You've known for months exactly what boundary you need to set. And every time you sit down to do it, something in your body says absolutely not, and you tell yourself you'll deal with it later.
If you grew up with a parent with unmanaged borderline personality disorder or narcissistic traits, you learned early on that reading the room kept you safe and while expressing your emotions was a problem. It's one of the many reasons cycle breakers often grow up to be great intellectualizers who find themselves struggling to make the changes they desperately want to make.
In this episode you'll learn:
- Why you know what you "should" do but can't bring yourself to actually do it
- The difference between knowing what to do and having the skill set to tolerate how distressing change can be
- Why the hardest part of a boundary is almost never the logistics, it's the guilt and anxiety that come after
- The story your brain tells about laziness and lack of motivation, and what's actually happening
- Why being too close to the fire makes your own family the hardest one to see clearly
If you've spent years trying to understand your dysfunctional family system and still can't bring yourself to make the changes you need to, this episode is for you.
Ready to go deeper?
Stop Getting Pulled Back Into the Chaos is Torie's self-guided course on how to set and enforce boundaries with a parent who has borderline or narcissistic traits. It covers why your boundaries keep failing, what to do instead, and how to keep going when your parent pushes back.
Learn more and get started: confidentboundaries.com/course
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Need help getting ready for your next interaction with a difficult parent? Check out, Surviving Interactions With a Narcissistic, Emotionally Immature, or Otherwise Toxic Parent.
Get instant access to the 12-page guide: confidentboundaries.com/the-guide
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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.
