funeral? So I'm 49 now, so I would have been um just just 39, maybe 38. Um, and so I was an adult. I had a daughter who at that time was 20. So I had already raised my child, I had already done all the things. Um, you know, I had been married once to a crazy narcissist that was a total setup, but and you know, divorced. So I'd already been through life, I was single, doing all the things, and met my husband. Um, we talked about proximity being a real important thing. Like we worked on the same block, we like rolled with the same, like our community work was in the same area. So um I always tease him. He up he invited me to go out for coffee, and then like we met up at his house, and then I never left. And so I always I always tease him about that. But I mean it's when you feel that, especially as someone who has been through this like kind of narcissistic thing, abuse, it is like a very it is like a warm blanket, or like my little heating pads that I use all the time. That it just comes over you. And I don't know if that would be right the way you would describe your husband, but it's like it's like this warm blanket of safety. And so one of the things that I often deal with is this misconception. I don't deal with it in the healing space. So let me make that clear. No one in the healing space that is a real healer, so I'm not talking about Oprah's bullshit or Mel Robbins bullshit, where they say are you know, whoever else in the the fake healing sphere wants to say you're just being spoiled. You should probably, you know, stay in touch with your parents. But what do you think are the misconceptions that people have? Like, let's try to shake this up a little bit about adult children who are estranged from their parents. Like, what do you believe misconceptions can be?

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Um I think before I get into that, I should probably tell you the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Tell me, I'm yes, tell me the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Because the character of people's responses to me changed because the story changed. So I stayed in that space of estrangement with my parents for four years. Um, over four years, I think I spoke to them twice. Um, they would ask me. I communicated with them in writing a number of times. I tried to have constructive conversations with them, but they would get all narcissist y on me and it just wasn't possible. Um, so I stayed like that for four years. And I was really at that point doing it for my physical safety more than anything else, because I said to my husband, I I feel like this is taking years off my life. What my body goes through when I am subjected to them is like running a marathon every single time. I mean, I can feel it, the revving and the surging and and the amount of recovery time it takes and just what it does to my head.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

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SPEAKER_02 32:24

So I spent four years marinating in guilt, feeling really terrible, and got a lot from my very closest friends and from my kids and my husband. I got support. There were people, you know, you meet friends for cocktails or something, and they're like, I did get the, but she's your mom. So you're you're gonna, it's like you'll figure it out, right? As if they were sort of urging me toward it. And I was like, No, I'm I'm I don't have anything to figure out. They have things to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

I'm here if they figure it out. I'm not very useful, but no. Yeah. So um in March of 2024, I'm in this space. Oh, just as a footnote, my three sisters also separated from my parents at the same time. And there was no discussion between any of us. So interesting. It was individual but cohesive in a weird sort of way. No one said, Hey, I'm never gonna talk to them again. Okay, yeah, me too. It was just all of us knew at the moment this is not sustainable. My mother got kicked off. Wow, it was just a mess. We were like, forget it. So four years like that, March of 2024. Um, I get a phone call from my older sister at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was a Sunday, and um, she's crying. And my dad had just been arrested and jailed for strangling my mother and trying to kill her. Oh, wow. Um 82. He was 82 at the time, and she went 80.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

To do that, I d uh wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I swear that's one of the first things my sister and I said to each other was these people are never gonna stop. Like it's never, it's never gonna be over. As long as they're on the planet, this is what it's gonna be. Yeah. So this is the caretaking part. That was 3:30 in the afternoon. Um, by 9:30 that night, their church pastor had engaged for us an elder care attorney and a geriatric care specialist. We were on a conference call with them at 9:30 that night.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Having a glass of wine with my hand shaking like this. Um, and we were in court the next day, and we were charged with becoming their legal custodians and guardians. So we had to take over both of their entire lives. Um, my mother was still in the house, my dad was in jail, um, and we lived, we it took six months um for my sister and me to unravel their finances. They had blown through everything they had. Um, we had to find housing, we had to make decisions about health care. They didn't have doctors. I had to establish doctors for them. Um we worked, the two of us, from 7:30 in the morning until five at night, five days a week, just unraveling their lives. They had made such a mess of them. And it was assumed that we would be the dutiful daughters and take care of it. So we did. Um, and I don't, I don't think it's I I struggle to find words to describe what was happening in my body at the time. The moment that I took the phone call that said that my dad had tried to kill my mom and he was in jail, I I literally hit the floor. It sounds embarrassingly dramatic, but I was not in control of myself in the least little bit. I hit the floor and um I stayed like that for a while. I couldn't eat, I could not sleep, I couldn't stand. Um, and it was like everything that I had pushed down in my body, all of that trauma, it just you know, and I don't think that people understand what the nervous system, uh, the overload that that happens, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

I we were it's funny, we were getting ready yesterday. Um, our youngest daughter is graduating from high school, and she um was yeah, I know, I'm so excited. Um, she had a um, she was singing, she was picked as a soloist to sing with the jazz orchestra. So she sang, she was singing, um, play that funky music, white boy. It was so good.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

So here for that at her graduation, are you kidding?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, so and it was so cute because I told her, I said, I've never cried before to that song.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

It was just so cute, but yeah, not normally a crying song.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah, not normally a crying song, but I did cry. Um, but my hus my husband and I were getting ready, and I was, I I don't know what was bothering me. I think I had uh just recorded a podcast. So oftentimes like my nervous system gets a little bit um activated when that happens. And um, and I we had in our other business, we also help executive and organizations with like conflict and um their organizational health and all those things. So I was already kind of on overload and I was putting on my pants, and my husband was looking at me and I'm like wiggling my legs around, and he's like, What's the matter? I'm all my pants are touching me. And he's like, What? I was like, My pants are touching me, get them off, get them off. And he was laughing at me. But that's it's like it's like prickly touch for me. And I think for a lot of people, they don't understand where your body can shut down, where you can collapse. Uh, we've had people where we've talked to um one of my first guests um who I love to death, she um her with a romantic relationship that she was in in regards to the narcissism, and she um had MS and couldn't move, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, she had to relearn everything, and she was like, fuck this, I'm done. And so I think for a lot of people, they don't understand what this stress causes. And you know, in the context of our nation, there's a lot of stress that's going on anyway. So you take that and multiply it by like a thousand, uh probably even more, and people can understand when it comes to a romantic relationship or a familiar relationship what it's like because you don't get rest. Because when you're not with them, you're thinking about them, or you're thinking about like if it's let's say a um a previous partner and it's you know you're dealing with co-parenting, you're thinking about your kids with them, or you're thinking about whatever comes with that. And it is hard for people to understand that. And that's fine, they don't have to, but it's hard. So I when you say that you collapsed on the floor and you didn't move, I totally believe that. I totally believe that. And my assumption is your husband was probably bringing you water and food and trying to get you to move because that's the kind of person that I would assume because of the way you described him. That that's literally the same. Like my husband wraps me up in a blanket, brings me food. I have a little like Instagram that's like what it looks like to be cared for as a person who's been through this and your partner, like what a great partner looks like. So um I appreciate I appreciate, and um, I'm not envious of you having to take care of them. Even if you weren't physically taking care of them.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Well, that's what one of the things that we talked about before was like, how did I do that? And was I able to maintain some boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

So I will say a couple things were in my favor. First of all, we worked with professionals. Um, and this is something that I would like to hit on later, but um um we did have two professionals walking us through this. I resent the fact that we got put in touch with them to begin with, because no one asked us. I was conscripted, right? Um, nobody said, Do you want to care for your parents? Because I would have said, No, no, I quote you, let them cook. Yes. That's what I would have said. Yeah. But here was the rub, though. And this is um, you and I I sent you the study from clinical gerontology from 20 to 21. Yeah, and they have found that one in four of us who are caring for elderly parents are caring for parents who were abusive or neglectful.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

And that blows my mind. But also, I get it because I understand that a lot of our parents from that generation weren't equipped. I get it.

unknown 41:34

I get it.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

They weren't equipped, but there are also these other societal factors that are influencing why people are doing it. One of them is the ambivalence that I mentioned earlier. So there is still this feeling of, well, they they they sent me to college and I was I had good shoes and I was fed and we went on vacations. You tend to think that those are reasons, right? And for some people, yeah, like I'm not, you know, reasons are valid to whoever they're valid to, right? And so I embrace whatever people feel is right for them is exactly what they should be doing. Um, but the other factor is these filial uh bonds that you have. Right. My sister sat on that conference call. The lawyer said, Are you ready to do this? My sister stood up and said yes. And I went, yes. Because I knew that I couldn't leave her alone to do it.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Right, right. I'm an only child. Yeah, and so I get that. Yeah, so I get that I would probably feel more weight, especially because I would have been the oldest, I would have felt felt more weight to have to be there.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

See, so you won't have anyone saying to you, she didn't force me or anything. But when you when you grow up one of four small children in a house that is violent, you are climbing in bed together at night and putting the pillows over your ears together, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

And holding hands and doing all those. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

My sister and I used to walk each other back and forth down the hall to the bathroom at night to make sure even if the other was dead asleep, we'd wake them up and say, I have to go to the bathroom, and walk each other because we were too afraid to be out in the house in the dark because we didn't know what's gonna happen. Right. So it's it was that sibling relationship that pulled me into it. I was willing to let them go, but I couldn't let my sister go.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

That's fair, that's totally fair. And that was she was so but that's fair.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

The boundary, though, um, that I did have was because I had not spoken to them in four years, that I would do all of the work that needed to be done, but that I would not speak to them. That's it. To be too hard for me to hear their voices. Um, my dad was in jail. I was not willing to place a phone call to the county jail. You know, I live your life in such a way that you never have to place a phone call to a county jail. And I was living my life that way, and I just didn't do it. So between the four siblings, each of us took certain roles. So my sister, who's a doctor, I when I had healthcare things that I needed to communicate to both of them, I called her and said, call them and or call her or him because they were not together. Call her or him and tell them, you know, this this is what this person needs to do. But it was, it went on for six months, and then we got them settled to a point where the major decisions had been been made. We had their health care um taken care of, we had their finances unraveled, and my dad was sentenced to five years. Um, but get this, he was sentenced to five years house arrest because he was too frail and old to go to prison. So, what do you do about house arrest when the person he lives with he cannot live with because there's a restraining order because he tried to kill her? So uh we had to split up, you know. My dad had a pension, we had to split their pension and put them in separate facilities. We had to find an assisted living facility where he would go that was locked and that was willing to take a felon.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

I that's what I was gonna say, willing to take a convicted felon. You know, this what I will say, and we don't have to go down and we won't go down this path, but what I will say is that sniffs and smells very similar to the cover-up that we're seeing going on with the files that are not being released because there is a forgiveness. There is a that's gonna just be too hard, or that is uh, you know, the optics of putting an 82-year-old man in uh jail for five years is higher of an issue than than having safety for the person that he abused and assaulted and caused battery too.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

But that's a whole nother let me let me I have to I have to travel back just a little bit because during one of the things that was challenging was we also had to manage the legal landscape between the two of them, too. So there was a criminal trial going on, and then there were the the civil proceedings that my sister and I were involved in because we had to go to court and then go to court again, and we had to report back and forth to the court as their custodians and guardians, etc. Um, we were told in the very beginning from the arresting detective, and this is to your point, that the county that my parents lived in was typically lenient about domestic violence issues, and that he would likely get off with a wrist slap because they would, and this is a quote, chalk it up as a senior whoopsie moment. So I know, and you're laughing, but it wasn't funny at the time because we are first of all, I'm thinking I fucking hate both these people, but here I am in this position where I have to keep both of them safe from each other at the same time. So we uh discussed it, the siblings, and each of us decided individually we had to write victim impact statements. And we had to describe the violence that went on over 60 years. And it got in the hands of the county prosecutor, and there was a very, you know, dramatic made-for-TV movie moment where she stood in court and held a ream of paper up that was what we had written and said, I have here, you know, 40 pages from this man's four children that says this has been going on their entire lives and he's dangerous. So that was what got him convicted. If if we hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been convicted at all. He would have been released, and then we would have had a real safety problem on our hands. That's nuts. So this is something that I that's nuts.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Like holy shit, like I just I an abuser is an abuser, is an abuser. So if they're and and so let me say this, and this doesn't have to do directly with with your case, but if someone is sexually assaulting, sexually harassing, sexually doing any of those things, and they're 80 years old, they probably did it when they're 70, they probably did it when they were 60, they probably did it when they were, you know, 50, 40. Okay. Your dad was an abuser, physically abusive, verbally abusive from the time that you were a little child, probably even before that, too, with your mom.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

No, we actually know that, we know that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Right. To the time that he was 82. Holy crap. I can't believe this. And the the fact the statement that really is crazy about this is that domestic violence was taking like there was a lenience because of his age, and it was domestic violence. Like, that's crazy to me. Like I don't want my daughter to move to whatever county you're in. Is that's that's that's where I go with that because I'm like, holy crap, I can't believe that. All right, and I don't want my son to move there because holy crap. Like, because one of the things that I really want to point out is women can be abusers too. Just because we're two women up here and we're not abusive at all. Um, there's no intent, there's no thought, there's none of that. Women can also be abusers because your mom was abusive, my mom was abusive, all those things. Holy cow. Okay. So now you're taking care of your parents. You're not talking to them, but you're taking care of them. You're doing the legal stuff, you're doing all of the logistics stuff. And your one of your other sisters was physically taking care of them or going and visiting them, or were they visiting them at all, or everyone was just kind of remiss?

SPEAKER_02 50:55

My no, no one was visiting them. Um, my older sister went to the house that we grew up in, where my mother was still living one time to, and she went with an escort to make sure that she was not in there alone with her um to gather up all a lot of paperwork that she needed to be able to figure out what was going on with them financially and and healthcare wise. So that was it. Um, there were, I know a couple of my siblings spoke to them a couple of times. Um my dad used to call my sister from jail, um, but the only reason he ever called was because he needed her to make deposits in his account so he could buy razors. Oh, right. Um so it was uh it was six months of that when my sister and I and the other two, the reason it was only two of us um who were legally uh responsible for them was the court would only allow two. So we couldn't, you know, we would have split it between the four of us. That was one of the blessings of this, and always has been one of the blessings of my life, is that there was no discord between any of us. The four of us were completely on the same page at the same time at all times. Um not a tense word exchanged between any of us, and I think that just goes to the point of we were so accustomed to protecting ourselves together from our parents and caring for our parents together that we just fell back into the rhythm of our childhood and it was very caring because we weren't getting it from anywhere else. We were safety because we didn't have real safety. My younger sister calls it the life raft, the four of us, because we lashed some shit together and and paddled through it.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

I mean, so at the end of the six months, we um went back to court and we handed the care of them over to two professionals who are paid monthly out of my dad's um pension that he continues to get. We were worried that at some point they would stop it um if he was convicted of a felony, but they did not. So um, and then we really walked away. They don't have their old telephones anymore, and they don't know our phone numbers, so there's no way to contact us. And um, they haven't tried, honestly, because they love us, they're both still alive.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

That's that's crazy. That's crazy, that's crazy. I can't believe that. And um, I have to commend you for all of that. I'm just off, you know, we were just chatting a little bit offline, and holy crap, I like so much stuff. Like, I can't believe any of this stuff. And what we've decided that would probably be best is we're gonna do this into a two-part thing, uh, two-part podcast. I think it's really important because there's a lot of stuff that is really pertinent to a lot of women who are of our age who are taking care of their kids and taking care of their aging parents and really having questions of what they want to do, what they feel is best for them. And again, fuck Mel Robbins and fuck Oprah because and I know I'm gonna get some cease and desist for this, but fuck them. Like, it's so not okay for what I don't you know. My my son loves Spider-Man, and with great power comes great responsibility, and the two of those women have a lot of power, and they throw their responsibility to the wind. And that is not something that you can do, especially if you were telling a ton of people to go and go back to their abusers like that, that's not okay. And so I think that um, so we're gonna do a second around, so we're gonna continue on here, but what I think I want to do is ask this question, and then we'll end this first episode with this, and then we'll go to second episode and start in the middle again. So, one of the things that I think is really hard for a lot of um my clients, and I'm assuming others who have clients who have experienced this is grieving a parent who is still alive. And even though for you, you've gone through this whole process of you know, um, gaining uh conservatorship of them and going through all these things, they're still alive and you're still estranged from them, and still have to do stuff for them, which is which blows my mind.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

So, just so you know, I do not do anything for them anymore.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Perfect. You did all the initial part, you got them all.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

My deal was I will do this for that. Was the other boundary, I will do this until it is possible to walk away, and then I'm walking away, and I never want to hear anything about them again. I do not get updates from the legal people who represent them, I do not discuss them. I I am treating them as if they are no longer here.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

So tell me how how did you knowing that, you know, in the back of your mind, knowing that they're still alive, how have you grieved them in this process?

SPEAKER_02 56:36

I so obviously there's no body and there will be no service, and there will be no burial, and none of us will be there at their side. Um so it will be a solitary process for them. Um, and we won't have any of the benchmarks that people have when when a parent dies. And I think mostly what I grieve is not being able to have normal feelings about my parents. I've almost become a very unsympathetic friend because I hear people my age say, you know, my dad's really struggling, he's very sick and we're all devastated. And I say, Well, how old is he? And they say, 85. I'm like, girl, spike the ball. You got to 85, and you still love your dad enough to care if he's ill. That's amazing. Good for you. And people are like, Are you some kind of heartless bitch or what? And I'm like, no, you don't understand. I would pay so much money for that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, and I think that's the thing that people don't quite get. Like, because when I say let them let her cook, I'm not joking. Like, if that means because I've really thought about it, if that means that she's homeless, then she's fucking homeless. I don't care. Not that I don't care, like in the human sense, but I don't care because if she comes anywhere near me, I will lose the sense of who I am. She will abuse me on so many levels and then abuse my kids on top of it. Like my kid, I my bonus kids, like they've never met my mom, and I it not until recently, I think they thought that she was already dead because I don't I don't really talk about her.

SPEAKER_02 58:41

Talk about her, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

And so we were talking about something and we were talking just about parenting, and we had all the kids over, and I said, Y'all know that I don't talk to my mom, right? And they're like, Oh, she's right. But I said, Yeah. And they said, Well, why don't you talk to her? And I said, Because she's a narcissist, and you know, told them a couple stories, and they were like, Oh my god. Right. Whereas with my daughter, she knows her because she was, I was so young when I had her that there was no way to get around needing my mom's help. And I think for me that that is a real that's a real mind fuck, I think, for them. Because they're like But you know what?

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Congratulations to you though, because I think it's a victory also that you tell these stories to your kids and they're shocked because they've never experienced that.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Oh, they haven't, and that's the So that's good, yeah, 100%, which is you know, very something very similar for you too, where your kids probably are like, What? Like they were like that? Holy cow, right?

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Yeah, and it from what it sounds like to you, it sounds like they were not really good grandparents as well, you know, and on paper, they they you know, yeah, but my kids got a taste of who they were slowly, and I shared information with them slowly as it was age appropriate. So they did not know about the violence in my household and how I grew up until they were late teens, early 20s, and it was appropriate for me to give them that information and they could process it well. Um, but they did see, they understood that there were limitations to these people.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

And and that's something that's really important that you have to have. Because if you don't, then because they're narcissists, they will with your kids. They will fuck with your kids. And to me, that's like a really messed up thing. Like when my mom started messing with my daughter, that was really messed up because she, you know, started the medical abuse that was really similar to the medical abuse that occurred with me, um, which we'll get into more next the next podcast. I think that, you know, there there is always good that comes out of this stuff, even though it seems like it doesn't. And there's been some work that you've been doing. You talked about the study um that you were part of, which we'll share in the show notes so people can see it. But tell me a little bit about what you're currently working on, because I think that will be really poignant for a lot of the people listening.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Okay, I just want to clarify this is uh I I had nothing to do with the study. It's a paper um that was published in clinical gerontology in 2021. It's from researchers out of the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin. Um, and I came across it because I was just curious um about whether or not this existed in any sort of a trackable way in our country. I started following people on social media and becoming more aware of the conversation. Like I told you, I'm new at this. Um so I was just trying to get the lay of the land. And what I saw was that there's there are conversations about parental estrangement, narcissistic abuse, recovering from trauma and things like that. Lots of it, and some of it very good. Um, but uh there was nobody talking about what happens after you say let her cook and the neighbor from your childhood neighborhood calls you because they have your phone number from a long time ago and says, Your mother's been wandering the neighborhood, she doesn't know where she is. What do you do? Do you say let her cook? Click or are you going to feel that ambivalence, that pull of loyalty to other people in your family? Are you gonna feel like there is an honorable thing to do? However, you determine that is, whatever your definition of honorable is, it can be anything. Um, what does that look like? Is anybody talking about this? Because I got that phone call at 3:30 in the afternoon. And I thought that I was done. I was estranged. I had already said, let them cook. I was letting my mother drink herself to death. I knew that they were not getting the health care that they needed. I I decided to let them cook. And then all of a sudden, four years later, I was in a situation where I was not in control of that decision anymore. And the legal system took over, and there I was. So I was curious about this, and I called social media, nobody has talked about it, and I started looking through the literature, and I found this one um paper that's just a retrospective um review of studies that have been done and and um not an original piece of research. And uh I was fascinated by that. So I connected with the two researchers at the University of Wisconsin and have met with them, and um I'm going to begin working with them on some education and some outreach. Um of the things that was very important to me was that the people I interacted with um in the healthcare system were social workers who work in the gerontologist's office. And they were the best people I've ever. It was like a little bonus therapy session every time I spoke to them. They were so caring. They were all of their approaches were so trauma informed. I could tell that they had been trained to deal with circumstances like this. So then I started thinking, well, if they had been trained, this must exist, right? This, this like people know this exists.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Um, but there's just there's no talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

I you know, and I want to make sure that uh we do definitely post the study um because you know I know what I would say right now if I was called and my mom was wandering. Yeah. Would I actually do that? I don't know. You know, and I'm practicing for that time. And I say that because I think that that's something that's really important. As we, as women, as men that are growing up and they're figuring this out about their parents. I think that these are questions that we need to have answered. Either one in ourselves. And then you also have a community that you've created. So I would love to hear about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

So it's it's not out there yet. I'm building it, but I think it's important for people like you and me to have a resource. So I'm creating a website on um, it's going to be called caringforabusiveparents.org. Um, and what I hope to do on the site, what I'm building right now, is um an explanation of options that people have when they get that phone call. Um, what are the levels of engagement that you can choose that are right for you? There could be letter cook all the way down to I will do everything myself. But what I think is missing in the conversation is that there doesn't seem to be anything in between there, right? So you're nope, I'm not gonna do it, or oh my God, I have to take all of this on myself now, and I have to be changing their diaper and feeding, spoon feeding them and re-traumatizing myself over and over and over again. Um, there's there's some discussion in that study about people who were sexually abused by a parent having to care for a parent later in life where there's involvement in like bathing and toileting that person so that they are dealing with the intimate contact with this person's body who was their assaulter.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

Like if you think about that, that is an incredibly re-traumatized. Like, in what other circumstance would a human being be asked to do that for the person who hurt them? I can't think of one, can you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

No, and like I was thinking about somebody who uh where there's domestic violence or like a rapist that, you know, the only thing that I can find think of that might be close is if a rapist impregnated their victim and they that victim had that child. Um, that's the only one I could think about that. I mean, I can't like I can't even fathom. Like when I love my mother-in-law to death, she's mother-in-law to death. And we'll do anything for her. We'll take care of her, we'll do all those things with dignity and grace and all the things that she deserves.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

When I think of doing that for my mom, I'm like, ugh, like I just not, it's it's asking super human Teflon kind of emotional functioning from somebody that's just not a fair ask. So, what I really want to do, I'm hoping that this is possible. I want to create a place where a person can go who has just gotten this phone call and they frantically Google, you know, I have to care for my abusive parent now. What? Um, where they can click on links and they can get connected with the Professional Association of Social Workers, the Professional Association of Gerontologists, the Professional Association of Um Senior Celists, Elder Law attorneys, um different county justice systems and county divisions of social work. Um because if on a county level, if you can access information, you're going to find a puzzle that you can put together that, if you are so inclined, will help you make sure that your parents are not sitting on a curb but are not your daily responsibility. I love this. And the finances are very important too, because you know, my sister and I worked with an attorney and an elder care, a senior care manager. Um, but this we did not pay them, right? So if your parents have a home, if they have a pension, if they have a life insurance policy that they don't need to hold on to anymore, if they have a car that they're not driving that you can sell, there are a lot of ways for you to find the money to be able to get this set up uh without having it to come out of your own pocket. I did not. That was another one of my boundaries. I will not give a dime to this operation. So I didn't. And I'm not rich and my parents aren't rich. We were able to do all of this working within a system without having to go broke. I think a lot of people think, well, if I'm gonna hand it off to somebody else, it's gonna be like an assisted living fee or something like that. It's really not. And there's to meditate about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

Yeah, there's like all those things. And if you think about it, like if these attorneys and caretakers have multiple clients, right? They're stacking up on top of each other. That's how they're making their money. Like what uh because I always think of I hate to, I don't like to take people's um time and effort without compensating them, but they're getting compensated. Like there are ways that they will get compensated, yeah, or they wouldn't be doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:27

Yeah.

unknown 1:11:27

No, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:28

And by the way, the senior care manager that we worked with, she does um pro bono work too.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:35

So wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:36

You know, if she really finds a family in need and a person who really needs help, she does it for free. Yeah. My my message is you have options. There is something between let her cook and this is all on me. There is something between I'm not gonna pay a dime and I'm gonna have to cash in my 401k. You you don't have to, there is a way to do whatever you think is the right thing to do without having to re-traumatize yourself to be sure that your parent is cared for.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

I think that that's a real important thing. And I, you know, next our next episode, I really want to dig into this a little bit more because I didn't even know that. Like, really, and that's what this like this whole podcast is about is knowing that because oftentimes when you've broken the cycle, you are a very kind person. Um, and that's what I see with a lot of these people who are going through the abuse. You they're very kind, they're not nice. Nice is people pleasing, breaking brownies, kind is this is my boundary. There is, and they have empathy, something their parents didn't have. There is this guilt factor, and let me remove like it's not shame. Shame is what they cause in you to feel this way. The guilt factor because you're a good human being, not because you feel shameful, because you're a good human being. And if you don't have the guilt, that's fine. Like, I totally get it. Like, I'm not judging you, you cannot have guilt. Some people have the guilt, and and because they have that, this is a way for them to get through while protecting their heart and their soul and their lives and their families. You know, you said something really uh poignant early on, is you stopped sharing information with them, right? Um, anything that was bad. I stopped sharing anything that was bad or good. I I mean, my husband and I have built a cocoon around our life, meaning just for anyone, because you know, there's cheese made that's gossip in Spanish, there's cheese made that people talk, and they create like this whole like thought process in it. So I I respect that. Um, so for everyone who's listening, um, we're gonna continue on and hopefully you can listen to it back to back, right? But if you don't know that a week from now we're gonna have another session where you can listen to us, but we're gonna end with um my new thing that I've been doing, which is trauma and cheese may uh speed round of questions for our personality.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:16

Is this gonna like freak? Okay, I'll try not to figure out stressed out.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

No, don't get stressed out. It's it's fun stuff. Like I'm not I'm because I I know I'm the same way, right? One of the things that people don't know is I usually give my people that I'm interviewing questions because we don't like surprises. Kids of narcissistic um parents do not like surprises. No, and we just developed this, but it's like it's fun stuff. So like here's the first question just to give a taste of it. So, what kind of music instantly hypes you up? 90s alternative. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. Um, what is something small that instantly makes your day better?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

Um hugging my husband.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:59

Oh, me too, my favorite. Um, what's your comfort show or food or thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Um, any home run reno show. I love Maine Cabin Masters because we rehabbed a cabin one year ourselves. I love it. Hometown is super cute. Um, comfort food pasta. And what was the other thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

Oh, uh comfort thing. Is there a thing that you like my comfort thing is my beauty pads?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:26

I have a blanket. I've had it for so long. My kids call it my napping blanket. Yeah, and I walk around the house with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

I love it. Um, what's something about healing that people um people don't talk enough about?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:41

Um, it's extremely messy. Really difficult and very long term.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

Yes. And then I always end with this question what's one thing you would hope that listeners take away from this conversation about themselves?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:58

That you can um care for yourself and do whatever you define as the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

I love it. Thank you so much, Catherine. I've so enjoyed getting to know you, and I can't wait for a second session. Um the conversation doesn't end here. In part two, Catherine shares what happened after she and her siblings became responsible for caring for her abusive parents, the boundaries they use to protect their peace, and the options survivors have when let them cook and sacrificing yourselves aren't the only choices. If you ever wondered what happens when an abusive parent grows old, subscribe now so you don't miss the rest of this important conversation. Thank you for listening to the Beyond Mommy Dares podcast. If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a five-star review, and share it with someone who could use a little hope today. To learn more about coaching, upcoming events, and our growing community, visit the links in the show notes. Until next time, keep choosing yourself, keep healing, and remember, you are worthy of love, peace, and a life beyond survival.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

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