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Where does this vision come from of helping people with boundaries?

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Two places. One is personal and one is professional. The professional one I shared

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because I kept noticing, I've been in private practice for over 16 years and I didn't start

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out trying to notice it, but the more people came in and I started really analyzing what the core

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issues that they had were, so many of them were boundary related that I developed more and more

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of a passion for trying to train people so they don't have to fall victim to manipulators and

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narcissists and these kinds of things. The other core of my vision is personal because

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my mother has several psychiatric issues that are rather severe and these issues cause her to behave

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in ways that are very very narcissistic and manipulative and gaslighting and she would engage

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in what I would call emotional extortion where she wanted certain things from me. She wanted a lot of

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attention from me more than I could give her, more than I should be able to have to give her. It was

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issues that she had before I ever came along, but she was trying to play this out with me and the

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only way that I could survive it was to figure out how to set healthy boundaries because she would

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try to get me to give her a lot of attention. She would want to be in front of my husband,

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in front of my children. She would want to be my number one person. I told her one time, you know

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what? I think if I told you that I was going to leave my husband and kids and come move in your

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condo with you and make you the number one center of my universe, you would say, okay well when should

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I put that on my calendar? So it was very unhealthy what she expected from me, but if I didn't do,

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if I didn't give her the attention that she wanted, she would do things like call 911,

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get herself admitted to the hospital to try to extort the emotion out of me. And I have many of

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those stories. One, I'll just share one. I had an emergency room doctor tell me to stop bringing

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her to the emergency room because she was doing it to manipulate me. So you have medical professionals

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that are recognizing what she's doing and telling me stop this. But so she would drag this out in

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public to try to make me look really, really horrible and try to force me to give her this huge

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level of attention that was far and beyond anything that would be considered healthy.

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So the only way that I could navigate that was to develop healthy boundaries.

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There's a story I feel coming. In the moment when you realized that you were getting emotionally

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extorted, please forgive me. I'm very new to this too. So getting used to this. How did you feel in

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the moment when you figured it out like, hey, I'm getting manipulated right now. And how did you get

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out of it at that point? In the moment, because it happened numerous times. In the moments, usually

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I would get very frustrated to the point sometimes of rage. I do not have problems communicating

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myself as you're probably figuring this out. Plus being a psychotherapist, I speak for a living.

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I communicate with people for a living. I figure out how a person needs for me to talk to them

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so I can meet them where they are. It didn't matter how I communicated to my mother. She was

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just not going to hear me because I wasn't saying what she wanted to hear. I mean, I would do

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everything from try to talk reasonably and rationally. I would literally scream. And none of it

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made any difference. But I'm telling you, there was one moment I realized I was screaming at her. I

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was so full of rage of what she was doing that I felt trapped. And I was screaming. And I saw this

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look on her face that looked, the only word I can use to describe it is smug. She was, when I was

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angry with her, she was right in the dead center, the bullseye of my attention, which is where she

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wanted to be. And I saw that look on her face and I'm like, I'm not going to do this anymore.

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So I started to decide for myself what I was going to do for her. I even went to my, the person who

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was a religious guy for me at the time, a spiritual guy for me at the time, I went to him to get his

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suggestion and talk to wise people around me. Because I recognize that sometimes when you're

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in the middle of something, you don't see clearly because you're sometimes ass over elbows in your

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emotions. And so I would reach out to people around me that I trusted, that I respected as wise

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counsel. And the feedback I got was basically I could decide what I was going to do for her. And

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then I could draw the line and that was my line to draw. It was not her line to draw. And so when I

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figure that out, it was game changing. Not that she liked it by the way. And that's another reason

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why I'm so good at what I do with training people with boundaries is because I know what it feels

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like when you try to set a healthy boundary with someone that doesn't like it. They respond back

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with fangs and claws. And then they recruit other people, they tell lies about you to other people

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and make you look terrible. And so you, when you set boundaries, setting the boundaries, just the

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first step, then you have to defend your boundary. And then you have to know the part of it is you

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have to know that other people might talk about you behind your back, they probably will. Other

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people are going to be calling you names. I've been called all kinds of names. I literally had

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one relative of mine who was codependent with my mother, bare her teeth at me. She was so mad,

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she just bare her teeth at me like she could have just clawed my face off if she could have got to

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me. So, but when you're practicing healthy boundaries, you release people to have whatever

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feelings they need to have. And you don't take it personal. So it's just like, okay, feel what you

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want to feel. Hate me if you want to hate me. Call me Satan if you want to call me Satan. Throw me

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in the doghouse if you want to. That's okay. I no longer care. I'm going to do what I need to do to

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be healthy for me and my family. And then you learn your skin gets thicker, you get tougher.

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And then you learn to let go of whatever these people want to think about you. Because sometimes

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people get in that trap. Oh my gosh, they're going to think I'm bad. They're going to think I'm a

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bitch. Well, they might. They probably will. And what? Right? You have to learn to just let that go.

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I understand. And in the moment, it's super hard, though, right? In the moment, you're feeling that

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agony. You're feeling, oh my gosh, how can this person think about me? They won't even talk to me,

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and they can not even hear my side. And that's in the moment, it's the hardest thing to do.

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And that's when you're practicing healthy boundaries, you know that you know your story.

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You cannot control. They probably don't want to hear your side. And they're going to look at it.

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They're going to filter it anyway. They're going to see it. People generally see these things how

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they need to. And so they're going to view your story through a filter of how they want to hear

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it. And you can't change that. And so when you have when you're practicing healthy boundaries,

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you release them, you allow them to think whatever they want to think about you.

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You can state your truth. And once you stated your truth, you stated it, you're done.

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And how they want to hear it. If they want to hold a grudge, if they want to, you know,

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think kind of bad things about you, they might. And you let them just okay, think what you want.

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I feel like there might be an other side to the story as well.

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And you don't have to share this. Did your mom ever come around

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with things that we got better? Is there a positive side to that?

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For my personal story, no. I have talked to people that have been patients of mine who

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did have better endings, where their significant person they were dealing with was able to receive

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their new boundaries and they were able to develop a healthier relationship. They kind of pulled it

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out of that co-dependency and they developed healthy relationships with one another. In my

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personal situation, my mother was never going to change. That was never going to happen. And the

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more I tried to set healthy boundaries, the angrier she became and the more she would blame me

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for her problems, which narcissists do. Narcissists do not accept responsibility for their own actions.

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If there's a problem, it's you. You're the problem. And so that was never going to change.

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That was never going to change. And I couldn't change her. All I could do was set my healthy

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boundaries and she could either become healthy and interact with me in a healthy way because I

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gave healthy options, but she wasn't going to do that.