Adulting is Hard: Breaking the Cycle & Filling in the Gaps

Growing up with a parent who has borderline personality disorder (BPD) or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) can have lasting emotional and practical impacts—some of which often go overlooked.

In this episode, we dive into the challenges adult children of BPD/NPD parents face when it comes to "adulting" and why self-compassion is key.

Listen to hear my thoughts about:

✔️ How being raised by a BPD/NPD parent can impact how equipped you are to navigate the adult world
✔️ Why many adult children struggle with adulting tasks—and how to forgive yourself
✔️ Dealing with feelings of shame and embarrassment about feeling behind some of your friends and peers
✔️ Practical strategies for building confidence and filling in the gaps
✔️ PLUS I talk a bit about the role of gaslighting and where most people I work with get stuck

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Episode Transcript

Torie Wiksell (00:14):
Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the
adult children of parents withborderline and narcissistic
personality disorders.
I'm your host, tori Wixel, atherapist and coach with over a
decade of experience in themental health field.
Now let's jump in.
Welcome back to the podcastthis week.

(00:35):
I am so excited to talk to youtoday.
Tons of really fun thingshappening behind the scenes.
Stay tuned, I'm going to beannouncing something really,
really exciting coming up soon.
I can't quite announce it today, but make sure to check out and
follow my Instagram account atTori at Confident Boundaries now

(00:57):
.
I'll definitely be posting itthere when I'm able to,
hopefully in the next couple ofdays.
Tbd stay tuned.
Also, last week, in theconfident boundaries online
community, we did our Februaryworkshop.
That was all about gaslightingwhat is gaslighting, how do you
stop it and what do you do torebuild your confidence and

(01:19):
respond to it when it'shappening?
It was one of my favoritethings that I've talked about in
quite a while, because I thinkit's so helpful.
I talked about where so many ofmy therapy and coaching clients
get stuck when it comes togaslighting.

(01:42):
I cannot tell you how manytimes people have really felt
overwhelmed by the fact thatthey don't know if the person
who is gaslighting them isintentionally doing it, and the
reality is that doesn't matter,it's irrelevant, it really
doesn't, and I know that itfeels important.

(02:04):
It feels really important,right?
If they are intentionally doingit, like, obviously that's
horrible and you don't want tohave any sort of a relationship
with someone who's intentionallytrying to make you feel crazy.
But the reality is, even ifsomeone's not intentionally
trying to make you feel crazy,even if someone's not

(02:28):
intentionally trying to make youfeel crazy, but the way that
they interact with you does makeyou feel crazy more often than
not.
That's not good.
We don't want you interactingin a way that makes you feel
crazy.
There are so many aspects ofgaslighting that are far more
beneficial to look at whenyou're trying to figure out
what's going on, why you feelthis way, if it's your fault, if

(02:51):
it's not, if you're reallybeing gaslit.
If you're interested, hop onover to confidentboundariescom
slash, join and check it out.
The recording's there and it'savailable right now and it's
jam-packed with really usefulinformation.
I want to pivot now and talkabout our topic for this week's
podcast episode, which isneeding to forgive ourselves for

(03:14):
not knowing how to do basicadulting things because we were
never taught how to do basicadulting things and this one is
so tricky.
I mean, everything about havinga parent with BPD or MPD is
tricky, if we're being honest,but this one's really hard and I
think so much of it goes backto when the focus is on

(03:38):
ourselves, when we're working onself-compassion, self-love.
We're working onself-compassion, self-love, kind
ways to speak to ourselves,about ourselves.
These things are all reallyreally tricky, sitting with our

(03:59):
own emotions.
They're all really hard becausewe have been taught our entire
life to keep the focus on makingsure the people around us,
primarily our parent, is fine,is happy, is safe, is calm, is
fill in the blank with whateverit is.
We are not encouraged to focuson ourselves or focus on what we

(04:27):
need or ask for what we need orcommunicate what we're feeling.
Those things are highlydiscouraged when we're talking
about being an adult andrecognizing that we lack basic
adulting skills and that reallyincludes so much can be

(04:47):
practical things like yourparents not sitting you down and
teaching you how to balance abudget.
It can be life skills, likeyour parents never really
teaching you how to cook or howto clean or how to do your own
laundry and you just having tokind of like stumble through
life and figure it out as you go.

(05:10):
There are so many skills thatparents with unmanaged
borderline personality disorderand narcissistic personality
disorder lack and therefore theyare unable to teach their
children.
If they don't have these skillsthemselves, how can they teach
them to us?
What I know comes up for so manyof the clients that I work with

(05:33):
in both coaching and therapy,is that they really struggle
with allowing space to not knowmaybe what your peers know, not
having the skill set that yourpeers do or the experience with
that skill set that your peersdo.
I think it can be really hardif you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s,

(05:56):
50s and you are gettingtogether with friends of yours
and you're looking around andyou're seeing that they know
things, that they haveexperience doing things that you
really are still just trying tofigure out as you go.
It can be embarrassing at times, it could be frustrating, it

(06:20):
could be challenging to reallyfocus on and to try to fill
those gaps of knowledge.
And I think that is reallyinteresting because oftentimes
when we talk about BPD and MPDparents, we talk about trauma,
we talk about communicationstyles, we talk about emotions

(06:43):
and boundaries and going nocontact or maybe low contact.
The conversation rarely turnsto things like a skill deficit,
but that is hugely a part ofthis dynamic.
But that is hugely a part ofthis dynamic A lot of life
things that growing up we justdidn't learn, and then as an

(07:09):
adult, we're expected to knowhow to do those things, and that
makes it so we don't always askfor the support that we need to
fill in those gaps, because,like everything before, it might
feel embarrassing.
Right, it might feel likesomething we should already know
.
And one thing that I am willingto learn that is far more

(07:48):
important than what I should orshould not have known previously
the fact that I want to learnnew information.
That's the important thing.
It's not about the deficit,it's not about being behind in
some areas, because the realityis, everyone has their own
struggle and their journeys, andwhen you spend so much of your

(08:13):
life just trying to emotionallyand sometimes physically survive
, recognizing the gaps and thentaking the time out of your life
to fill those in is a luxurythat you just don't have, and so

(08:33):
I think the best thing that youcan do is when you are in a
place in your life where youhave a bit more distance from
that parent.
You are living independentlyfrom them.
You have your own financialindependence, or at least to
some extent a financialindependence.
When you have safer people whoyou trust, who support you, care

(08:58):
about you, who know you andencourage you, then you have the
opportunity to start going tosome of those places that were
much more of a luxury when youwere in survival mode.
No one in survival mode isgoing to take the time or energy
to learn something, to seek outknowledge about something that

(09:22):
is not imperative, that theyknow in the moment.
They're going to do what theycan to put out the fire that's
in front of them not fireprooffor a fire that might happen
sometime in the future.
That's just not realisticwhatsoever.
And when we can put thesethings into perspective like

(09:45):
that, I think it allows us to bea little more gentle with
ourselves and a little kinderwith ourselves and really lower
the expectations that we have onourselves to have everything
figured out.
Something else that's reallyrelevant about the NPD-BPD

(10:07):
parent-adult-child dynamic thatreally feeds into this is we as
children grow up in this worldwhere we are supposed to know
things that we were never taught.
We're not supposed to cry,we're not supposed to yell,
we're not supposed to knowthings that we were never taught
.
We're not supposed to cry,we're not supposed to yell,
we're not supposed to throwthings, we're not supposed to
have any means of regulating ouremotions except quiet and quiet

(10:32):
, not attention grabbing.
And we are supposed to knowwhat is going to upset our
parent and what is not going toupset our parent.
And we are supposed to be ableto mind, read and know what our
parent expects of us at alltimes.
And we are supposed toanticipate what needs to be done

(10:53):
, whether that's taking care ofyour siblings or cleaning the
house or going grocery shoppingor cooking for your family.
But we're supposed to know allof these things all the time?
And it's just impossible,obviously, looking at it through
an adult's lens, but that's thesame expectation that we hold

(11:18):
ourselves to when we look atthese areas of our life as
adults that we're strugglingwith and we shame ourselves for
not knowing things we weren'ttaught that, we weren't mentored
in, that we weren't allowed tofocus on and grow in.
And it's the same impact on usas when we were expected to have

(11:45):
this knowledge that we couldnever just instinctually have as
a child.
Allow space in your life forgrowth with things that it feels
like should be easy for you nowand should be in your toolbox
already.
Allowing space for the realitythat you're sad that you were

(12:11):
never taught these things, thatyou feel a bit embarrassed that
you feel behind in some ways,and allowing there to be space
for those uncomfortable feelingsand allowing yourself the
permission to seek out knowledgeand help and support to fill in

(12:34):
those gaps where they are.
I think that's a big gift ofnot only self-compassion but
just really working through thetrauma that we experienced as
kids.
It's really saying when I was akid, I had no control around the

(12:57):
expectations of me that wereunreasonable.
Those were there.
It was out of my control.
But as an adult, I can chooseto be kinder and more gentle
with myself.
I can choose to allow space forme to be imperfect and to grow

(13:19):
and to gain new information andto work on skills that I'm not
good at right now, that Istruggle with, that are really
challenging.
I can allow myself to beimperfect and to try and to
continue to grow imperfectly andjust remind yourself along the

(13:45):
way that growth is almost alwaysa two steps forward, eight
steps back, five steps forward,four steps back, eight steps
forward, two steps back type ofthing.
Growth is never linear.
When it is sustainable, it isvery much a bumpy road, but a

(14:07):
bumpy road that is meaningfuland has purpose and that allows
us to move forward in life.
And so, with all of that said,I'm going to wrap up the podcast
here.
For today, I am, for the firsttime in about six months, taking

(14:27):
a few new therapy clients in myprivate practice.
If you're located in Washington, oregon or California and
you're interested in workingtogether, head on over to
toriwixeltherapycom.
Slash schedule and you canrequest a free phone
consultation there.
I also have two or three moreopenings in my coaching

(14:51):
membership, so you can learnmore about that at
confidentboundariescom.
Slash coaching.
And until next week, take care,you guys.
Bye.
Thanks so much for joining mefor another week of You're Not
Crazy.
If you like the podcast, pleasemake sure to rate us five stars

(15:12):
and leave a review.
It helps so much and make sureto check the show notes for
updates of what's going on in myworld.
Okay, I'll see you next week.