Torie Wiksell: 4:35
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. Let's talk anger. So stay with me, because I know anger probably terrifies you, and for good reason.
Torie Wiksell: 5:03
When you grow up with a parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder, or perhaps both, it is a terrifying thing when your parent gets angry, and that can look very different parent to parent. But people with these personality disorders, when they are unmanaged, are very scary to be around when they are upset and them getting upset can be very unpredictable and confusing. And it's a little different with BPD and narcissism, but with BPD, people often describe it as like a walking on eggshells feeling. You're not exactly sure what's going to set your parent off. You're not going to be sure if something that set them off before is going to set them off this time or if something they were fine with previously is actually going to be a trigger. It's very confusing and it's very stressful, and you're constantly feeling like you're walking on eggshells just trying to prevent the next blow-up, which you actually have zero control over, because it's all based on their own internal world, not what's actually going on in reality. With narcissistic personality disorder, it can be a little bit different. It might not be as much of that walking on eggshells feeling as it is this punishing feeling, knowing that if I don't do what my parent wants me to do and what they feel I should do, then I'm very afraid of their reaction. And so, with BPD, you know it's very common for people to have really volatile emotional outbursts. And so with BPD, you might have a parent who you know has very extreme emotional responses. They might cry, they might threaten to harm themselves, they might harm themselves in some way. They might have very impulsive reactions. When they're upset, it's very scary to be around. Someone with narcissistic personality disorder is more likely to be very intentional in how they're punishing. And so, when your parent with narcissistic personality disorder gets angry, they might not be as dysregulated and emotional as someone with BPD is. They might be much more quiet and scary, calm, or they might yell, they might intimidate you in that way, but it's much more intentional and directive and punishing. And so, in both of those situations, it is not pleasant to be on the receiving end or even in the vicinity of your parent when they're angry, because they don't have the ability or, in a lot of cases, even the desire to manage their tough and difficult feelings, like anger and frustration and disappointment, in a healthy way, and so everyone is kind of in this splash zone that's in the vicinity when they're upset and, as their child, oftentimes that is you. So again, I completely understand why you're probably terrified of anger, not a fan of it, and if you could sign up for a life where you just never get angry, probably would be on your to-do list. But since we're all human, that's just not possible.
Torie Wiksell: 8:59
And so I want to talk about really reframing what anger is, what it isn't, and how it can be a really good and a really helpful thing. So, first of all, let's talk about the difference between emotions and behaviors. Emotions are human. Emotions are never the problem. It does not matter what your emotions are, because, frankly, we often don't pick our emotions, we just have them. They're just how we feel, and so anger by itself is not a problem. It's the way that we respond to and express anger that either is healthy, productive, or unhealthy and really scary. And so when we're thinking about separating our feelings from our behaviors, it really helps create some space for the potential of emotions to not be a good or a bad thing, but to just be a thing that we deal with. So again, emotions, behaviors, different.
Torie Wiksell: 10:05
The problem with growing up with a parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder is that they feel very much the same because your parent probably doesn't have the skills to create that distance there and to make intentional choices about how to handle and process their anger in a healthy and productive way. And so you are different. You're the cycle breaker. That's why you're here listening to me, and so I think, you know, for you, a really good goal that I would really encourage you to work towards is developing a healthier relationship with anger, to learn to accept that anger is going to happen. You're going to get angry. That doesn't make you a bad person. Anger's on a spectrum too, right? There's like slightly annoyed anger level of the spectrum or end of the spectrum. And then there's "I'm so angry I would love to break every dish in my kitchen" level of anger, right? And so typically we're going to fall somewhere in the middle there, and so typically we're going to fall somewhere in the middle there. But anger is really good.
Torie Wiksell: 11:17
Anger is a part of grief, anger is a part of healing. Anger is so important because it validates for us that something has occurred in our world that is really upsetting. And when we suppress anger, A you can't suppress it indefinitely, just like any emotion. So eventually it's going to come out in some way, shape, or form, and if we don't choose how we express these emotions, then typically the way that they present is not the most fun or enjoyable. So there's that. But also there is a lot of value in learning to acknowledge, accept, and embrace our anger. And so reminding yourself that anger is important, that it's great to feel all of the feelings that you're feeling now as an adult, because, to be 100% honest, you probably were discouraged or punished for feeling challenging feelings as a kid and probably still as an adult if you're still in contact with your parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder. So really embracing the fact that it's normal and human to have emotions and emotions can be motivating, like anger gives you energy.
Torie Wiksell: 12:39
Maybe feeling angry is the push you need to set a boundary that you've been avoiding. Look, anger is awesome. No one's going to convince me otherwise, and even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because we're all going to experience anger at times. I know that anger can be really tricky. Look, I know that I'm pointing out the highlights of anger, but it's taken me a long time to get there myself, because anger has been a really scary emotion for me to be around for far longer than it's been an enjoyable and productive emotion for me to be around.
Torie Wiksell: 13:25
And I really want to encourage you to talk to your therapist if you're in therapy right now about your fears around anger and, if you're not, to really think about reaching out to a therapist, because I think there's a lot to unpack here with anger. There's a lot of trauma there, there is a lot of pain and fear, and anger can bring up a really big fear that a lot of adult children of parents with BPD and narcissistic personality disorder have and that is turning into their parents, and so therapy is awesome for really unpacking and unwinding all of those layers. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of You're Not Crazy. If you want to learn more and connect with me, please follow me on Instagram at Torie Wiksell and check out my therapy and coaching websites TorieWiksellTherapy.com and ConfidentBoundaries.com. See you next episode.
