Caring for aging Narcissistic Parents: How to Protect your peace after No Contact Part 2 ⭐

Caring for aging Narcissistic Parents: How to Protect your peace after No Contact Part 2 ⭐

When children grow up in abusive, chaotic, or violent homes, siblings often become each other's lifeline. The bond formed through surviving trauma together can create an unspoken promise: I'll protect you, no matter what.

In this powerful conversation, we explore how those childhood survival strategies continue into adulthood, especially when aging or abusive parents require care. For some survivors, the decision isn't about the parent at all. It's about protecting a brother or sister from carrying the burden alone.

We also discuss the guilt, obligation, family expectations, and deeply rooted beliefs that can make these decisions feel impossible. Whether you've chosen to care for an abusive parent or decided to maintain your boundaries, this episode offers compassion instead of judgment.

Healing doesn't erase the love we have for our siblings. It helps us recognize that we no longer have to sacrifice ourselves to survive.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How trauma creates lifelong sibling bonds.
• The survival roles children take on in abusive families.
• Caring for aging parents after childhood abuse.
• Guilt, obligation, and choosing boundaries.
• Finding healing without abandoning yourself.

Conclusion

There is no universal right answer when it comes to caring for an abusive parent. Every survivor's circumstances are different. What matters most is making a choice that honors your healing, protects your well-being, and allows you to move forward with compassion for yourself.

If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe to Beyond Mommy Dearest, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to know they are not alone.

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_03 0:00

You're listening to the Beyond Mommy Daris podcast, where we talk about growing up with narcissistic moms, how it shapes 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_03 0:26

Today I'm digging deep. With a little stomach bug, I've been out for the count for the entire week. But this episode was important to get out. What would you do if a parent who abused you suddenly needed your care? In this episode of Beyond Mommy Diris, we explore sibling loyalty, childhood trauma, and the impossible decision many adult survivors face when abusive parents grow older. This is a conversation about love, boundaries, and healing. Um in Spanish, our cheese of um being daughters of narcissistic uh mothers. I know when I meet someone who like just gets it, like all I have to say is, well, my mom did, and you know, they get it, that we end up talking for hours just about it, or if they've experienced some kind of narcissistic abuse. I think that is one of the things that is my goal for this podcast is as people are listening to it, they can say, Oh my gosh, that happened to me. Oh my gosh, that happened to me. And they can reach out or they can do get whatever support they need, and that's really, really important. You know, Catherine, one of the reasons why we reached out, and I was really like focused on making sure that you were on the podcast, is we talk a lot about no contact and low contact are people who are still in contact. And I um I think we experienced this because I had mentioned on, oh, I had released a little thing about how I said, you know, if my mom were to pass away, let her cook. Like I like I really I don't care. And some people, and for some people that doesn't work. Like I think for me, I I just know that even a little bit in, like a little crack of a little door, and that would not be good. But for you, um, you accepted being a caretaker of both your parents. Um, and both of your parents were, you know, your mom was a narcissist, your dad was another story, and you have siblings. And so you kind of took on that caregiver role, but not a normal, normal caregiver. And I think that being this is like it's incredibly complex. Becoming a caregiver for the very people who you were estranged from who were just POSs to you. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that kind of happened?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah. Um, so my caregiving story is a little bit, I don't want to say it's more dramatic than most people's because I know there are a lot of dramatic stories out there, but mine is a pretty dramatic story, which is that I had been estranged from my parents for four years. Um I'm in my mid-late 50s now, so I was 50 years old when I made that decision. So it was a long road to get there. Um, and I was estranged from them. And then on a Sunday afternoon, I got a call that my dad had just been arrested for trying to strangle my mother. And at the time he was 82 and she was 80. Um, of course, my first thought was, when are they gonna run out of energy for this? Like I just thought like you're 82, and this is what is aren't you tired? You know, but my hands, I couldn't, I can't even grip that hard with my hands down. Like I'm nowhere near otherworldly kind of anger that just takes over. And just to be clear, they're both narcissists. He's a malignant, she's a covert. So it was a wonderful little cocktail to grow up with. But what I what I was compelled about talking to you about was when you said let her cook, I thought, yeah, absolutely. Like I'm here for the whole range of whatever people need to make work for them is acceptable because it's you got to do what's is right for you, right? However, I feel like in this discussion, there's a lot of gray space.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yes. And a lot of issues that are documented from an academic, scientific, psychological perspective, that are push and pull factors for people who are confronted with having to care for their parents who were abusive or neglectful. And I said in our last conversation, but I'll restate it because it's important. There was a study published in 2021 by some researchers out of the University of Wisconsin, uh Wisconsin, my alma mater, um, shout out. And uh and they found that one in four adults who are caring for their elderly parents are caring for parents who were abusive or neglectful. So that I, yeah, 25, it was it was actually up to 26 percent, but one in four people who are already in the very difficult position of having to care for their parents because the strains without astronomical in all ways, right? Physical, psychological, emotional, just in a normal situation.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

You have an amazing parent, you're caring for them always, all stressor, everything, because it's not like a parent just decides this might be the best time for me to need care. It's usually, you know, you, and especially with our generation where we're sandwiched between kids in college and then k parents that are older, we're that sandwiched generation of caring for our parents. So 25% is insane. Yeah, insane.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So that's like within the people who feel a full obligation and don't want to ever turn their back, even if they were damaged by their parents, and your letter cook theory, there's just a lot of room. Um you're an only child. I'm an only child, yes. Okay, so you didn't have like a sibling, um you know, a sibling, not it's not like a pressure, it's just it's like a responsibility, I think.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

You know, and you know, I I know because I am an only child that I I don't I don't get any of that that family dynamic at all. And my husband is the eldest on both sides of his family. Both of it, his parents are wonderful, his stepdad is wonderful, like so. Of course, I'm like fighting to care for them, right? That's a totally different story, but I know that he carries a responsibility being the oldest child, and what does that look like, you know, for his younger sister and then his younger brothers? Yeah, and I I don't get it. I was a lone wolf.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I don't know it's a real so I yeah, and that I look at that and I'm like, I don't get that. So yeah, right? I'm one of four. And um, and when you grow up in an abusive, scary, violent household, the you and your siblings really cling to each other. Yeah, and that becomes a coping strategy, and it carries you throughout your entire life. So my my obligation was to my siblings because to say no at 9 30 at night with a lawyer on the phone and your dad in jail meant one of them was going to have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

And I think that's I think that's a really beautiful thing, you know, as a sibling, to say, okay, I will take the brunt of it, I will take care of this. And because you know, my husband, my husband and I always joke, the mean ones don't ever die. Don't ever die, they last forever, right? Only the die young is not just a lyric. Yes, it's not just a lyric. And so I think that, you know, in my experience, um, you know, I think about my sister-in-law, I'm like, write or die, someone's mean to her, I'm like, where what do we do? Right? That that's different, and that's probably the closest to having kind of that sibling love or, you know, that sibling relationship that I have. Um, what emotions for you came up when you kind of stepped in, got that phone call about your dad and your mom, and then started the process of okay, this is what this is how we're gonna handle the situation. What emotions came up for you first?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Um, the first emotion actually has caught me off guard, probably more than any experience I've ever had in my life. And I say that as somebody who had a very frightening, traumatic childhood. I thought that I was okay. I had been through multiple rounds of therapy, I was happily, healthily married. I had three children at that point who were almost fully adults, and who, you know, I have a I have a functioning life, right? Um within 30 seconds, I was on the floor. And I I can't really describe, I had a full-on breakdown. You know, I was on the floor, my forehead on the ground, screaming my head off. Yeah, and I didn't even, I had no idea what was happening to me. I my whole body got hijacked. And all of a sudden, I was a frightened, screaming child hiding under the bed.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

That made it totally makes sense because I think about even for me to think about okay, what if I get that phone call that my mom needs care? Like I instantly go into like a panic attack mode.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Right. And where do you feel it?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I'm always interested where people's trauma live in your stomach.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah, my stomach, and then it moves right up to my throat.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I think mine's right here.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

For me, I just couldn't say anything. Like the instant that I said something, it was, you know, you can't say anything. And for me, the reason why I say so definitively let her cook is because I know for a lot of the clients that we work with, it practice makes perfect. And so if someone were to call me, I would say, thank you so much, but I'm not her, she's not my responsibility. You're gonna have to, she's gonna have to go somewhere else. Because she really isn't, and and for you, your parents aren't. The responsibility lies for you within your siblings. Yes, and I and I again uh that's such a beautiful thing because you know, I always thought what would it be like to have a sibling? Like what would it look like? And I am incredibly thankful because the abuse that occurred was just so utterly disgusting. And then I also get sad because I think about oh, but it I could have like it could have been dispersed. I could have had somebody that I could have talked to about it. And so the healing community has really become that like, you know, his sisters in healing, where we have like a group on Facebook, which I, you know, when we talk later about the work that you're doing, I'll make sure to share that in there. Because a lot of those women, there's like, I think we're at 7,500 and it like has grown exponentially in the last three years, is they are that where we could have these conversations. I'm also like I'm a very like I'm an introvert. So I, you know, my husband and I can sit on the couch for hours and hours and not talk. But once you get me talking, I don't ever shut up. You're bottling all up until it's ready to go out. Yeah, exactly. You know, when you became a caregiver, did you feel or did it actually happen? Did you have like new wounds? Are old wounds like open up or you you said you had a trauma response when you got the phone call? So, what kind of happened over the course of the next, let's say, couple of days, and then where are you all at now in regards to the care for your parents?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Okay. So I sort of in my mind, um, and I've I this it's divided in my head this way because I've been writing about it. Um, but in my mind, there was that first six hours.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

And between I got the phone call and then I was on the phone with a lawyer. Unbeknownst that to me, I had no idea I was gonna do that. I found out 30 minutes ahead of time, and suddenly someone had co-opted me into becoming, you know, it was nuts. Two days after that, we were in court and I was testifying in front of a judge that I that my sister and I needed to take over their care. So all of that was very um, I was dissociated. So my it was very weird, and I've talked about this with my therapists a lot. Kids like you and me, we are very good at dissociating. And I don't know if you've read Stephanie Fu's book, What My Bones Know, but toward the end of the book, she talks about how people who have CPTSD have um it's a superpower because they can dissociate to the point where if all hell is breaking loose, they're still very high functioning.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Yeah, they're moving. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

So if you want to, yeah. She was talking about, she wrote about how she was um during the pandemic, all of her friends and everybody was freaking out about everything, and she was just steady because she was like, I operate in this space. Chaos. Yeah, yeah. Right. So what happened to me was I was a complete physical mess. I could not eat, I could not sleep, I could not stand, I couldn't breathe. But my brain was like a laser. And I'm talking about as a woman who was at, you know, menopausal at that moment, and brain thought obviously is real. I could have a conversation, I could write down some numbers, I and it was with me almost photographically for for the end of time. Right. It was very weird to, for the first time as an adult, to like have the distance to look at myself and say, I am two human beings right now. I am the person who is completely in the toilet, and I am this absolutely high-functioning powerhouse. And but they're not speaking to each other.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Right. They're just going.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

They're just going. They're two separate things. So that was really stunning for me was that the planes that I was operating on, and really sort of it was the most striking um experience that I could have had to awaken me to work that I still needed to do because the separation between my body and my mind was still very, very real. And obviously that's not good, right? You need that at all.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Right. Yeah, I definitely do. And um, I catch myself because I I think one of the things that is a really uh important thing for people to understand is life in its ugliness and in its beauty is a beautiful thing to experience. And in order for you to make the right decisions, you have to be there and experience it. Now, there are situations where you do just disassociate um the loss of a good friend, the loss of a child, um you know, those types of things where you have to be performative in a situation, meaning, you know, maybe you have to read an obituary or something like that, or you have to talk about your experience and how you got through it. You can disassociate from being in that situation, have all the um emotion, all that stuff. And I I do this a lot during podcasts, um, or during um clients where I can feel that emotion start to build, and then I push it down and then process it after. Because yeah, I'm I'm of no use to anyone if I'm hysterical all the time. And I think that there in my experience, there's a lot of people who do that. You know, having a narcissistic mother um is one way that you can experience the trauma. Having an alcoholic father, alcoholic mother is another way that you can experience having an abusive spouse, having um any of those things, or even, and this doesn't include abuse, having um raising children who have um learning disabilities or who are autistic, not because they're bad children, but because they have big emotions and big reactions. And you might not be used to that. So you disassociate from that situation as you're working through it, and it's really like um, you know, you just rise to the top and you're watching yourself move through it.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

And when you have these conversations, like when you talk to women um who have children who are autistic or nonverbal or whatever it is, you can hear their their um camaraderie when they talk about this stuff because no one else understands it. Yeah. Right. That they they just don't. And I think that that living in that kind of that white space, right? Because it's it's kind of like the matrix, right? When you when they say, okay, we're gonna we're gonna upload a program, and they download into that white space, and then the program uploads, and you're just standing there looking around what you're gonna do. I mean, that's literally what I think of when I'm thinking of being in an emergency situation. Okay. These are all the tools. Yeah, these are all the tools around me that I'm gonna grab. Okay, this, this, this, and this, and this. Okay, drop me down. I'm ready. Yeah, yeah. And weird. Well, and it's weird, but I feel like this is true, right? Like I we can we can conquer just about anything. If if I want someone by my side, I want someone to fight a fight, it's always gonna be someone who's experienced some kind of trauma. Yep. Um, and survived it. That's the key, right? Because they can disassociate, get through, and then after they, you know, you sit around in a circle and say, what the fuck just happened? Right. Yeah. And that I think is what you have with your sisters. You know, you have all sisters, if I remember correctly. Yeah. So with your sisters, I think that's a really, really important thing. You know, I don't feel any guilt when I say let them cook or shame. But there might be some people um that feel this like guilt or shame, or even the societal expectations um that show up for people in these kind of situations. What do you see kind of those being? And you were in court getting um full custody of your parents. So you were in that kind of that court where you're seeing that go over and over and over again. So, what are you seeing or hearing as people are commenting on your you know, social media is what kind of you know, shame or guilt or expectations are showing up for people in these situations?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Um, I have just noticed that there's just a broad spectrum of what's okay for people as individuals to do or not do for their parents. And I think I've said this to you before, but I will reiterate, I was firmly in the let them cook camp.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yes, you were.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yes, I did not see what came at me coming. I there was no way to be prepared for it. No one ever said, hey, in a couple of years, your dad's gonna try to murder your mom. And then their church pastor is gonna decide that she's got a lawyer for you. And don't get me started on that lady, and then we, you know, and suddenly you're gonna be sitting there on a Sunday night with a glass of wine in your hand, with your hands shaking, saying, Yeah, yeah, I'll do it, because your sister's saying, Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. Like I couldn't have ever. Um, so what I what I see is that there are people who you know are like you and like I was, who were like, Not gonna do it. And then there are people who, for lots of reasons, obligations to their siblings, community pressures, social pressures, cultural pressures, religious beliefs, and then maybe just some uh personally held beliefs about I owe my parents something, um, they're my parents, this idea, almost a biblical, like honor thy mother and father, that no matter what happens to you, you are still obligated to care for them. So there's just a whole wide range. I in the early stages of uh caring for my parents, right? I had some friends who I would describe my situation to. My very, very close friends were like, oh my God. But then I would see somebody out for dinner or something, and I would tell them, and they would, you know, kind of lean in and say things like, but I mean, eventually you'll you guys will make peace, right? And I was like, I'm sorry. How much more am I supposed to forgive? Yeah. Well, a two-year-old dad is in jail for strangling my mother, and you think it's on me to forgive somebody?

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Well, and that's the thing that I don't ever get. Like, you know, you you mentioned that your pasture, you mentioned, you know, your fr your, let's say acquaintances, your acquaintances that said that. And I think that people don't quite understand. And this is one of the things that I I get reminded of. My husband all often reminds me of is it's none of our business. So we should probably not say anything. Unless they're coming to us, they're paying us to be a client, they're asking us for their uh the advice, it's none of our business, and we need to stay firm out of that because number one, liability. Like that's a first thing. But number two, we don't know what these people have been through. And for someone to say to you, but you gotta just make up like if someone said that to me, I said, I would say, you obviously didn't hear anything I just said, you haven't heard any of the podcasts, you haven't, you know, seen all any of the posts, and that's fine, but fuck you and move on.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Like, I think for people who've had a normal, healthy relationship with their parents, they just don't know all the appearances of that too. Yeah, they can't conceive of it. It kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier as like, I'm an only child, it's a whole sibling dynamic, I can't really imagine it, and I can't imagine your only child dynamic. Yeah, so when we say to somebody who has a functioning relationship with their parents, fuck them.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Yeah, they're they don't go they go not well, and that's the thing, like, and I I want to make this really clear for someone who just wants to be a chismosa and wants to listen to the podcast to hear how messed up childhood is. Your mom being mean to you and saying, Hey, don't go out in that shirt, it's probably not appropriate for you to wear, is not the same kind of abuse that we have. Was it nice for her to say that to you? No, not at all. Like, of course. Is she toxica? No, she's not. Our parents were like, there is a very definitive difference between broken, fucked up, emotionally abusive parents, and my mom was mean to me.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

I am I have one story that I don't share very often, but I, if pushed, I will share it. If somebody's like, well, she's your mom, I will say, okay, so what do you make of this? I was 14 years old. It was a Friday night, everybody else in my family was out doing stuff. I was home alone, which I loved because it was one of the only times the house was peaceful and quiet. And um I went to bed. I was supposed to start the dishwasher. I forgot to. At three o'clock in the morning, my mother woke me up by throwing a bucket of cold water on me in my bed and screaming that I was lazy and stupid because I had forgotten to start the dishwasher. There is no way that anybody with any sort of compassion or intellect can look at a story like that and say, Well, but that's not okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

That lives with you forever. Like, wake if your child does that and you want to wake them up at three o'clock in the morning, you don't do it by throwing a bucket of water on them and call them all these names. You say, Hey, you forgot to turn it on, or you turn it on and then you let them know in the morning, or you turn it on and you wake them up and say, Hey, I just turned on the dishwasher. Like, there's a thousand ways that that can be or you forgot that.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

So your dishes tonight. Yeah, because last night. I mean, that's an in-scale consequence, right? Right. A bucket of cold water on you at three in the morning in your bed, not so much.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

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SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

And that that is, you know, and we were just talking about parenting, like as a mother yourself. And now for me as a mother, there's a a real intentionality that I've put into trying to parent differently or working on parenting differently. Yes. Um I had one guest on a couple weeks ago, and she was saying, um, she said, I had a thought, like I was parenting my son, and I had a thought, and I was going to respond in a way that would make my mother proud. But instead, I responded differently. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting that she framed it like that. Yeah, yeah. And so what have you learned or have to be intentional about when you're parenting completely different from your mom?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

So I and it's both my parents because you know, my father beat your mom and mom, and they both beat us. So it was it was a violent household, and it was angry a lot, and you never saw the anger coming. It was very explosive, and then everybody sat down to dinner like nothing had happened. So crazy, yeah. It's crazy making stuff. That's yeah. So um, what I learned early on with my kids, you were talking earlier about children who have special needs. Yes, yes. So my oldest who's now 27, but when she she was um uh a baby and a toddler who could not um regulate the the stimuli that she took in. So she was overstimulated all the time, and she could not regulate her emotions. It's a it's a challenge that has carried itself through her whole life, and she puts a lot of work into dealing with it. But what it did was it turned her into it made her as an infant and a toddler and then throughout parts of her life, a very, very explosive, difficult child to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yes, and I grew up with someone screaming in my face, and then I had a baby screaming in my face. So the I became very overwhelmed too. Yeah, and I I would lose it just like she would lose it. Um, it took me a couple of years and another kid, and then another kid to realize like when I lose it with my kids, when I allow myself to go to that angle, not that I don't, you know, sometimes that's necessary, right? But when you fly off a handle and you, you know, you really cannot keep yourself in control, right? The it was so much worse for me. The feelings that it gave me afterwards of failure and and operating like my parents did and recognizing that I was going to injure my children in the same way that I had been injured was an intolerable sensation for me. I I you know what I mean. So yeah, I took it on myself to I read a lot of books and I learned different strategies for dealing with my feelings and learning how to manage my anger. And you were saying earlier too, um, about like dissociating, but but in a more like purposeful way. So saying, okay, I'm gonna walk away from this and I'm going to. So I learned that the best tool for me as somebody who becomes overstimulated by stuff like that because of my history, was to take if there was a consequence that had to be handed out to my kids, if I felt like I was exhausted and stressed out and I was up here and I I could feel myself losing it, I would put myself in timeout. Not them.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Yeah. You know, we often we often say, okay, we have no more spoons to give. You know, we started the day with this many spoons, we have no more spoons to give. Yep. We're we're spoonless. Like, let's figure out what will bring us a couple spoons back. And you know, it's really interesting, and and I don't know if many people know this, but you know, we can do a quick little science lesson, talk anatomy. We as women are born with the eggs that we're gonna have for the rest of our lives inside our mother's womb. So that DNA, that that that trauma is experienced all the way down. And even if you have the most wonderful pregnancy, there's still that DNA and that trauma. And that even exists the wonderful pregnancy. Just saying. I don't know. I don't know if it does, but but let's say you know, you you get doted on and it's amazing, and you can eat whatever you want, and you don't gain weight, and there's no stressful job, and yeah, yeah, you don't have a stressful job, but all of those things impact your child in the womb. So as they come out, you know, my daughter was very sensitive, very similar, very sensitive. Um, she is still extremely sensitive, and I think it's her superpower as well because she can feel like she knows that. But that high sensitivity is why her and my youngest stepdaughter, my youngest stepdaughter got along really well because they have that same high sensitivity. Like they were sitting down, there's uh 15 years in between them, and I I like gave them a blanket. Uh there was some blanket for them to like get under the blanket and watch their little movie with. And like at the same time, they picked up the blanket. They were like, Oh, I really like this. This is great. Okay, fantastic, right? And all the sensory stuff, yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting, but that but that sensitivity, that um uh uh quick to maybe um feel the overwhelmness, those things I mean, they are generational.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yes. Well, I'm sure you're you're familiar with epigenetics. Yeah you know, the idea of the trauma is handed down. The thing I read most recently was that it takes three generations to actually clear that. Right. Right, yeah, yeah. And which is it's so sad because we're saddling our kids with things that we did not intend to saddle them with.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

No, not at all. Even with all the work that we do. So the work that we're doing is for our great-great grandchildren, yes. And that and for me, that lineage, like to think about that, it's totally worth that work. And you know, we talked a little bit about how you experience that trauma um and the impact in understanding that generational trauma. Um, your daughter, who's 27 now, um so you you understand that. And I think experience too, because I mean, having like let's be honest, having kids is really difficult. Like it's a difficult thing. And especially now with the cost of living, you know, having to work, all of the societal, like I can't even imagine being a high schooler right now in this generation because the the expectations are so high.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

So, you know, for those women who possibly um are experiencing pregnancy now who have um had narcissistic mothers, it is going to take that intentionality of you know, not it's not just a meditation, there's an intentionality that you need to take in order to make sure that your child you jump as far as possible as they are born. And you know, having being a mother now, um what does breaking the cycle actually look like to you on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_01 36:00

This is my favorite because to to somebody for somebody who grew up the way that I grew up, to actually successfully make my own healthy family um is the most, it is the hard it's the hardest work I've ever done, and it is the best work I've ever done. Reinventing myself, getting to know myself, breaking the cycle, holding these three small people in my hands and saying, you are precious and I am not going to hurt you. And then actually following through with that in practice on a daily basis. I'm not saying I was perfect, I I definitely messed up sometimes, but it is the absolute most rewarding thing that I have in my life. That I now have three children who are 23, 25, and 27. Um, they are all out on their own doing some really cool stuff, and they're all independent, and they all still love us. They want to be around us, they make time for us, they they they trust us with their inner lives, they ask us for advice, they tell us to eat shit if they don't want it. Like it's you know, it is a very real open relationship. They are incredibly different from each other, each one of them. So I get to look at them and say, first of all, you're how you're okay. Like I made you, you're okay. And I'm so proud of the fact that they're okay, but I'm also really proud of the fact that they are so different because I grew up in a family that was like, you're going to conform, and there's this thing we call lockstep. And if you are not in it, you're in trouble. The othering was really bad. And and they don't they don't have that. I look at their individuality as just proof that their dad and I really said, hey, yeah, I mean, you're interested in that, let's try that. Let's, you know, we never they were never mocked for being themselves. They weren't they they were rewarded for trying hard things and being individuals.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Well, and I think that's a really important thing because when you have a narcissistic mother and us, and for you, you have the double whammy of a narcissistic uh mother and father, there's a lot of enmeshment that goes on with a narcissistic mother. And if you're a boy, I would assume the same enmeshment goes on with a narcissistic father. And because of that, you really never know who you are. And I think that um, you know, I'm I'm not a parenting expert. Um, I mean, we have are we have a total of four kids together, and you know, what I'm reminded of on a daily basis is just like you said, how different they are. They have had their own paths. Um they are able to at least around us, express themselves very openly, be them goose their goofy selves. And, you know, of course we give them a hard time because that's what parents do. Like we can laugh and you know, be really funny. And there's a very large age difference between them. You know, my daughter's 30, it's seven years between each of the girls, and then a couple years between um our youngest daughter and um our son. And from the 30-year-old all the way down to the 15-year-old, they all get along really well, and I think that's a really important thing. And they celebrate their successes, and when we've needed my older daughter to be here for things that, you know, are sad or get ready for a prom or something, you know, whatever it is, she has always been here. And we have an extra little bonus one, uh, bonus daughter. My um sister-in-law, who's a year younger than my um daughter, we add her into the mix too, because I mean there's you know, there's just so many of them, and they're there's a better, really great people. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I'm really interested in is how you're able to maintain boundaries when you're caregiving with your um with your mother and father. So tell me a little bit. So we know that you were in court. I know that your father and your mother couldn't be together for a little while. And now there was a restraining order.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

No, there still is a restraining order, they will never be together ever again.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

Yeah. Okay, so now they're separate, they're on two separate planes. Yes. Um, so how do you manage all of that with the so this was part of the deal with my sister?

SPEAKER_01 40:47

So, like I said, I'm one of four. It was my oldest sister and I who were forced to get on this phone call with a lawyer, and my sister had said to me, I'm gonna do it. Um and so I had to make the decision, it was a snap decision to not let her do it alone. So I agreed to do it, but I had some very firm stipulations. One was that it would not be permanent, that I would be involved in the economic and care and welfare of them because we were both we were conservators and guardians for both of them. So we had to run their health and welfare and their housing, and we had to run all of their finances. Got it. Um, and as two old narcissists do, they had to run everything into the ground. So it wasn't like we just walked into the bank one day and everything was fine. It wasn't, it was amazing. No, yeah, as you can imagine. So um I said I would do it for a finite amount of time, and that was defined as we will get them to a place where we know exactly what the lay of the land is and that they can be cared for by a third party um with whatever money they have left, and big decisions can be made by other people, but we are going to make sure that we have set them up so that they are not homeless and so that whatever they have can be divided and they can both live in the way that they need to live safely, you know. Um, that took six months. So we were in it for six months, then we had to go back to court and surrender it, and that's when third parties took over. The other stipulation I had was that I had not spoken to them in four years, and I was willing to do this with my sister, but I was not willing to interact with them while I did it. That's fair. Um, yeah, so I had no verbal contact with them at all. There were a couple times where I had to communicate with my mother in writing because I was trying to manage her health care. Um, they didn't even have established doctors at the time, and nothing had been a thing. Yes, they were both suffering from dementia and had not been assessed, and there was no care plan, and it was just a disaster. So that was the other thing. I would not speak to them. So I was able to do the work that I had to do, and it was a full day, five days a week job without putting myself in a position where I felt like I had to go all the way back to where I had fought to get out.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Does that make sense? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that you know, my so my dad, my dad is not a narcissist. My dad has been abused by a narcissist. So he's, you know, he um unfortunately has the track record of narcissists. I don't know what it is. My mom was a narcissist, my stepmom was.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Well, that's the generational trauma stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. So narcissists make more narcissists. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

So unfortunately, you know, he has been abused uh very badly, and I um he is up. north from us. So we're in the Bay Area and he's up in um Oregon. And he um suffered a stroke. It's been about 25 years now. And so yeah. So he he um because he was so young and his brain had a lot of plasticity um and um I was there like right after it happened and I I was in training. I was going to school for this stuff for like neuroplasticity and aging adults and whatnot and had done a ton of um work with my professor and studying it there were certain things that I knew had he had to do in order to get back up. So he, you know he doesn't drive yeah I mean he's really lucky that it wasn't worse. You know, he had to relearn to walk he had to do all the things relearn to talk. He um doesn't drive he can read slowly he can listen to audio books is usually better and um and he now lives on his own because he went through a divorce which you know we helped him with as a result of making sure that he wasn't gonna get taken advantage of because that was really what it was like I was really concerned by another he would be taken advantage of. Yeah. So we hired him a lawyer he went through family court and like the first thing he said was oh I'm just gonna give her the house I was like no you're not look I don't know how to explain this to you. You can't I know you want to be nice but that is not helping her you brought into this relationship more of the money and have worked the entire time she never worked you can give her a portion of the house you can give her the car you don't drive the car you can't drive the car. So instead of that and because he had been so abused by her and you know her kids are older and then there was me and we weren't around during their entire relationship they were together for like 20 no they were together longer 22 years because like they had been married he had a stroke and then she was like I don't want to do this anymore like 15 years later and so but he was just gonna give her everything he was just ready and prepared and where we had to sit down and have a conversation to say okay I know what you think is the best thing to do it's not but okay I'm saying in the air quotes but you can potentially live another five to ten years. I said you've lived this long you can live another five to ten years you have to set yourself up so that you can you can live another five years without uh you know on your own and then the last five years you can sell your home and then possibly be in a a a care facility and I don't think that narcissists or people who've been abused by narcissists think about that because they're in that survival mode. Well where narcissists think they're gonna be living forever as someone who's experienced that narcissistic abuse we're just always in survival mode. And it's okay what's going to take us to the next day what is going to take us to the next day so for me what check the box is there in regards to my dad because I'm sure once I start remembering some of the stuff that did happen because I only remember fits and bits of what happened as a child that there are going to be a lot of points where my dad was probably like probably stepped in and said okay that's enough or you know I I would assume so and so I I do have I feel a somewhat a responsibility to care for him.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Um so that's what I like let me just interject because I think that's a really good counter argument to the people who say but she's your mom and you're supposed to care for your parents when they get older you you are willing to be a caregiver.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Yeah yeah absolutely you did it for your dad you continue to do it for your dad my father in law had ALS my husband and I were caregivers for him yeah my perfectly willing to do that for somebody who makes me feel safe in that role and I think that's a thing like you know my mother-in-law who's in phenomenal shape always jokes well don't forget you guys have to take care of me like that to me isn't even a question in my mind I'm like yeah of course yeah of course like you know the dream is okay we're gonna have you know three ADUs it's gonna be um my mother in law and her husband um my my my husband's stepfather my father in law and then my dad all together you know and and I have no problem with that I just don't want to take care of someone who thinks who I don't want to take care of anyone who doesn't want me alive. I mean that's really what it comes down to and will be raid any like there will be nothing I do correctly I'm just I'm not that person anymore and and you for you you were like I don't want to talk to them but this is how I'm gonna care from them from afar here's the stick don't go past the stick and I and that's the the thing we were talking about earlier about the that gray area yeah what what was important to me was obviously my relationship with my siblings yes but it was also important to me at the end of the day I needed to be able to look myself in the mirror and say I did what for me was the right and honorable thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

I tried very hard to not sacrifice myself as much as possible. It wasn't it wasn't that great but I got through it. And the other thing I really felt was that I my kids were watching yeah and exactly I wanted to be uh an example for them not someone who's gonna subjugate herself and lay down in the street and let someone run her over with a car but somebody who felt like okay I feel in my heart what the right thing is to do and I'm gonna do it. And I wanted my kids to watch me follow that. Again not saying that that's everybody's journey it was just how I felt about it.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

Well and I think that's a I know that's a really important thing because you know our children are watching us you know and and you know I've had this conversation very very um abstractly with my daughter because you know my daughter is still I don't know if she's talked to her recently but she's still in contact with my mom because that was you know I didn't go no contact until she was older and um there have been had to have some real like hard boundaries in regards to that like for example my um my mom like keeps calling and leaving me a message to say I need your address that I need to send you your Christmas presents to you and your husband and the kids.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

She's never met my husband's kids right and I'm like that performative gift giving is something that makes me absolutely insane. It's so they can sit in a little coffee clutch with their friends and say well I got a little bit of the rest of the time I'm a piece of shit.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

My mom and I I'm sure this will start like a whole discussion in regards to this my mom gives the most ridiculous gifts like I remember her like she likes to um regift without saying that she's regifting like if she gets a bad gift or she gets something or she buys something for herself that's expensive and she uses it for like an hour and then she decides to give it to someone and I can't handle that.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Like I can handle the got this for myself but I felt like it was more like a you thing and you know here you go right you know why you can't handle that because people who grew up like you and me have a very low tolerance for people not telling the truth.

SPEAKER_03 52:18

I know oh my God I can't handle because we were gas lit all the time.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

So if she said hey you know what I got this and I don't like it. So hey you want to be like entirely different. But it's the pretending part that we can't take yeah I can't right I'm stunned at the lack of judgment. I can't even get my head around that.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

Yeah so I find this all like really really interesting in regards to this and so I have a few more questions for you. Yeah yeah yeah because I think it's really important then that I have our speed round but I think this last question and then speed round and another question is what is one thing you've learned about yourself through this entire journey that's hard um I'd like to say that I've learned some good things.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

I'd like to say that I learned that I can make it through hard things. The problem was I had been through lots of hard things already did not need to prove that to myself again so I could have skipped this last traumatic experience without having that lesson. I'm actually going to say something that's not um that's not very hopeful. So I'm sorry about that. What I learned about my what I it's it's hopeful for the future but what I learned about myself was that I thought that I knew who I was and I thought that I had done a lot of work toward my own recovery and what I discovered was that it took one thing before I was sent all the way back. So I have learned that I have a lot more work to do.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

That's fair I think that that's a that's a really important thing for a lot of people to understand about themselves because you know I just had a someone on and we were talking about healing where healing shouldn't become your identity and you might not ever be healed and it's you know working on yourself is a constant thing. It's even people who haven't experienced traumatic situations they are working on themselves. So don't ever feel like there I think when you're talking about this don't ever feel like you're not doing enough and that helps you so that when things like this happen you're not totally taken off guard. But because we we do come from these crazy families we were taken off guard and we're like okay here we go let's let's get started and I think that again is a a superpower so um you mentioned that you have been writing a lot and I want to talk a little bit about your um project so um tell me what made you start thinking about writing like a memoir and then getting into this this project that you're working on it's kind of weird I had actually started writing this book six months before my dad tried to kill my mom and I was just starting to write a bunch of stories from my childhood.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

I was trying to make sense of them I was grappling with the duality of having been raised by people who had done a lot for me and whom I had loved and whom I thought really loved me with the harm that they caused me. And I was I was sort of working out through my writing how those two things exist in the same space and what does it do to a person who grew up like that? What does that look like throughout the lifespan it it looks very confusing right and it stays confusing all the way through. And then that all of this stuff happened and I couldn't write for six months or maybe more because I was living it and it was too traumatic. And then I sat back down and I started writing it and it was a very different examination at that point. It was really funny my daughter said to me so you weren't really sure how you were gonna address this book and everything and then God said here hold my beer and watch this that's actually hilarious. Here hold my beer I love it so I was like okay so that's that's the book now.

SPEAKER_03 56:46

So it's a it's a different book than it was before well and you also from this experience and I think this this part is even more phenomenal have a project that you've been working on. You have created are are working on and releasing this really great thing to help children of abusive parents whether narcissistic whether emotionally abusive um any type of abuse to care for their elderly parents if they choose to so tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

So I am creating a website it's just a one-stop shop excuse me nonprofit there's it's my name's not even going to be on it it is just um a website um that is going to be oriented nationally but then state by state where a person in my position or your position any adult child of abuse and neglect facing a decision about whether or not to care for their parent or to inhabit some of that gray area how much to care for a parent how much not to care for a parent whether or not to have a third party care for their parent all of those options I'm creating a resource for these people so that you can go to the state of Mississippi and you can click on it and there are about 15 to 18 links of organizations that some of them are local some of them are national that can help you get information about okay what's available to me what does the money look like for this how do I work with someone outside my family what's a discussion guide for having this difficult conversation what's my top like there are a lot of questions that you have to ask yourself. And what I have discovered is that in all of this talk about family estrangement and no contact no one is really talking about what happens when you get that phone call and is there a way to be prepared to get that phone call can you with your siblings or your aunt or your uncle or your partner or whatever have already planned out okay listen one of them is going to fall down the stairs so when I get the call that someone has fallen down the stairs what's my stance going to be and what's my plan so that's what I'm I'm trying to just create a a resource so that people entering this dialogue which is really new and under addressed have a real place to go get information. It's called caringforabusiveparents dot org um and um you you can in a little while it will be launched and you'll be able to click on it and and get to organizations that you can literally pick up the phone and say this is my situation help me and then they will help you find services.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

And then that this is a really important thing because there is um I mean you you just said it from the the Wisconsin study um one in four adult children are caring for abusive parents yeah and you know not everyone is going to take the route that I'm taking that they're just not and that's fine I I I'm taking that route and it's fine and you you gotta figure out your own path and this is going to be helpful for you to be able to to do that. So I'm I'm just so grateful that you are taking what the experience that you had and creating something really beautiful out of it. If today's conversation reminded you of the impossible choices survivors often face between loyalty obligation and self-protection know that you're not alone there's no perfect answer only the one that honors your healing. If this episode resonated with you subscribe leave a review or donate or share it with someone that you think needs to hear it today. Thank you for listening to the Beyond Mommy Daris 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 your skin is a part of your nervous system and taking care of it is essential to overall balance.

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