Grieving the Life You Deserved: Healing From a Toxic Parent

In this episode, I talk about the complicated grief that surfaces once we begin setting boundaries and creating distance from toxic, narcissistic, or emotionally immature parents.

I share what it looked like in my own life— the emotional toll of being a parentified child, and why our healing journey often involves mourning the milestones we missed while we were just trying to survive.

This conversation is especially for those who feel behind in life, who struggle with guilt for being sad about the past, or who just need to hear that it’s okay to grieve what should have been. Because healing from a toxic parent doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t hurt—it means being honest with our reality, making space for that pain, and still choosing to move forward.

If you're looking for support navigating your cycle breaking journey in real time, the Boundaries Helper GPT inside the Confident Boundaries Membership is now live and ready to help.

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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.

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.
Hi and welcome back to thisepisode of You're Not Crazy.

(00:35):
I wanted to start today bythanking you for the
overwhelmingly positive feedbackon the last episode.
I know that I barely scratchedthe surface when it comes to how
relationships and growing upwith a toxic parent, a
narcissist parent, a parent withunmanaged borderline
personality disorder, can impactus in so many other aspects of

(01:01):
our adult life and our adultrelationships.
There, honestly, could be anentirely separate podcast
devoted just to that topic.
So I know I only scratched thesurface there, but I look
forward to doing more episodesabout that in the future,
because it's very clear, basedon the feedback that I got, that
this is something that isreally helpful for a lot of

(01:23):
people.
I wanted to tell you guys aboutsomething really exciting that
I released in the membershipthis past weekend.
I created a GPT like chat GPT.
It's an AI bot called theBoundaries Helper, and I've
trained this GPT to be able tocoach people through coming up

(01:49):
with boundaries that are veryaligned with the things that I
teach.
I've trained it todifferentiate between what is
something it can and should helpwith and what is something that
is better suited for coachingor therapy with a licensed
therapist.
It is a really nifty tool andresource for you to use when

(02:14):
things come up out of the blueand you need support on the spot
, and so this bot is a reallygood in-between helper so that
it doesn't matter if it's aweekend, if it's an evening, if
it is something that you need tofigure out immediately, within
the next five minutes, this GPThelper can help guide you

(02:37):
through remembering what youwant to do that's aligned with
your value system, helping youformulate what to say, and it's
just another way that people inthe Confident Boundaries
membership can feel less alonebecause you're not alone in
there.
So I just wanted to mentionthat because I was really

(02:59):
excited about being able torelease that this weekend.
And then one more quickreminder if you are struggling
with what to say when setting aboundary with your toxic parent,
if you're not in the membership, if you don't have access to
the Boundaries Helper GPT, goover to confidentboundariescom
slash guide and download my freeguide Five Guilt-Proof

(03:21):
Boundaries that Actually Work.
I have actual scripts that I'vewritten and walk you through
the mindset around that.
Today I want to talk aboutsomething that all of us who
grew up in a dysfunctionalfamily system struggle with, and
that is grieving the loss ofwhat we missed out on before our
healing journey began and alsolike during the healing journey

(03:45):
itself.
Our healing journey is notsomething that has a finish line
.
It is not something where youdo trauma therapy, you learn to
set boundaries, you get insightabout your family and then
you're done.
You've ran the marathon, you'refinished, it's over.
That's not how this works.
This is a lifelong journey.
Being a cycle breaker is beingthe person in a long line of

(04:11):
traumatized humans that isshifting the road that they're
walking.
They're forging their own path.
You are forging your own path.
I have forged my own path.
What I'm going to talk abouttoday is what to do with all of

(04:33):
those years, all of thosedecades, before you get to a
place where you feel much moregrounded in your healing, where
you feel like you haveperspective and insight and
where you have worked through alot of your trauma, because,
again, there's no finish line,but there is a place in our

(04:55):
healing journey where we do feelbetter.
We feel like we have moredistance, emotionally, from the
chaos, and that's due to settingboundaries, that's due to
making active choices and activedecisions around how involved
we want to be with our familiesand what types of relationships

(05:19):
are realistic to have with them,and what do those look like and
how do we implement them.
The things about being anemotionally healthy adult that
we were never taught or modeledgrowing up, things like learning
how to identify our ownemotions and learning how to

(05:41):
regulate and sit with reallyhard feelings and not avoid and
not always go into problemsolver mode, but to be okay with
discomfort and being able totolerate that.
Also learning what healthyrelationships look like.
How do we communicate in a waythat does not avoid

(06:03):
confrontation but actually is ahealthy means of repairing
relationships when there is hurtor disappointment All of these
things, in addition toprocessing the areas of trauma
which we feel stuck in or feeloverwhelmed by, all of these

(06:25):
things, are a part of ourhealing journey.
So as we go down that road andbegin to gain more mastery
around some of this stuff, we'reable to get much more
perspective, and at least for mewhen pre-healing, even though a

(06:59):
lot of that version of me wasduring my healing journey and
then I see a version of myselfthat has come out of the hardest
part living in the dysfunction,living in that world, feeling
overwhelmed and helpless tohaving so much more clarity on

(07:21):
this side and so much more peace.
All of that said, let's talkabout how it feels to look back
on our life as we're growing upas a young adult and deal with
the emotions that come up aroundthings we should have had and
opportunities and things weshould have known in our lives

(07:46):
and what to do when looking backand just seeing how much you
missed out on.
So for me and for a lot of thepeople that I've worked with
over the years, this reallybecame a major issue in my life
when I went off to college as anundergrad when I was 18.

(08:07):
That's where it started tobecome very obvious to me that I
was very behind my peers insome ways with my emotional
intelligence and my relationalskill level, and then I was
decades ahead of them and others.

(08:28):
This is the really weirddilemma of being a parentified
child.
You grow up in a world whereyou're never allowed to be a kid
.
You never get to have thefreedom and the carelessness of
being a little kid, being a realteenager and adolescent.
You don't get that because theadults around you aren't

(08:51):
adulting and you have taken onthat burden because the people
who should be taking on thatburden don't.
I was actually super behind mypeers in other ways.
I did not know how to identifymy own emotions.
What was I feeling?
Good or bad?
That was it.

(09:11):
I'm feeling okay or okayFeeling good.
I'm feeling okay.
I'm feeling bad.
Those aren't emotions.
Those are very subjective, veryvague descriptors.
I didn't know how to deal withthings like anxiety and
disappointment and stress andfear, because I didn't have the

(09:32):
luxury to deal with those orlearn how to deal with those in
healthy ways.
Growing up, I had to do what Ihad the ability and capacity to
do.
That wasn't learning how to sitwith my feelings.
That wasn't learning how toexpress my feelings in a healthy

(09:54):
way.
In fact, I was stronglyridiculed or shamed for having
any sort of challenging emotion.
In my family, my mom wouldfrequently say things I know
I've said on the podcast beforethere's no crying in baseball,
take a chill pill.
That was a favorite of hers.

(10:15):
Just any emotion that wasn'tpleasant or easy for her to deal
with was really shamed andcondemned, and there wasn't any
guidance on how to regulate myown emotions.
One, because she didn't knowhow to do that herself, but two,

(10:37):
she just wanted me to shut itdown.
She didn't care about thethings that I was feeling, she
just very clearly wanted it tostop Stop being an inconvenience
, stop feeling the feelings, andthat's what I learned how to do
.
I learned how to shut down myfeelings, except that doesn't
work long term.
And turning 18, moving out of myhouse, going to school, I was

(11:01):
around other people my age and Ireally struggled.
I ended up in relationshipsthat were extremely unhealthy.
I didn't know how to do basicthings like understand what I
wanted and needed and be able toaccess that for myself my

(11:24):
entire life.
I was told who I am, what Ishould think, what I should feel
, what I was allowed to thinkand feel, what decisions I
should be making, and I wasseverely humiliated and
embarrassed and scared andshamed for violating that and so

(11:44):
going into the real world whereall of a sudden I had to do
those things on a regular basis,was a complete dumpster fire.
It was horrible.
It was awful.
I really struggled.
I ended up in really badsituations and I'm very lucky
that I was eventually able toget help navigating all of that.

(12:09):
But most of my 20s were spent ona healing journey.
A lot of my early 30s werespent on a healing journey.
This has taken a very long time.
I'm still on my healing journey, but I would say I did most of
the front work for my healingjourney throughout my entire 20s

(12:30):
and my early 30s.
That's a time that most peoplelook back on and they think, wow
, I had such a great time atcollege.
I'll never have the collegeexperience that other people
have when they look back fondly.
I'll never have the high schoolexperience that people have.
It's really sad.
I think that for me, so much ofgrief is allowing myself to not

(12:58):
have to move beyond being sadabout that, I'm okay.
Being angry about that, I'mokay.
Being sad about that 'm okaybeing sad about that.
I think that those are reallyappropriate emotions to have
given the life that I've lived,and I think that I'm quite
capable these days of feelingsad and angry and not allowing

(13:25):
that to dictate my decisionmaking and creating space for
myself to have those feelingsand to say, yeah, that sucks.
I think for me, the biggestpart about grieving the things
that could have been, thatshould have been, is just

(13:47):
allowing myself to be honestwith myself and really the world
, with this podcast about whatthe reality of my life was,
because for so long I wasashamed, I was embarrassed and
I'd been conditioned to believethat I had been an awful human

(14:09):
since, basically, I was born.
And it's just so wild and it'snot surprising that it's taken
me a really long time to find myown voice and feel confident
that I'm not that horriblemonster that I was convinced
that I was for so long.

(14:29):
It totally makes sense and it'salso really sad that I had to
go through that.
You're allowed to grieve theloss of how your life could have
been, of how your life shouldhave been, any way that you
please.
I think that as long as you'renot causing harm to yourself, as

(14:50):
long as you're not trying todissociate or numb yourself out
to avoid dealing with it, you'reallowed to cope with it how you
want.
Healing means you have theautonomy to decide for yourself
what you need.
For me, the way that I grievethe loss of what was is by

(15:11):
living my life in the way that Itruly want to now, and by
recognizing that I can't go backand have a childhood.
I can't go back and have myearly adult years in the way
that so many of my peers wereable to.
I will never get that time back.
So how can I live my life nowin a way that feels fulfilling

(15:36):
and meaningful and isn't tryingto redo periods of my life that
have already passed?
It's a tricky thing, it's acomplicated thing, but I guess
growing up with a toxic parentin and of itself is just a
complicated thing.
So, on that note, I am going towrap things up for today.

(16:01):
Just a reminder if you needBoundaries scripts, head over to
confidentboundariescom slashguide and pick up my free guide.
And, as one last reminder, theBoundaries Helper GPT is in the
membership.
So, with all of that said, havea great rest of your week, you

(16:21):
guys, and I'll see you next week.
Bye, bye, you guys, and I'llsee you next week.
Bye.
Thanks so much for joining mefor another episode of You're
Not Crazy.
If you like the podcast, pleaseleave a review and rate us five
stars.
It helps so much.
And make sure to check the shownotes for links to bonus

(16:42):
podcast episodes and other waysI can help.
See you soon.