Call Her Daddy - Is Your Parent a Narcissist?

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Is your parent a narcissist? In this episode, clinical psychologist Dr. Sherrie Campbell breaks down what happens when you come to the realization that your mom or dad should never have been a parent in the first place…children know when their parents don't want them. Dr. Campbell explains the effects narcissists have on their children. Survivors of this trauma can grow into adults who struggle with assertiveness, boundary setting and sense of self. She explores how the children of narcissists later find themselves dating someone with narcissistic tendencies. Cutting ties with toxic family members is a difficult decision. Dr. Campbell is an expert and a victim of this type of abuse. The survival tactics Dr. Campbell outlines in this episode are tools she developed while studying psychology, and implemented because she needed them herself. This episode discusses adult subject matter, including descriptions of emotional and physical abuse, and is intended for adult consumption only. Listener discretion is advised. If you have been affected by domestic abuse, free and confidential support is available 24/7 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.799.7233 and online at www.thehotline.org

what is up daddy gang it is your founding father alex cooper with call her daddy dr campbell welcome to call her daddy thank you for having me at the dad pad it's actually nice to finally see in person right so nice to see it in person and see you in person and your show's amazing so thank you so much. Guys, Dr. Campbell is a clinical psychologist and author of the book, Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members. So today I want to discuss the impact of toxic parenting and how to navigate boundaries with family dynamics. How do you define a toxic family member? So like any narcissist, their bag of tricks isn't really that vast. But what a parent will do, because seduction isn't necessary to create the bond, the child

is already present, is there's a moral superiority. So they use, because I'm the parent, therefore you don't have a voice. You're treated more like a piece of property, a thing to manage rather than a human being with needs and feelings of their own. They don't apologize. There's no discussion. And you have to mitigate and navigate this moody, scary, unpredictable person with the skill set of a child. So when someone's narcissistic and it's a parent, you're afraid of your parent and you don't like your parent, and then you feel guilty. You are an expert on toxic family relationships, but you also are a survivor. What is your personal experience as a member of a toxic family?

So I was the scapegoated child. I was the bad one. I couldn't list one thing my mother would like about me. So she had me, but she didn it was me. And I was acting out because I wasn't getting what I needed. Then I would act out and it's like this vicious circle where it was always coming back to me. So I was in a tremendous amount of emotional pain. I lived in complete confusion. But I think some things about survival are genetic. And I think there was a truth inside of me that I kind of knew it wasn't me, but I didn't know how to make that real. And so it stayed there and it burrowed in.

But because she was so deeply ingrained in setting my self-worth, you'd believe your parents. Absolutely. Also, just to hear you say, like, I knew she didn't want me by the way she treated me. Did you have a relationship with your father? He was very in and out. So I grew up with hippies, you know, think he was married five times. She's on her fourth.

So he was very in and out. He was violent and unpredictably violent. Something like tickling can turn into me having a bloody face. So he just wasn't predictable for me and I was scared of him. But in some ways, his abuse of me was easier to tolerate because he'd feel bad after. So sometimes with physical altercations, the parent sort of feels bad after. Whereas with my mother, which I think we need our mother in a different way than a father as well. The passive aggressive really making me know that I wasn't wanted or I was in her way was savage to my ability to love myself. So you're trying to figure out who you are and also trying to navigate why is the person that's

supposed to be my support and my safe place making me feel so unstable. So unstable. And then I'm trying to tell her the truth, yelling at her and she'll tell me I'm abusing her so the gaslighting of the narcissist and I did yell and I was mad and I was telling her and then I believed I was an abuser when you talk about your mom as we know with the narcissist also it's so hard to pinpoint like what they're doing is there anything that comes to mind that you could try to remember a scenario that someone listening could paint the picture like I have experienced that that's what that is so in in a public situation that we were in she was describing how hard I was to her friends and that she was haha she would sell me on the corner for 25 cents or best offer.

Or another time she said, don't worry, honey, someone will marry you. So can I prove a tone of voice? I really can't. When I would try to prove the tone of voice or say, well, why did you say it like that? She's like, oh, you're so so sensitive I can't say anything if I acted out I was told I was acting like my dad you know and he was then cast out as the bad one as well every toxic family has to have a scapegoat I would maybe hear the words I'm sorry but it would be like well I'm sorry that you feel that way I can't control your emotions So not really ever willing to hear my feelings, she was set to discredit me. And I knew I had a truth, but she picked me apart as a human, like dismembered me, dismembered my identity. And I feel grateful that there's something in me that's survivor-based.

Absolutely. Because I want my books survivor-approved. I mean, the book is now therapist-recommended. So this is the first book of its kind that is suggesting that maybe not all parents are good. That why is it that the last thing on the list of particular contributors to a child externalizing their behavior is the parents, is the bottom of the list.

Perhaps how they treat their kids. It's, well, they're neurodivergent or it's their gaming. It's the political system. You have to honor thy mother and thy father. So when I look at my life, if you set a boundary on a healthy person and I say, you know what, Alex, like really hurt my feelings when you did blah, blah, blah, you'd go, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Didn't want to hurt your feelings. Won't do it again. The literature says if we set a boundary that we have control over another person's behavior in our life. If you tell a

toxic person that they've hurt you, they're like, oh, I can get her right there. They cross the boundary. And I get people going, going doc my boundaries aren't working so when they've crossed your boundary silence is your superpower how can we spot the difference between someone that is flawed and someone that really is truly toxic, that answer isn't a pretty one. It's time and experience with that person. So toxic people, as you know, in the literature, maybe around romance, right? There's love bombing. So they idealize you, you get comfortable, they devalue you. You start going, what's going on? You get insecure, they discard you. And then they hoover, which is like a vacuum. They suck you back in. So each time that you fall down this idealized

devalue, discard, hoover, you're more and more dismembered as a person, more and more confused. The heartbreak is greater. And then your dependency on that person is greater. So I feel like toxic parents do the exact same thing. Why might survivors grow up to be people pleasers? The most toxic person in any dynamic is the least confronted. No one wants to poke the bear. You know what that's going to do. It's a no-win situation. So you learn to get peace on the outside by placating, keeping your environment in whatever way that you can keep it. Peace on the inside can come once you either develop

low contact or cordial or no contact like I did, is that you have to start setting boundaries. And toxic people don't take well to boundaries. I also thought it was so interesting you wrote in your book about that how if I don't do what people want me to do I will lose their love and it's like through your parents doing this to you you realize like maybe if I just do what they want me to do then the fight won't break out then it won't get escalated then he won't hit me then she won't discredit my existence and speak negatively to me. So it's like this constant cycle like that you're talking about. You become this people pleaser because you just want to try to settle everything and not have it get to that level. You have that need for love and belonging, right? Well,

the most important social group you can belong to is your family. No one, no one wants to go in life without a family. Do you believe that it's the parent's responsibility to be the bigger person and reach out and resolve issues like this? Always. Right. I don't, parenting has been such a painful thing for me that I don't look at it as parenting. I have a daughter. She's 17.

I look at it as leadership. I'm her leader. I want to lead her into her own self. Toxic parents want to define who you are. They want kids, but they don't want the responsibility of a kid. I ended up being my mom's friend, her therapist, also all the while her enemy. as I was aging and becoming more womanly, this was not okay. You know, you can't please, but you want to because you're facing abandonment all the time. Also, as a survivor, you learn that they just keep moving the stick. They keep moving the line. So you can please as much as you can please, but they find another thing to pick at you on

because they can't not have conflict. They are not alive or feel alive without attention and emotional reaction that they provoke. Having that perspective, the fact that you know now you're like, you said earlier, silence. They want the conflict and naturally you're trying to please your parents. So you give it to them. You're like, mom, but I didn't do that. Or mom, what? And meanwhile, it's what they want.

They're getting off on the conflict. It is like the greatest orgasm for a toxic parent is to get their kids fighting for their lives, you know, just fighting for their lives. And you feel like you're fighting for your life because you're fighting for your truth. And I don't want silence to be misunderstood either as losing your voice. I think don't waste your voice. Be mindful.

If you're going to be an empath, be an educated empath. I had to learn all of that the hard way and there were no footprints in the snow in front of me. I had to trudge this on my own because experts don't want to go up against the cultural value of family. I am not breaking families up. I'm saving families below the generations

that are going to heal. I'm stopping generational trauma from continuing to spin out. The family's already broken. So also honor thy mother and thy father. Okay, because when you do this and you're someone like me, The family's already broken. So also honor thy mother and thy father. Okay. Because when you do this and you're someone like me, people are like, but it's your mom. I mean, you're going to regret this when she dies and you're never going to forgive yourself. And they're projecting all of this stuff.

If someone does not make you feel good about yourself, if someone is abusing their power over you, no matter if they're blood or not, that is toxic and you have the right to remove yourself from a toxic situation. I love what you said about power. And I'm so glad you said that, Alex, because the abuse of power is abuse. What can a zero-skilled infant, young child, young adult do against somebody who is far older, more powerful, and holds their life financially, holds their life emotionally, and is there to nurture or destroy the self-esteem? So I do believe that happiness is what our birthright is. And I am happy. There is a happy possibility. I am succeeding. I'm doing all the things that was

wished upon me that I wouldn't do. Is there loss for me all the time? Do I face the reality that I don't have a family all the time? I do. And in ways that you couldn't even imagine. For example, when I'm with my boyfriend and his family and they're like, oh, when Scott was 14, he did da da da. Or you watch them love on him and we're so proud of him. And you as a person go, I chose a really good person because like all these people love my person. Like I made a good choice and he's in my life and it's kind of quiet. There are no stories about Sherry from this age and there are no banter. There isn't a family proud of me. Right. So I miss out on all of that. My person misses out on all of that. Right. And these are these areas that that no one writes about, that no one has been able to write about, or they haven't written about, or they haven't survived it.

And yes, having that like hole in you of like, God, I still wished I, of course I wish I had a family, but the one that I had was abusive. And so it's either you choose to stay in that pain to keep a family together for, for who, for, for who? Okay. Let's address though, because you made a really good point is if someone is surviving this, like, like, like I have, there's a secondary abuse in that other people outside of me think I haven't thought this through because I'm the child. Now, when a parent cuts off a toxic adult child, which I just did a podcast show on in my own show, but there are toxic adult children.

Parenting contributes to that. Some very well-meaning parents can overindulge a child, correct? I mean, this happens. But they don't trust that I've asked all these questions, that I've asked questions they would never even think to ask to reach this decision because I'm the younger party going against the asymmetry and therefore a moral superiority that's projected on me, not just from my parents, but from other people. So I questioned and I've actually confronted and said, I'm just not clear on why you can't be okay in your life with my family dynamic being what it is. Maybe perhaps that's an issue you

should look at and maybe not doubt that I haven't. This isn't a careless decision. This isn't cancel culture where someone says one thing, there's no history of any other thing and they're canceled but they're canceled and they're still kind of like poking and I cut ties not for a game I cut ties to save my life and I didn't cut ties to go back the minute that you can start to try to provide for yourself that's also the beginning of when you can decide if you want to have autonomy over your own life and begin to try to separate but it's like there's a period of your time where you have no option no so it's like you now have the choice which ironically that's just what women are trying to fight for right now

having the fucking choice amen over our own bodies but it's like the choice was yours you didn't want this you didn't ask to be brought into this world and have a narcissistic mother and abusive father but it was on you then in an amazing way to find the strength to put yourself first and like you said now you're going to be a leader to your daughter and you're going to learn from this had you not not gotten out of that, you may not be sitting here and being able to give your daughter that grace of being a leader for her. In that vein, do survivors often have difficulty with assertiveness and setting boundaries? Oh, yes. Because pleasing or fawning is the habit. You know, I'm still consistently learning that I don't need to do so much. Because when you're seven, eight, nine, like you had just mentioned, your definition of

love is defined by the way your parents love you. You're not identified enough like in yourself to know if you are lovable or not. So you're kind of looking out to the world like getting a reflection back and your parents should be mirrors. Well, when they're emotionally immature, moody, unpredictable, hypocritical, and you're doing more work in the relationship than they are and you're at fault, there's no path. So you do tend to, one, toxic is very familiar to you on an emotional level. Unconsciously, you tend to draw that in. As shrinks, we know that you marry your most toxic parent. And you got to look at it as you're working through.

So each day for me is a day of improvement. Each day for me is a day of more reflection. Can you give an example in a relationship of doing too much in your mind? So if you're the one calling and you're the one making the plans and, and that's how I've set the norm to be, then let's say something happens in my life and I'm a little bit disappeared. I don't hear from that person. And that person's like, why aren't you calling me? I don't know. I mean, the phone works both ways the last time I checked. So I have to watch my balance. And sometimes I've in my life, I've had to learn

that the hard way. Because when you're a kid without love, it's a basic need. It's fundamental to happiness. It's fundamental to confidence. It's fundamental to well-being. And if you don't have that, you search for it. How does shame play a role in all of this? Shame is so deadly because shame doesn't move. If anything, shame sticks inside you like glue. Now a toxic person uses shame to blame, but a healthy person absorbs it and believes it. And so there's sort of a core wound that you just do feel like you're like the family fuck up. Like you're just fucked up. Like you're just pathologically like fucked up. So even today at 51, if something goes wrong in my life, I'm like, man, why am I such a fuck up? That language will still be there. I can be playful with it and I can find humor and I can get through it. It doesn't

sink me. But in my earlier life, it would sink me like I'm not lovable. I'm just not. I'm fatally flawed. Growing up in a toxic household or with a toxic family member can unfortunately also have effects on your future romantic relationships. What types of relationships do survivors normally attract? They tend to attract people who pick on them in the same way that they were picked on because that is your norm. Like I was raised by two toxic adult children essentially. So I married one.

And so I just got placed right back in that role and if I ever needed anything it was I was criticized for it and you just start to be like this is very familiar it's not up to anyone else but you to stop it and I've evolved and so my ability to pick people healthy for me no one's perfect but to pick people that can work through it with me I've successfully done that yeah it was interesting in your book when you talk about it's common for survivors to attract relationships with people who avoid emotional intimacy and inconsistent in their lovingness it's kind of what you're talking about and you get attracted to it okay like nakedness here I at one point thought I'm going to want to fuck a guy that treats me nice.

Because I grew up in abuse, but abuse doesn't work without intermittent doses of kindness. So you get addicted, right? And so I learned to be addicted to intermittent reinforcement. And I had to go through many relationships where that was happening for me to be addicted to intermittent reinforcement. And I had to go through many relationships where that was happening for me to be like, wow, this doesn't make me happy. I'm anxious. I'm nervous because I was dating narcissists. And so you can get well, you can find intimacy. I also think survivors are very capable of intimacy in ways that people that didn't have as tragic of childhoods aren't.

So I don't look at survivors as we're some of the healthiest people. What was not healthy was our background. Because I treat many people that had healthier backgrounds than myself, and they're a lot more unhealthy. Their EQ isn't as high in other words they haven't dipped into so much pain that they know how to navigate pain so they can be very insensitive to others so there are gifts to being a survivor too totally it's like using it almost as your superpower of like you've seen things and felt things that some people in a sheltered world have not and so you've gone to the deepest parts of your core to find yourself but I was supposed to be

in this life I was supposed to be in this way because I've turned my predators into my purpose and every woman out there and there are really good men out there too that get abused. It doesn't have a gender. But abuse makes us all feel confused, desperate, dismembered. We're just lost to the self and it's just a savage thing. How hard is it to take advantage of a child? How hard is that? That's not hard. That's the easiest person, someone way more vulnerable that you can take advantage of. And you can be happy. I really am one of the most more positive, if I'm in a dynamic with someone, I'm almost the

more, always the most more positive person. I think because we can't know joy if we don't know pain. You know, I think if we numb our joy with anything, alcohol, whatnot, drugs, we numb it, we also numb our pain. But we numb our joy. We're going to numb it all. I live life on life's terms, and it has been a life. Yeah. But I feel it, I deal with it, and I heal it. You can stay stuck in a

story. I was victimized, but I am, I'm not a victim and I have so many superpowers because I was a survivor. When we talk about relationships, how might a survivor attempt to use a relationship in order to heal themselves? In your book, I loved how you wrote, Deep down, I was taught to believe that my healing needed to come from someone else's love for me. You know what my great awakening was in that moment that I wrote about? I know exactly that part of the book. I bawled my eyes out writing that. I've learned over the course of my lifetime, and this is especially important, I think, for women, is that you're not by yourself.

You're with yourself. I am the only person who has been there for me at the one yard line, facing my emotional death and peeling myself up off the ground like a fruit roll up again and again and again. And I did give other people, you loved and kissed me back to life. You healed me. And in some of those moments, those people were really hurting me, not seeing the hurt. And I had to take care of myself and make decisions I didn't want to make and hurtful decisions that made me feel abandoned. And I had to dive right back into that wound that now another relationship ended. Look, my family must be right. No one's going to love me. I'm too difficult. I want fairness in a relationship. I want to be a priority. So therefore

I'm too difficult, right? That's what would go through my mind. And I just, it just kicked in. I was at the, I was at the bottom when I wrote that. And the bottom is a beautiful place because there is wisdom there that has saved my life over and over again. And I did it. I did it. if someone's listening to this and they're like sherry i love that you're able to do that i don't know if i'm there yet what are options for dealing with toxic family members that don't involve fully cutting ties? Okay. And I believe, and I want to make sure everyone knows, cutting ties is your last choice. And if you are there, you'll find it's not a choice. It just is.

So I tried it all because I really wanted my family. And I was 45 years old. So this is not cancel culture. This was years of savage emotional abuse toward me, scapegoating. I tried low contact where I did sort of what I would call gray rocking. It will look just like people pleasing, but the mindset is different. So I think that makes it fundamentally different psychologically. So gray rocking is like becoming the most boring rock in the pile, deflecting the conversation back on the toxic person who loves an audience. Got it. And so I just appeased the conversation. I kept some remnant of the relationship.

But when someone is so malignantly character disordered, and if they have any of other borderline or histrionic, they're going to kind of sniff up on that you're gray rocking. And they don't like that because they want the conflict. So then I went to cordial contact, which is like metaphorically, if they walked up to my fence, I'd be like, I can do it today. But they don't get to come in the yard or on the porch or let alone in the house. So caller ID became like an externalized immune system for me. I'd see my mom's name come up and I'd be like, I don't have it today. I visited home a lot less and spent less time hoping,

truly hoping that that could at least give me a slice of a mom. And that works for a lot of people. And I can imagine it sounds like when you're able to set those boundaries for yourself, you've really reached your limit. So it is through almost experience of not allowing them to allow that abuse to get to you. Just no emotional reaction and no negative attention. It's what they want. And so gray rocking is brilliant. And, and I think that there really are people that can have very toxic parents, but that, but that only one parent

is toxic. I'm amongst the 14% that had both. And then there were, you know, multiple marathon marriages going on that, that didn't help life at all. Right. Cause things were always changing for me. And so there are situations like there's a passive toxic father to a very narcissistic mother say, he doesn't stand up for the kids. They have a relationship in secret. It kind of defies logic because he's toxic by proxy but he's afraid of her he's afraid of the divorce and what what that could do right so they all stay together so to have a relationship with dad you have to see mom then you should you have to find

a way to navigate mom say someone sets the boundary and they're trying and I think a lot of it it sounds like comes from there's going to be some pullback, whether it's emotional or whether it's actual physical distance, seeing them less. When someone asserts that boundary, what are common emotions that come with asserting those boundaries

with that toxic person? Like terror, guilt, and not being heard. Because see, they crazy make you and they're genius at it. I'm a super intelligent person. I will never out argue a narcissist. I mean, just don't. Like I'm too into the truth. And, you know, they'll focus on parts of the argument that really aren't the point. And then you're spinning down a rabbit hole. That's not even the point. It's not even the boundary. Now it's the way you set it or or it's this or that and it's like but okay it's so regressed it's so immature that it actually dumbs you down so they poke and poke and poke you

you finally have a reaction and they're like oh my god and it's deleted what they did just delete yeah it's helpful to hear you explain that because I'm sure it is terrifying to even conceptualize setting a boundary. And it's your parent. And so then you're looking at, I could lose them if I set a boundary. What child at any age wants to lose their family members for setting a boundary? So you know what you do is you suck it up, but then you can't, you cannot heal in an environment that is poisoning you. That has become so clear to me. Once I cut ties and really the first couple of years of cutting ties, I kind of sat next to the door that I shut, like, well, what's going to happen? Like what's happening now? And a lot happened. Can you share the moment you decided

this is it? I need to fully cut ties. So I'm going to describe it like a bag. My whole life, they've been putting rocks in this bag. And I kept trying as I was brain abled development enough to say, Hey, you know, like when you do do this it like kind of hurts my feelings and it's dismissed and gaslighted the bag keeps being filled with rocks so the last moment with my mother was I had gotten a really nice car and she doesn't like it if I have nice things I've learned and they were going to follow me to a restaurant and they followed the wrong white car and she determined it's because I think I'm hot shit in my new car and I'm driving pathologically slow trying to call them on the bluetooth to get them to the restaurant and she attacked me in front

of my daughter and called me disrespectful and insolent and I am not as hot shit as I think. And I'm, I mean, I was like, I saw red. So she cut me off. And this is by far not the worst. It's actually a pretty small thing compared to whatever. But when she cut me off, and she then reached out to my ex-husband she hadn't spoken to in 10 years, and decided she was going to form a relationship with him to see my daughter behind my back and without my permission. And my ex-husband was going to go for it. I was done. Something inside me, Alex, died that day. That that betrayal was so unbelievable for my brain to get around that she would use my daughter because she followed the wrong white car to a

restaurant. There was no skill set I used. There was no confidence. I was done mending the fence. And that's it. The dynamic for you was the boundary needs to come now because now you're fucking with me and my daughter and you're fucking with my daughter. It's always to get to you. To an ex-husband of mine that she hadn't spoken to in 10 years that she couldn't, couldn't stand. So when you decide to cut ties, what did that look like for you? So those next few days were really painful because she had never text or sent my daughter any videos. And it was one video and one text from Grammy after another. And then I'm like, oh my God, do I have my daughter block my mom? Like, am I allowed to, I don't know the rules, but my job and my family for both my mother and my

father, they'd fuck it up and tell me to clean up the mess. And I would because I wanted a mom and a dad. So that day with the wrong white car, I was like, yo, I just don't have any more tools. And if they're going to get mad over this, it's going to be forever. I stayed quiet for a long time and just watched. My daughter is very wise. She asked me if she could block my mom because she's protecting her mom, you know, and I said, you know what, baby, it is up to you. I'm not going to make the decision for you though. I'm not going to be

the person that takes away a grandparent. She wasn't a fan anyway, but I just waited and I didn't hear anything for many, many months until Christmas. So she would show up twice a year with dew-stained apples for me to bite into and my father's death was used in the same manner. She used your father's death as another opportunity to say, come on, to get me to break my no contact. She had someone tell me that he was sick. And the guy said, you know, considering I'm going to give her such heavy information, you know, give me some detail. And she's like, nope. She can call me if she wants detail. And you didn't reach out? No, and I found out he died on Google.

Is that a hard way to find out? Yeah, it's pretty callous. The person who reached out to me let me know that she was threatened not to tell me by my mother and sibling. Wow. by my mother and sibling. So this stuff is real. And this stuff people don't want to believe can happen in families. And so there's this silent epidemic because you go out and you try to express that my family is super abusive and it's this way and they will still go,

but maybe they just didn't mean it that way. But it's your mom, you know. But, you know, it's your dad. He did the best he could for where he was at. What would you advise your patients who are insecure about the fact that they aren't close with their family and they're worried people might judge them because of the relationship they have with their family dynamic and how it's complicated? Like, what would you say to them to say to people when they're asking?

So what I, what I usually say is gray rock. You know, I, I go for what, what I usually start with is like, oh my gosh, that's such a different time for a different story. Like probably not good to unpack that one right now. We're drinking wine. Who wants to ruin the night? And I use humor. Okay. If someone really starts going at me, and this happened when I was out with my boyfriend once, one of his friends was just like, so where do they live? Do you have siblings? And I was like, I just so appreciate your interest in me. Like, it's so sweet. And, but I'm a unique one and I'm going to actually have to start lying. I don't want to. So listen, my family's really toxic and we're not very close.

And you know, cheers. Cheers. Okay, no. And I think that's really helpful because I can imagine the shame of people maybe that are starting to set these boundaries and are crippled with anxiety of like, I don't want to go out with my new partner

and their family's going to ask me and I don't want them to think there my new partner and their family's gonna ask me and I don't want them to think there's something wrong with me and are they gonna think there's so you're trying to so I get what you're saying the humor of that's another one this is a cute story probably not for today and I think hopefully we are kind of starting to normalize like hey let's stop hiding from the fact that toxic families toxic toxic relationships, it's very possible. And I hope people are a little bit more acclimated to the concept of being in public. Yes.

And when someone says that to you, you don't push. When I try to hide it, sometimes people are like, hmm, what's in that corner? You know, as somebody who's very in tune with other people and emotions, body language and the things, I was of a general respect for privacy. And it's amazing. Social media has sort of violated some of that, too. People feel, oh, your story.

There's a part of me that doesn't still identify because I didn't create my identity. I'm healing my identity. Parents create your identity, and then it's your job to heal that identity. Also, I'm not here to blame parents. Listen, my parents are responsible for what they did to me. It's mine now. What would you say if someone starts a relationship and their new partner does not understand the complicated dynamic with that they have with their family so I've lived that my boyfriend has like I call his family the who's they're like who's you're like hi Christmas and I'm like you're like I never had this I'm like taking

normal people notes he's come a long way he's come a long way. He's come a long way. There are things that he's noticed of my abuse that I didn't. I don't, I just feel like he's come a long, long way. To date someone like me, you have to be pretty brave because I want to work it out. I don't want pain and I will directly tell you as respectfully as I can where I'm at and why I feel this way and I don't know that he has the depth of trauma to always maybe have the insight into where I'm coming from or I'll bump into some of his defensiveness but I mean he's my person I love how you wrote in your book you said you grew up being manipulated to question your own version of reality so to have this re-triggered by others is hurtful if you are in a relationship with someone

that is constantly questioning well was it you or was like was it your mom or was it really you like did you do something uh-huh that is a boundary you have to also set of like you need someone that's going to be there on your fucking team that's actually abuse that's abuse and that does happen all the time when we first dated he wanted to fix it and there were many times that he was not purposefully but very dismissive of where I was at but I met him the weekend no, the weekend before I cut ties with my mom. And I don't know him. I don't know his family yet. And he's like, you seem off. And I'm like, yeah, it's probably something we should talk about later. I'm a complete shit show. And, you know, let me redeem myself. So I didn't tell him for quite some time. And we did come from

very, very, very, very different places. And there's still a gap of understanding. But once I started talking about it, the pain was so unbelievable for me that he felt like I was talking about it too much. And so what the abuse victim heard in me is, see, everyone thinks I can't, I can't talk. I'm not allowed to talk. And was I talking about it a lot? I was, I don't know a greater loss than to lose your family, you know? So we've just come a long way. We've come a long way together for someone listening that is dating someone that has survived abuse what is the role of that person and how can they be there for someone that has experienced this toxic family dynamic like is there anything that you're like that this is so helpful to do for your partner when they're when they're? Don't question and don't minimize.

Believe what you hear. What does it serve me? How does it serve me to tell this story, really? It doesn't make my life better. You know what I mean? I would love to have a healthy dynamic, and I'm creating one. But minimizing someone's, and that's any, that's any person even, if this is how you feel, see the thing about feelings is they're not negotiable. They are what they are. We don't choose them. You know, our responsibility is to say, Hey,

it's how you made me feel. And it shouldn't be an argument. Too often it is an argument. And then the whole growth opportunity is missed. You have to be patient. I mean, it's not their fault that they don't have trauma. You should be damn happy for them that they don't. I think that victims, what I see in my office the most, Alex, is that victims never had a voice, they're screaming and they're so afraid they're going to be with an abuser that they're seeing some stuff that isn't there so there's a

paranoia of I'm not going to go through that again okay so someone's listening to this they're like Sherry you are truly like at this point, I'm motivated. I feel seen. I feel inspired. What are the steps to healthy grieving of losing familial relationships? A well-lived life should be a well-grieved life. I will be sad about this for the remainder of my life. I want my mom has no age limit, distance limit, or time limit. And so healed isn't real, but healing

is. So practice being who you want to be. People seem to feel some sort of resentment that we have to practice character. But if you want good character, I suggest you practice it. Practice composure. Practice discernment. Grieve. Have the ugly cry. Listen to music. Write in your journal. Go outside. Talk to a therapist. Talk to a trusted friend. Have pets. We don't deserve them. They're so perfect. Have pets. You know, we need to practice being who we are. It's okay to cry. But when you're an abuse victim, no, it's not. Think about what an amazing human you are to love yourself enough after having come from no love to walk away from people who abuse you. Set yourself free. To wrap this up, someone's watching this, hanging on every word, listening to you.

What is the advice that you leave us with? You're right. It's real. It's happening. Do something about it. Dr. Sherry Campbell. Yes. Thank you so much for coming on Call Her Daddy. Thank you.