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 yeah my my home life was extremely chaotic um to date there are nine marriages between my parents so there was a lot of change um both of my parents are very toxic um in their own unique ways but both were very very unpredictable emotionally unavailable stable um selfish and just really hard for me to figure out how to just daily function in life you know the first things my small feet were set upon in the morning were EDG shells 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 topic or allowed to study for that test and so I would was always failing and then I had a sibling who was treated much differently

than myself um and so I got to see someone else get their needs met uh in a very enabled and meshed way and I was getting none of my needs met and I was being yelled out cast out um and treated very poorly for my entire childhood so then you add you know nine marriages between the two of them and I was just lost I was was lost and I was scapegoated and I kept trying to tell the truth and 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 uh especially before you had the ability to kind of leave home

and be on your own my mom isn't isn't just mean um 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 she hated me so it isn't that she just neglected me um she she hated me and then at the same time I'd have to be her therapist her best friend her Confidant um all the while hating me at the same time and and there was it's just sadistic I mean I 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 um so no one would really believe me I mean just a mean woman and I think she hates women in general um my sibling is a is a boy so I don't think he took some of that I know um some of the women in his life have but she's just really mean and um there just isn't another word for her other than sadistic and I 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 you know she didn't mean it that way um she's your mom you know surely she loves you right and 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 uh for anybody who kind of struggles to understand that when did you realize uh that 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 you know I started studying books on my own about self-absorbed parents toxic parents immature parents passive aggressive personality disorder um and they were all fitting but I still had hope because I just wanted a mom and you know 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 um me

becoming more and more successful I was hoping would earn me into her heart cuz it did with my sibling but me becoming as a woman more more successful just made her hate me more and um it was just such a painful existence and for people that have moms like mine of 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 there's truly just no word in any literature that can quite describe the shock of that and and the process of what it's like to accept that as a daughter is 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 uh abuse doesn't work with some doses of kindness I'm sure that just hit a lot of people can you

speak a little on that and what you mean by that of course if if it's all abuse it's like negative reinforcement right it's if it's never going to be good you you tend to just recognize it it's time to go but when when the goodness is 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 they're going to love me we're going to be able to have this connection we're going to be able to you know have a new start and that's what every hope looks like and then the Hope becomes Relentless hope uh 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 um in my new book adult survivors of emotionally abusive parents I talk about the difference between Relentless hope and rebellious hope um 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 selfworth becomes greater 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 um 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 go away Leave Me Alone um 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 my 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 this abuse and kindness and back to abuse yes it's the cycle of violence when is a domestic violent person the nicest to their partner 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 uh the degrading uh 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 you know it's 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

Andor pass 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 from being identified as a good person all abuse is emotional so it's 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 uh speaks to this idea that we love talking about in our community about how Insidious little tea trauma not that calling you a child the loser is little but what are your thoughts and why it's harder for people who may have had more kind of hidden is 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 H 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 lawn crime what 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 oo 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 a hurricane or something like as horrific as a 911 if you know you're loved if you know 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 but she was kidnapped out of her home in

Utah and 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 when is the bottom going to the Bottom's going to fall out if 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 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 uh I deal with it every day I I'm a disruptor um 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 is that our society holds strangers to to higher standards of treatment of children if 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 um CPS was called on my parents when I was two for neglect they didn't take the the um the call right they didn't take the report but my father broke one of his students st's 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 this 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 here the child is not responsible enough to be obligated to the parent the

parent made the responsible choice to have a 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 and I think toxic parents because they believe they own

something and then if they own something they can treat it however they want because they cannot lose it 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 that that person will run out of um 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 what people don't understand it's not just running around just chopping limbs off right um 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 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 life 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 you know to be honest with you I don't know if I'm 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 um it's been challenging but

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 who whose life doesn't fit in to the more gentle um safe um you know flawed emotionally immature parent there are people out there like me that there's no safety so I'm here for those people Kristen cavaleri who we love shared a clip on Instagram where in her discussion with you she was mentioning an ex that ex 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 common a common sentiment

for people coming out of narcissistic relationships um I think it's both um I feel very protective of Kristen cavalary um I think she's so authentic and and I think she adheres to truth and I think our children deserve to hear the truth um in in my when I watch people just rage on her it it 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 re reach out from that show when she discussed her ex-husband and you know 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 right 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 um when a narcissist gets exposed they get loud so anyone who's raging on Kristen really needs to take a look in the mirror on why is she so triggering for you right um is it because she's just beautiful and successful and um loving and a great mother and you know she got a divorce and she's doing the best she can uh I think she is um 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 um 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 live 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 you know I had a woman say my 20-year-old just cut me off it's your fault um 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 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 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 right so I I I'm I have learned to have a very thick skin to that um I did do a tedex talk and what I can say is for the most part I I I do feel very loved in social media um I 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 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 it didn't affect me

you know I mean I didn't have any other choice at some point um so when people attack other people it's 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 uh 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 um I think when someone's emotionally immature um maybe their intent isn't to abuse you they're not calculating their abuse they're just very self unaware um 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 you know 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 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 UM usually there's just no other choice there 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 I 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 um 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 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 enag you know I just 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 me Narrative of me started being told and and 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 like 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 you're freaking horrible um 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 a a decision that was made quickly it was made consciously um I knew I couldn't mend the fence so I think that when you're in alignment with the truth you you 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 um 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 um 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 um 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 and I talk about um going from Escape no scapegoat to escape greatest of all time it's really cute and it's 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 personalities had to do to overcome and you know some of the flaws that I have today or fears and anxieties that I have today I'm so beautifully aware of them that can nurture love and not self- punish anymore from like a critical parent type of perspective um and I think that had I

been in any other role that was less in alignment with right and wrong and morality and and what's good and what's happy and the fact that 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 and if I didn't have the truth I would just be stoned no one would read my books I wouldn't be of interest to you I wouldn't be of interest to Kristen I wouldn't be of interest right and it 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 I think we all just want to be like there's an end date to this pain um because it it's like losing limbs you know what I mean 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 but it 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 and you know 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 than see their daughter or grandchild again it's insane so healing is like a verb right and unless you get a labotomy 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 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 um I I sure hope when I die I still have a lot of psychological inventory in my inbox um this journey is my most passionate Pursuit and I 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 viscero uh you are when you speak on this stuff that's what I noticed in all your interviews yes it see it seems like you're getting legitimately angry when you talk about the Injustice children goes through which you should right would you say that's accurate and why do you think people aren't more outraged because we 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 a able you're so real um 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 you know 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 parent parent ing 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 uh then you will see that as has 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 um 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 uh 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 um I did a show on my own podcast just recently called the burden syndrome and some of the things that feel like lifelong a lifelong journey for me is this very instinctual Habit to not burden anyone with anything um and my partner is really good at helping me with that CU I do it instinctively to 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

um and I feel like being a burden I was financially abused and manipulated um they hated me but wanted total control over me and divorced me from ever being identified as good and um 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 you're just I was always too much of something bad and not enough of something good so it just always felt like they were like G you have to sell Girl Scout cookies uh or you know anything um it was done begrudgingly so if you feel that as a human being and that's coming from your parents you know really read books like mine or or find a therapist who's educated in this way which there are very few which is unfortunate um because you have to work through the burden syndrome you have to work through um 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 and if someone's loyal right um if that resonates with you then then it really is an extreme form of Abandonment the you're going through um 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 um and you're not doing enough you're not caretaking enough for them um then then yeah it's a very rejecting abandoning feeling and you would really need to kind of dive into those wounds and um understand them so you can liberate yourself you know in 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 um 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 um 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 they're talking to another Survivor right so if you have questions about it my books aren't just about no contact UM 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 right cuz different level 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 right are

you the bad guy those are all the questions I ask what do you do when they die um and I really go into Eric Ericson's life stage development on why you have these wounds at these ages and you know why midlife is often when people cut off um 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 a complete stepbystep 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 is the feedback on my podcast is just beyond my greatest dreams so um 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 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 you know what I mean 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 um 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 P pioneered this idea of you don't have to love your parents yes I see 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 you know 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 um they are not here designed to be your emotional slave or your emotional trash can or your emotional janitor um parents need to be adults not adult children raising children right toxic adult children my mom is a 14-year-old mean girl um my dad a bully he's just a bully and a coward and cruel and

so I had two toxic adult children raising me and they weren't not committed to me they 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 me very clear about that and that wouldn't be lovable to anybody that wasn't in family and it 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 um 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 pain painful for people to understand that some of the most ridiculous abuses are happening behind closed doors I watched at least four law and crime

cases the boy in the Box uh his parents made a box for him to live in in Florida with no uh air conditioning or whatnot he only got five years in prison for sadistic abuse I watch Lori Val's children get murdered and her other children testify against her I watched Leticia Stout's daughter testify against her mother for killing her stepson and and yet somehow I just watched a dad abuse the hell out of his kid on a treadmill this case uh finished last week and the sentencing hasn't happened but he was found guilty poor little boy had a lacerated heart um 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 um but we don't want to look at parents as contributing 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 what's the outcome H how are we going to get better right so I I love the idea of cycle Breakers you know Nelson Mandela said that you know 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 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 tedex stage um that is one competitive stage but I'm so thankful that the messages out there and um it's being very well received right now the numbers are fantastic and um 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 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 you're invested in it and it means something to you and you promote it I just I hope you can feel how how thankful I am for you and um it's been really special having you show up in my world and I'm I feel so honored to be amongst the the people that you choose so just thank you