Latest / LAUNCH: Parenting Tips for Raising Adult Children & Building Better Relationships / #72: The Apology Ache: Healing Parental Hurt & Breaking Toxic Cycles

Transcript

#72: The Apology Ache: Healing Parental Hurt & Breaking Toxic Cycles · LAUNCH: Parenting Tips for Raising Adult Children & Building Better Relationships

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Sherry Jonas, and this is Launch.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Before we get into today's interview, I want you to know that this one is a little different from what you're used to.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the time, I offer advice for parents who are having a difficult time with their adult children.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: But every once in a while, I meet someone whose story must be shared.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Today's episode is for those of you who have been hurt by a parent and carry the quiet, painful ache of knowing that an apology is probably never coming.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: My guest, Paula Yost, calls it the apology ache, that deep, lingering hurt from a parent who has wounded you, and you have to accept that they are never going to acknowledge it.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, oftentimes, our only salvation is estrangement, which we never want to happen to us.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Paula is a clinical mental health counselor, a lawyer, and the author of the book Tumbleweeds.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: This conversation is about her deeply personal and painful experiences with a mother whom she struggled with practically her whole life, and how she came to terms with that relationship through the practice of radical acceptance, which she explains so beautifully.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: And perhaps most importantly, we talk about breaking that generational cycle because so many people who are hurt by a parent carry a deep fear.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Am I going to do this to my own kids?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Or can I break this toxic pattern?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you were hurt by a parent, the fear of repeating that with your own children is real.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: That part of our conversation is something I think every parent needs to hear.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't think any of us had a perfect childhood.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: So even though this episode is a bit different, I think the message is important.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope you spend the time today to listen.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Here's my conversation with Paula Yost.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Paula.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining me on launch today.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Sherry.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have such an interesting life story, and with all the work that you've done and accomplished in your life, in spite of it all, I'm really excited to share it with our listener.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: So let's jump right in with you telling us about your mother's family history, which is crazy, and what your relationship is like with your mom today.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So my grandparents met one another in the 1930s, and they actually got pregnant as teenagers with my uncle.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently things did not go very well during my uncle's minority, and they got divorced.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And my uncle and my grandmother lived together with her family, and my grandfather, you know, did whatever.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point, my grandfather, who was a raging alcoholic, I mean, I remember being a child and watching this man drink like 24 beers in a day.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he was fine with 24 beers in a day.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You would never even know that impacted him.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: He was only really mean and out of control if he drank liquor.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: If he drank liquor, he was really bad.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But with just beer, you know, you could have a conversation with him.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, you would, he was the type of alcoholic who you'd never know he was drunk.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So my grandfather was about to marry another woman named Peggy, and my grandmother showed up and interrupted their wedding.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so my grandfather ultimately left that woman, reconciled with my grandmother, got her pregnant with my mom, and they named my mom Peggy.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't getting along again.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: They separated again.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: They wound up reconciling again.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They had my aunt.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: The difference between my uncle and my mom is 18 years, and the difference between my mom and my aunt is 12 years.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So a huge age gap between all of them.
• 4:06
  unknown: Okay.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so then at some point, my grandparents got into a huge fight when my aunt was a child and my mother was a very young adult.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And my grandmother actually shot my grandfather in the testicles and wound up, he wound up in the hospital.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And like my mom said it was humiliating because she remembers him like falling out of the house, like bleeding all between his legs, like winding up on the next door neighbor's sofa, ruins their sofa, blood's everywhere.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she's a young girl in the early 60s in the hospital.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to explain to my mom about her dad's male parts, which was not something she really needed to know about at that point.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: After that, him and my grandmother still spoke.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: They still, I mean, they lived in a house together for a very long time after that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like they just couldn't stay away from one another.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, what about hold on?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I want I want to make sure our listener gets the part where he did not he did not press any charges.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Yeah, I'm not gonna press charges.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's the mother of my children, but I was real glad I was drunk when that happened.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the kind of stuff.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of prolonged domestic violence.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like she didn't just shoot him one day.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was a lot of infidelity, there was a lot of drinking, there was a lot of hitting one another with frying pans.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was not a good environment.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's interesting though, because to hear my mom and more particularly her younger sister, my aunt, describe it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: My aunt will not talk about the dysfunction, really.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: She describes it as like we still had a wonderful, loving family.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my aunt was the baby of it all.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember things that I thought were pretty awful, but they just kind of glossed over it, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it just really wasn't, I think they were so used to it and so ingrained in it that it didn't really impact them as much.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom wound up marrying my dad.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad is really a good person, and his parents were really good people.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so they got married, but and had me, and I'm an only child.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially at this point in my life, it took me a while to realize this.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that my mother has borderline personality disorder.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I genuinely believe that she does.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I am a licensed clinical therapist, so it, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not just like saying that for no reason.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you look at the DSM5's criteria, my mom meets almost all of the requirements.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to share that for a listener?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the things that happen are um emotional instability, like intense, really reactive mood swings that could go on for a couple hours or a few days.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, intense anger, like really inappropriate anger over nothing or over something that like you wouldn't think would make her angry.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very much viewing people as teams, which is what we call splitting.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm my dad's child, I'm more like him.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm not on her team, even though she's married my dad and she loves my dad, you know, I'm I'm his child.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, also just a history of like unstable relationships.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, what we know is that borderline personality disorder is a direct ramification of growing up in a home with a lot of exposure to domestic violence or alcoholism.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Does it have to, do you have to have that growing up, or can you develop the borderline personality disorder just feeling as if you've been abandoned or unloved?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Based on what we know about clinical research, I think almost any trauma could be a triggering factor if you're worried about ultimately a fear of abandonment is really what the root cause of it is.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I want to add too, I'm extremely sympathetic to people who with who have borderline personality disorder.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like when they're at a 10, it's not fun for them either.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely not fun for whoever they're taking that 10 out on.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm compassionate to it, but also quite frankly, a victim of it as well.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: What's your relationship like with your mother now?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's estranged, um, which is not something that I really wanted.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just to kind of give you some of the history of this.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a significant estrangement when I was in college, my senior year of college, that was ultimately only kind of reconciled by the death of the alcoholic grandfather I just told you about.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I felt really sympathetic to her.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her father had just died.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hadn't spoken to her in six months, but I made some contact with her then.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I almost cut her off when my second child was born because I had had a traumatic birth.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that my traumatic birth, you know, you all I have the benefit of hindsight being 2020 now.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that she was truly afraid I was going to die because I did almost die.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had acute preeclampsia and I delivered an infant at 27 weeks.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the infant and I are both fine now, but we didn't know at the time that either one of us were gonna live.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was, it was scary.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that fear that I was gonna die triggered her abandonment.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it led to some really inappropriate behavior.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, she walked into the room after I had given birth to Pearson and said, Did you get your tubes tied?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously you're not good at this.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really not what I needed to hear after I had been in the hospital for six days, had almost died, and had had a one-pound 14-ounce baby removed from my body and immediately taken away from me crying.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't been able to hold my baby.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I did not need that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Then we had another horrendous incident where um I was actively in the neonatal intensive care unit trying to understand my child's heart monitor because my baby came home on a heart monitor and he was on a heart monitor in my house for six months.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Again, everyone's fine now.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, I have a two-year-old.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have an infant who is medically fragile.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna take care of my baby who is gonna be hooked up to a heart monitor for months and months of time.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my mother is texting me about something totally like, hey, can you do a real estate closing for your aunt?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: To which I just responded, no, not because I was trying to be rude or because I wasn't going to make a referral later.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally in a NICU talking to a NICU doctor about her grandson's heart condition.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, like a few days after that, she just lambasted me.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: How could you care for everyone in the family but me and my family?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't care about anyone else.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just this whole on persecution.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I cannot handle this right now.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not that I'm trying to be rude, it's not that I'm trying to not be helpful.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm literally in a NICU dealing with a medically fragile baby.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm scared.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: How about giving me some support?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: How about giving me a little bit of love?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've been through a lot.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so ultimately, I just stopped speaking to her because I couldn't handle one more thing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, my father comes to me and he says, I I need you to move on.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't handle you and your mom not getting along.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's making my life awful.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to not be able to experience my grandchildren growing up.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just need you to act like nothing happened.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, and I I have to add, I love my father very, very much.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I am very, very bonded to my father.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel that I am that way because when I was young, I don't think that my mother was ever really fully able to be a mom.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he was kind of the one stable constant that I always had.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very, very bonded to my dad.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did it because my dad asked me to.
• 12:34
  unknown: Right.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so essentially what I've done with my mother, though, I've been through a lot of therapy for how do you deal with a relative who has borderline personality disorder.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I find with my mom is there's this thing called the Cartman, K-A-R-P-M-A-N, drama triangle.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom is all over it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So she's always either being a victim, a rescuer, or a persecutor.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I do not trust my mom.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel bad saying this, but it's also my truth.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I do not trust my mom with information about my life because I never know when she's going to take some little thing that I said that wasn't a big deal and use it against me later, or share it with someone I don't want it shared with, or misrepresent something that I said to someone else.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So because I fundamentally don't trust her, I don't share with her.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I do something called the gray rock method.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my mom will ask me a question and I will say yes, no answers, or I will respond in a complete sentence, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So something like, Hey, I really wish you would take me on vacation.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would just say, I'm not able to do that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I would not elaborate.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this behavior irritates her and she definitely does not like it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, she'll say things like, Well, it's clear that you just don't like me.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and again, it's not that I don't like her.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I love my mother very much.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wish things could be different.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't trust her with information about me because her personality disorder causes her to misuse it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't live that way.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But for the sake of my father and keeping the peace, I was making it work.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unfortunately, about six months ago, um, we kind of had like a deal-breaking incident where my mom actually laid hands on me and scratched my arms to the point where I was bleeding.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I didn't have to go to the emergency room or anything, but I needed to have my arms bandaged.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, that is not something that she is going to apologize for or take responsibility for.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so essentially Christmas and Thanksgiving went by, and I had nothing to do with her.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And again, my father, God bless him, comes to see me and he's like, I want to put my family back together.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I told my dad honestly, I have no problem with you.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are always welcome at my house.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are always welcome around my children.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love you very much, but I cannot do this.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if she's able to tell me, I'm sorry, I took it too far, you know, she was in fact having a borderline meltdown, which I've seen a million times in my life.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't surprising.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if she's able to tell me she's sorry and she's not gonna lay hands on me again, then perhaps we can have a conversation.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But she's not willing to do that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she can't.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's also a classic trait of borderline personality disorder.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are genuinely not able to apologize for whatever reason.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm kind of done.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've just radically accepted that this is the mother I have.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's not going to get better because she doesn't want to.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: She would rather sacrifice not having any relationship with her only child at all than tell me she's sorry.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not even asking her to apologize for like the stuff she's done in the last 46 years that would make me not want to have a relationship with her.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking her to apologize for assaulting me as an adult.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she can't do it.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we've touched on so many things.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I know, and I didn't want to interrupt you.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted you to get it all out.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Sherry.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: But the apology ache is the underlying theme of this episode.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: So let's let's talk about that because it I think that there are so many parents and young adults who are struggling with this apology ache.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so for the listener, explain what that means.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: An apology ache is when you genuinely feel that someone has hurt or wronged you, and you want that person to apologize to you and to say genuinely, I am sorry that I have hurt you.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I took it too far, I was wrong.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is you need that person to be able to say.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when they can't, that creates a real ache because it's like, well, they're not gonna be able to apologize.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it also leads to, okay, so not having a relationship with me, you would rather sacrifice all opportunities to have a relationship with me than by simply accepting responsibility for something that you did wrong and saying you're sorry.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it that people have so much trouble saying sorry?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't have to have borderline personality disorder.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is very common.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: People just get so uh obstinate, they just dig their heels down and they say, I'm not apologizing, or this might be even worse, when they do apologize, it's with a but correct.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think there's a lot of causes for it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think some of it is mental health problems.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think some of it is a genuine belief that you haven't done anything wrong.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think some of it is a blaming the person, saying, Well, you know, I only did what I did because you, which is the same thing as a butt.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think, and you know, forgive me for the listeners who may be offended by this, but I also think it shows a significant character failure.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have an adopted daughter who is about to be 32, and I have three biological children.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if I ever felt like I had done something to genuinely hinder my relationship with my children to the point that they were like, I'm just not gonna talk to you.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I would go to them and say, I'm sorry.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry I hurt you.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry you made I made you feel that way.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I really think it wasn't my intention to hurt them, I would say that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would say it was never my intention to hurt you.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would do anything I could do to repair that relationship.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Relationship repair is really, really important because it goes with apology eight.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once somebody really registers in their brain that you are not safe, that impacts their whole central nervous system.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like even before I went no contact with my mother, when I would see her, my central nervous system was on high alert.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was always sitting there going, what is she going to be saying or doing to abuse me or to misrepresent something that I've said?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like it goes back to that, I don't trust you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you fundamentally don't trust somebody, then it's in addition to the apology ache, your whole central nervous system goes on lockdown.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it's gonna remain until you can do something to make that person feel safe with you again, which a good, solid apology can go a long way with relationship repair.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: But without relationship repair, there's just not gonna be a trust and a safety such that anyone's gonna want to have anything to do with you.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about radical acceptance.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So radical acceptance was an uphill battle for me.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've finally been able to do it, but it was not a light switch.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: But hold on, before you tell us your journey.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Radical acceptance is just the acceptance of a situation.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is what it is.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna change.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it is.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was hard for me because of the word acceptance.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because in my mind, accepting it was accepting that this treatment was okay.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was accepting that this behavior was fine.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, the behavior has never been fine and it was never going to be okay.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a real struggle with the concept that, well, if I accept it, I'm I'm blessing it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what you're doing.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing with radical acceptance is simply embracing my parent or child or whoever has some issues and they are what they are, and they're not going to get better.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have radically accepted.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am never going to get this apology from my mother.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: She is not capable of doing it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna happen.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, if it does, that's wonderful.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would love nothing more, but my central nervous system won't feel safe without it, and she's not going to be able to do it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've radically accepted that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: That this is what it is.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: But it doesn't seem to diminish the apology ache.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It does not.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It does not.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just accept, but I will say there is a freedom in radical acceptance.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because until you radically accept that this person is who they are and they are the way that they are, a lot of times what you spend time doing is trying to change them, fix them, get them to act the way you want them to act or the way you think they should act.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you have an expectation for what you think they can do.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also call that a schema in psychology.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like your schema is your perception of how a person should behave and they're not able to do it.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you're always disappointed and you're always upset.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so once you radically accept this is who they are, then it makes it easier.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing it makes it easier to do is to tolerate things like emotional abuse, quite frankly.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um I I do not want to be estranged from my mother.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm estranged from her as a self-protection mechanism.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a relationship with somebody and they're always saying things to you like oh well you just think everyone is stupid.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're so smart you just think everyone's dumb.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well that's not true.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I said.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know now I can't have a constructive conversation about anything because you're attacking something that I just said then what it does is it makes you take that personally.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know like it makes you feel like a bad person.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have had so many clients come to see me in therapy who are really upset and we've spent a whole hour analyzing something hurtful that their parents said to them last weekend.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm finally at some point I'm like your parent is saying this because they're a narcissist or they have a personality disorder or maybe they're just hellaciously emotionally immature and they think that because you're their child, they're entitled to speak to you any kind of way.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're unpacking this emotional abuse that really isn't yours to carry.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: They shouldn't say things like that to you in the first place.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much I want to unpack still with you but I do want you to start talking about yourself as a mother now.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Please share with the listener your story about Tanya specifically because that's an incredible story.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually Tanya's court appointed guardian and um Tanya was a foster child and she was a hot mess and her family of origin was a hot mess.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I got this kid and it was one of the first times that um I actually in all honesty I felt much better about my mom because Tanya's mom did so little for her.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like even though my mom is quite frankly emotionally abusive my mother always made sure I had housing food clothing shelter like the lower level of Maslow my mom always made sure I had that right and it was probably fine for her to abuse me but it wasn't going to be okay for someone else to my daughter didn't have that at all.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was also able to be the one stable adult that I knew she needed.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about Tanya's parents yeah um her father had been incarcerated during her entire childhood um he had committed a homicide and was a habitual felon.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he was in prison I mean he only got out of jail recently I mean he's been in jail for literally like 25 years.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother was an addict but she also had a low IQ and so um they were on food stamps they were in governmental housing her mother was frequently buying drugs from from individuals she shouldn't have been and so it was just generally an unsafe environment there was medical neglect there was dental neglect there was educational neglect like it was just an unhealthy unstable environment and Tanya wound up in foster care and when she was aging out of foster care um essentially they were like well good luck you know we're done you know the state's done here and I she's a really pretty girl and I was like she's gonna wind up getting trafficked like something not good is going to happen to her.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to my husband and I said you know we've got to we got to give her a place to live like I'm not gonna be able to live with myself if something awful happens to her.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are going to have to take care of her.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so my husband and I talked about it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We let her move in we basically told her you have to work some stable job for a college kid you have to go to school we don't care what you go to school for but you do have to do something you have to learn a trade or go to college or something.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't bring you drugs or bad people into our home and she was able to do those things.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we did ultimately legally adopt her after her biological mother passed away.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have three boys that are um all mine and in full honesty I never wanted to have a biological daughter um because I just have such a bad relationship with my mom that I really didn't want to have a similar experience with a girl very interesting very interesting you did not want to perpetuate the cycle absolutely not and yet I know I'm getting ahead of myself you did break the cycle by having Tanya I hope so I mean I really hope so I've tried really really hard to break the cycle and the other thing that I do all the time I think that part of my mom's issues are the adverse childhood experiences that she had.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I very much study adverse childhood experiences and I go out of my way not to give those to my children.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know I don't consume substances around my children I I've never let my children see me intoxicated nor would I um I go out of my way not to say things to them that I think would be hurtful or emotionally abusive.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I do not fight with their father in front of them.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I'm unhappy with their father they do not know that um he and I have conversations if we're upset with one another where they are not within earshot um we have never had domestic violence between the two of us ever um like we really do work really hard to give them a safe stable environment because I do not want my children to grow up to be a fourth generation of this and so I really work hard on that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do how did you connect with Tanya given given everything that she's been through and that you've been through I think I looked at Tanya and I thought she was like a worse version of my mom honestly um I felt like she had had a horrible upbringing um honestly her upbringing was way worse than my mom's even despite the horrible things I had just described my mom going through I felt that Tanya's upbringing was worse but I also saw in her a survivor and I wanted to be for her the adult that I don't think my mom ever had.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I also wanted to be for her the adult that I never had like I wanted to encourage her I I mean so many times I honestly when I met her I wasn't sure if she could graduate from high school and go to college either I had no idea but I was not going to tell her that I would always try to speak excellence into her.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know you can do this.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I told her she could do it she did.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to give her that I also wanted to give her a mother who was not jealous of her who she doesn't feel like she's in competition with somehow another issue with me and my mom has always been that she makes me feel like I'm in competition for my father's love which is ridiculous.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm his I'm his daughter I'm not his girlfriend.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um and I see that a lot too um in in this population of estranged people if I was going to make like what is my drop dead argument in this space adult children don't cut their parents off unless there's something wrong.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I do not want to be estranged from my mom.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have the type of mother that my friends have I want to have the type of mother who is supportive and who loves me and who goes out of her way to have a relationship with me and who's able to say she's sorry when she's done something wrong.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to have a relationship with her.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me you know over 40 years to recognize like she's not a safe person and I can't do this anymore.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a lot to get to that place.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it also impacts my other relationships as well.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: It impacts my relationship with my father it impacts my relationship with my extended relatives I mean it also I've also had to just say I don't care if my extended family views me negatively because of this I just don't care.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And those were not easy choices for me.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like this was not something that I took lightly or did because I wanted to hurt her.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did this because I honestly cannot take it anymore.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about mother wound and mother hunger.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know I think mother hunger and the mother wound is a fascinating concept in mental health because essentially what the theory behind it is is that if you have a mother who has rejected you somehow and let us be clear I absolutely feel rejected my mother not being able to say I'm sorry I took it too far let's fix this and and and never being able to do that is an ache.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: That does hurt and so when you feel that way it's like well the one person on the planet who is supposed to love me unconditionally and who is supposed to be my biggest cheerleader and who is always supposed to be there for me is the person who doesn't that hurts.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: That hurts a lot and so when you feel that way about your own parent then what it does is it makes you feel fundamentally unsettled.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it leads to things like anxious attachment um avoidant attachment it leads to disruptions in your attachment it leads to disruptions in your long-term personal relationships it leads to an ongoing chronic feeling of emptiness um I have in full candor I've had an ongoing chronic feeling of emptiness for most of my adult life and I have treated it with hyperachievement.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have five college or four college degrees and five professional licenses and at some point I recognized that I don't need all that and I still don't need I don't I am not defined by my achievement and so there are so many daughters and sons with mother wounds who are hypoachievers who lay on the couch and can't get up and are chronically depressed and anxious.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm deeply compassionate to that I'm just the opposite of it and my presentation of mother wound is also not good.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's damaging to me in the long run.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want my kids to have that I feel like you're doing everything you can you know but in trying so hard for your children not to suffer the way you suffered some parents the pendulum goes too far the other way.
• 33:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have to be very cognizant as parents that when you're coming from that kind of trauma in your life that you don't overcompensate with your adult children by the coddling and protecting them that you actually suffocate them.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Which obviously you found balance in that because you're not doing that with your children.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: You made a comment when we spoke earlier not on this call, a previous call where you said you have two choices you can go through your life broken because you didn't get something that you needed from your mother or father but in this case or you can or you choose to survive.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's right I haven't had a perfect upbringing for me personally and my story is nothing compared to yours but I I do believe in the power of breaking cycles.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes so if nothing else think about the future of your children and your grandchildren and that you need to at one point being the cycle stopper.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes you have to figure out a way to do it because if you don't do it then it this goes on I mean this goes on for generations and generations right you know I am not the first person in this family to have an estrangement but I'm sure hoping I'm the last yeah let's tell the listener how Tanya's doing Tanya's doing great Tanya has a um she did graduate from college um she works in her field um she has a responsible taxpaying job um she's been in a long-term relationship with her uh boyfriend and they have a six year old or actually she's seven now so she is a mother herself and she's doing really well so I have a granddaughter from all this too I love it what a beautiful story we haven't even talked about your book yeah so you want to tell a listener about your book yeah so my book um is out it is on amazon.com and it is called Tumbleweeds and it is essentially the story of my four kids like what I went through with them bringing them in the world um I do talk about this topic some in the book but it's not a huge overarching part of the book.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Good well they have this episode then that they can learn more about you.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: So but what inspired you to write it oh goodness anger I know that's like not the answer anyone wants like no but if it he if it's healing yeah I was very angry about the way my daughter had to grow up um and I was angry about some of the things that I experienced when I was trying to have my children um the birth process and things like that.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wrote a book because I don't want other people to have to go through those things.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if they are I'm hoping that I can inspire a little bit of hope for them.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: I always like to leave my each episode on a positive note something for everyone to walk away with for someone listening right now who's waiting for the apology struggling with the struggling with that ache do you have any suggestions for them?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let it go let it go I know I know that's hard but letting it go means radically accepting that it may not ever happen because they can't you simply some people simply cannot do it and holding that around and carrying it around hurts you and I will also add doing all the things that you need to do to take care of you.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know if you're having an apology ache particularly if it's from a parent you need to take care of yourself more than the average person does.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: So don't wear clothes that make you uncomfortable don't eat food you don't really like get some really good exercise try to prioritize your sleep like go out of your way to make yourself the healthiest version of you that you can be because you deserve that.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times our parents make us feel like we don't deserve that like we don't deserve goodness.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like if my own parent rejects me or my own parent can't say I'm sorry I love you.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to hurt you.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to make you feel that way.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: When your own parent can't do that some of the time you just have to love yourself and get yourself so busy taking care of yourself that this doesn't permeate your thoughts because it's not going to go anywhere good for most of us unfortunately Paula this is such a beautiful conversation thank you so much for being so open and so vulnerable and sharing so much of your life story and I know it's not always easy to talk about our stuff.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much and Tumblebeads I'll put the uh the book in the in the contact information and more if they want to reach out to you because as you said you are a therapist it's been a beautiful experience talking to you.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.