The One Thing I Won't Help You With

This week, I tell you why I absolutely refuse to help you suppress your emotional reactions to your parent's toxic behaviors. Listen to hear me out and why I instead recommend focusing on setting boundaries with your parent who has borderline and/or narcissistic personality disorder.

Also, I share why this episode is a little late! As always- thanks so much for your patience and continued support!

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.

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 guys, welcome back to thisweek's episode of You're Not

(00:35):
Crazy.
Thanks so much for bearing withme while this episode was also
a couple of hours late gettingposted today.
If you follow me on Instagram,you probably saw me post earlier
today that I got to be a partof my little sister's wedding
this weekend, and so that hasbeen personal life wise, but has

(01:00):
kept me so busy this month.
So now that that has passed andI am getting back to normal
life, future podcast episodesshould be arriving bright and
early on your Tuesday mornings,but that was a really fun little
detour, and because things havebeen so busy getting prepared

(01:22):
for that, I am currentlyrecording this episode on my
lunch break.
So thanks again for beingpatient over these last couple
of weeks, but things should beresuming back to normal from
here on out, at least for thetime being.
Right, life is like thatcurveballs and all so anyways,
today we're going to talk aboutthe one thing that I refuse to

(01:44):
help anyone with, whether theybe my therapy client or coaching
client or just someone elsethat I'm working with in some
capacity.
This is something that a lot ofpeople have asked me to help
them with throughout the years.
So what is it you ask?
People will come to me andthey'll say I want to be less

(02:04):
reactive when, essentially, myparent is a jerk.
Right, when my parent doessomething that is offensive or
upsetting or toxic or abusive, Idon't want to have the reaction
that I have right now, becausethe reaction that I have had my
whole life is very overwhelming,it's very draining, it's

(02:27):
exhausting.
I feel like I'm the crazy one.
And so I totally hear you onthat.
Right, I get it.
I hear you.
It makes sense why you wouldnot want to feel that way, not

(02:48):
want to feel that way, and letme tell you this I will never
help you do that, because yourreaction is very appropriate,
given your parents' veryinappropriate behavior, and if
you are able to become lessreactive to people who are
abusive and inappropriatetowards you, that can have a
very detrimental ripple effectin your life.

(03:10):
When your tolerance goes up fortoxic and abusive behavior, you
are programming yourself to beless reactive to other people in
your life that are treating youpoorly, to other people in your
life that are treating youpoorly.
And so you know, as humanbeings we don't really
compartmentalize very well, evenif we think we do.

(03:30):
And so if we train ourselves todo something in one particular
relationship, that tends to havea ripple effect into other
areas of our life, which isactually a really cool thing
about therapy, and one thingthat I talk with a lot of my
clients about, is that there'sthis snowball effect, right in a

(03:51):
positive way.
When it comes to therapy, itdoesn't really matter where we
start, as long as we start withsomething that is important and
bothering you, because therapyhas this ripple effect.
And so we talk about one thingin one particular area of your
life and after a little whileyou start to notice that this is

(04:15):
a theme that's coming up otherplaces too, and so if you work
on it in one area of your life,it has this really cool positive
ripple effect where it startsto touch these other areas and
you start to see your lifeimprove in those other areas as
well.
And so the reverse can happen,too, when you work on being less

(04:36):
reactive to behavior that'sinappropriate.
The reverse can happen, in thatsense of at work, you might
tolerate more than you shouldfrom toxic coworkers or a toxic
boss, or you may stop settinghealthy boundaries for yourself.
You know, in your romantic lifeyou might not advocate for

(04:58):
yourself, you might notverbalize concerns that you're
having or speak up when thingsmake you feel poorly or make you
feel hurt, and so we do notwant that at all right.
And so I think that somethingthat is so important to remind

(05:18):
yourself is that if you have aparent with borderline or
narcissistic personalitydisorder or both, having a
relationship with them does notmean you ignore those behaviors.
It doesn't mean that you acceptthose behaviors to be
appropriate because that is whatthey're capable of.

(05:41):
It just means that, going backto radical acceptance, you
accept that these behaviors area part of who your parent is
right.
You accept that this is apattern of behavior that they
have shown throughout your life.
You accept that this isprobably how they're going to
continue to behave, thesepatterns that are toxic and

(06:03):
unhelpful and emotionallymanipulative and abusive, and at
the same time, you recognizethat your boundaries need to
protect you because of thosetoxic behaviors, because of
those abusive behaviors and soboundaries with a parent with

(06:24):
borderline or narcissisticpersonality disorder who you are
trying to maintain some sort ofrelationship with need to take
into consideration that yourparent has this pattern of
engaging in whether it'smanipulating you, gaslighting
you, et cetera, et cetera.

(06:47):
Whatever it is that your parentdemonstrates this toxicity
around your parent has thisbehavior.
This is how your parent haslearned to get their needs met.
Over time, this is how yourparent will continue to try to
get their needs met, and so youneed to set up these boundaries
around your life that allow youto protect yourself, around your

(07:07):
life, that allow you to protectyourself, and when you feel
really triggered, it's importantto think through how you want
to handle that right.
It's not impossible to have aboundaried relationship with
someone who has borderline andor narcissistic personality
disorder, as long as you arevery realistic as to who they

(07:30):
are and your boundaries aren'tdependent on them.
Changing your boundaries needto be really dependent upon what
you need to do to protectyourself having this
relationship with this personwho is who they are.
Don't work on being lessreactive.
Work on identifying boundariesthat you can use to protect your
peace, protect your sanity andprotect your emotional

(07:54):
well-being when your parentinevitably behaves the way that
they have a pattern of doing so,when your parent does something
that is super inappropriate,offensive, you know,
disrespectful, abusive in someregard.
What I want you to do, when youfeel that emotional reaction, is

(08:15):
to validate for yourself yeah,that totally was not okay, the
way they just spoke to me,treated me, talked about me.
Validate that this isinappropriate behavior and then
take care of yourself in the waythat you need to.
All right, I'll see you guysnext week.
Thanks so much for listening toanother episode of You're Not

(08:40):
Crazy.
If you like the podcast, pleaseremember to subscribe and rate
us five stars, and if you knowsomeone who might like the
podcast, please make sure toshare it with them.
Thanks so much.
We'll see you next week.