Narcissists, Toxic Parents & Going No Contact - Dr. Sherrie Campbell Interview

Would you mind sharing a little bit about what your own home life was like as a child that led you to this work?

My home life was extremely chaotic. To date there are nine marriages between my parents. So there was a lot of change. Both of my parents are very toxic in their own unique ways. But both were very very unpredictable, emotionally unavailable, unstable, selfish and just really hard for me to figure out how to just daily function in life. The first things my small feet were set upon in the morning were eggshells. So it just felt like there was always some sort of a test around every corner that I was supposed to pass but I wasn't allowed to know the topic or allowed to study for that test and so I was always failing.

And then I had a sibling who was treated much differently than myself. And so I got to see someone else get their needs met in a very enabled, enmeshed way. And I was getting none of my needs met and I was being yelled at, cast out and treated very poorly for my entire childhood. So then you add nine marriages between the two of them and I was just lost. I was lost. And I was scapegoated and I kept trying to tell the truth and to speak up and that just didn't serve me.

Yeah I heard you in an interview use the word sadistic to describe your mom which is such a heavy word for someone to have to use about their parent. Could you share kind of where that word comes from for you what your experiences were like that kind of fit under this label?

And then what do you wish someone had told you then especially before you had the ability to kind of leave home and be on your own?

My mom isn't just mean; she's calculated and was intentional in setting me up to hurt me and bait me and get me to give her the negative reaction to her abuse that she wanted. And I didn't know I was being manipulated. I didn't know I was being set up, so I was falling in the same hole all the time getting more and more angry at myself and more and more angry at her. She hated me. So it isn't that she just neglected me she hated me. And then at the same time I'd have to be her therapist, her best friend, her confidant all the while hating me at the same time. It's just sadistic.

I mean I can't imagine calculatingly treating someone, anyone, the way that she has treated me let alone that she was my mom. And quite charming socially. So no one would really believe me. I mean just a mean woman. And I think she hates women in general. My sibling is a boy. So I don't think he took some of that. I know some of the women in his life have. But she's just really mean and there just isn't another word for her other than sadistic. And I wish when I was young that anyone would have just given me a small slice of validation like yes that was really mean. When people would see her be mean they would then say she didn't mean it that way, she's your mom, surely she loves you.

What child doesn't want to believe that their mother loves them? And she was very much Mother Gothel just mean.

Do you have any experience that stands out when you speak about that for anybody who kind of struggles to understand that? When did you realize that she hated you?

Not really until I had my own child and I had moved away. I got my body out of that toxicity. I moved to another state. And through my PhD I started studying books on my own about self-absorbed parents, toxic parents, immature parents, passive-aggressive personality disorder. And they were all fitting. But I still had hope because I just wanted a mom. And abuse doesn't work without doses of intermittent kindness. And so she would give me those just as I was done.

But she truly wanted to make my life as hard on me as possible. Me becoming more and more successful, I was hoping, would earn me into her heart because it did with my sibling. But me becoming as a woman more successful just made her hate me more. And it was just such a painful existence. And for people that have moms like mine I have a waiting list out my door in my practice. It is so surreal that a mother could hate her daughter the way that toxic mothers hate their daughters that there's truly just no word in any literature that can quite describe the shock of that. And the process of what it's like to accept that as a daughter is really challenging and it does require a lot of self-examination and work and courage to step out of that relationship and understand that you don't owe her anything.

Yeah you said something super powerful there abuse doesn't work without some doses of kindness. I'm sure that just hit a lot of people.

Of course. If it's all abuse, it's like negative reinforcement. If it's never going to be good you tend to just recognize it's time to go. But when the goodness is kind of dolloped in there it doses you up on hope. And hope becomes dope. Do you know what I'm saying? You sort of get addicted to the hope in your parent. And that now they get it. They're nice now. They're going to see. They're going to love me. We're going to be able to have this connection. We're going to be able to have a new start. And that's what every hope looks like. And then the hope becomes relentless hope because hope is probably the most innocent and magical of the emotions in a child. I mean Disneyland is completely built on hope right.

To toy with hope in a child just to know it's a game and to do it for sport just to keep them hooked is just cruel.

In my new book Adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents I talk about the difference between relentless hope and rebellious hope. Relentless hope will lead the child to hate. Because each time that you're given a dose of kindness and they've got you hooked it's like then they're comfortable they start devaluing you. Then they discard you again. And then they kind of suck you back in. And the hope each time becomes greater as does the loss to your self-worth each time you fall down this spectrum. And I had to learn that relentless hope would lead me to hate. I would hate her. And when I would hate her and I would show it she was so satisfied. Because she got me to be ugly and that's what she wanted.

So she wouldn't have to own the hostility that was in her heart, she could project it all over me and my natural healthy reaction to being abused. Then she called me the abuser. And I was too young to understand that my anger was justified. I think that hate just brings a child's hope to some closure. It sort of says enough is enough. It's a very honest hate. It's not a revengeful hate. It's "I've had enough. I hate you. Go away. Leave me alone." And then after she could grab my hatred for her and provoke it and create it in me then she'd be as nice to me as she could be. Then I'd have relentless hope again. But now I'm bringing shame along with me because I was mean to my mom.

So I had to get out of that cycle of hope to hate. And I needed to find a rebellious hope in myself that I could do this life alone and without a mother. And I did.

And does that apply to romantic relationships as well this abuse and kindness and back to abuse?

Yes, it's the cycle of violence. When is a domestically violent person the nicest to their partner? It is after they hit them right. So my father was physically violent and he was always nice to me after he was violent. I preferred the violence to the degrading cursing me out calling me horrible names. And my physical wound has healed far more quickly and effortlessly than the fact that he would ever hit me in the first place.

All abuse is emotional. If we're molested it hurts it hurts our heart it hurts our soul it hurts our truth it hurts our dignity. If we're hit by a parent it hurts our heart it hurts our worth it hurts our dignity.

If we are cursed at verbally abused and/or passive-aggressively abused with sarcasm and cutdowns it hurts our heart it hurts our spirit and it hurts our truth it hurts our authenticity it robs us of being identified as a good person. All abuse is emotional. So it's a journey that you go through that the doses of kindness are so powerful because we need them so bad and the parent knows this. The domestic violent partner knows this. They know what they're doing. People who say they don't know what they're doing have been fooled. This is who and how they want to be and that is a truth society has a hard time hanging their hat on. It's irrelevant if there's good in all people when so many people die toxic.

Yeah you mentioned your father there which is actually something I wanted to ask you about because you said something very similar to what you just said. You said when my father hit me it was easier than when he'd call me a loser. Which speaks to this idea that we love talking about in our community about how insidious little-t trauma not that calling a child a loser is little. But what are your thoughts and why it's harder for people who may have had more kind of hidden forms of abuse and neglect to process?

Because it's not obvious.

I can't prove a tone of voice. I cannot prove the look of disgust on my mother's face anytime I walked into a room: she's here. I mean that's what I got I can't prove that. And then if I said anything who's going to believe me? Parents are inherently believed over their children. Look at Law & Crime. What kind of a witness is a child?

They would believe a parent over a child right. So it's hard because you just cannot prove it. And then if you cannot prove it you have no voice no one will believe you. And it's been proven also that little doses of emotional abuse over long periods of time is far more traumatic on the human psyche than a major traumatic event. Because if there's a major traumatic event like a hurricane or something like as horrific as 9/11. If you're loved if you're loved you have a reason to live and you have a support to go to when that traumatic event is over. But if you are not loved and you do not have that foundation you will not make it through a traumatic event like that. I don't know if you know the story of Elizabeth Smart. She was kidnapped out of her home in Utah.

She was taken for 9 months. And then she was found. And I read her story and what kept her alive and surviving the horrific abuses from rape to torture to starvation that she was going through was that she knew she had a family that loved her and she was living for them. I wouldn't have lived through what she did I wouldn't have. I would have had what reason to live through that right. That's how important this stuff is.

I coin a term in my book Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members. Because it's not in the literature and I'm finding that a lot of things that I experience that my personality has done to protect itself is not in the literature. So I coined a term called foundational anxiety.

People like me live every day somewhere in their mind a little bit like when is the bottom going to fall out the bottom's going to fall out if my life gets too good something is going to take it away. And this is the power that toxic parents have on their children is to have no trust in the very foundation and stability of their life.

You're a huge proponent of going no contact when the situation calls for it. Most therapists don't even mention it let alone encourage it and even just here in our content I see so much aggressiveness against it. Why is it such an important issue for you and what do you think of the very loud opposition to it?

Oh, that opposition just loves me. I deal with it every day. I'm a disruptor and I think disruptors are important. Are my books going to be bestsellers? Probably not.

But I believe in an adherence to truth and authenticity and I believe it's my right to choose authenticity over attachment. And that is so much scarier to choose authenticity over attachment. Hands down people will choose attachment over authenticity. Because the family is supposed to be a solid foundation for you and an umbrella of protection for you all throughout life. And the sad thing is that our society holds strangers to higher standards of treatment of children. If my parents had been strangers and people saw the way I was treated they would be in jail. My father especially would be in jail okay. CPS was called on my parents when I was two for neglect. They didn't take the call right they didn't take the report.

But my father broke one of his students' arms as a teacher and lost his job. But he can hit me and doesn't lose his title. How is that right?

I don't encourage no contact. I support it. I have never ever ever encouraged anyone to go no contact. Because the people who go no contact they don't want anyone to know because they don't want to deal with this societal backlash. Right we are not in a society where we're allowed to talk about the problematic character of bad parents in a culturally open and safe space. But I am not a piece of property that these parents own. They don't own me. I should not owe them for the rest of my life. I believe that parents should be obligated to their children that children should not be obligated to their parents. The child didn't choose to come here.

The child is not responsible enough to be obligated to the parent. The parent made the responsible choice to have children. And part of that responsibility is to be obligated and committed to those children not to discard them when the child isn't being a proper source of image or a proper source of attention right.

So if you've gone no contact you've tried everything. I stayed abused for 4 and a half decades. This isn't cancel culture. This isn't: there's a spat and an argument and then we're not going to talk anymore. That's what happened to me growing up. If I wasn't in alignment with whatever was going on I would be cut off from my mother and cut off from my father. And then they would make me mend the fence. And that is how my life was. So human beings thank God are blessed with a tolerance level that will run out. And mine ran out.

I think toxic parents believe they own something, and if they own something, they can treat it however they want because they cannot lose it. That is a very naive belief in a narcissistic parent. Because if you have a strong willed child that you scapegoat and you abuse and you harm there's a bandwidth that person will run out of.

I didn't end the relationship with my parents. They cut me off. And I was at a point like wow I mean if I'm getting cut off for the smallest infractions then this is going to be forever. Most people don't cut off until midlife. This is what people don't understand it's not just running around just chopping limbs off right. No one in their right mind would ever want to be without their parents.

So sometimes people will assume I haven't thought things through and that is insane to me. I found and thought of every way to stay. I wasn't ever planning to leave. I left because I was thrown out like a piece of trash. And I just haven't mended the fence. And I've chosen to turn my perpetrators into a purpose right. That's my right. And I make people like me know that they're not alone that there is something out there more sadistic than an emotionally immature parent. There are sadistic mean cruel parents who should never have had children and do not deserve to hold those children hostage in an emotional prison for the remainder of their lives. And I think at midlife we stop thinking from like birth to life. We start thinking life to death. And I think the meaning of life comes into a different space.

And we don't want to live a meaningless abused life so we have to save our own and no contact does that.

Nor is no contact about hate or revenge or bitterness. To be honest with you I don't know if I'll be able to articulate this well. But I never had contact. I tried so hard to find connection and contact with these people. So I never made contact. There was never contact. It's just that now I'm not trying anymore. I'm accepting the fact that there's never going to be contact unless I willingly submit to being abused and manipulated my entire life. And I don't want to submit to that anymore cuz I've tried everything. I've asked questions and thought things through in ways that people could never even imagine to stay. So I'm very clear that the decision that I've made has saved my life. I feel like in midlife I got a rebirth and it's been challenging.

I love the feeling that now this life is dictated by me. And that I can be a happy elegant smart loving human being to other people like me whose life doesn't fit in to the more gentle safe flawed emotionally immature parent. There are people out there like me that there's no safety. So I'm here for those people.

Kristin Cavallari who we love shared a clip on Instagram where in her discussion with you she was mentioning an ex who she said exhibited signs of narcissism. And when I went into the comments of that clip they were just full of enraged comments about how dare you talk about an ex publicly your kids will see this you do social media so you're the actual narcissist. Right just like full rage.

And I was wondering is that part of being a public figure or is that energy a common sentiment for people coming out of narcissistic relationships?

I think it's both. I feel very protective of Kristin Cavallari. I think she's so authentic and I think she adheres to truth. And I think our children deserve to hear the truth. When I watch people just rage on her it just is like this is just insane. One human being who's doing a show. That show helped so many people. I had so much reach out from that show. When she discussed her ex-husband, so many of my clients are trying to divorce people like this right. And she has every right to tell her story. And I think that her children are already living in that environment and they already know the truth if they're living in it. My daughter certainly did. I didn't have to explain the truth of who her father was she knew.

So when she would ask me questions about her dad or make statements about her dad I would tell her, "You are right. That is how he is and that is not going to change. So we have to figure out how to navigate around those things until you are 14."

So now I will also say that there is a group of parents online they've labeled themselves rejected parents, and they've started estrangement groups. And they have come on to my social media and called me a cult leader they've claimed that I have all this criminal stuff. And I did a Google cleanup. I mean it is hilarious at some point it's hilarious. When a narcissist gets exposed they get loud. So anyone who's raging on Kristin really needs to take a look in the mirror on why is she so triggering for you. Right is it because she's just beautiful and successful and loving and a great mother and she got a divorce and she's doing the best she can. I think she is.

Her ex-husband can go on and tell his story if that's what he wants to do. He's not that type of public figure she is. She's using her voice and I think she's helping far more than her haters.

But these people are emotionally violent. And I had to really learn to develop thick skin. I almost stopped social media at one point because I'm like: I already lived through this I lived through this every day growing up like I don't want to keep living it again through someone else's mother. I had a woman say my 20-year-old just cut me off it's your fault you're destroying the American family blah blah blah. And I just block remove and delete. But wow. I don't know your daughter. She's never been in my office I don't know you've never been in my office. But if your daughter found my book I promise you with never knowing her I'm not the cause and source of her looking for that book.

And the fact that she would come on my page and rage like that. Thank God that 20-year-old took care of herself and cut that woman off if she's so willing to go on social media and rage where her daughter could see that. Now she's attacking experts that she reads to help herself so I have learned to have a very thick skin to that. I did do a TEDx talk. And what I can say is for the most part I do feel very loved in social media. I have my haters I don't give them a lick of attention. I just block remove and delete. Or I don't respond at all right. I'm not going to give that stuff my attention. That's something I learned growing up that if I reacted I was bad. If I cried about my abuse I was pathetic. So somewhere in my teenage years I just became vapor. I just got out of my body.

And I just found a way to disappear so that it didn't affect me. I didn't have any other choice at some point. So when people attack other people it's interesting to me and somewhat laughable that they can't step back from their own attack of someone and be like I mean where is really the abuser. It's strange that there's such a profound lack of self-awareness in these people online that do stuff like this.

Yeah you touched on that there. Can you explain the idea of gray rocking when dealing with narcissists and can we use that with our narcissistic parents as well? I think that you can depending on the level of narcissism. If they're just emotionally immature parents I think gray rocking is fantastic right. I think when someone's emotionally immature maybe their intent isn't to abuse you.

They're not calculating their abuse they're just very self unaware and self-centered right. Which isn't fun. But there is a way that I teach my clients that there's like low contact cordial contact or high contact. And gray rocking is really just accepting them that they're immature accepting that it's going to be kind of about them that they're probably going to say things that are going to irritate you. But you just learn not to bite and not to engage right. You just gray rock them like haha. You just kind of go along with it because they're just emotionally unintelligent right. You know it's not personal. So I think that gray rocking is fantastic there.

I can say from experience with a sadistic parent that it does not work with them. It will work with them for a second. Because they do like being the center of attention and gray rocking is really about just deflecting the conversation always back onto the toxic person. But sadistic parents can't feel themselves as alive unless they're destroying someone else and getting the satisfaction of that person's pain or hatred or boundaries or whatever right.

So when you are no contact usually there's just no other choice there's no other viable way that you can survive and have contact. So back to that sort of concept is I never had contact. I was never ever able to make loving contact. So all that's different today is that now the relationship is in a state of being non-verbal and silent and inactive. Whereas before it was active and verbal but contact was not had in either scenario. And I think that that makes no contact a little more understandable. Because this is not a hate driven decision it's a self- protection decision.

I heard you speak about the idea that the black sheep of the family is the most powerful one which seems sort of funny because I would guess that most of them would feel the exact opposite. Yeah so what is it in your opinion about the black sheep that makes them so powerful and how can they use that power to their benefit?

So this is my favorite thing about my new book Adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents is I talk all about the scapegoat.

The scapegoat is in alignment with the truth whether they want to be or not. I didn't like being in alignment with the truth after a while. On the Myers Briggs I'm an INFJ. I'm a six on the Enneagram. I'm just in alignment with that whether I like it or not. And I didn't like it forever. Because anytime I told the truth I got in trouble. And then this horrible narrative of me started being told. And I would start to believe that narrative that I was bad. Like I remember being like "I'm sorry I'm so bad. I don't know why I'm so bad, but I'm bad. I'm a horrible person." And my mom would be like I guess we have to get you therapy I don't know like really literally like you are you're freaking horrible. You can only take so much of that.

I could only take so much. It took 45 years of this right. This is not a decision that was made quickly. It was made consciously. I knew I couldn't mend the fence.

So I think that when you're in alignment with the truth you really are the only one who has the potential to heal and break the generational cycle right. I didn't know all that I didn't know that till far after no contact. But me being in alignment with the truth made my childhood a living hell. But it has liberated me as an adult. Because now I do recognize that I was correct about my environment I was correct about it. And that brings a level of safety for me. Because now I'm so so thankful that I got out. And leaving a toxic family that is sadistic in nature is like leaving a cult. There's no difference right.

And I do feel like no one helps the scapegoat. I write about that. Why doesn't anyone help the scapegoat? I write about that. What happens when the scapegoat starts fighting for him or herself? I write about that. It's empowering. Because if you have the truth then you are living in your own greatness and you have the ability to do so.

I shouldn't be here surviving and thriving the way that I am and to be genuinely happy in my life. And to understand the aspects of my personality that are affected by the monsters in my basement right. And what my personality has to do to overcome and some of the flaws that I have today or fears and anxieties that I have today I'm so beautifully aware of them that I can nurture, love and not self-punish anymore from like a critical parent type of perspective.

My parents were bad people with good moments. They were not good people with bad moments. And that is not my fault. They were abusers before I was born. They remained abusers throughout the raising of me. And they continue to abuse, guilt, manipulate and control today. So I'm not the cause and source of the no contact or of them being bad parents. Children don't cause bad parents. Emotionally abusive and manipulative people become emotionally abusive and manipulative parents.

I had to learn that. I had to stop waiting for them to heal for me to heal. And I had to learn and accept and this was like swallowing sand.

But I couldn't heal if they were in my life. And 8 years no contact will be June 12th. And I think that my state of mind and my level of composure and my ability to articulate my pain and help other people and love and love and love and love on my daughter and my stepsons and my man. And I have friends. And my life is so full and so beautiful. No one would read my books. I wouldn't be of interest to you I wouldn't be of interest to Kristin I wouldn't be of interest right. And it's a really liberating full circle moment for me to recognize that I'm doing it. I'm really doing it. And I'm happy. And I have a hole in my sidewalk and I have to learn to walk down another street so I don't keep falling in that hole.

Do I wish that I had an amazing mom like I am to my daughter or my stepsons?

Do I wish I had a dad that was cheering me on all the time? Oh my God yes. And I don't have it. But that is where the healing is because as it hurts I just never had it. But I'll always grieve it. I have to grieve the living dead. And I'm doing it. And other people can do it.

You said in the podcast that there's no such thing as healed which initially seems like it could make people feel really hopeless. So can you speak to why it shouldn't and what you meant by that?

So I think we all just want to be like there's an end date to this pain. Because it's like losing limbs. It's like your brain is going to send out a signal to your limbs like it's time to walk let's say.

But if there's an injury in the spine the brain doesn't know that the legs aren't working because it can't get past that injury right. So it's kind of like that. Your heart's so broken that there are so many moments I wish I could just call a mom call a dad right. And so the loss is permanent. But it's different than a death because these people are alive and walking around. And that they would rather go to their grave than apologize to their daughter so they could see their daughter and their grandchild ever again. The pride is so massive and so sadistic that they would rather save their ego than see their daughter or grandchild again. It's insane.

So healing is like a verb. And unless you get a lobotomy you're not going to forget your childhood in such a way that it doesn't hurt you anymore or you're not going to be grieving the living dead every day as an adult and have it not affect you.

It's just that you're going to be very aware of it. Wholeness is just simply not a perpetual state of well-being. It is understanding that wholeness is all the parts. It's embracing your pain and your issues and your flaws as much as it is working on the other things and embracing the free more happy parts of yourself. I sure hope when I die I still have a lot of psychological inventory in my inbox. This journey is my most passionate pursuit. And I think people can feel like I'm not making progress I'm failing. Because they have this idea of being healed when there's no such thing.

I love how visceral you are when you speak on this stuff. That's what I noticed in all your interviews. Yes it seems like you're getting legitimately angry when you talk about the injustice children go through which you should right. Would you say that's accurate and why do you think people aren't more outraged?

Because we have this idea that parents are haloed because they birthed a child especially mothers.

And I love one of the things I get all the time is like you're so authentic or you're so relatable you're so real. I just have nothing to hide. Yes what's done to me pisses me off. It's not fair. I didn't ask for it. But life isn't fair. And I don't look for fairness but anger especially in women is very punished. And anger is the most punished emotion in children. Which I go over a lot in my new book. Well, why is that? Why is the most misused emotion in parenting anger, but the most punished emotion in a child is anger? Is that not insane? Well that is because anger brings justice to an injustice. And parents aren't angry they're raging at their kids. Anger and rage are different. They don't want their kids to be angry because they don't want their kids to have justice. If the kids have justice and you're an egotistical parent then you will see that as a loss of control.

Your kids can't be right right. So I think that there's just a real fallacy and a dreamy belief around parents. In my TED talk I say if you Google the word parents all you see are images of perfect parents and happy homes. That's all you see. So we see this in our movies we see this in our media we see this on our Christmas cards we see it in our cartoons for Christmas and every holidays. And that is the truth for healthy families. But it doesn't speak to the truth of children who don't have that dream. And so we don't want to look at it. I think it's too painful for this society to understand that some of the worst abuses to children are happening from their parents.

Yeah I know we only have a few more minutes so I'll go through a couple of these questions quickly.

You said about your parents it always felt like effort for them. Which I have a feeling there's probably a ton of people out there who feel that way even if they don't fully realize it. Yeah if I do recognize it in my own parents what do I do with that information?

Well it hurts right. I did a show on my own podcast just recently called the burden syndrome. And some of the things that feel like a lifelong journey for me is this very instinctual habit to not burden anyone with anything. And my partner is really good at helping me with that. I do it instinctively. To go back to when I said I turned into vapor, that meant I had to be needless. Okay I had to be a child without needs. And that's insane okay.

And I feel like being a burden. I was financially abused and manipulated. They hated me but wanted total control over me and divorced me from ever being identified as good. And when that's not at your core it's something you have to really work on for your whole life.

And then there's also sort of not enough syndrome. I was always too much of something bad and not enough of something good. So it just always felt like they were like: you have to sell Girl Scout cookies or anything. It was done begrudgingly. So if you feel that as a human being and that's coming from your parents really read books like mine or find a therapist who's educated in this way which there are very few which is unfortunate.

Because you have to work through the burden syndrome you have to work through not feeling enough or wondering if someone's going to be mad at you all the time not knowing not being able to feel safe in any relationships constantly waiting for the bottom to fall out not knowing what loyalty is and if someone's loyal right. If that resonates with you then it really is an extreme form of abandonment that you're going through. They might be alive walking around in your life. You might see and talk to them every day. But if they're mean to you and they're making you feel like effort and a drag and you want too much and you're not doing enough you're not caretaking enough for them, then yes it's a very rejecting abandoning feeling. And you would really need to kind of dive into those wounds and understand them so you can liberate yourself in the awareness of them so you can navigate them better.

So who should pick up your books and how is it going to help them?

I just think that anyone who is on the spectrum of feeling like they don't know what to do in their family. I've kind of become the no contact queen. I'm also the only expert who really writes about it and also who tells her story. I'm not just telling stories of my patients or other people. And I think that that has made me kind of get to this space where people feel like they're getting a hug on every page because they're talking to another survivor. Right so if you have questions about it.

My books aren't just about no contact. There are all kinds of options. But it will really help you break down if you're on that precipice of should I or shouldn't I or if I do what level? Different levels of abuse I think can be married up with different forms and levels of contact. And between my book But It's Your Family and Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members and now the one on emotionally abusive parents. I cover all of it.

Are you abandoning your parents if you go no contact? Are you the bad guy? Those are all the questions I ask. What do you do when they die? And I really go into Erik Erikson's life stage development on why you have these wounds at these ages and why midlife is often when people cut off.

But I don't think that anyone or everyone has to cut off. I think that you can navigate these relationships. And my books are a complete step-by-step process on how to do any and all of it. So it just will help you to get out of confusion. The worst thing about abuse is the confusion it creates. And that's why the intermittent doses of kindness are so effective. Because if you're too confused to make a decision then you won't go. You won't make one. And it erodes your resiliency and your confidence over time which makes you less and less likely to save your life.

So I think that my books are just a wonderful gentle practical safe road map to really helping yourself. And my podcast goes through all of this stuff as well. And the feedback on my podcast is just beyond my greatest dreams. So I love that people feel like they're nearly getting therapy out of a podcast. Even though it's not designed for that. But it is true that there are very few psychologists that are open to showing their clients that they're also a survivor.

I'm in therapy. I'll always be in therapy. I wouldn't want to see a therapist who didn't see a therapist. We should all be here healing. I'm not a guru. I'm not a God. I'm just a survivor. And I wouldn't follow a leader who hadn't suffered. Because I believe that if pain came to that leader and they'd never suffered I don't know that they would know how to get the troop through the pain right. And I've suffered. And I still suffer.

And I write about it and it's helpful to other people like me. And there's lots of us.

We spoke a little bit in the DMs about Alice Miller who sort of pioneered this idea of you don't have to love your parents yes. I see my comments every day how far we still are from accepting that belief as a society. So what do you say to people who think you owe your parents gratitude for giving you life and keeping you clothed and fed?

Well, they chose to have children. That's a basic obligation to meet their basic needs. Again children aren't things. They're not a property that you own the title to. They are not here designed to be your emotional slave or your emotional trash can or your emotional janitor. Parents need to be adults not adult children raising children right toxic adult children. My mom is a 14-year-old mean girl. My dad a bully. He's just a bully and a coward and cruel.

So I had two toxic adult children raising me. They weren't committed to me. They didn't treat me well they weren't committed to me. They did what they did for me because they had to. And they made that very clear to me. And that wouldn't be lovable to anybody that wasn't in family.

And it's strange to me that people can be abusers. Families are made up of people. But somehow you slap a title on that group and you call it family. And now somehow they're not abusers anymore. That just doesn't make any sense with deductive reasoning right. Abuse in the family is real. It happens all the time and it's just now starting to get attention. I think it's just too painful for people to understand that some of the most ridiculous abuses are happening behind closed doors.

I watched at least four Law & Crime cases: the boy in the box. His parents made a box for him to live in in Florida with no air conditioning or whatnot. He only got five years in prison for sadistic abuse. I watch Lori Vallow's children get murdered and her other children testify against her. I watched Letecia Stauch's daughter testify against her mother for killing her stepson. And yet somehow I just watched a dad abuse the hell out of his kid on a treadmill. This case finished last week. And the sentencing hasn't happened but he was found guilty. Poor little boy had a lacerated heart. And somehow these cases just don't get added to the literature. It's almost like well those are extreme cases right those parents didn't deserve to have children. So they have to be murdered?

What about emotional homicide? What about emotional rape of children?

Why isn't that important? Because it can't be proven in the court of law. That doesn't make sense right. It doesn't make sense. And no one should be living under those conditions. If I was in love with a man that was abusing me, everyone would want me to get out. If I had a friendship a boss or a coworker abusing me the way that my parents did everyone would want me to get out. But just not when it's my parents right that doesn't make sense.

So I just think that part of my purpose in this world is to kind of disrupt that narrative. And whatever small mark I make in this world. If it's helping even just one person that's enough for me. Because I think that these things are injustices socially that they do need to change. So that we can heal. I mean we have such a violent culture right now. But we don't want to look at parents as contributing to that. It just doesn't make sense.

If you hate your kids and your kids learn to hate themselves and they don't heal, what's the outcome? How are we going to get better?

So I love the idea of cycle breakers. Nelson Mandela said that at the very soul of a society is a child. So our future is in our children and how we love or don't love them. So to heal a society's soul we have to be healing at the core. And I think there's a lot of cycle breakers out there right now. And I'm so happy to be a part of that movement. And I can't believe I even got on the TEDx stage that is one competitive stage. But I'm so thankful that the message is out there and it's being very well received right now. The numbers are fantastic. And I'm just happy to be a voice in this community among many others that have amazing voices. The people that you highlight on your page are incredible leaders as well.

Thank you so much that's a beautiful way to summarize it. And I want to say personally: thank you so much for your work. I love the fact that this space is growing with people who are taking the responsibility off children and putting it back onto parents where it belongs. And telling you that if you don't feel they did a good job that's your right and it's valid. So thank you for being that voice

Thank you so much for having me. And I just from my heart just so appreciate that you've seen my work and that you're invested in it. And it means something to you. And you promote it. I just I hope you can feel how thankful I am for you. And it's been really special having you show up in my world. And I feel so honored to be amongst the people that you choose. So just thank you.