Breaking Free from Guilt When Dealing with Challenging Family Dynamics

Is overwhelming guilt getting in the way of setting boundaries with your borderline or narcissistic parent? You’re not alone. In this episode of You're Not Crazy, I dive deep into the emotional weight of guilt that so many adult children of parents with BPD or NPD experience. I’ll break down how guilt is often used to manipulate behavior, why it feels so intense, and how you can start reclaiming your peace (even when the guilt feels paralyzing).

Here’s what I cover in this episode:

• The difference between healthy guilt and guilt that’s designed to control you
• How guilt can cloud your decision-making process and keep you stuck in unhealthy patterns
• Practical strategies for asserting boundaries with confidence
• Why building a strong support system is essential for breaking the guilt cycle
• A reminder that you are so much more capable of doing hard things then you likely give yourself credit for

If you're ready to stop guilt from running your life and want support from people who get it, check out the Confident Boundaries community at confidentboundaries.com/join.

Register for my FREE mini-course, Why Your Boundaries Aren't Working With Your Toxic Parent:
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Torie Wiksell is a therapist and coach who specializes in working with the adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. Torie brings a unique perspective having spent years working with clients with personality disorders and growing up with a mother she suspects had NPD with BPD traits. Torie provides online therapy to clients located in WA, OR, and CA, and online coaching internationally.

Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy. If you are in mental health crisis, please contact the Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.

You're Not Crazy is a podcast owned and produced by Torie Wiksell and Confident Boundaries, LLC.

Chapters

• 0:02 Dealing With Guilt and Setting Boundaries
• 14:33 Building a Supportive Community

Transcript

Torie Wiksell: 0:02

Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. I'm your host, tori Wixel, a therapist and coach with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. Now let's jump in. Hi guys, welcome back to this week's episode of You're Not Crazy. I am thrilled by the feedback that I got from last week's first video well, first professionally edited video episode going up on YouTube. So thank you to everyone who watched and subscribed and sent in their feedback. If you're listening via the audio podcast but you prefer to watch podcasts, you can do so now on YouTube. So, with that being said, I did make a little oopsie on last week's podcast episode. Luckily, one of our longtime listeners did write to me and she let me know that I accidentally skipped number six in my list. So before we jump into this week's episode of the podcast, let's circle back and go over what I intended to tell you was number six last week. So number six from our list last week of 10 things that every adult child of a narcissistic or borderline parent needs to do in order to heal. Number six was learn how to communicate assertively, to say what you mean and mean what you say this one is so hard because when you grew up with a BPD or an MPD parent, you can't really communicate assertively. It's not safe or reasonable or a great idea, let's say, to say what you mean and mean what you say. Right, there's a reason why we talk about that walking on eggshells feeling. It's because if we accidentally step in the wrong place, if we accidentally say the wrong thing, or if we're not intentional with our words, feels like we are causing our parent to act out or lash out or whatever. So, with the communicating assertively as an adult. Why it's so important is probably obvious because we want to really allow the people in our lives to understand what we need from them, what we expect from them, what our intentions are. That I don't need to go into a lot of detail about.

Torie Wiksell: 2:40

What I want to talk about, though, is why it's so hard for people like us who grew up with a parent with BPD or MPD, to communicate assertively, and that is the safety issue. It feels very unsafe to be entirely transparent and honest with what we're thinking and what we mean and what we say, especially during conflict in relationships and I'm not talking about like unhealthy fighting here. I'm talking about normal conflict. When you disagree with a coworker, when you disagree with your boss, when you disagree with a partner or a friend, it can feel really, really scary to be honest and transparent in those situations, and that is when it is so important to be honest and transparent in an appropriate manner and in an appropriate fashion. Right, we're not just talking about taking it to an extreme and being completely unfiltered and expecting that to go well. That is not what I'm talking about. And how to communicate honestly and effectively in a clear way to other people, instead of expecting them to read between the lines or guess what you mean, or fill in those blanks, or hoping that they will, because that's just A it's a really big waste of time and energy. And B it's essentially asking the other person that you're communicating with to do what you have had to do for so long, which is try to read between the lines and guess what your parent thinks or wants or needs from you, and I know you don't want to perpetuate that cycle at all. So definitely work on learning assertive communication skills. If this is something that you haven't already built up in your mental health and coping skill toolbox. Okay, now that we've gone over number six.

Torie Wiksell: 4:41

I want to hop into this week's episode. Oh, also, I wanted to comment. I know I released a little few minutes this weekend to the podcast and I sent out a couple of emails and on my Instagram I announced that I was running a really brief 24-hour giveaway. So I ran a giveaway this weekend. It is over now. I am currently after recording this podcast, so I should say I will shortly be going through and randomly probably putting like names in a hat of people who entered and pulling those out and then DMing and emailing the people who won. But thank you to everyone who participated. I'm really excited. I want to occasionally do fun things like this to allow people to and encourage people to, check out the community. Try it out. If you're on the fence about the community or working together in coaching, definitely never hesitate to send me a DM or email me. You can DM me on Instagram at Tori Wixel or you can send me an email at Tori T-O-R-I-E at confidentboundariescom, and I always get back to both of those. So it might take me a minute if it ends up in my spam, but I promise I will always get back to you.

Torie Wiksell: 6:07

With that said, let's hop into today's topic, which is dealing with guilt. I know that I have touched on this in some regards in previous podcast episodes, but truly guilt deserves its standalone podcast episode, because I cannot tell you the amount of times I've been asked the question or some variation of the question how do I feel less guilty about setting boundaries with my parent? How do I feel less guilty about backing off and going lower contact with my parent? How do I feel less guilty so I can do the things that I know I need to do in order to be a healthy human? I know I need to do to protect myself. I know I need to do to protect my partner, my kids, the list goes on and on. This is such a common question because guilt is such a motivating factor in the dynamic that you have with your parent, who has unregulated BPD or narcissistic personality disorder. Your parent has used guilt and inducing the feeling of guilt in you in order to motivate you, to get you to do the things they want you to do, and it is very effective.

Torie Wiksell: 7:38

Guilt feels. It's a tough emotion, especially when you grow up with a parent like this. It is so, so tough. It feels so icky and awful to feel like the bad person. Right, you don't want to be a bad person. I don't want to be a bad person that feels so awful to think about, like we could be bad people, and so feeling guilty sends the signal to your brain that you've done something bad, that you've done something wrong that you need to course correct. But when you grow up with a parent who has borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, you learn to interact with guilt in a way that most people don't learn to interact with guilt.

Torie Wiksell: 8:30

Guilt is very healthy when it signals that we have done something wrong that we need to course correct, that we've done something that's in violation of our personal value system, that we've hurt someone unintentionally that we care about. Guilt can be a good indicator for us that we need to take a step back and reflect and figure out what happened so that we can approach situations like that differently, moving forward, when we're talking about guilt with your relationship with a parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder, it's not the same and because your parent has motivated you to do what they want you to do through invoking guilt and that feeling of guilt in you, we need to identify that, the guilt that comes up with your VPD or MPD parent is not that healthy form of guilt that is there to help you course correct. It's not. It is a very manipulative, it's a very toxic, it's a very unhelpful form of guilt. So what we want to do, instead of taking a step back and hesitating to set boundaries or feeling like we need to course correct or feeling like we need to somehow get rid of this feeling of guilt before we can do something positive for ourselves, like set boundaries, what we need to do instead is we, when you want to push back, when you want to draw a line with your parent and you hesitate or you completely stop yourself because you're feeling guilty, I want you mentally to take note of that. I want you to start there.

Torie Wiksell: 10:24

Like we've talked about, awareness is the first step to actually making effective change, and if you can start to notice and identify for yourself, I'm feeling guilty right now. Thus, I am hesitating or I'm stopping myself from doing something that I intellectually know would be good for me, that I intellectually know I want and need to do. When you can start, not just knowing that on you know, a theoretical level, but actually stopping and holding yourself accountable by acknowledging this to yourself like, yep, it's happening again, right? I know that I need to set this boundary and I'm not doing it because I'm feeling guilty right now. The more that you can bring your attention to that happening for you, the more opportunities you are going to have to do something differently.

Torie Wiksell: 11:25

It is so undervalued, the importance of just noticing patterns in the moment. It's a very mindful thing, right? Rather than you know, in a therapy set which, please don't ever get me wrong, I am very pro-therapy as a therapist, as someone who has done therapy for a very, very long time myself, you will never hear me be anti-therapy, and if you do self, you will never hear me be antitherapy, and if you do, I am miscommunicating or it is getting lost in translation. But what I want to say is it's very different than reflecting, you know, in a weekly or biweekly therapy session what has previously gone on through the week. You're not in that moment feeling it when you're doing that, right, it's still helpful.

Torie Wiksell: 12:13

But it is very different than noticing in the moment when guilt is coming up for you, calling out to yourself like you don't have to say this out loud to anyone. You can write about it, you can, like, keep a note in your phone. You can just mentally, you know, check in with yourself and say this, but it is so important in the moment to stop and to say to yourself, to write it down, to say to someone you trust yep, this is happening right now. This is exactly what's happening. I'm feeling guilty and I know I should do this thing, but this feeling of guilt is just so intense right now I can't bring myself to do it. And the more that you do this, you're going to get more and more comfortable with this idea that you have a choice here.

Torie Wiksell: 13:12

Right, this is so huge because previously it's felt like you have to figure out how to get rid of guilt in order to do something like set a boundary, in order to do something like change the dynamics to prioritize yourself, do something like change the dynamics to prioritize yourself, to prioritize your current life. It feels like this thing, this guilt thing, this emotion that is out of your control, is the thing that is holding you back from living the life that relaxed and calm and happy. And the reality is it's hard, it's making it really hard for you. But you do have a choice still. You have a choice with how you want to respond to that guilt. Just in the past it's been really instinctual. You've been, you know, doing this for a really long time. This is a familiar dance that you do with your parent, and so, in order to do something differently, it's going to take effort and intent and it's going to be uncomfortable before it's comfortable, and it's still an option for you.

Torie Wiksell: 14:33

And so really, really, really calling out to yourself I'm feeling really guilty right now. I know that I want to set these boundaries. This would be a really great time to do it, and I just can't bring myself to do it. The more you do that, the more it's going to feel attainable to actually try something else. This is so, so powerful, because any roadblocks that get in our way from living a healthier, happier life are things that we want to address.

Torie Wiksell: 15:16

Right, we oftentimes look at the solution as something that feels so out of our reach, but also identifiable, right? I'm sure to so many of you watching or listening, this is a conversation that you've had with yourself, with your therapist, with a friend, with a partner before of. I just need to figure out how to feel less guilty so that I could do these things. But the reality is that's not actually what is happening here. You can feel guilty and you can do something differently. This goes into learning how to tolerate those uncomfortable emotions instead of being triggered by them. Right, it goes into all of these other areas that we really do have to learn about and grow with when we grow up with a BPD or MPD parent, because we're not taught how to be an emotionally intelligent or emotionally capable adult. We're just not. We're taught how to do what our parent wants be the person that they want, the version of us that they want and that just really doesn't set us up for a very healthy adult life really does set us up for a very healthy adult life. So, with today's episode, I really want you to take away this concept that you don't have to wait until you can get rid of that guilt feeling to start making the changes that you want.

Torie Wiksell: 16:58

What you need to do is you need to be way more aware of this cycle in the moment than you probably are. You need to learn how to sit with and tolerate uncomfortable feelings, because it's hard and it's not fun, and it's not fun for anyone, but it's especially not fun for those of us who grew up in these family dynamics. So that is something that you need to learn and you can learn that in therapy. You can learn that you know through courses, through taking DBT skills online. You can learn that through a variety of different mechanisms. Learn that through a variety of different mechanisms, but it is something that you have to learn. And then you need to form that community.

Torie Wiksell: 17:47

You really really need to form that community where you are getting validation and encouragement and support from people who understand it, who get it, who know that you are not crazy, that you are trying so hard to do a really hard thing, which is break this very dysfunctional, abusive and toxic cycle that has been going on in your family. You're trying to do something different. You're trying to step outside a world of unhealthy interactions and seek out knowledge and learn and implement a healthier way of approaching relationships and the people in your life. You need to have support while you do that, because there's going to be so much pushback from your family, right? People are creatures of habit. You're the cycle breaker. That doesn't mean anyone else in your family is like signing up to work on themselves or try to change. There is going to be pushback. That is inevitable.

Torie Wiksell: 18:53

You need people around you whether it's a therapist, a partner, friends, whoever to support you, to cheer you on that you can go to when you're having that hard day and when you're ready to try something new and say I'm feeling really guilty right now. I need you to give me a pep talk because I really want to do something differently today. I really want to set this boundary. You need that support system to say do it, you can do it. You want to do this. This is healthy, this is valid. Do it, you can do it. We believe in you.

Torie Wiksell: 19:30

So, whether you have that in your life right now, whether that is coming from our online community, the Confident Boundaries online community, wherever you have that, if you don't have that, make sure you find that and build that for yourself, because it is so, so, so important. If you wanna check out the Confident Boundaries community, you can always do so at confidentboundariescom. Slash join and until next week, I'll see you guys over there. Thanks so much for joining me for another week of You're Not Crazy. If you like the podcast, please make sure to rate us five stars and leave a review. It helps so much. And make sure to check the show notes for discounts and updates of what's going on in my world. Okay, I'll see you next week.