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December 17, 2024 18 mins

Can personal experiences spark global change? In this episode, I share the story behind my newest venture, Confident Boundaries, and how my passion for helping adults with parents who have borderline and narcissistic personality disorders has evolved throughout this past year.

Confident Boundaries goes beyond my therapy and coaching practices, offering tools, resources, and a supportive community for adult children ready to heal and reclaim their power.

I’ll also take you behind the scenes of launching this initiative, from the technical hurdles of being a one-woman show to the deep gratitude I feel for this growing community. Your support—whether through listening, sharing your stories, or leaving a review—helps sustain this mission and build a global network of connection and healing.

Ready to break the cycle of trauma and find your strength? Tune in now, and don’t forget to check the show notes for links to join the Confident Boundaries community. Let’s do this together.

Want access to archived episodes and bonus content?
Subscribe to You’re Not Crazy: The Private Feed for exclusive episodes not available on the public feed— plus get all new episodes ad-free. Sign up for only $12/month → confidentboundaries.com/private

A huge thank you to our first podcast sponsors:

STAK Marketing
A woman-owned agency that acts like a fractional marketing director for your business: https://www.stakmarketing.com/

Jess Gleim

Marketing Strategist and Meta Ads Expert. Smart, data-backed strategy that actually makes you money: https://www.jessgleim.com/

🎧 Ready for More?
Subscribe to You're Not Crazy: The Private Feed for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and archived episodes no longer available in the public feed: confidentboundaries.com/private

📱 Download the Confident Boundaries App
Available on iOS and Android

📸 Follow Me on Instagram
instagram.com/torieatconfidentboundaries

Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy. If you’re in crisis, please call the 988 Crisis Lifeline.

You're Not Crazy is owned and produced by Torie Wiksell and Confident Boundaries, LLC.

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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 thisweek's episode of You're Not

(00:35):
Crazy.
First, I apologize aboutgetting this episode out a
little bit late to you today.
It has been quite a week for melots of technical issues I'm
going to tell you guys all aboutit in just a second but thank
you so much for your patienceand bearing with me.
I have had some really fun,really exciting things happening

(00:58):
behind the scenes, and that gota little messy and complicated
this weekend.
So let's get into it.
The first thing that I want tosay is that I know that if
you've been listening to thispodcast since it first started
in July, you've kind of followedthe scope of what we're doing
here.
But I also know that we have somany new listeners that are

(01:23):
finding us every week.
Know that we have so many newlisteners that are finding us
every week, and so I just wantto give a quick catch up to
everyone in case you're notsuper familiar with how we got
here today, or how I got heretoday, how you got here today,
how we both got here today.
I've been a therapist for closeto 12 years now and I've spent a

(01:44):
lot of my career working withclients with personality
disorders and as thingsprogressed in my practice, I
started also working with thepartners and family members of
clients with personalitydisorders primarily borderline
personality disorder, but alsonarcissistic personality
disorder and I myself grew up ina family where I had a parent

(02:07):
with a really unmanagedpersonality disorder, which at
one time I thought was probablyBPD.
I've really come to learnthroughout my own personal
healing journey that my mom'sissues were probably much more
consistent with narcissisticpersonality disorder.

(02:28):
So fast forward a bit.
Over the last few years in mytherapy private practice I have
worked primarily with the adultchildren of parents with
borderline and narcissisticpersonality disorders.
I love it.
It is my favorite thing to do.
I also have a small percentageof my practice that's devoted to

(02:50):
clients with obsessivecompulsive disorder.
I have OCD.
It's something that is reallyimportant to me that I help make
therapy for that moreaccessible.
But because this podcast is notabout OCD, we're going to circle
back to what my main focus is,which is helping adults navigate

(03:10):
their relationships and traumaand healing around dealing with
a parent with BPD ornarcissistic personality
disorder.
So I've been doing that forseveral years in my therapy
private practice that's calledTori Wixel Therapy, and
throughout that time I've hadlots of people reach out to me,
finding me through my websiteand wanting to work together,

(03:33):
because this is such a specificniche that I have Not a ton of
therapists also specialize inthis very specific area, and so
what was happening is I wouldhave lots of adults reaching out
to me wanting to work together,wanting to pick my brain a bit,
and because I'm licensed inCalifornia, oregon and

(03:56):
Washington, I was really limitedto working with only adults in
those three states and I wouldhave to essentially kind of turn
people away and say I'm sosorry, I can't really help you.
This is kind of my advice onthings you might want to look
for to find a therapist that canbe helped you, but essentially,

(04:18):
good luck.
And that felt horrible.
I think it probably felt reallyhorrible for the people who
were reaching out to me wantingto work together and it felt
awful to me as someone who hasbuilt my life and career around
trying to help other people whoare struggling and wanting to
better themselves, and so earlythis year I opened up my second

(04:42):
company.
My second company is calledConfident Boundaries and
Confident Boundaries isessentially where I do
everything that's not therapy.
So I self-produce this podcastunder Confident Boundaries, I do
coaching under ConfidentBoundaries and I have courses
and guides and a bunch of otherstuff under Confident Boundaries

(05:04):
.
So essentially, tori WixelTherapy is my therapy practice
and I only do therapy throughthat.
And then Confident Boundariesis where everything else happens
.
So if you're on my email list,it comes from Confident
Boundaries.
If you're listening to thispodcast, it's produced by me at
Confident Boundaries and I thinkyou get the idea.
So that's kind of how we'vegotten here today.

(05:27):
Well, through the course of thisyear in building Confident
Boundaries, I have been able toexpand my reach and help far
more people than I was able tounder just my private practice.
And that makes me feel so happy, because every time I hear from
one of you, every time I workwith a coaching client and I'm

(05:50):
able to just put down theiranxieties a bit and help
normalize the feelings thatthey're experiencing in the
context of these are things thatso many adults who are trying
to break the cycle of trauma andabuse and dysfunction in their
own families are feeling too.

(06:10):
It just makes me so happy thatwe're working together to get
our society in a healthier place, because it really does have
this ripple global effect.
When we all work on ourselves,when you work on yourself, when
I work on myself in personaltherapy and healing and

(06:31):
connecting with healthy otherpeople who are on a healing
journey, it really does havethat positive ripple effect and
that makes me really happy.
And that's one of the bigreasons why I've gone into this
field is I want to make theworld a better place on this
individual and more global scale.

(06:51):
Circling back to confidentboundaries, as I was listing
before, I've been able to expandthe impact that I have and
helping getting information topeople like you by doing things
like coaching and producingcourses and producing this
podcast, and that is great.

(07:11):
Also, I am a one-woman show andso I solely run my private
practice.
I solely run ConfidentBoundaries.
I have solely produced thecourses and materials and this
podcast, and it is fun and it isexciting and it is also a lot

(07:33):
of irons in the fire and so Idon't want to burn out.
I want to be able to continueto do this in a meaningful way,
and I don't ever want to get toa place where I'm phoning in
anything that I'm doing, becausethese things are really
important and I really ampassionate and I really care
about them.
And so I've been thinking a lotabout how I can streamline and

(07:56):
simplify the things that I'mdoing in a way that makes them
at least as helpful as they havebeen preferably more helpful
even and what I've come to theconclusion of is I'm just going
to put everything that I do inConfident Boundaries under one

(08:17):
umbrella.
I know that's a littleconfusing because it kind of
already is under the ConfidentBoundaries umbrella, but go with
me here.
So, as of today, I'm officiallylaunching what's called the
Confident Boundaries onlinecommunity, and in this community
it's going to have everything.
It's going to have theBoundaries Roadmap online course

(08:39):
.
It's going to have all of myguides.
It's where I'm going to do livetrainings, it's where I'm going
to do Q&As, it's where I'mgoing to be in the community
every day talking.
There are areas of the communitywhere you can post, and it's
really similar to Reddit.
So if you're someone that's aReddit lurker, like I am, this

(09:01):
is your cup of tea, I'm sure,and if you're not, it's super
easy to get the hang of onceyou're in there.
But I have three differentcommunity chat, like Reddit
feature or Reddit sections, isk,and those are places if you
just need to vent that you canpost with other people that get
it because they also have aparent with vpd or narcissistic

(09:24):
personality disorder.
There's a community chat whereyou can post asking for
encouragement if you're workingon setting healthy boundaries,
if you're thinking about goingno contact but you're feeling
really guilty about it and youjust need someone to be your
cheerleader, you can post inthat community chat section.

(09:44):
There's also a community chatsection where you can ask for
advice, so you can ask thecommunity for tips for feedback,
for support if you're feelingstuck, tips for feedback for
support if you're feeling stuck,things that you can try to do
differently.

(10:06):
This is intended to connectpeople that have similar
experiences that are so uniquewith other people who are also
on the journey of healing, and Idon't think that there's
another community like this.
At least I don't know of it.
I know that throughout theyears when I work with therapy
clients, when I work withcoaching clients, this has been
something that so many peoplehave said.

(10:26):
I really want to find a placewhere I can connect with other
people that are also goingthrough this, because it just
feels so isolating and I feelcrazy at times and other people
don't get it, and while myfriends love me, while my
partner cares about me, theyjust really don't get it, and I
am hoping that this is thatplace, and so I would love for

(10:50):
you guys to check it out.
I priced it really excessively.
It's $29 a month, that's it,but only until January 1st, and
then it's going up to $39 amonth, and so if you are
interested in connecting withother adults who are in a
similar family dynamic, who arealso on the journey of healing,

(11:11):
or if you are interested inconnecting with other awesome
listeners of this podcast, headover to confidentboundariescom.
Slash join to find out evenmore about the online community.
I'm so, so excited because thisis really an opportunity to

(11:33):
help teach the things that Italk about right.
When you have access to theboundaries roadmap as part of
this community, you get theinformation and the skills to
help you set boundarieseffectively with a parent with
BPD or narcissistic personalitydisorder, because it's just not
the same as setting boundarieswith someone that doesn't have

(11:54):
those boundaries, those traits.
You get resources that arereally tangible, that are
effective.
You're not having to Googleright.
You're not having to spendhours and hours and hours
looking through the internet andreading different things and
trying to figure out how topiece things together in a way

(12:15):
that will work and that willhelp alleviate your stress
levels.
You don't have to do thatanymore because you can come to
this one single resource and youcan connect with other people
who get it.
You can vent without judgmentor without someone minimizing
what you're going through.
You can ask for advice.
You can be someone else'scheerleader.

(12:36):
You can say, hey, I've beenthere, this is what I did, it
seemed to have gone well for me.
Or hey, I've been there, thisis what I did.
I wouldn't recommend it, andthis is why you can connect.
You can ask me questions aboutyour personal situation.
You can just do things that wedon't have the ability to do

(12:56):
here on this podcast, and so Ireally hope that you'll check it
out.
Like I said, if you join beforeJanuary 1st, you get locked into
that $29 a month price for thelifetime of your membership
Starting January 1st.
It's going to go up to $39 amonth.
There's also an option topurchase a year membership and

(13:18):
essentially you get one monthfree when you do that, so the
price for that is $319 for theentire year.
You get essentially 12 monthsof the membership for the price
of 11.
So I'm going to post the linkson the podcast notes and I'm
also going to post links to the$29 a month option and also the

(13:39):
annual subscription option, sothat it's really easy, it's
really accessible and you guyscan get in.
It's really exciting.
We have a couple of people whohave already joined.
I'm moving people from thePatreon page over into the
community and so if you sign upright now, you might see a
couple of people have alreadymade their way in there.

(13:59):
This will be a transition thatI'm rolling out.
Oh, back to my story of thisweekend and it being really
chaotic.
So in order to create thiscommunity, I had to move my
website to a different platform.
The previous platform that Iwas using doesn't have the
capacity or the capabilities tocreate this type of online

(14:21):
community, and so over theweekend and over the course of
the last week, I've been workingon doing that transition and
move.
As I've mentioned numeroustimes, I'm not the most
technologically savvy person.
I'm also not completely inepteither.
I'm like you know.
It's not a black and whitething.
I'm somewhere in the middle.

(14:41):
So I thought I was competentenough to do this and I knew it
would be a lot of work also.
Well, I ended up crashing mywebsite along the way, and
yesterday I completely lostaccess to my email account all
day, but I didn't realize thatuntil I thought it was very
weird that I wasn't getting anyemails.

(15:04):
I was sending them, but Iwasn't receiving any, which is
very atypical throughout thecourse of a day.
So I learned that I had somehowlost connection to my email.
Now the website is back up andit's working, and it's working
quite well.
My email is also working now.
So if you get a duplicate emailfrom me today that I sent you

(15:26):
yesterday, please just give me alittle grace there.
I want to make sure thateverything I sent out yesterday
actually did make it.
So you might be getting afollow up email from me today.
Or if you got one yesterday andit didn't make its way through,
just feel free to reply andjust say hey, I got this, no
need to send again.

(15:46):
But, regardless, this has been ajourney, but I think that this
will really simplify everythingon my end so that I can continue
to devote time and energy tocreating really quality content
for you guys.
I want to make sure that, whenI'm creating these podcast
episodes, when I am in theConfident Boundaries online

(16:11):
community, that I'm showing upin a really meaningful way, and
the only way for me to do thatis to create and produce content
that is sustainable for me todo long term, and so, by joining
the Confident Boundaries onlinecommunity, you're helping to
support this free podcast.

(16:32):
You're helping to give me theability to devote time and
energy to creating resourcesthat really help this community
and help grow this community,and so I am so grateful for
everyone who has been a part ofthis journey.
I'm so grateful for everyonewho has taken the time to write

(16:53):
to me and share a bit abouttheir story and some of the
challenges that they'reexperiencing.
You guys are such an amazingcommunity, and I am so honored
to be a part of it, and I'mreally, really looking forward
to getting to know you evenbetter over in the Confident
Boundaries online community, soI hope you'll join me over there

(17:16):
.
I hope you'll say hey, and don'tforget to check the show notes
for those links.
I'll see you guys next week.
Bye, thanks so much for joiningme for 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

(17:38):
of what's going on in my world.
Okay, I'll see you next week.
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