The Gray Area: Understanding Low Contact with Toxic Parents

Stuck between staying in a painful relationship with your toxic parent or going full no-contact? There is another option—low contact. In this episode, I break down what low contact actually looks like with a parent who has borderline or narcissistic personality disorder: surface-level conversations, strong boundaries, and emotional distance that protects your peace. I’ll share why this gray area can be the most sustainable choice for many adult children of emotionally immature or toxic parents—and how to know if it’s right for you.

Links from this week's episode:

Bonus episodes of You're Not Crazy: confidentboundaries.com/bonusepisodes

Waitlist for the Boundaries Workshop:
confidentboundaries.com/boundariesworkshop

Join the Confident Boundaries Membership before prices go up:
confidentboundaries.com/join

Register for my FREE mini-course, Why Your Boundaries Aren't Working With Your Toxic Parent:
confidentboundaries.com/course

Learn more about the Confident Boundaries Membership: confidentboundaries.com/membership

Want more episodes of You're Not Crazy? Sign up for Bonus Episodes:
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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

• 0:14 Welcome to You're Not Crazy
• 2:17 Updates on Podcast and Membership
• 9:33 Workshop Announcement
• 12:51 Understanding Low Contact vs No Contact
• 19:42 Setting Boundaries Without Saying "Boundary"
• 23:44 Flexibility and Personal Autonomy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

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.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Happy.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Tuesday Welcome back to the podcast Cycle Breakers. I am, as always, so excited to be back here with you today, and I know that this episode is coming out later than I and you might possibly like on Tuesday morning. However, I have a really good reason for it. I invested in new podcasting equipment and that is so cool because I'm really hopeful that the sound quality will be way better than it has been, and I know all of you wonderful people out there who have been listening since the very beginning have really been through the roller coaster with me all of my attempts to improve the quality of the podcast, the sound quality of the podcast and what you're listening to. But I think that this is really going to make a huge difference and I'm really excited about it. We're getting really close to hitting a year of the Not Crazy podcast, which I can't even believe. My brain is like about to explode. But coming up on the year mark, this is a real thing and this is something I love doing, and I'm so grateful for all of you and I'm so happy that so many of you look forward to the podcast as well, and so I wanted to do an early birthday gift to our podcast by improving all of our equipment so that we could all have a more enjoyable listening experience moving forward. With that said, I have this attitude where I get very overly optimistic when I upgrade something, like I get a new computer or something I'm like, oh yeah, this will be fine, I'll figure it out. I get a new platform that I use, and then it takes me a little longer than I anticipated to figure out all of the bells and whistles. So that is why this podcast is coming out a bit late this week. It's because I went to record it several times over the past few days. Every time I tried to get in and tinker with the new equipment, I ran out of time to record the podcast, and then I would have to start again, and then so, on and on and on. So, anyways, here I am at 7am on Tuesday morning with my coffee, just finished up, my Cheerios, and I am recording this and getting it out to you as soon as I can. With that said, I want to know what you guys think. Do you notice a difference? Does the sound sound better? Is this worth all of the effort? Let me know. Send me a DM over on Instagram at Tori, at Confident Boundaries or email me, tori T-O-R-I-E at ConfidentBoundariescom.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Next thing on our check-in list we are doing a full rebrand, so I know that I updated a couple of things recently. I really am a jeans and a t-shirt or yoga pants kind of girl. I really love a muted color scheme for my clothes and just like my vibe overall. However, it was feeling a little depressing. Luckily, two of my amazing girlfriends, michelle and Jess, who are also cycle breaker listeners of this podcast, are just the most wonderful humans in the world and they're both in the marketing world and they have been really helping me to come up with a rebrand that better represents my personality and is less depressing and more fun and exciting. So there is a new podcast cover coming out this week. You probably saw it when you clicked on today's podcast. Let me know what you think. I'm really excited about it. I really love the vibe overall, but I would love to know what you think of it.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Part of the rebrand is that we are renaming the Confident Boundaries online community. So when I first started Confident Boundaries in December, I started it as a little community where I was hoping people could come together and chat like Reddit and have some helpful information with. I think we originally started with one meetup every other month in the community. Now that has evolved quite a bit. We're now doing two hour long group coaching sessions a week in the community that are open to all members. We have an on-demand library in there, you get the bonus episodes of the You're Not Crazy podcast and there's a chat feature. And even more exciting is I'm working with Kajabi, which is the platform that hosts my website and the community and all of that stuff, to have an app built out specifically for Confident Boundaries. So that's going to be happening in the next month or two and I'm really, really excited With all of these changes and the growth of the community and what it actually is.

Speaker 1: 5:27

It didn't really feel like the name reflected what we're doing there and it just kind of is a law name to say the Confident Boundaries online community. So as part of this rebrand, we are now calling it the Confident Boundaries membership, so I may slip up and refer to it as the online community. I'm talking about the same thing. It is now the Confident Boundaries membership. I think that reflects what we're doing over there a lot more, because it really is about the connection, the support, coaching, education, all of that stuff. There's so much in there. It's really packed in and I was getting a little overwhelmed with the pricing structure as well. And I know, if you guys have been with me a long time, you know that I change my mind all the time, but hopefully for the better. I learn and grow and evolve.

Speaker 1: 6:19

So I'm now making it two options. One is a monthly option, not because I just want you to pop in for a few weeks or a month into the community, because I really don't. I think, in order to get the value that you really want to get from the membership, think of it as a resource that is available to you, that you have in your back pocket. You can come in for coaching sessions when you need to, when you want to, when you need connection, when you need support, when you just need validation that other people are dealing with a similar thing. You have the on-demand library of resources that I keep adding to. You can come to the live monthly workshops in there or you can watch them later in the on-demand library. You have this wealth of support and validation that is available to you all the time, because this is a lifelong journey, as we all know. So I want you to really think of it, as this is an ongoing support. However, I do know that sometimes it is much easier to pay per month versus pay per three or six months, and so I am shifting the payments. You can either join for a monthly membership plan or a three months at a time membership plan, so the three month option will still be there for a slight discount, but you have those two options now, so I'm going to get rid of the six month. However, if you're already on the six month, you are welcome to stay on it.

Speaker 1: 7:48

If you are already a member, nothing is changing for you whatsoever. I posted in the community hopefully you saw or in the membership See catching myself. I posted in the membership earlier this week. Hopefully you saw that. Current members of Confident Boundaries. Nothing is changing for you. You get grandfathered into all of the wild and crazy updates that I make whenever I have the urge to do so, but the reason why I want to bring this all up here on the podcast is that in two weeks, because of all of these additions to the membership community, the app, the additional group coaching the price of the membership is going to be going up in two weeks. Again, if you're already a member, no worries, you're grandfathered in. You are locked in to the rate at which you joined for the lifetime of your membership. However, if you are not currently a member, you can join for the next two weeks and get locked in to the current pricing, which is $75 a month or $189 every three months. In two weeks, those prices are going to go up to $85 a month or $225 every three months. So I just want to let you know. If you've been on the fence, now's a great time to hop in and grab that lower rate before we bump it up in two weeks.

Speaker 1: 9:06

I know these announcements can sometimes go on a long time. I promise you we are going to get to the really wonderful part of the episode that you're all listening for very soon. I only have two more things to tell you about One. I'm doing a bonus episode that will be going up tomorrow, wednesday, on Mother's Day, and the complexities of that in my perspective and how I'm dealing with it. So if that is something that you are interested in I know not everyone is struggling with their mom per se, but if that is something that you are interested in, if that is something that resonates with you. If you are part of the membership, you have access to those bonus episodes. If you are not interested in the membership but you still want access to those bonus episodes, go to confidentboundariescom. Slash bonus episodes and you can sign up over there.

Speaker 1: 9:55

And then, finally, I am updating the free workshop Setting Boundaries with a Parent you Suspect has Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Dis disorder right now. It is going to be going up very soon. My goal is to get it up by the end of this week and if you have not already taken the workshop, I highly recommend you do. I walk you through my three-step program, four program that sounds so cheesy and like scammy and goobery I don't like that language. I walk you through three steps that I walk my coaching and therapy clients through that are really important and effective for setting boundaries with a parent who you suspect or know has borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. So if you haven't already taken the workshop, definitely head over to confidentboundariescom. Slash boundaries workshop and hop on the waitlist. I'm going to be emailing everyone on the waitlist as soon as the new workshop goes live and you will have first access to it. So hop on the waitlist. Keep an eye out for that email. It will be coming to you soon, either by the end of this week or in the beginning of next week, but definitely hop on over there right now.

Speaker 1: 11:59

If you know anyone who has taken the workshop before, talk to them about it, because it is jam-packed. My whole spiel is in under an hour. I can teach you how to set boundaries with a parent that you suspect have BPD or MPD. And you know me, I'm a rambler, so I talk as fast as I can to get through a ton of information, and you really do walk away knowing okay, this is what I have to do to set boundaries effectively with a parent with BPD or MPD, and this is why. So head on over there, sign up, get on the waitlist and let's jump into the actual heart of our episode now. So last week's episode is thanks to a member of our Confident Boundaries membership who brought up the fact that we had not had a podcast episode on enabling parents yet, and that is so important and so relevant. And so today's episode is inspired by one of my individual coaching clients, who is another amazing human, because every single person that is a part of the you're not crazy world is just the most fabulous, wonderful humans I've ever met in my life. But she and I were talking, and she suggested that I do an episode talking about going low contact, and I completely agree.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I think that this is a term that you may or may not have heard and it's very ambiguous, and a lot of the times when we grow up with a dysfunctional family, when we grow up with a toxic parent, we think of things in black and white, right. Either have a relationship with my parent or I don't. I don't want to go no contact. That sounds really scary. It sounds like I might drown in guilt. So therefore I'm doomed to an eternity where I am miserable and hate everything because I'm constantly stressed and stressed.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Well, what if there was a gray area here? What if there was a potential for you to not necessarily have to go no contact but also be able to have a reduced contact relationship with your parent where you weren't going crazy all the time? I think for a lot of us, that's the ideal situation, right. Once we work on accepting our parent for who they are and their limitations, we come to this place of recognizing that they are likely not going to be able to show up as the version of a parent that we really wish they would show up for us as. Once we get to that point of radical acceptance, it's really about figuring out what are the boundaries that I can set in order to have a relationship with them without personally losing my mind, without being so overwhelmed and stressed out that I make myself physically sick. It's trying to figure out what can I do within the reality of who my parent is so I don't have to go no contact Because, despite what you might see on social media or in these parent estrangement Facebook groups that drive me bonkers, no one wants to go no contact with a parent like this.

Speaker 1: 15:16

They don't want to. We don't wake up one day and think, oh my god, that'd be so fun, it would be if I just completely ostracized myself or my entire family. That just sounds like a really good day. That is not what anyone thinks. No one thinks that, because it is not ideal, it is not fun, it is last resort. Always, it is always the last resort, and what low contact is for many people is a maintainable relationship with a parent like this. Low contact is a realistic, healthy relationship with a BPD or MPD parent that allows you to maintain that relationship without having to go no contact? Is low contact possible in every parent-adult-child dynamic like this? No, it's not. Some people are going to find that they try to go low contact and even that is more stressful than is helpful for them. Even that is not worth it.

Speaker 1: 16:20

This is such a personal decision and it is so nuanced, it is so complicated and there are so many factors of what the dynamics are in your actual life and situation that impact whether or not being low contact or no contact is a better choice for you and at the end of the day, while I fully support all of you in making your own decisions, I'm not this wise person here who knows what's best for everyone out there listening and everyone out there in the world. Right, what I know is what is right for me, what I can do for myself. What I know is what works and doesn't work in these types of family dynamics. What I know is I have knowledge and education and experience helping people navigate these things. But that decision at the end of the day is really up to you and it's so important that that is something that you internalize that message right there, because, growing up in this type of family.

Speaker 1: 17:24

You don't have autonomy to make your own decisions right. It never matters what you want or what you feel or what you need for yourself. That's not important. What's important is what your parent wants or what you need for yourself. That's not important. What's important is what your parent wants and what they need. You are constantly told that your thoughts and opinions and feelings don't matter. They're not that important and you should ignore them in order to do what will make other people happy, and it would traumatize me if I thought for a second that I was replicating that trauma for anyone that I worked with or anyone that listens to this podcast. I want to do the exact opposite. I want to help you build that autonomy to make the decisions that are right for you, are right for you at the time, and to let you know that you're allowed to change your mind.

Speaker 1: 18:15

So many of us go no contact for a time and then we go back, and then we try low contact and then we go back and then we go no contact. There is not a linear road here and you are allowed to try different things and you are allowed to grow and learn. There is not a right or wrong there is just trying to figure out what is best for you. And one thing we were talking about in the group coaching call yesterday is this whole concept that when you have this type of family dynamic, there's not a good choice. A lot of the times there's not this choice. That's like oh, if I can just think about this long enough and hard enough, then I'm going to make the best choice and I'm going to feel great and all of my stress is going to be gone. Unfortunately, that is just not our reality. It is so much more complicated and nuanced than that. In reality, we're trying to pick the best choice out of a couple shitty options, to be honest, right Like a couple of really bad options, and so we have to really look at what are the benefits of me making this choice? What are the cons of me making this choice? What are the benefits of me not making this choice? What are the cons of me not making this choice? What are the benefits of me not making this choice? What are the cons of me not making this choice? It is really nuanced, it is really complicated.

Speaker 1: 19:35

But let's shift back to low contact. What does low contact actually mean? It is that gray area, right. When I think of low contact, I think of extremely boundaried relationships. Now that doesn't mean that you're constantly telling your parent this is my boundary. If you've taken the free workshop, you know that I'm very adamant that you don't tell anyone that you're setting a boundary. I mean, maybe, like an extremely emotionally healthy person, you could use the word boundary with right. But if you're talking to a parent who lacks emotional maturity and you say the word boundary, this is my boundary. I need you to respect this boundary. That is a big trigger word these days. Don't say the word boundary. You don't have to say the word boundary to set a boundary. You could just say something like hey, I noticed that you called me two days ago. I'll return your phone call within the week if you reach out. It doesn't mean anything's wrong. It's just that I need to make sure I have the emotional space and time to focus on our phone call and have my full attention there. That doesn't require me saying the word boundary at all, right, so that is a power tip for you. Don't say the word boundary to a parent who is highly reactive. They will not appreciate it. So low contact is not just low physical contact. Low contact is low emotional contact. It is really a lot of gray rocking it is.

Speaker 1: 21:02

I'm going to keep exchanges very surface level with my parent. I'm not going to share with them my hopes, my dreams, all of these things. When they ask me about something, I'm going to keep it very simple, very brief answers How's work going? It's going. I might send a happy birthday text. I might send a Merry Christmas text. I am going to keep visits very limited. It is a very gray thing. It is very, very specific to you, but it is essentially.

Speaker 1: 21:32

When I think of low contact I'm thinking what is the lowest point that I can have with my parent without completely cutting off the relationship? And it doesn't necessarily have to be the absolute lowest right, but we're really looking at. This is kind of my last effort to try to maintain some level of interaction with my parent instead of completely cutting them off. It is kind of that bottom level before we get to no contact and this can be a really sustainable dynamic in your relationship. It is not ideal but given the reality of the family that we grew up in, our family dynamics, who our parent is, who they are or not, sometimes this is the best of some not great options.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Boundary relationships are not always low contact. Sometimes people have a lot of boundaries but they have more contact with their parents. So, while I do think of low contact as a very big relationship, I don't think of all boundary relationships with a parent like this as low contact. So that, in a nutshell, it's the most rambly way of ever explaining the situation. That is my perception of low versus no contact, versus the status quo, and I think, just any time we can make that mental shift from black and white into the gray area, it gives us a lot more room to run with. It allows us to feel more empowered to make a decision. That is perhaps a bit more comfortable for us. Right?

Speaker 1: 23:15

If you've never set a boundary with your parent ever in your entire life, are you going to go no contact with them? Probably not. That probably would terrify you. I mean, there's no way that I would have back in the day. That's not. That's just not the progression, right?

Speaker 1: 23:32

It is a complicated, imperfect relationship and we all do the best we can with the knowledge that we have at the time and we just want to create more flexibility so that we're not feeling trapped, because when you feel trapped.

Speaker 1: 23:49

That is the worst thing ever. It feels like you have no options, which is rarely true, and so if you take anything out of this podcast today, I really, really hope that it is the flexibility to create a relationship dynamic that works for you. Even though it is complicated and it might not be your ideal, you are able to make decisions that work for you and you have the autonomy to do so. Just a reminder let me know about the sound quality of today's episode. Shoot me a DM, shoot me an email If you're interested in joining the membership. Remember you've got two weeks to do so before that price bumps up. I'll be dropping that Mother's Day bonus episode tomorrow and hop on the waitlist for the Boundaries Workshop. I'll throw all of those links into the show notes, so just give them a peek and until next week, take care. I'll see you then.

Speaker 2: 24:51

Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of you're not crazy. If you like the podcast, please leave a review and rate us five stars. It helps so much and make sure to check the show notes for links to bonus podcast episodes and other ways I can help. See you soon.