You're Not Crazy: A Podcast for Cycle Breakers with Toxic Parents

Breaking Cycles Without Breaking Yourself

• Torie Wiksell • Episode 51

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Healing isn’t linear—especially when you’re the cycle breaker. In this episode of You’re Not Crazy, I’m pulling back the curtain on what real, sustainable healing looks like when you grew up with emotionally immature, narcissistic, or borderline parents.

I share how becoming a therapist over a decade ago didn’t free me from my dysfunctional patterns—it magnified them. I was the classic parentified child turned overwhelmed helper: running myself into the ground trying to "fix" everything and help everyone. 

I talk about how I'm working on breaking toxic cycles right now and all the feelings and thoughts I have around my own healing journey.

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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.

Torie Wiksell:

Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders.

Torie Wiksell:

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.

Torie Wiksell:

Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast.

Torie Wiksell:

this week I am very excited that my normal voice is back for the first time in many weeks. So this, I am convinced, must have been COVID, because I truly have never been sick with a respiratory type situation for almost four weeks in my life. I think it actually ended up being like three or three and a half, but that is wild. That is a very long time and I'm very happy that I'm feeling back to myself and healthy and everything. So thank you so much for bearing with me over these past few weeks. It has been quite a fever dream. I feel like I'm coming out of a daze and thinking clearly finally again. So thanks again for bearing with me there.

Torie Wiksell:

I know this past weekend was Father's Day. If you had a rough go of it, I really feel for you. I know Father's Day and Mother's Day can be so hard when you have a complicated family situation. Whether you're in contact with your dad, low contact, no contact it can just be a really hard day for so many reasons. So I am definitely sending you lots of hugs this week and I hope that you're taking care of yourself. As I said, around Mother's Day weekend. These are not the times that we need to focus on thriving in our life. I think just if I can say anything to you, it's just be kind to yourself this week and take it easy this week and next week you can get back, or later on this week, when you're feeling up to it, you can get back to thriving.

Torie Wiksell:

Today I wanted to talk about something. I was looking at the podcast reviews on Apple Podcasts and I found one that was just posted last Wednesday and it wasn't great. It was a two-star review and I wanted to talk about what the complaints were in it, because I think that it's a good thing to talk about on this podcast. So, essentially, this person commented mostly commercials. I really found Tori's insight and guidance helpful, but her podcast episodes are now mostly commercials for her workshops and memberships. For example, her May 2025 low contact episode doesn't actually start until 13 minutes in more than half of the episode, so it's not worth it anymore. So that was the comment and obviously it's an Apple podcast review. I can't respond back. I have no idea who left it, but I do want to talk about it today, not because I'm hoping or expecting that person will hear at all, but because I think it opens the door for a conversation for us to have here on the podcast that I think will be helpful for the people who are still choosing to listen and hopefully new people coming in as well. So that comment made me feel really sad. Just full transparency, it really did.

Torie Wiksell:

I know I am not a media person. I did not go to school for broadcasting. I went to school to become a therapist, and the reason why I decided to become a therapist many moons ago was because I had an amazing therapist who helped me deal with a lot of trauma, and that is actually how I started on my own cycle breaking journey was by working with a therapist on trauma that at the time I thought was completely unrelated to my family, and I don't even recall what level of insight I had into my own complicated family dynamics. I know definitely some, as I remember as a young child, thinking the situation is crazy or my mom is out of control. But essentially I became a therapist because I had an amazing therapist who really saved me in so many ways and I found therapy to be so incredible and special and I really wanted to pay it forward, and so that really began my journey of being a therapist.

Torie Wiksell:

With that said, if you listen to this podcast. You know, I'm also someone who grew up in a very dysfunctional family situation and, as I've talked about so many times here, I've experienced a lot of the same struggles that many of you listening have throughout my life. That's one of the primary reasons why I talk about the struggles I've experienced on here. It's because I want you to know that you're not crazy, you're not alone and you're not a lost cause. Trust me, I have gotten through some dark times in my life and I truly believe that, if I could do it, that is a reflection of my desire to be a healthy person, my desire to really heal and to break the cycle and to understand how to do that and to be willing to put in the time, energy and resources to work on myself and to learn skills that I never learned growing up, like how to recognize what emotions I was feeling and how to manage those emotions and how to have a healthy relationship and how to resolve conflict. Those weren't things I was modeled or taught growing up. Those were things that I had to seek out support to learn as an adult, and so me talking about some of my own personal experiences on here is really intended to help. You see that if I can do it, you can do it too. And if you relate to the things that I'm talking about, things can get better. It is worth it to put in the work.

Torie Wiksell:

I know it is exhausting and I know it is really hard to find people who understand this unique family dynamic, but keep going, because it is worth it and you deserve to get out of that mess. So I am really passionate about the work that I do. I am really really passionate about being a therapist. I never take it lightly, ever. I really adore the clients that I get to work with. I also love coaching. I get to work with amazing humans through coaching and that has been such a cool addition to my professional landscape, if you will, throughout the past couple of years. And before you think like this is completely unrelated to that comment, I want to assure you it is not, and I'm going to circle back to it, but just bear with me. You know I'm a storyteller, so I love being a therapist. I love it so much. I feel so lucky that I get to do what I love to do and I couldn't pick a better career for myself. I really love it.

Torie Wiksell:

Also, I had no idea when I decided to become a therapist when I was in grad school. I had no idea until after I graduated with my master's degree what a toxic industry the mental health field is. The reality is that when you're a therapist, you work for free during your master's degree. So I was a server when I was going to school, supporting myself, and I would serve nights, I would serve weekends and I worked at an inpatient hospital for 20 hours a week for free, in addition to going to school full time. I was completely supporting myself between serving and student loans, and I'm sure, as you could imagine, I have a ton of student loans. And you might be asking yourself, tori, how could you possibly have a ton of student loans if you've been a therapist for over 12 years now? And that's a great question that I think we should really talk about today, because people have a lot of misconceptions about the mental health field, and I think this is a good conversation for us to have.

Torie Wiksell:

So when you graduate with your master's degree after working for free, it seems like, yes, I'm finally going to be able to make money and work one job. But that's not really how it works, at least in California, and states are different, but at least in California, after you graduate, you have to work under a licensed therapist for several years, while you're getting what's called supervision, and you have to do this for a very long time. So, all that said, when you are working when I was working for five years post-grad school you're working in really tough jobs. You're working for, like I said, an inpatient hospital. You're working for government-funded programs where you're getting paid at these places barely above minimum wage like $1 to $2 an hour over minimum wage and you're working really intense jobs. There were years that I worked crisis phones where I would work my full-time job and then, on rotation, I would be on call for 24 hours and I was barely making above minimum wage and only getting paid a tiny amount for being on call. I think there might have been a stipend of one additional hour or something for having the phone, but it just is very toxic.

Torie Wiksell:

The way that we treat young therapists is really unhealthy and it's not a good situation and it's not sustainable because so many people in the mental health field are like me and they've experienced a lot of trauma and they go into this field because they want to help other people and they want to pay it forward. And those are the people that we want in this field, because they care and they're passionate and they know how much it can help. And a lot of the times, people like us, those cycle breakers that end up in the mental health field, like us, those cycle breakers that end up in the mental health field we don't come from money, we don't come from means. We have to overcome a lot of adversity in order to go to grad school in order to become a therapist. It is really hard financially to do that. It is a really big struggle and, in all honesty, even with how much I love my job now, if I had a true understanding of the financial struggle that I would face going into this field, I honestly probably wouldn't have, because I didn't have the fallback, I didn't have someone that was financially supporting me and helping me through this, and so I ended up with a ton of student loans like a ton because that was the only way I could get through and making essentially minimum wage, supporting myself and keeping a roof over my head. Those aren't compatible with paying down your student loans.

Torie Wiksell:

There's been so much of my career where I have gained tons of experience in education and training, and I've barely been able to support myself, and that's crazy when we think about it. So I opened my private practice in 2018. And again, I went into this field because I wanted to help people, and so what I ended up doing what a lot of therapists do, that I ended up doing is I ended up seeing a lot of clients for rates that it cost me more to run my practice than I was charging those clients. I've seen many clients for $5 a session because I believed I could help them and I knew they were motivated and I wanted to help them, and I have a master's degree in therapy, not in business. It's not my strength. I'm learning so much. I have learned so much in the seven years since I opened my private practice.

Torie Wiksell:

But that was not why I got into this field, and what I didn't realize was just like working for minimum wage in these really stressful environments was a surefire way to burn out as a therapist. Me setting up my private practice in a way that wasn't financially sustainable was also a surefire road to burnout, and I can't help anyone if I'm stressed about my own financial situation or if I'm not taking care of myself, and that right there is what I think is worth talking about today, because that right there is from my childhood right. Growing up, I was, yes, the scapegoat, but I was also the fixer, and I was the person who was the parentified child, who was the one that took care of my sister and myself, who was the one that tried to manage every situation, who was hypervigilant, who was constantly looking around, thinking what could go wrong and how can I stop it from going wrong. That was me. I overextended myself constantly in an effort to survive, emotionally and otherwise, and what I found myself doing as a therapist, while my intentions were so good, just like they were when I was growing up I was overextending myself.

Torie Wiksell:

Once again, I was putting myself in this position where I was sacrificing my own needs in order to help someone else, in order to benefit someone else, and that is a problem for so many reasons. That is not my job. It was never my job. To what is the saying light myself on fire to keep other people warm? That was never my job, and it's not something that I can do.

Torie Wiksell:

It's not realistic, it's not sustainable, it will burn out quickly, and so I had to go back to the drawing board and figure out what was sustainable, because, like I've said, I love my job, I love doing what I do, and I'm probably going to be working for a very long time with all of the student loans that I have. But I also want to work for a very long time because I love doing therapy, and it's so cool when I have former clients come back and work with me after several years, and therapy is one of those things that, if you set it up in a way that is sustainable, I can do when I'm old and gray and it can ebb and flow with me as my life changes. But in order to do that, I had to be really honest about what I needed to survive and to have a business that was sustainable. And that's when I got really firm on having to raise my rates, because I needed to live a life that was not causing me stress, and I needed to live a life that was not causing me stress, and I needed to live a professional life where I wasn't recreating cycles from my traumatic childhood, and so raising my rates is one thing that was important that I did for my one-to-one work, because there's only so many hours I can work in a day and again.

Torie Wiksell:

I don't want to burn out but, like I said, I went into this field because someone before me helped me so much and really gave me the skills and the confidence that I needed to move forward, despite people in my life, despite family members, telling me that I couldn't, that I was a bad person. This area, this niche that I work in, is so specific, it is so unique and there are very few people that I encounter that have the same area of focus in their practice, and it truly broke my heart years ago, before I started my coaching business, before I started this podcast, when people would find my therapy website and they would reach out to me and say I really want to work with you. You get it. You are the only person that I found that really focuses on adults with parents who have borderline or narcissistic personality disorders, and I'd have to say to them I am so sorry, I am only licensed in these states and I cannot help you. This is my suggestion moving forward, best of luck.

Torie Wiksell:

That used to kill me, because those emails were from people that I actually did think I could help and because the way the therapy field is set up, it just wasn't something that I was able to do back then and so that felt awful to me. I didn't like that. I am a helper. Like I said, I have overextended myself to the extreme throughout my life because I so badly want to pay it forward. I am so grateful for the support and encouragement and compassion that I have received from people who have been integral to my own healing journey, who have been integral to my own healing journey, and I so desperately want to pay that forward to other people who also want to do the work and they just need help figuring it out. They just need guidance and support and validation and they need to know that they're on the right track and they're not crazy and that right there is what led to this second company being born.

Torie Wiksell:

It was this desire to expand my ability to help others in a way similar to that with which I've been helped throughout my life, and to be able to do so in a way where I wasn't confined to only helping people I was doing therapy with, and only helping people who could afford to pay me a livable wage on a one-to-one basis. I value my one-to-one therapy and coaching clients so much and to me it is so important that I find a way to expand what I do so I'm able to help people, regardless if they can afford to work with me one-on-one or not. I really want to help people, and part of the podcast, part of the Confident Boundaries membership, part of the workshops, part of the mini course that I just introduced all of that stuff I've come out of pocket to fund because I care and because I'm passionate about it and because you guys have written in to me and said that you like the podcast and that it changed things for you and you appreciate the workshop and you love the membership community and that you feel so grateful that there are places where you finally feel like people get it and you feel seen. That's what I want to do. That is what I'm so passionate about.

Torie Wiksell:

But these things aren't free, just like in my therapy practice. I had to pay rent back when I first started my therapy practice that was before the telehealth days and I had to pay for my continuing education and my licensing and all of that stuff. And now I pay to run this podcast and I pay for the platforms, for the membership community and the workshops. I pay for all of that stuff and for a long time I wasn't breaking even. Now I'm able to at least break even, but by no means am I profiting handsomely off of these things. I am trying to find a way to do this that is sustainable. I'm trying to find a way to do this where I can put out the weekly podcast for free, where I can offer additional resources to be able to not only make ends meet but hopefully one day get to a place where I can buy a house and pay down my student loans and all of those things that I think a lot of us aspire to, just like normal life things. Right, and by no means do I think I have solved that. I'm definitely stumbling along as I go and figuring it out as I go, and I think that we're building something really amazing here.

Torie Wiksell:

It's so cool to connect with everyone who listens to this podcast. It's so cool to connect to the people that show up to the workshop, that join the membership. It is really cool to see the community of people who genuinely just want a happy and healthy and peaceful life. It's amazing to see that and to connect with all of you. This time around. It is different than when I overextended myself with therapy clients. It's different, because I look at everything that I've put into the second company through the podcast and the community and the courses as something that has taken a lot of upfront investment of my time and energy and financial resources.

Torie Wiksell:

But by scaling this business I can create these other offers that are so much more accessible. And if I am able to reach more people, then I can do so in a way that does support myself, because in the membership I can work with several people at one time. I can comment on tons of people in the memberships, posts and comments. I can have numerous people come to the group coaching and work with me in there and ask me questions and get feedback and connect, and these are things that are just not possible for me to do without me talking about them on Instagram, without me talking about them on the podcast, without me talking about them in emails. These are things that I'm really passionate about and in order for me to really create a business, I have to talk about them so that people who would benefit from them, people who want my help, know where to find me, they know where they can come and work with me, either one-on-one or with group coaching and with the group coaching too I know the Confident Boundaries membership has been wildly evolving since it first opened in December, but that is because I want to really take in the feedback that I'm getting as we grow and try to make it the most supportive and helpful place possible.

Torie Wiksell:

And so now there are two membership options if you're interested in joining over there. Hopefully, if that person that left the comment is listening, they're not getting mad at me right now, but I am going to say you can join without group coaching or with group coaching now. So you can either get access to the library with all of my teachings and worksheets and videos and all of that. You can get access to the live monthly workshops, bonus podcast episodes and the community chat that's like a Reddit-like chat. You can join that or you can join and get all of that plus group coaching. The membership with the library and workshops and chat and all of that is $49 a month. With group coaching is $85 a month.

Torie Wiksell:

That one has been a little tricky for me to put a price tag on for a few reasons. There is going to be a time when we get so many people in those group coaching sessions that I have to pause allowing new people into them because there's only so many people I can talk to or help or support in a single session. And the cool thing about group coaching is a lot of the times people come in to talk and ask questions and ask for feedback. But a lot of the times people come in to talk and ask questions and ask for feedback, but a lot of the times they're there to listen and learn from other people too. So group coaching does allow me to work with way more people than I would be able to otherwise, and occasionally I'm in those group coaching calls one-on-one with someone, which is way cheaper than I charge to work one-on-one outside of the membership. So the reason that it's priced right now at $85 a month is because I want to make it more accessible than my one-on-one work is. And it should be more accessible because you're not getting one-on-one support from me unless you happen to be the only person in one of those group coaching calls. Then you are and it's just a bonus benefit.

Torie Wiksell:

I know that not everyone in the community is going to show up to every group coaching call. There are people that show up to a lot of them, but we have them twice a week. There's typically around four weeks in a month, so that's eight coaching calls in a month that are hour long coaching calls and you get access to all of those. If you break that down to a single coaching session price, that's about $10 a coaching session, and then getting everything else in there for free. I think that, right, there is a big way that I can offer more of me to people. But even if you join without group coaching, I'm in there and I'm reading the comments and I'm replying, and I'm responding and I'm getting feedback and I genuinely care. I want you to thrive, I want you to do well. I want you to know that you're not alone.

Torie Wiksell:

The Tori that you hear and listen to on the podcast is the same Tori that my therapy clients get. It's the same Tori that my coaching clients get. It's the same Tori that shows up in the membership. This is me, this is who I am, and I by no means am a perfect person. I by no means am doing this perfectly. And at the same time, I think it could be helpful to paint the picture of what my thought process is and what I am trying to do and why I am doing it. I think, especially for those of you who have been listening since the very beginning, you might have questions too. That's fine, that's fair. The reality is I, at my core, am a helper and I want to help is I, at my core, am a helper and I want to help? And I've been trying to figure out how to grow and ebb and flow, confident boundaries and this podcast in a way that is sustainable for me and in a way where I have the ability to help more people without sacrificing myself. You know what's funny not like funny, haha, but like funny.

Torie Wiksell:

Ironic is that if I had received feedback like that from anyone a few years ago, my first instinct would be to back down on everything. A few years ago, I would have seen that and thought that person is right. I'm a horrible person. I clearly am bad at this. I'm doing this wrong. People don't like me. I shouldn't be talking about anything paid at all. I should be doing more. I should be doing better. I would have beaten myself up and this time around I didn't. I talked to my husband about it. I felt sad. I allowed myself to feel sad. I cried. I'm talking to you guys about it. I'm sharing my thoughts about it.

Torie Wiksell:

This is healing. This is what healing looks like. It isn't all glamorous, like you get to the end and think, oh, I never have any challenging feelings ever again. Trust me, I wish it was, because I would sign up like tomorrow if that were the case. But that's not what healing is. Healing is understanding and having awareness around your own patterns and behaviors and your own history and why you do the things you do and why you repeat cycles. And healing is gaining skills to fill in the gaps of things that you were never taught and things that you never knew. And healing is messy and it's ugly at times, and as long as you keep moving forward, you're still healing.

Torie Wiksell:

And talking about it is something that I wish more of us would do more often, and it's hard when people don't understand our journeys and they don't understand our experiences or where we've come from. And that's another reason why I love the membership community that we're building. It's because everyone in there gets it and they genuinely want the best for themselves and they want the best for everyone else, and they're kind and supportive and encouraging and thoughtful. And so I know I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea and I know that I can't devote a podcast episode to every negative comment or feedback that I get.

Torie Wiksell:

This one, I think, especially hit home because it seemed like that person really was enjoying the podcast and me talking about things that I do, both paid and free. The workshop was free for a very long time, so both paid and free offers outside of the podcast seemed to really upset them. But it also brought up for me a lot of stuff around my healing journey and, as someone who has paid significantly more to run her practice than she was making from her practice at times, I would not suggest you listen to me for business advice. I have friends who are much better in the financial world if that is something that you are looking for advice in. But I don't think I've ever claimed to be an expert influencer. If I have, I must have been delusional or sleep deprived from being a parent.

Torie Wiksell:

But what I do claim to know a lot about is this one area and I try to be very honest and straightforward around who I am and what my thoughts are, and I know I'm not doing it perfectly and I am learning as we go and I hope that after today's podcast episode you feel like. You've got a bit more insight into who I am and the evolution of this podcast and essentially, understanding that I'm still a work in progress too, and I'm trying to figure out how to be a therapist and a cycle breaker in 2025 in a way that allows me to help other people and to also be an emotionally and physically healthy human who's able to live her own life too. So this is a rambly one. If you made it through, thank you so much for listening to me and my thoughts, and thank you for following the podcast.

Torie Wiksell:

We're coming up on a year and it's still growing, and none of that would be possible without you guys, and I am just so grateful and happy that so many people have found the podcast and so many people have felt benefit from it and, at the end of the day, this is something that I love doing, and I hope that you love listening to it and hopefully, we can continue doing it for many more years to come. So, with that said, have a great rest of your week, you guys, and I'll see you next week. Bye.

Torie Wiksell:

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.

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