October 28, 2024 • 23 mins
Today I share about my own childhood growing up with a narcissistic parent. I talk about why it's been such a struggle for me to really accept my mother's narcissism and how becoming a parent myself has made me much less sympathetic to my mother's poor parenting journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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, hi guys.
Welcome back to the podcastthis week.
(00:34):
So today I'm going to get a bitmore personal than I typically
do on the podcast.
I know that sometimes I sharelittle tidbits and anecdotes
about my own story and my ownjourney in this world of
narcissistic and BPD parents,but today I'm going to spend the
(00:57):
podcast talking all about meand my stories.
So my daughter recently had abirthday and it's really
interesting to be a parent whenI didn't have a great
relationship In all reality.
I had a very messed uprelationship with my own mom.
(01:19):
So, as I'm sure many of you canrelate, if you're parents
yourself, or even if you're notand have just had a complicated
relationship with your own mom,becoming a mom myself has been
interesting.
So a little backstory my momactually passed away from breast
(01:40):
cancer when I was in my early20s and I'm not going to go
super deep into that right now.
But that poses a whole otherrealm of issues when you have a
complicated relationship, atoxic relationship with your
parent, and then they die whenyou're fairly young.
(02:00):
It doesn't make things easierper se, it just makes them
complicated in a different way,and so I definitely am happy to
talk a bit more about that atsome time in the future.
But for today's podcast, goingback to my daughter's birthday,
she recently had a birthday andit was just great and she's just
(02:26):
so cute and loving andinquisitive and kind and all of
these wonderful things.
And the really interestingthing about becoming a mom
myself, when I had such adysfunctional relationship with
my own mom, is that I've beensurprised how much angrier I
(02:50):
have gotten towards my own momthroughout this process.
Becoming a mom myself.
I can't imagine not doingeverything in my power to work
on myself in a way that allowedme to show up for my daughter in
the way that she needs me to,and that's a lifelong journey
(03:11):
for me.
I'm not going to all of asudden reach this end point
where I'm just the best mom onthe face of the earth, because
that is delusional.
It's going to be something Iconstantly have to work at for a
ton of reasons One being I'm ahuman being and two, being I
(03:31):
have this really complicatedbackstory when it comes to how I
was raised and how I wasparented, and so it's really
interesting that, being a parentmyself, I know how hard it is
to be a parent.
It's so hard and if you'reparents, I'm sure you get it.
It is really hard and I love mydaughter more than anything in
(03:54):
the world and it's stillextremely hard.
And it's hard because it bringsup stuff for me and stuff that
has nothing really to do withher, and it challenges me to be
really on top of regulating myown emotions and holding space
(04:16):
for her and being very mindfulof my own emotional capacity and
coping in the things that I'msaying and how I'm saying them
and my body language.
And I don't expect to be aperfect parent.
I know I'm not a perfect parent, but I'm trying really hard to
(04:36):
be the best parent that I can be, and what I have found is that
I get very angry when I reallytake time to sit and think about
how much my own mom wasunwilling to do that for me.
So I'm going to tell you alittle story here that I don't
(05:00):
share with many people.
My parents had a very drawn out,messy, complicated, chaotic
divorce, and it went on for avery, very long time and was
very stressful and chaotic.
But throughout this time myparents and my sister and I all
(05:20):
went on a vacation to Mexico, asone does when parents are
getting divorced.
I can't explain it, but anyway.
So my mom and I at some point,I was probably around 14 or 15.
My mom and I at some point aresitting on the beach in Mexico
talking and my mom just says Ithink I'm going to move to
(05:43):
Indonesia.
My mom was a teacher and teachthere and we lived in Southern
California, and so this felt alittle confusing to me and so I
said to her you mean, when myyounger sister goes to college,
that's what you'll do?
And she said no, very calmly,no, I think I might do it now.
(06:07):
Meanwhile I was 14, 15 yearsold, my sister was younger than
me, we both lived with ourmother, and so it was kind of a
very life-altering comment thatwas made just very nonchalantly
(06:28):
comment that was made just verynonchalantly and it really upset
me, it really traumatized meand it really fed into so much
of my fear of abandonment thatwasn't triggered only by this
one interaction, but this oneinteraction is so reflective of
the very callous and insensitiveways my mom would just throw
(06:49):
out, casually, abandonemotionally and physically.
And so many years later, whilemy mom was still alive, she and
I were talking in the kitchenone day and I had been in
therapy a few years.
At this point I was an adult, Iwas in college, but I was back
(07:09):
home, for whatever reason, andshe and I were talking in the
kitchen and I decided to bringit up, to give her the benefit,
hurt me, to try to move forwardin some way.
And so I brought it up and Isaid this situation has really
(07:34):
upset me and it's reallybothered me.
And she said well, I only saidthat because I wanted your dad
to tell me not to go.
What, excuse me?
Like just, you can't see myface right now, but it's just
(07:58):
like mushed up.
And the initial interaction thatwe had at the beach that day
was really disturbing.
It freaked me out.
It made me panic about where Iwas going to go, who I was going
to live with, how I could takecare of myself and my sister.
(08:18):
It put me into this spiralpanic that I often went to as I
was growing up, into this spiralpanic that I often went to as I
was growing up and as a youngadult who was trying to figure
out this dynamic and create ahealthier life for myself and
apply the things I was learningin therapy to my own life.
(08:42):
Going to her and having heracknowledge that she remembered
this incident and to have zero,zero emotion, to not be able to
consider anything other than thefact that she wanted my dad to
(09:07):
ask her not to move halfwayaround the world, to not care
about the emotional impact thather throwaway comment caused had
on me, I think really says somuch.
It's not just about the initialinteraction.
It's about the fact that shedid not care.
(09:29):
She lacked complete empathy,she truly did not care how much
pain she caused to me, and Ithink for a very long time I
have been much more comfortableidentifying my mom as someone
with borderline personalitydisorder and I think a major
(09:51):
component of that is that I knowwith BPD that there is therapy
that works if you put in thework and the effort and there
isn't a lack of empathy with BPD.
There is a lot of other chaosand there is a lot of other
trauma and abuse that can happenin respect to that parent-child
(10:15):
relationship.
But I think really, if I'm beinghonest with myself, to say that
my mom had narcissistic traitsfelt a lot safer emotionally
than to say that my mom was anarcissist, because it feels
horrible to think that theperson who is supposed to be
(10:36):
this constant caregiver, someonethat you rely on in your life,
really does not care, did notcare about you Other than in
regards to how that could impactthem, is a really hard pill to
(10:57):
swallow and I've been, you know,a therapist for a while now.
I've been doing my own personaltherapy for even longer and
it's a hard one.
It's really hard, and it'sbecome so much clearer to me,
being a parent myself, just howlittle, if any, empathy my mom
(11:23):
had for me.
It was much more this idea andthis image of being a good
parent, of coming off a certainway, but in the reality of
showing up for me emotionallyand consistently.
My mom had no desire to do thatwhatsoever and I think for a
(11:49):
long time, just identifying thatmy mom had BPD and that she was
a BPD patient with somenarcissistic traits just felt a
lot better.
But the reality is my mom had alot of BPD traits but I think
that in reality.
What she really had which was amuch bigger problem for not
(12:15):
only her but for me and how itimpacted me growing up was the
narcissistic personalitydisorder, because narcissists
are so good about reading peopleand knowing how to manipulate
people, especially people thatreally care and people that have
(12:38):
a lot of empathy.
They're so good about knowinghow to manipulate them in a way
that they feel like that personreally cares about them.
And it's just so dark and it'sso toxic and it's so perplexing
to me that you would become aparent when you don't have the
(13:03):
real willingness to put yourchild ahead of everything else,
all of your needs and wants, inorder to try to provide a life
where they can learn who theyare and feel comfortable being
themselves.
(13:24):
But that really wasn't therelationship that I had with my
mom.
My mom was infamous for sayingto me if I told you to go left,
you would go right just to spiteme.
And the reality is we were justvery different people and it
wasn't to spite her, it was justbecause that was the direction
(13:47):
I was wanting to go.
And I think with my own mom,something that was a big trigger
for her, if I had to guess, wasthat when we were kids, I was
like her doppelganger.
If you look at pictures of bothof us up until the time we're
about five or six, we look liketwins.
(14:09):
She had blonde hair and blueeyes and I have dark hair and
hazel eyes, but aside from thatwe look identical and I think
that was a very big trigger forher that I looked so much like
her that she saw me as thisextension of herself.
And yet I was my own personwith my own personality, and I
(14:34):
think that this really createdan issue for us long term where
she would have this verydysfunctional push pull with me
and it made me feel like I waseither the greatest person in
the world or a piece of dirt andgarbage.
(14:58):
And there are just so manydysfunctional interactions that
I can recall.
You know her leaving me atevents for an hour or two
because she had to work.
She was a school teacher.
I don't know how many schoolteachers out there leave their
kids standing regularly aloneafter school or work for a
(15:22):
couple of hours.
But that was my reality andthere was always a justification
for why.
Something upsetting happened tome she would show up at
football games when I was acheerleader in high school and
corner me like behind thebleachers type deal where no one
(15:44):
else was around, and justscream at me and yell at me and
tell me what a horrible person Iwas.
And it was just this constantanger and then pretending in
public that she was a differentway and it's exhausting.
And I think becoming a parentmyself has really woven a thread
(16:08):
through a lot of thoseinteractions and memories,
reframed my experiences with herin a way that I no longer have
(16:29):
space, emotional space, to offerthis benefit of the doubt and
minimize some of her abusivebehaviors, as I have in the past
, because I just don't careenough to exert the emotional
and physical energy that isrequired of me to do so.
I would much rather invest thaton working on myself and
(16:51):
continuing my healing journeyand showing up as a healthy
parent for my own daughter.
And the reason why I wanted toshare this with you today, aside
from it being very timely withmy daughter's recent birthday,
is that I imagine that there areothers of you out there who are
(17:12):
really struggling to acceptyour parent for who they are,
because you deserve to be lovedand valued and cherished and you
deserve to have had someone inyour life that loved you
unconditionally as a parentshould and you deserve to be
(17:36):
able to trust that, when yourparent is showing you love and
compassion, that that is genuineand it is not a manipulation
tactic.
And, at the same time, if youare in a parent-child
relationship similar to mine, Ithink it's so important that you
(17:58):
work on getting to a place ofreal acceptance with who they
are and basing that acceptancenot on my personal story but on
your pattern of experiences andinteractions with them.
And it's really importantbecause it does take a lot of
(18:21):
mental and emotional andphysical energy to do these
mental gymnastics, where we tryto look at the bright side, find
the good, really hope for thatredemption story right when they
wake up one day and somethingfinally gets to them and they
(18:47):
get it.
It clicks, because when you'redealing with a parent like mine
aside from the fact that my momis no longer alive when you're
dealing with a parent like mine,she had opportunities to have
that aha moment, right Like whenI approached her years later
about how that comment on thebeach impacted me.
(19:10):
She had the opportunity to tryto repair our relationship and
yet she didn't care, and that'snot something that changes.
When you don't have empathy forcausing your child emotional
pain and suffering when it'sbrought to your attention, you
(19:32):
are not going to develop empathy.
You might develop an ability tomanipulate your child into
thinking that you have empathywhen it serves you and you want
them to do something, but youare not going to develop empathy
.
And so, if you are relating atall to this story, if you are in
(19:57):
a place where you are in aplace where you are battling
between who your parent truly isand who you wish they were, I
want to really encourage you tojust be honest with yourself on
what empathy they've shown toyou and when you have tried to
(20:18):
repair that relationship.
How did that go?
How did they respond when youbrought to their attention that
you were hurt?
Did they care?
Were they apologetic?
Did they take accountability?
Accepting that my mother lackedempathy and, truly, at her soul,
did not care, how her actionsimpacted me, has been incredibly
(20:42):
hard and incredibly freeing,and it really really helps me
put into perspective of howdifferent I am than her and how
different my relationship withmy own daughter is than the
relationship that she and I had.
And so, while it is so hard toreally accept the reality of my
(21:08):
relationship with her growing upand all that that entailed.
It is so freeing to not have toworry about becoming her and
repeating the same patterns withmy own daughter, because I put
in the effort and, yeah, I'mgoing to fuck up, and when I do
(21:29):
fuck up I'm going to try torealize it and repair that
relationship.
And on the times that I don't,my daughter comes back to me.
I'm certainly going to hear herout and I'm going to try to
understand where that pain camefrom and try to repair that
relationship to the best thatI'm able to, and that's
(21:51):
something that's completelywithin my control.
Well, I know today's episode wasa bit different than the past
couple of episodes have been onhere, but I appreciate you guys
lending an ear to hear me rambleabout my own story and where I
(22:11):
am in my healing journey with mynarcissistic mom.
I'll see you guys next week.
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
and leave a review.
It helps so much.
And make sure to check the shownotes for discounts and updates
(22:34):
of what's going on in my world.
Okay, I'll see you next week.
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, hi guys.
Welcome back to the podcastthis week.
(00:34):
So today I'm going to get a bitmore personal than I typically
do on the podcast.
I know that sometimes I sharelittle tidbits and anecdotes
about my own story and my ownjourney in this world of
narcissistic and BPD parents,but today I'm going to spend the
(00:57):
podcast talking all about meand my stories.
So my daughter recently had abirthday and it's really
interesting to be a parent whenI didn't have a great
relationship In all reality.
I had a very messed uprelationship with my own mom.
(01:19):
So, as I'm sure many of you canrelate, if you're parents
yourself, or even if you're notand have just had a complicated
relationship with your own mom,becoming a mom myself has been
interesting.
So a little backstory my momactually passed away from breast
(01:40):
cancer when I was in my early20s and I'm not going to go
super deep into that right now.
But that poses a whole otherrealm of issues when you have a
complicated relationship, atoxic relationship with your
parent, and then they die whenyou're fairly young.
(02:00):
It doesn't make things easierper se, it just makes them
complicated in a different way,and so I definitely am happy to
talk a bit more about that atsome time in the future.
But for today's podcast, goingback to my daughter's birthday,
she recently had a birthday andit was just great and she's just
(02:26):
so cute and loving andinquisitive and kind and all of
these wonderful things.
And the really interestingthing about becoming a mom
myself, when I had such adysfunctional relationship with
my own mom, is that I've beensurprised how much angrier I
(02:50):
have gotten towards my own momthroughout this process.
Becoming a mom myself.
I can't imagine not doingeverything in my power to work
on myself in a way that allowedme to show up for my daughter in
the way that she needs me to,and that's a lifelong journey
(03:11):
for me.
I'm not going to all of asudden reach this end point
where I'm just the best mom onthe face of the earth, because
that is delusional.
It's going to be something Iconstantly have to work at for a
ton of reasons One being I'm ahuman being and two, being I
(03:31):
have this really complicatedbackstory when it comes to how I
was raised and how I wasparented, and so it's really
interesting that, being a parentmyself, I know how hard it is
to be a parent.
It's so hard and if you'reparents, I'm sure you get it.
It is really hard and I love mydaughter more than anything in
(03:54):
the world and it's stillextremely hard.
And it's hard because it bringsup stuff for me and stuff that
has nothing really to do withher, and it challenges me to be
really on top of regulating myown emotions and holding space
(04:16):
for her and being very mindfulof my own emotional capacity and
coping in the things that I'msaying and how I'm saying them
and my body language.
And I don't expect to be aperfect parent.
I know I'm not a perfect parent, but I'm trying really hard to
(04:36):
be the best parent that I can be, and what I have found is that
I get very angry when I reallytake time to sit and think about
how much my own mom wasunwilling to do that for me.
So I'm going to tell you alittle story here that I don't
(05:00):
share with many people.
My parents had a very drawn out,messy, complicated, chaotic
divorce, and it went on for avery, very long time and was
very stressful and chaotic.
But throughout this time myparents and my sister and I all
(05:20):
went on a vacation to Mexico, asone does when parents are
getting divorced.
I can't explain it, but anyway.
So my mom and I at some point,I was probably around 14 or 15.
My mom and I at some point aresitting on the beach in Mexico
talking and my mom just says Ithink I'm going to move to
(05:43):
Indonesia.
My mom was a teacher and teachthere and we lived in Southern
California, and so this felt alittle confusing to me and so I
said to her you mean, when myyounger sister goes to college,
that's what you'll do?
And she said no, very calmly,no, I think I might do it now.
(06:07):
Meanwhile I was 14, 15 yearsold, my sister was younger than
me, we both lived with ourmother, and so it was kind of a
very life-altering comment thatwas made just very nonchalantly
(06:28):
comment that was made just verynonchalantly and it really upset
me, it really traumatized meand it really fed into so much
of my fear of abandonment thatwasn't triggered only by this
one interaction, but this oneinteraction is so reflective of
the very callous and insensitiveways my mom would just throw
(06:49):
out, casually, abandonemotionally and physically.
And so many years later, whilemy mom was still alive, she and
I were talking in the kitchenone day and I had been in
therapy a few years.
At this point I was an adult, Iwas in college, but I was back
(07:09):
home, for whatever reason, andshe and I were talking in the
kitchen and I decided to bringit up, to give her the benefit,
hurt me, to try to move forwardin some way.
And so I brought it up and Isaid this situation has really
(07:34):
upset me and it's reallybothered me.
And she said well, I only saidthat because I wanted your dad
to tell me not to go.
What, excuse me?
Like just, you can't see myface right now, but it's just
(07:58):
like mushed up.
And the initial interaction thatwe had at the beach that day
was really disturbing.
It freaked me out.
It made me panic about where Iwas going to go, who I was going
to live with, how I could takecare of myself and my sister.
(08:18):
It put me into this spiralpanic that I often went to as I
was growing up, into this spiralpanic that I often went to as I
was growing up and as a youngadult who was trying to figure
out this dynamic and create ahealthier life for myself and
apply the things I was learningin therapy to my own life.
(08:42):
Going to her and having heracknowledge that she remembered
this incident and to have zero,zero emotion, to not be able to
consider anything other than thefact that she wanted my dad to
(09:07):
ask her not to move halfwayaround the world, to not care
about the emotional impact thather throwaway comment caused had
on me, I think really says somuch.
It's not just about the initialinteraction.
It's about the fact that shedid not care.
(09:29):
She lacked complete empathy,she truly did not care how much
pain she caused to me, and Ithink for a very long time I
have been much more comfortableidentifying my mom as someone
with borderline personalitydisorder and I think a major
(09:51):
component of that is that I knowwith BPD that there is therapy
that works if you put in thework and the effort and there
isn't a lack of empathy with BPD.
There is a lot of other chaosand there is a lot of other
trauma and abuse that can happenin respect to that parent-child
(10:15):
relationship.
But I think really, if I'm beinghonest with myself, to say that
my mom had narcissistic traitsfelt a lot safer emotionally
than to say that my mom was anarcissist, because it feels
horrible to think that theperson who is supposed to be
(10:36):
this constant caregiver, someonethat you rely on in your life,
really does not care, did notcare about you Other than in
regards to how that could impactthem, is a really hard pill to
(10:57):
swallow and I've been, you know,a therapist for a while now.
I've been doing my own personaltherapy for even longer and
it's a hard one.
It's really hard, and it'sbecome so much clearer to me,
being a parent myself, just howlittle, if any, empathy my mom
(11:23):
had for me.
It was much more this idea andthis image of being a good
parent, of coming off a certainway, but in the reality of
showing up for me emotionallyand consistently.
My mom had no desire to do thatwhatsoever and I think for a
(11:49):
long time, just identifying thatmy mom had BPD and that she was
a BPD patient with somenarcissistic traits just felt a
lot better.
But the reality is my mom had alot of BPD traits but I think
that in reality.
What she really had which was amuch bigger problem for not
(12:15):
only her but for me and how itimpacted me growing up was the
narcissistic personalitydisorder, because narcissists
are so good about reading peopleand knowing how to manipulate
people, especially people thatreally care and people that have
(12:38):
a lot of empathy.
They're so good about knowinghow to manipulate them in a way
that they feel like that personreally cares about them.
And it's just so dark and it'sso toxic and it's so perplexing
to me that you would become aparent when you don't have the
(13:03):
real willingness to put yourchild ahead of everything else,
all of your needs and wants, inorder to try to provide a life
where they can learn who theyare and feel comfortable being
themselves.
(13:24):
But that really wasn't therelationship that I had with my
mom.
My mom was infamous for sayingto me if I told you to go left,
you would go right just to spiteme.
And the reality is we were justvery different people and it
wasn't to spite her, it was justbecause that was the direction
(13:47):
I was wanting to go.
And I think with my own mom,something that was a big trigger
for her, if I had to guess, wasthat when we were kids, I was
like her doppelganger.
If you look at pictures of bothof us up until the time we're
about five or six, we look liketwins.
(14:09):
She had blonde hair and blueeyes and I have dark hair and
hazel eyes, but aside from thatwe look identical and I think
that was a very big trigger forher that I looked so much like
her that she saw me as thisextension of herself.
And yet I was my own personwith my own personality, and I
(14:34):
think that this really createdan issue for us long term where
she would have this verydysfunctional push pull with me
and it made me feel like I waseither the greatest person in
the world or a piece of dirt andgarbage.
(14:58):
And there are just so manydysfunctional interactions that
I can recall.
You know her leaving me atevents for an hour or two
because she had to work.
She was a school teacher.
I don't know how many schoolteachers out there leave their
kids standing regularly aloneafter school or work for a
(15:22):
couple of hours.
But that was my reality andthere was always a justification
for why.
Something upsetting happened tome she would show up at
football games when I was acheerleader in high school and
corner me like behind thebleachers type deal where no one
(15:44):
else was around, and justscream at me and yell at me and
tell me what a horrible person Iwas.
And it was just this constantanger and then pretending in
public that she was a differentway and it's exhausting.
And I think becoming a parentmyself has really woven a thread
(16:08):
through a lot of thoseinteractions and memories,
reframed my experiences with herin a way that I no longer have
(16:29):
space, emotional space, to offerthis benefit of the doubt and
minimize some of her abusivebehaviors, as I have in the past
, because I just don't careenough to exert the emotional
and physical energy that isrequired of me to do so.
I would much rather invest thaton working on myself and
(16:51):
continuing my healing journeyand showing up as a healthy
parent for my own daughter.
And the reason why I wanted toshare this with you today, aside
from it being very timely withmy daughter's recent birthday,
is that I imagine that there areothers of you out there who are
(17:12):
really struggling to acceptyour parent for who they are,
because you deserve to be lovedand valued and cherished and you
deserve to have had someone inyour life that loved you
unconditionally as a parentshould and you deserve to be
(17:36):
able to trust that, when yourparent is showing you love and
compassion, that that is genuineand it is not a manipulation
tactic.
And, at the same time, if youare in a parent-child
relationship similar to mine, Ithink it's so important that you
(17:58):
work on getting to a place ofreal acceptance with who they
are and basing that acceptancenot on my personal story but on
your pattern of experiences andinteractions with them.
And it's really importantbecause it does take a lot of
(18:21):
mental and emotional andphysical energy to do these
mental gymnastics, where we tryto look at the bright side, find
the good, really hope for thatredemption story right when they
wake up one day and somethingfinally gets to them and they
(18:47):
get it.
It clicks, because when you'redealing with a parent like mine
aside from the fact that my momis no longer alive when you're
dealing with a parent like mine,she had opportunities to have
that aha moment, right Like whenI approached her years later
about how that comment on thebeach impacted me.
(19:10):
She had the opportunity to tryto repair our relationship and
yet she didn't care, and that'snot something that changes.
When you don't have empathy forcausing your child emotional
pain and suffering when it'sbrought to your attention, you
(19:32):
are not going to develop empathy.
You might develop an ability tomanipulate your child into
thinking that you have empathywhen it serves you and you want
them to do something, but youare not going to develop empathy
.
And so, if you are relating atall to this story, if you are in
(19:57):
a place where you are in aplace where you are battling
between who your parent truly isand who you wish they were, I
want to really encourage you tojust be honest with yourself on
what empathy they've shown toyou and when you have tried to
(20:18):
repair that relationship.
How did that go?
How did they respond when youbrought to their attention that
you were hurt?
Did they care?
Were they apologetic?
Did they take accountability?
Accepting that my mother lackedempathy and, truly, at her soul,
did not care, how her actionsimpacted me, has been incredibly
(20:42):
hard and incredibly freeing,and it really really helps me
put into perspective of howdifferent I am than her and how
different my relationship withmy own daughter is than the
relationship that she and I had.
And so, while it is so hard toreally accept the reality of my
(21:08):
relationship with her growing upand all that that entailed.
It is so freeing to not have toworry about becoming her and
repeating the same patterns withmy own daughter, because I put
in the effort and, yeah, I'mgoing to fuck up, and when I do
(21:29):
fuck up I'm going to try torealize it and repair that
relationship.
And on the times that I don't,my daughter comes back to me.
I'm certainly going to hear herout and I'm going to try to
understand where that pain camefrom and try to repair that
relationship to the best thatI'm able to, and that's
(21:51):
something that's completelywithin my control.
Well, I know today's episode wasa bit different than the past
couple of episodes have been onhere, but I appreciate you guys
lending an ear to hear me rambleabout my own story and where I
(22:11):
am in my healing journey with mynarcissistic mom.
I'll see you guys next week.
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
and leave a review.
It helps so much.
And make sure to check the shownotes for discounts and updates
(22:34):
of what's going on in my world.
Okay, I'll see you next week.
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