CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: When Your Family Wants You as Their Human Shield

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

In this Q&A episode, Whitney addresses a caller whose siblings want them to attend their parents' 50th anniversary trip not out of love, but to serve as a buffer against their abusive parents' dysfunction - and how to handle the pressure when "no" isn't being accepted as an answer. She also discusses sibling dynamics from the Apple TV show "Smoke" and shares her experience with red light meditation for stress reduction. Have a question for Whitney? Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [e-mail] Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to the calling home podcast. Today we have a Q&A episode. But before we get into that, we're talking about a couple of things that I've seen and done this week that I think will be helpful to you. You know, during this segment, I always love to give some recaps on TV shows I've been watching that help you understand dysfunctional family dynamics and any products, things I've been seeing or doing that are helpful to you. If you want to go ahead and skip ahead to the Q&A part of the segment, you can also do that as well. But I just got done watching the show Smoke on Apple TV, and there's some really interesting adult sibling dynamics in the show. So the plot of the show is all about like an arsonist, and it's kind of like your crime show. But there is a female detective in the show, too as a victim in a attempted, like burning incident as a child. And essentially, She was alone in a motel where her mother, who I believe was a drug user, was having some sort of psychotic episode or lost touch with reality. And she then decided to set the hotel room on fire. And her daughter was blocked inside of a closet in the hotel room.

And her daughter escapes from the room and she goes on to live her life. but her mother is put in jail. And in the series, we see the girls' siblings petitioning for their mother to get out of jail. And they can't seem to understand why their sister doesn't feel safe with their mother getting out of jail, even though she's older and, you know, she's had a lot of time to think about this and she's probably not going to do it again. And she hasn't been using substances. She's never apologized. to her adult daughter. She's never sent her a letter from jail or tried to explain why she did what she did. And so her daughter really ultimately feels like her mother is not sorry and has not changed. And this, there are a couple of scenes throughout the show where you can see kind of these very deeply ingrained societal beliefs that we hold that you should forgive your parent no matter what. They are your parents. So you should take care of them in old age, even if they tried to harm you. And there's this really pivotal scene where this woman's brother is sitting with his wife and they are going to have the mother of the girl who was in the fire move into the home with them. And they have a young daughter. And up to this point, this man has been very critical of his sister's inability to, you know, fight for their mother's release and defend her and forgive her, but his wife says, would you ever leave your mother alone with our daughter,

who is around the same age, I think, as when his sister was in this fire? And he kind of hesitates and says, no. And then his wife says, then why is she moving in with us? And that's kind of the end of the scene. And you can tell that there is this break in the belief system that he really hasn't thought much further than just like, this is what you're supposed to do with your parents. You're supposed to take care of them. You're supposed to forgive them no matter what, even if they are a danger to you. And once he starts thinking about his own child potentially being harmed by his mother, he's like, oh, maybe this isn't the best idea. And so this is just a really great example in this show of how adult siblings can have completely different

childhoods, not understand what the other one is experiencing, and also just have completely different value systems in adulthood that are based on different facts and different understanding. And I thought it was really well done to show some of those dynamics. I also shared on my Instagram stories the other day that I have been using this red light from Amazon to do my meditations. And it's linked in my Amazon storefront, but it has helped me so much. I have been trying to do it like every single day, almost every day. I would say I'm consistent five to six days a week. And I do it for at least five minutes, either in the morning or at night. The other day when I was feeling stressed, I did it multiple times. And I have noticed such a difference in my stress levels

when I do it, the days where I don't do it, it's a marked difference. And also, I've noticed improvement in just like how I feel on a day-to-day basis. My heart rate variability on my ring has improved, which is something that I was reading a lot of research on how to do that. And consistent meditation was one of the most like science-backed ways to do that. There's also great data out there, early data, but great data that the red light consistent. exposure to it while pairing it with something like meditation can help reduce cortisol and reduce your stress levels. So thousands of you clicked on this link when I posted it the other day. So I wanted to share it here with the podcast in case you're interested, but you can order

like any of these red lights off of Amazon. The one that I got is more of like a concentrated one. It's not just like a red light bulb. It has different types of like infrared light light that all have different purposes. So you can check that out or if you call one, let me know because I was answering a lot of your questions in my DMs about using it. And I was so skeptical at first and honestly like kind of didn't want it to work. And then now that it has, I felt like I wanted to share it with you. The other thing I wanted to mention is that we are about halfway through our content this

month on adult children of emotionally immature parents. we still have multiple opportunities to meet me for a group. There are, I think, about four group meetings left this month. And we've been having some really, really amazing support groups at calling home. Like just the level of support and the shares and the growth, especially because we've been getting a lot of the same people coming consistently. And so it's so cool to be able to see people share what they've learned from. from the group, how the groups have been helpful to them. And it's also great for people who are just joining and new to be able to see how helpful these groups can be over time. In this most

recent group, I know that a couple of our group members were sharing about how they have recently just had such great realizations about being like their own competent individual adult cells that have agency over their lives, which any of you that have listened to me for any amount of time, know that that is like always at the core of everything I'm doing here at calling home is to try to empower you to be your most adult self, while also taking care of course of those parts of you that are hurt, but recognizing your agency, your individuality, and how you are a separate person from your parent or your family member that's causing the dysfunction who has the power to keep themselves safe and to make.

decisions in their own life. So it's just been really, really wonderful to see and all members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home get access to our support groups. So I would love to see some of you there soon. All right. Now let's get to the Q&A section of this episode. I'm going to go ahead and play that caller voicemail for you. Hi, Whitney. My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary by taking all the family on cruise. not want to go. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the physical and verbal abuse I received as a child. I don't have a lot of contact with my parents, but I have tried talking to them about this a number of times. It's recently as January, to which my father responded,

and they quote, it is not only my privilege, but my pleasure to call you harm for your own good. One of the dysfunctional patterns established in my family was my mother pitting sibling against siblings. She would do this with me and pretziller by telling me a secret, like, I only married your father for his money, or if your father and I ever get a divorce, it will be all your fault. She would then inform my siblings that I knew a secret, and it became a relentless game of them hounding me until I gave it up, at which time I would get in trouble for supposedly lying and for telling the secret. So now I'm living through a similar harassment from my siblings, asking why I and my immediate family will not go on this cruise.

I've told the truth. We do not want to go. It's not enough for them. And I'm getting phone calls and text asking for more explanation. It's not the issue could come so we can have a good time. They're telling me they want me to come because we need to run interference between them and my parents. Literally, they are asking me to go. to suffer through the raging rest of my parents, but they don't have to.

My question is, do I continue giving them the very simple answer? We are not going because we do not want to go, or do I try to explain to my siblings, my experiences of my parents and the very problematic family dynamics that we with here? Thank you. Wow. Thank you so much for calling in and leaving that voicemail and sharing your story with me. I think that what you shared is particularly horrible, you know, a parent saying that it's give them pleasure to hurt you or, you know, whatever was exactly said along those lines is horrible.

And the mind games and psychological abuse and trying to find ways to fit people against each other and catch people is really awful. And I get why you wouldn't want to go. Like, who would want to go on a trip with people? that are doing that. It sounds like your siblings have a very particular reason for wanting you there that is self-serving and is really about them, right? And them asking they need you there to like run interference is an admission of that. And just like you said, it's not like anyone is saying, hey, we want you there because we miss you. We're going to have a great time. And like that would be different. But I think on some level, everybody realizes that there's some dysfunction going on here.

Your question really was, like, should you talk to your siblings about this? And I think my first question for you is, have you already done that? And what did that look like? Have you all had these conversations? Are your siblings aware of the treatment you received? Was their upbringing pretty similar? How do you think they would react to those conversations? And are they going to involve your parents in what you tell them? And is that just going to cause more damage or retribution, you know, on your end? So I think without knowing that, it's, it's hard to give any, like, actual recommendation. But I think the key thing here is, is what you say going to be weaponized and is it going to change anything? At the end of the day,

you're not going on this trip, no matter what you tell them. And so I think it depends on what the dynamic is going to be like if you share this. And maybe there is one of your siblings that could be a little bit safer or easier to share with or something that you could kind of trial out that dialogue with. And then depending on how that goes, decide to like take it further. But sometimes just doing sort of that gray rock. I'm not going to react. I've told you I'm not coming is all you can do. And then from there, if you're continuing to get phone calls and messages, you may have to stop answering them and engaging with them. And I know that's way easier said than done. But if someone's not taking no for an answer, you sometimes have to uphold that boundary rather than asking them to

stop contacting you. And I've had people, you know, in the case where it does become like harassment and they have to block that person's number or not allow them to have contact with them anymore. And that's, you know, another decision down the road. But I would first think about have we ever had any of these conversations before? If we have, how did they go? Do my siblings already have a lot of context for why I wouldn't want to be there and they're just choosing to like ignore or forget that because they would like me to be there because it would be easier for them.

And then remember that not everybody is on the same page or the first, like, part of this path that you are. And so your siblings might still very much be in the stage of like, we need to make mom and dad happy. We need to do what they say. We need to all get along. And so that's what they're going to do. And they're probably going to be upset with you for not joining them in that.

And that's okay. I think sometimes you're choosing between some bad options, like going is a bad option and not going is also a bad option. There's consequences to both, but which is worse, which is more harmful and more disruptive to your life, and which do you think you can handle a little bit better? I know that this is not easy. And it sounds like there's maybe a big quest in the family to kind of have a trip where everything appears normal, even though people know that it's not. Because from what you disclosed

about your family, I don't think there's any way that every single person involved could think like this is happy and normal. I hope that that is helpful for this caller and for anyone else who is in this situation. As always, remember that you can send me a voice note to Whitney at callinghome.co. So just record yourself on your phone or on your computer. And then you can send that file over to my email and I will select a question every week to answer on the podcast. I would love to hear from you. You can also check out any of our content and support groups this month inside the Family Cycle Brickers Club at Calling Home and just visit callinghome.com. To join. Thank you all so much for listening and I will see you on Tuesday for another episode.

The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes' terms of service linked in the show notes below. Thank you.