Torie Wiksell: 0:14
Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. I'm your host, Torie Wiksell, a therapist and coach with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. Now let's jump in. Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast. I just want to start by thanking everyone for sharing such kind thoughts about the Q&A episode. I'm so happy that you guys really seem to love it and also for all of the positive feedback that I've gotten around the Patreon community. I'm so excited to grow that community and, like I was saying before, these Tuesday episodes they're not going anywhere. So don't worry if you can't afford to join the Patreon community. If you just are not interested in it, it's totally fine. But if you are interested in more content and connecting more and just getting some more support around your relationship with a parent with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder, definitely head over to patreon.com/YNCPodcast and check out the different membership levels over there. There's a $5 tier, a $10 tier, and a $20 tier. So totally up to you as to what fits your budget and your needs and all of that, but I hope to see you over there.
Torie Wiksell: 1:42
With that said, let's get into today's episode. Today I'm going to be talking about self-compassion and how it is really, really hard to be nice to yourself when you grow up with a parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder. Self-compassion, learning how to be kind to myself, has honestly been one of the hardest things that I've had to do in my own personal healing journey, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's on the top of your list of hardest things to do as well. It is just so hard to be kind to ourselves when we didn't have a space where it was safe for us to express ourselves and try different things and fail and learn about what we like and what we don't like, and do things wrong. These are all things you're supposed to be able to do when you're a kid, that you're supposed to be able to do when you're growing up. You're supposed to have this space where life can be messy and you can figure out things and it's okay and it's safe, and you have this parent there who is going to help you and they're going to help you learn how to do things differently and how to problem-solve and how to forgive yourself and forgive other people when things don't go the way that you intended for them to go or when you hurt someone in some way.
Torie Wiksell: 3:20
That is the role of a parent. Your parent is supposed to teach you how to be an emotionally healthy human, but I know your parent did not teach you how to do that, because they can't even do that for themselves. So how in the world would they be able to teach you how to do it? It's just not possible. And so instead you're left to your own devices and you're left to figure out how to help yourself deal with the ups and downs of life and how to tolerate when things don't go the way you would like them to go, and you're doing this with a really skewed perception of what the consequences of failure are.
Torie Wiksell: 4:07
Right, when you're growing up in this parent-child dynamic, it is very, very undesirable to piss your parent off. It just is. You, I'm sure, have spent a lot of time and energy trying to avoid them getting upset, and especially them getting upset with you, because it is very unpleasant to be on the receiving end of that and that in and of itself, that driving force of trying to anticipate their emotions and prevent any sort of outbursts around that or backlash or anger. All of that leaves an environment that is not safe to develop self-compassion in. Self-compassion really needs to be developed when you are in an emotionally safe environment where it is genuinely okay for you to not be perfect or do things perfectly. If you don't feel safe in your home, if you don't feel safe with the people around you who are caring for you, who are responsible for you, then there is no way in the world that you are going to be able to develop self-compassion.
Torie Wiksell: 5:28
And so that is one major reason why so many of us have such a hard time developing this as adults is that it just was not something that we were modeled, it was not something that we were taught, and it takes a long time for many of us to get into a situation where we really feel safe and like we have the capacity to work on something like being compassionate to ourselves, because the reality is working on ourselves, working on improving our ability to empathize with ourselves, is that a thing? To be, and to show compassion towards ourselves? That's a luxury, that's a privilege. That is not something that you have the time and the space for if you are preoccupied with trying to stay safe, whether that's physically, emotionally or otherwise, and so what I want to express to you with all of this is that self-compassion is something that you are going to have to work on, if you aren't already working on it, because I know that it is not possible to develop self-compassion in an environment that is not safe. But now you can create an environment for yourself that is safe. Now you're an adult, now you have the ability to access resources and support and to create a world in which you feel and you are emotionally and physically safe, and with that, you can start to practice self-compassion, because in your emotionally safe world you can start to sit with the fact that you're going to mess up and you're going to be imperfect, and that's okay.
Torie Wiksell: 7:33
The world does not end when you make mistakes. I know that it probably doesn't feel that way, because for you, growing up, when you did something that was perceived to be wrong, when you messed up in some way, when you did something that upset your parent, it probably did feel like the end of the world a lot of the time. And that's because of their dysfunction, that's because of their abusive behaviors. That is not because when you mess up, when you do something wrong, it is actually the end of the world. It is not a catastrophe for you to be imperfect. It is actually what makes you wonderful and amazing—your ability to tolerate your imperfections, your ability to allow yourself to really be yourself and to make mistakes and to try things. That is living life to the fullest. That is you trying and wanting to do things that are meaningful to you, even though you're not going to be the best at all of them. You're not going to do them all perfectly and you're going to mess up a lot along the way. That's the only way that you can truly live your life to the fullest, is if you allow yourself to really do things that are outside of your comfort zone, because they're important to you, because they matter to you.
Torie Wiksell: 9:04
One of the biggest areas which has really pushed me to work on self-compassion is becoming a parent myself. It has been a challenging journey for many reasons, none of which have anything to do with my daughter. It is all about my own ability to tolerate my imperfections and to look inward and to have compassion for myself and to demonstrate self-compassion. Right when things go wrong, when I'm feeling sad or disappointed. To be able to model that for my daughter in a developmentally appropriate way. Right, where I'm not putting my emotions onto her or creating this world that feels unsafe for her, but where I'm modeling for her that it is okay to mess up, it's okay to make mistakes and the way that we handle that is what really matters. Right, that we're kind to ourselves, that we're understanding to ourselves and that we repair relationships. When we do something wrong and when we have handled a situation in a way that was destructive or that we're not proud of, we repair that relationship, we reflect on ourselves and our actions and we learn how to do better and to not hurt people around us and how to, you know, take our mistakes as constructive feedback for what didn't work the way we would like for it to.
Torie Wiksell: 10:48
When you grow up in that parent-child dynamic that you and I grew up in, you're going to have to learn how to treat yourself kindly and it's going to be so hard. And it's going to be hard, it's going to be so worth it, because when you can tolerate the fact that you're not perfect and it's okay, you start to surround yourself with other people who are also open about the fact that they're imperfect and it's okay, and you start to have these deeper emotional relationships and emotional connections and life is so much better around people who are honest and they're not full of bullshit and they're not trying to project this image of themselves that is so great and wonderful and they are the best at everything and they never have any challenges like that is exhausting and it's not true, and we all are flawed humans, and so I know that self-compassion is a hard one. I know that it can be a scary one to really work on, and I really encourage you just take baby steps. You know. If you're a parent yourself, try asking yourself how would I respond to my own child if they had the same issue, if they came to me with a similar concern?
Torie Wiksell: 12:10
It is oftentimes so much easier to really conceptualize being kind and compassionate to someone we love and care about, more so than it is to be kind and compassionate to ourselves and care about more so than it is to be kind and compassionate to ourselves. And so, if you're not a parent, think about a best friend or a sibling or a partner or anyone in the world that you care about, that you will more easily be able to tap into that kindness and compassion with and just start there and just start saying those things to yourself about yourself, when they don't feel true. And eventually, if you keep doing that and you keep taking the time to catch yourself when you're beating yourself up and instead offer yourself a more kind response and a more kind thought over time, with consistency, those thoughts, those statements, those thoughts of kindness, those statements of kindness, they are going to start to resonate more. They are going to start to feel more real. Um, but it's a journey. You didn't get to this place of beating yourself up overnight and you're not going to get to this place of being kind to yourself overnight either. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't start and it doesn't mean you can't make a lot of progress along the way.
Torie Wiksell: 13:35
All right, that is the end of this episode and I will see you guys next week. Hopefully, see you in the Patreon too. Okay, see you guys next week. Hopefully, see you in the Patreon too. Okay, see you soon. Bye. Thanks so much for joining me for another week of You're Not Crazy. If you like the podcast, please make sure to rate us five stars and leave a review. It helps so much. And make sure to check the show notes for discounts and updates of what's going on in my world. Okay, I'll see you next week.
