Ep.10- 'Breaking The Cycle' with Maggie Nick

Hello everyone and welcome back to our last episode in this series, series one. Don't worry, common thread and hot and heavy on series two with answering your questions. That will be out next week. But for this week, I am delighted to be joined in conversation with Maggie Nick, who is a self-confessed, recovering, burned out, overachieving people pleasing perfectionistic pushover and shape-shifting chameleon, a recovering good child, turned trauma therapist, parenting expert and cycle-breaking mom, who knows exactly what it's like to grow up as the one nobody ever needed to worry about. Maggie, I'm coming back to talk to you about that because that is statement in itself is huge. She spent years believing her overachieving people pleasing and perfectionism were just her personality until her therapy at 25 reveal that there were actually lifelong relational trauma responses. Now though that her rebellious online community camp lovable and its signature good girl rehab membership, Maggie helps recovering good kids finally feel safe and stop feeling guilty worrying about what other people think and trying to be perfect all the time. She's a leading voice on good kid trauma, also known as relational shame trauma and she's on a mission to have the world release the crushing shame, the whispers, there's something wrong with you. Maggie, good to have you here. Hi, thank you so much for having me. So lovely to say with you again. Yeah, it is. It's great. I want to jump in and go back to that piece because the doubtful that is to say right, they burned out overachieving people pleasing perfectionist push over and shape shifting chameleon. How hard it is even to get my mouth around those words, not to mention what it's actually like to live and carry that right and that idea of that being the good kid. So I'm going to throw it to you if you can explain a little bit about that child that no one ever needed to worry about. So many of us were right, we were an old soul. We were a delight to having class. Old head on young shoulders. Old head on young. Sure. You're really mature for your age. Yes, yes, I am. And that's a red flag like this is the thing and it's going to be a real challenge. I mean, it's already been a challenge with my work because I think parents just think good parents have good kids. A good kids feel like evidence that I was a good parent. We're like, okay, I've just got to roll my sleeves up and punish my child, you know, every time they're disrespectful until they stop being disrespectful and now they're a good kid. And look, they always behave and they never push back. And yes, I've done a good job. Like it's so insane how that is the opposite of the reality. So many of us were were good and we were quiet and we were easy and we always, always, always behaved and we were so responsible. We were so disciplined, we basically raised ourselves. Yeah, right. We're the one that everyone can count on and we wear that like a gold star, but nobody ever checks on us. And we so many of us have come into adulthood just being exhausted from proving our goodness with the overachieving and the people pleasing and the perfectionism and, you know, going into fight flight, trying to say no, shapeshifting into whatever level version of us, somebody will be okay with like this work in my work in this book, my upcoming book Good Kids is about the invisible trauma and the cost of always being good. So many of us will spend our whole lives recovering from a lifetime of bottling our emotions, literally performing calm. Like we're not calm, we perform calm. Well, we constantly scan the room like a hawk and we scan everyone for the slightest sign that they could disapprove of something we're doing or be disappointed and be mad at us and this like crushing fear of being a burden, like feeling like we're always in trouble. The child that is the one you never need to worry about is the one I'm most worried about and I need parents to wake up like we we are so concerned with our kids. You are a disrespect for who are challenging us and I'm not saying those kids don't need support. I'm not saying they don't have some shame trauma from being made to feel like what is wrong with you. That's another discussion, but when I have a parent call and they have multiple kids in the family's gone through a divorce or a death of a loved one and they're wanting to get usually the defiant child in for counseling, I'm always like, is there a child who seems just fine? And they're like, oh yes, my oldest or oh yes, my daughter or oh yes, the middle one. And I'm like, tell me more and they're like, yeah, I mean, you wouldn't even know anything happened. I'm like, I need to see them first. Like that's the one I'm most worried about because that child is suffering silence, that child is suffering alone, that child is performing fine, but they are not fine. A child cannot be fine after going through something traumatic like that, but they're they're hiding it and they don't feel safe to tell anyone because they wouldn't be a burden. You know, we've got to we've got to be attention to these kids and check in. When we were talking about that at the beginning and the good kid, the mature one, the responsible one, the one that's that is fine. The first thing that I thought of when I was listening to you talking was who else has the really big emotions in the family that there's no space for this child to have theirs? Where are the adults in the family that are parenting this child or where actually are the parents being the big kids themselves and having the big emotions and the big tantrums that the child has to skip neglect over our condition to abandon themselves and not be playful and not get to experience what it is to be carefree and they have to grow up so quick. So I'm looking at this as neglect towards the child, but actually then looking at where are the parents and which of the parents are the ones that are explosive in their emotions that the child is walking on egg shells around. And then typically what I see is if it's not another parent that are as explosive, it's where is the other parent that then is enabling this behavior and the child is being the parent to their parents. You know that mic drop. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean we and I do talk about this in the book. There's actually I don't know if you I'm sure you do because you're an expert in this subject, but I stumbled upon research that confirmed a pattern I've seen with clients. I feel like when I have a really it's any person who has the kind of good kid presentation. Sometimes they start as a bad kid and then they end up being a good kid or sometimes they were always kind of going to be the naturally more compliant, more easygoing child good kid. But I'm always like do you have a narcissistic parent or do you have an addict parent? And like there's interesting research. Have you seen it that like establishes that pattern that it's starting to be documented in the literature the way the experience of having a parent struggling with addiction and the experience of having a parent who struggles with narcissism in particular, but I think it I think they do speak to all personality disorders. The way it presents very similarly. Like it's the inconsistency. Yeah, I haven't seen the research to back that up, but what the way I describe this so is if I have in one hand and narcissist and if I have one hand a parent that is an addict, they're addict and the narcissist they're akin. They're so similar. It doesn't mean then that when we take the addiction away from the person that is addicted that we're going to be left with a narcissist if they're going to do the work. Right. And the difference is is that here with the addiction, let's say the addiction is alcohol, the person that is suffering with addiction, they will lie still manipulate because it's all about the drink. Everything will revolve around them and about the drink and about them getting their needs met and they don't care who they hurt and it's going to get in the way of them in getting their needs met. The narcissist, although then this isn't alcohol that's in the center of this, but this is them in the center of it. So it's all about them. They will lie, steal, manipulate, they will never take accountability like they addict and they will blame, steal, twist, manipulate, blame everybody else that it's everybody else's fault. They're both the martyr and the victim in that to avoid all responsibility and accountability. So yes, when I see what my clients, the wounds that they present and the behaviors, the trauma responses that they have, but the behaviors from the parents with addiction and then with narcissistic behavior, it's one and of the same, although it presents differently. Right. Right. But I feel like in the intake, I'm always like, all right, is your, you know, I'm like waiting for it, waiting for the evidence. And I think you nailed it. Like from the child's perspective, you know, the parent is very inconsistent. Sometimes the parent is warm and friendly and loving and kind and able and willing to meet their needs. And then other times inexplicably, without any warning, they're not. And like that is so the relational trauma and the relational shame trauma of making that child feel like, I'm not worthy of having my needs met. My parent, you know, is disgusted by me, annoyed by me, who I am deep down. Like it's, it's really interesting. So I think we do see that as an origin story of her good kids, right? The parent with the addiction, the parent with a personality disorder, but I specifically see narcissistic and borderline. It's like the two predominant. And then I think the high needs sibling, right? Whether it's behavioral or medical situation in the family where the parent is so exhausted and overwhelmed already. Maybe they're a single parent, maybe they're just completely overburdened, trying to work multiple jobs without a lot of family support. And so there's this child that's like, well, my mom or my dad has already got so much, I can't make things harder for them. They're already dealing with my brother and my sister and all this going on with him. So I've got to be good and I've got to make their life easier. And I've got to watch their mood and take care of them. And when they're sad, I've got to make them happy. And when they're overburdened, I've got to anticipate their needs before they even know so that they are okay. It's like this role reversal that we talk about so much in our work where like the parent is the child and the child is the parent. Oh, it's exhausting. When I separate that out when I think of what you're talking about in terms of periods in a child's life, so there if somebody is sick in the family, if somebody does have high needs and even if that's extended financial difficulties, there when you're talking about not having a support system. And when I think of actually children, adult children of the narcissistic family, when they have had to protect themselves and either one they've been discarded in the system for speaking up against it or if they have gone lower, no contact, them not having this support system. When we're conditioned that this is normal to either rely on your child emotionally or for being a parent to the other siblings, what's different in those situations or I separate out from then a narcissistic parent is one the weaponization of their emotions and the exploitation. So there's one in a parent recognizing and going, I struggled and I felt or I did and yes, that put a burden on you and yes, I'm sorry and yes, if I could go back and do it different and I see that and I see what this did on you and how can I make this up to you and as soon as I could change it, I did as opposed to a narcissistic parent will deny twist, blame, shame, will project onto the child. We'll see that the siblings won't get on in the in the family dynamic because there's like a divide and conquer in the siblings. So there's this whole other projection piece that happens as opposed to if I'm going through a difficult situation and the children have to step up and be older for a little bit. When I get on my feet again or when things are different, I will regain the control as the parent and take back that place even if I've temporarily kind of stood out of us. Well, I think, I mean, the like zoom out, the 30,000-foot view of what you're saying is number one, like as a parent, we have to acknowledge the impact that we have on our kids. I fuck up all the time. Me too. I love that you say that. Like daily. And I'm so sick and tired of this narrative in the gentler, conscious, whatever healthier parenting community. Yeah, I'm 10, almost 11 years into my parenting journey. I'm an 11-year-old almost in an eight-year-old and I feel like when my oldest was a baby and I was like, oh shit, I gotta heal myself. I'm just gonna do all this over again and that'll crush me. I felt like all of the information out there was like, okay, so just like don't do that. And I'm like, okay, great. And so then what's time I would try? And sometimes I could do it, but then there were other times where I would just explode like a volcano, pop like a balloon. I never experienced rage in my life. I don't think as a person, I mean, I was such a raging good kid and just bottling everything. But then parenting comes and like, you know, my kid there is being unreasonable or entitled. And it's like, my nervous, it's like, oh my god, your mother's back. And it's like, shut her down. I don't fucking think so, right? Or like, my kid's doing something that I couldn't have done. And so then I'm like, oh my god, stop! I have to shout you down to protect you from what would have happened to me. It's like, it's so much. And I just, I am so sick and fucking tired of this narrative that we should just be able to know better and then do better. I repair with my kids every day. I probably apologize like once a day. Like, I fuck off. I'm thinking wild on once a day. That's an improvement. But here's the thing, right? And this is when I reached out to you this time, because it was after that right. So parenting after abuse, especially if you were the good kid and now have to enforce boundaries with your kids. And this is to any of the listeners that are parents, but anybody that's not a parent, this is an important conversation. Because I think Maggie, incorrect me if I'm wrong, because what you're saying is actually is, and what I see and what I know to be true, is that our children will highlight to us a dynamic that is already happening in our other relationships. So here, if I am uncomfortable with other people's big emotions in childhood, if I have had to fix my parents' emotions or if my parents were coming to me with problems, then I had to be the fixer and be the good kid. Now if my kid is a big emotion, I'm going to be triggered so much that I want to fix it, but I'm not going to be able to do that. And that is going to cause a different sort of friction in the relationship because I'm silencing them. But this will already be happening in your other relationships just in a way, because you're not living with those other people. You're not aware that it's happening. Or in terms of boundaries. If I'm not able to say no to people, I might be overextended and then I might be burned out and then I might hide for them or not answer them or what do I do in this. But if we don't say no to her, kids we're going to raise really entitled children, we're going to create such concernation and such a battle here with our children that we're not going to be able to turn away from that we have to face. I have a whole section in my book about how people pleasing shows up in parenting and when I was writing it, I thought it would just be like a couple of paragraphs. Then I ended up being this, like, it just kind of took on a life of its own because it is so- It is a life of itself. Fucking hard. Yeah. It is. I mean, I feel like I could and probably will one day write a whole book on this. I was kind of floored, honestly, when I sat down to really walk through it because I think when you have spent your life as a people pleaser, most of us had a parent, at least one, who had a temper. We did the walking on eggshells and we literally are finding a way to meet our core need for safety by just never upsetting anyone. We're like, "Okay, I'll just over-explain my boundaries. I'll make sure I'm always just I'll shapeshift into like whatever you need me to be and I'll just never ruffle feathers." And then you have a toddler who is actually extremely emotionally healthy. Yeah, I get overwhelmed and they blow up. They don't stuff it. They don't pretend they're fine. They don't perform calm. They're like, "Dude, I'm overwhelmed. Get out of the way. Let me blow up." But we have spent our lives never feeling safe to allow that to happen when our child is yelling at us. Like, I find myself sometimes right in the moment. It's like little mags is in there and she's like, "I didn't do anything wrong. Why are you yelling at me?" Like, it's like, little me is like, "Oh, it's stop." I tried so hard to not upset you and why are you yelling at me? It puts me right back into my inner child. What I noticed for me is that I can have such patience, such empathy. I can... So there, see if the scream and toddler or my kids are a bit older now and I can have such empathy to a point. And what's happening is that I'm not noticing my sense is getting overwhelmed. I'm not noticing the cues where I need to take a break because I have been trained to focus on the other person so much until they're okay. So I will have such compassion. I'm not talking Mary Poppins, you know, but I have such compassion up to this point. And then and my job is actually to how do I recognize me before that? Because then I get to like that breaking point of, "Okay, this is enough." Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think I think so much of that when we look, like, zoom in physiologically, like when we think through fight, fight, fun, freeze, right? People pleasing as fun response. And like we do tend to see that children will tend to naturally gravitate towards fight and flight and fun and freeze with their exceptions. But like, I would say the overwhelming pattern that we see is the bad kids, the difficult kids, the ones that push back are the fight and flight kids. And the good kids are the fun and freeze kids. And so when we've spent a whole lifetime, only ever fawning and freezing. And at some point, your nervous system is like, I, I have healed enough. I have faced some of myself. I've started, you know, creating and cultivating safe relationships of subgone to therapy. And our nervous system is like, I think it's safe enough to allow fight response. And it literally opens the door to fight response. Like that is, I want, I feel like I have this conversation over again with clients. Like I know how much shame we feel when we do blow the fuck up at our kids. Same. Like the shame, you get bitch slapped by shame after you blow the fuck up at your kids. Same, same, same. Okay. Not saying it's a great thing. But I'm saying when you have spent your life bottling and suppressing every single emotion and performing fun and performing calm. And then you're, you start healing and your nervous system is like, okay, but like I can't and won't hold it anymore, right? And so we, we have had a fight response when we've turned it inward, right? We get vicious and brutal with ourselves. You've always had it. And now it's like an outward fight. And that is actually evidence of healing. But like you said, I feel we have such a responsibility to our kids to break these cycles that our parents didn't know they needed to break, didn't even know there were cycles or generational trauma or anything, not to justify their behavior. But like different time they didn't know we do know now, right? And so I think we have to do this where we get curious after we, like every time I lose it with my kids, I'm like, what just happened? And I sit with it. And I'm like one of the busiest people you've ever meet. So if I can find five minutes to do this, everybody can just saying. And so I do like a five minute check-in. And I'm like, what happened? And I'm like, Oh, I made food. My daughter said she didn't like, she said she loves this before. So now it feels like what? And it makes me feel like I'm not good enough. It's a little me that needs to have a release that needs to just like stomp her fucking feet that like I'm so tired of feeling that good enough. And if I can honor that those feelings that I suppressed decades ago and just get them out, like don't you feel like it's a seesaw? Like it's like the more we've bottled when it like when we get triggered, it just boom. And it's like this over reaction. And if we can just like release it, then it's like we've cleared that. And it doesn't have to come out again because we've released it. Absolutely. There's there's so much that I want to go on, but first and foremost, I want to say to you how refreshing it is to hear somebody speak about this honestly. And I know and thankfully in my own life, in my own circle of friends, I have other honest mothers who talk openly and honestly about the struggle, who openly talk about, you know, when I fucked up and we in turn hold them accountable, but also, you know, are meeting them with compassion and understanding and honesty ourselves. Because this is the part about people pleasing when we're masking with other people. And then when you have this facade that only everything's wonderful and my child is great and my child would never or I would never, you're setting yourself up for this failure rather than recognizing it as normal. But also if you're the only one sharing your own struggles in your group and you are met with other parents, other mothers saying, no, this is perfect and everything's great. I just called bullshit. I called bullshit even if somebody has grown up in a good enough home, if they're going to tell me that their kid doesn't tantrum, if their patients isn't tried, if they're not tested. In fact, if they tell me that they never fuck up or never apologize, that is a red flag. And I'm looking at them wondering there's actually something else going on here. The reason that I will know that this is bullshit and that you've made a mistake is because you're human, plain and simple. I don't have to know anything else about you, but because you're human. And so even in this way, you just share in your honesty, Maggie, how this will shift the shame for the listeners, because I guarantee you that they will think that they're the only one and that there's something wrong with them. And the biggest fear that they have is that they are traumatizing their kids. Oh, 100% and that they are being abusive. Well, in the reality is we are traumatizing our kids sometimes. I just feel like can we just admit that? Can I as a parenting expert just say that I'm probably trying like, I think trauma is not what happens is what happens or doesn't happen before, during and after. And so I have a 100% track record of circling back going, hey, can we talk about what happened? That's like three cycles right there. So we've been shit under the rug. Hey, can we talk about what happened? I start the conversation. Right. I approach with curiosity and humility and like a determination. Even that you are taking the responsibility that you are starting the conversation. You are going towards the child. My job as your leader, I know it's like five cycles. Yeah, like literally. Thank you for it. I feel like people think I'm exaggerating. You know, I'm serious. Like that's literally like five different generational cycles of trauma just to be the one to start the conversation. Yeah. And then I lead with some context to explain my behavior, right? I was bottling my feelings. I hit 10, my body, you know, the bubble burst. And I can see the impact it had on you. Because I, the words I'm sorry are important. I'm not saying they're not. But I feel like for a strange adult children, myself being one of them, like I would love to hear my mother say she's sorry. But the words that would mean so much more where I'm sorry, I hurt you, um, acknowledging the pain that she has caused. Instead of all the fucking gaslighting or your therapist made that up and oh my god, I'm so sorry, I'm not the perfect parent. Like just being a parent who can say, I scared you. I hurt you. I can see that. And it matters to me. And I'm sorry that I hurt you. Yeah. And I think in that the examples, my language when I go to my kids is I'm sorry I overreacted. I shed it there and I absolutely shouldn't have. That was me that got stressed. And no matter what was happening, that was up to me today. But you didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve that. Yeah. That's it. We literally teach our kids whether they're lovable or not feels like an oversimplification. But like parents are like, I don't understand it. I show up to every kid, every one of my kids games. I'm there for them. We eat lunches, we eat dinners. Like I feel like I'm so present. And then my kid will tell me that they feel like I don't love them. And they're just like wanting to throw their hands up in the air. And I'm like, the other stuff matters. It really does. But when we parent the way our parents parented us without being intentional and noticing the places where our own emotional triggers and unresolved trauma is going to hijack us. It caused us to shut them down or give them a silent treatment, right? Or yell at them. We have to be in this place of being able to hold that we did the best we could and we hurt them. We did the best we could and that was scary for them. We did the best we could and we made them feel disgusted by them. We made them feel like they there was something wrong with them. We made them feel like we didn't love them when they were like that. Like that is what my child counseling clients will sit on my couch and say, my mom doesn't love me when I'm like that. The first time a teenager said that to me, I like almost passed off. I'm sorry, what did she just say? It's like she's like my mom doesn't love me when I'm like that. That's how it feels on the kids ends. And we've got to have raging empathy for ourselves here because we are fumbling around in the dark with no roadmap, no handbook, no modeling on how to do this. So many of us feel called to parent in response to the way we were parented. We kind of know on some level what we needed and we can correct it. I certainly have in several places. But we have got to be so endlessly patient and loving to ourselves that like I see you trying and I know you're doing your best. But the reality of the situation is we are going to come in with that energy and make our kids feel unlovable sometimes. And again, like I do it too, but I always circle back and say I do love you. Even when things are hard and I'm sorry that I made you feel like I didn't. It's that acknowledgement piece. And when I think of the narcissistic parent, there's just crickets. That is just empty and not only that, but when the child comes to the parent, whereas you're talking about actually you being the parent coming to the child, when the child, as the child or even the adult child comes to the parent, it's been denied, it's been twisted, history's been rewritten, they're being blamed and shamed, marked humiliated, scorned. And so there's this added layer of abuse and harm. And so I just want to go back to what you had said earlier, do I think that I can cause trauma and harm my kids? Absolutely. And I say that unequivocally because for me to recognize that is important, right? Because other than that, I'm standing certain that, no, I never cause harm. I'm perfect. And that's a problem. But I want to highlight the difference between that and the difference between abuse. And because abuse, when I think of a narcissistic parent, is something that is repeated and ongoing and intentionality and a projection. And there's such a lack of self-awareness from the parent. Where's your even talking about that, taken the five minutes and reflect and going, what did I do? So even there, the mornings used to be very difficult for kids getting them out to school. And actually, what changed was they ended up getting a bus. And because the bus was kind of their responsibility, they didn't want to miss it. Whereas that they get in the car thing was so difficult. And because we always had time, that was never a priority for them. So even that's interesting. But I remember when we would have a bad morning and one that repaired that I would make in the car going, oh, I got really stressed in there. And that's on me. And I'm sorry, right? So recognizing I shouldn't have shared it or whatever that was, I would reflect and honestly think and go, okay, what can I do different tomorrow? And that would be responsibility on me for, let's say, okay, I could go to bed earlier so I can get up earlier and, you know, make the lunches because the kids were small at this stage. But even in terms of, okay, well, where's their responsibility? I can ensure that they put their shoes beside the door or that they hang up their coat and that this is not going to be an argument. So this is not about berating and shaming myself, oh my god, I'm awful and this is no good. This is really practical ways. And whatever I would implement would work really well for the next few days or weeks that we would fall back into the cycle and I would go back into it again. So it's this piece about taking accountability that when we cause harm, and I think when you're saying that trauma a kid can experience can be the harm. And I suppose I'll ask you, do you see that difference? Do you see a difference in that than in abuse and let's say in the abuse from a narcissist? Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, I think to your point, a narcissistic parent cannot access self-awareness. Yes. Cannot access empathy. Yes. And therefore cannot engage and repair. Yeah. Right. Like I think the repeated, like the thing for me when a new client, I just feel like when you're in that new phase and you're kind of assessing things, like what I'm looking for is when somebody's describing something that feels like a narcissistic or borderline. Yeah. And it's like, is there repair? When the child says mom, you hurt me, does the mom say, oh, I'm so sorry about that. Yeah. I didn't mean to hurt you. Here's what I'll do different. Like that's that piece, the ability. And I want to be so crystal fucking clear on this that like I see personality disorders through the lens of internal family systems theory and parts work, where it's extreme protector parts. Like I do not, as a clinician, think for one second, that narcissistic parents have like, you know, are making conscious level choices and like, enjoy this. Like I do think there's a weird satisfaction when, you know, like my mom gave me the silent treatment. There's parts to me sometimes that want me to make my kids beg for forgiveness and give them there's like this weird satisfaction. And I think it's very like we get very vulnerable to that to the parts that want to hijack and like try to work out how the fuck that happened in childhood and what that meant about us and like trying to just kind of work it out. And those parts can hijack us and it can feel satisfying in a weird way. But it's not happiness. It's not contentment. It's not peace. It's like trauma, right? It's like gnarly, unstable energy. And so I really see our parents and those of us who have parents who presented as someone with a personality disorder as unhealed trauma with extreme protector parts. Yeah. And there is a highest self in there, but the highest self is mostly protected like in the situation room behind bulletproof glass. Like every now and then the highest self will peek out and you're like, oh, look, you do love me. You, you are a good person. I do matter to you. And then yes, put back in the situation room and the protector parts come back out. Yeah. Yeah. They cannot access or sit with that self awareness because that will bring the shame. And that was the part that that was unsafe for them. So I mean complete agreement. I just wanted to highlight this for the listener because just the fear that they have that I am like the narcissist apparent. And this is why one of the things that in the book that I co-wrote, you're not the problem, I wanted to highlight what abuse looked like because when somebody can't identify what abuse is and when this is normalized, and now, well, if I do something that is somewhat similar, well, then I am the same as them. And so it's been able to separate that out and recognize, like you said, those parts that no self-awareness not able to take accountability, not able to self-reflect, not able to have empathy, not able to see your child as a separate self and a separate individual. So any of the parents listening now, if you think about your own kids and if you think do you know them separate from you so that you're not projecting on your own wants and dreams for them, when I think of, you know, what job your kids are going to get. Actually, do you know what they want, what they're interested? And if they're young, this will be really unrealistic and it will change and change repeatedly. But like, are you interested in that part of them? As opposed to the narcissistic parent, it is a projection of them, that extension. Yeah. Well, and I think I 100% and I think there are, like, I have a subset of clients who come to me with an adult child, generally, who they describe as narcissistic or borderline. And that's, I don't know if you've worked, I've worked with a bunch at this point now and it's always such a dance working with those clients because they are so fragile in terms of the shame piece. They feel responsible, but they're also like, but I did the best I could. And I think this is one of the interesting ways where intergenerational trauma and especially relational shame trauma, this piece can present. I think there are parts of me that want me to make my kids beg for forgiveness that would feel that weird satisfaction. They're parts of me that want me to shut my kid the fuck down the way I was shut down. And it's again, it's the way our brains make sense of things. They play, they explore, they try to see it from the other foot. There are parts of us that want to do those things. That doesn't mean that we are our parent, but our parts that, like, all of our protector parts in IFS, like, in my experience tend to be very young. Like, my parts with, like, my history with the narcissistic borderline mother, my parts tend to be like four, five, six. I notice most people, I work with younger than 10, for sure. And so you have this 10-year-old part who's thinking like a 10-year-old and trying to make sense of this and 10-year-olds are very black and white. They are very simplistic in their thinking. They can't critically think, they can't zoom out and see the big picture. And so it's like, oh, there's that part again that feels like I'm my mom. There you are. Thank you for trying to protect me. Here's where it's different. I you know, went around and apologized, right? I didn't do that. Like, it's okay that I'm struggling with this. Like, when we are flooded as a parent, and when all of our suppressed, bottled, unprocessed trauma comes exploding out of us, like, or when we take stuff personally, right? That's one of my, like, crosses. One of the things I'm really working on right now, it's not taking ship personally. And, like, trying to just see that my child is overwhelmed and children act out stress. And this is not personal. It does feel really familiar in a very painful way. And my parts are all, like, ready, right? And I like, I got you. I'm suited up. If you need me, I'm just like right here, you know, but I think our children can remind us of our youngest selves and our children can remind us of our abusive parent. And sometimes the way that we move through that as a healing person can be perceived by our child as inconsistency or rejection or even abandonment. Like, that is just the reality of the situation. And so I think just an awareness there. They're like, oh, when I shut down because I didn't want to scream at my kid, that might have felt like abandonment to my child. So I just need to acknowledge that. I need to go and say, Hey, I felt overwhelmed. I was trying not to yell at you, but I wonder if me shutting down made you feel dismissed and made you feel like I didn't love you right then. Is that how it felt for you? You know, and being brave enough to, like, it's safe to tell me if that's how it felt for you. I want to know. I want to know so that I can apologize. I want to own my behavior. I want to own the impact I'm having on you. Like, that is what that is such a clear differentiator from our parents who are personality disorder, right? Is that just that the willingness, the desire to own and apologize for the ways that I've heard them. You're right. And it is this acceptance piece that it's happened. It's believe your children. And yes, I have worked with adults that have come with, especially with adult children. There's where the dynamic has been set up and typically the client that is coming like that has not held boundaries, has enabled behaviors, has not stood in their own authority and their own kind of power. And I look at how they are in relationships. So how they are being treated in relationships and how their child has modeled that. But I do be very aware of language that if a parent is common saying that a child is the narcissist because then what that sounds like is that they're absolving themselves of all responsibility and saying like my child has this disorder that I have nothing to do with and now I'm being the victim in that. And I don't agree with that rhetoric. And what I find is the narcissistic parents don't come to therapy or if they do, they don't last. Before I was public at all, I would have had handful of these clients show up, but they wouldn't have stayed. Oh no, they storm out and slam the door. And I would have done it gently and respectively and and with kindness and empathy, but I would have held them accountable and reflected back to them what I was hearing, what they were telling me and even that they couldn't handle that. So I think now when somebody comes and they are recognizing that they're one because even of a parasocial relationship that they have with me, there's more trust in what I'm saying and they're more willing to sit with the resistance of what they're feeling. But again, it's yeah, it's very telling how much they're willing to obviously go back to self-reflect, engage, take accountability because even in what you were saying there about the inconsistency, the example that I had given earlier, I was inconsistent in that. So I am really calm and empathic and lovely and then there gets to a point that I'm overwhelmed and now I'm like enough, that's it. And although not like the narcissistic parent, there's no withdrawal of kindness after that, there's no silent treatment, there's no verbal abuse, there's none of that. But that's still as inconsistent what I'm doing. And what I'm teaching the child is if I needed to hold boundaries, what I'm teaching them is no, you can keep going and going and going and going and going and then there's the point where mama's like enough. And actually the question is, what did I need to do earlier? What did I need to do to manage that? Where did I need to hold boundaries? What did I need to do that it didn't get to that point and where do I need to be consistent with that? I think the consistency that I'm more concerned about, like I try and I feel like I have like this mantra where I'm like she's not your mother, you're on Florida, you're a mom now, be the mom. Like I feel like just to try to bring myself back into the moment because I feel like I say that who's the parent, all the time to myself, who's the parent? Right. And my parts can float me away and it's like all of a sudden I'm a little Maggie again and like fighting for my life is what it feels like and so I have to like stick on that. I get into power struggles. Yeah. When I think of the people, please are I think of anxious attachment style. And when I think of me, I actually was well able to access my fight response. For me, I was the protector of my mother. The thing about growing up in that was that it wasn't safe to love or care for anyone else because she would be so jealous. So I would fight on her behalf and protect her and that avoidant that not to let anybody come too close to me and keep people at arms lent. But I absolutely have that ability and always have to stand up for myself and actually my thing is in relationships is it's so familiar for me to actually fight and advocate for myself. It's actually recognizing and healthy relationships. I don't have to keep fighting for myself and that when I continue to fight is actually when do I need to walk away? With my kids, their over correction might in terms of the I wasn't asked anything about me or ignored. So I can ask my kids too many questions and it's actually given them space so it's even the they're coming in from school. How was your day? Who are you sitting beside? What did you play? What was good? What was bad? And it's like Katie back the fuck off, right? Be interested, but this idea like don't smother them. Like let them also come to you. This is why I have dogs because like I would smother my kids. I have a golden retriever and another snuggly dog because I feel like I give them my like smothering love so that my kids I'm a better mom because my smothering goes to my dogs. Okay, and so here's the bit. Yes, it's a responsibility to go to our kids when something is wrong, but this is to allow our kids the freedom to come towards us and they're my kids and I when they're telling me stuff, I have to actively in my head go, okay, Katie, back off. Don't ask loads of questions because you're going to scare them off and I'm like, oh really? Oh, okay. And you know, I might ask one or two questions, but if I keep asking them loads of questions, they're going to shut down. Yep. And the part around boundaries is an overexplaining. And not wanting to set them off, like being too afraid to hold that boundary because they're going to blow up and that's going to make your nervous system feel like you're in danger. Yeah, or or more of me that I don't want to be the narcissistic parent and say, well, just because I said so. Well, because that's the way it is. Right. And no, and don't answer back because my kids actually they can come up with really good, really good reasons why let's say are, you know, bedtime is a really good one to talk about, right? Maybe why they should stay over later. And there are some of the times it's reasonable and I'm like, okay, you have gotten a year old or okay, that is fair. And it's this piece. It's actually okay. Where are we negotiating? And then where are my kind of non-negotiables? And without fighting, removing that fight from me and just saying, no, no, ask an answer. No, I've said no, no, that's it. Yeah. Take that one step further. Like our parents acted like showing anything on our faces other than pure delight that they told us no. Right. If we looked upset, looked disappointed, it was like stopping just respectful. It was like literally if we showed the impact of life on us, we were called disrespectful. Right. And so I think my one of my biggest challenges, like I'm working through not taking shit personally. That's like a really hard one for me because my mother just takes everything personally and it's blueprints is deep. But and as I'm healing, right? Like I, it's like stuff is coming up to the surface and I feel like you get more triggerable the more you're healing. And so it's just dicey. But I think the thing that I try to just remind myself is like children resist you release to regulate. Like the resistance is a part of how they regulate. And so our parents shut down any sign of resistance. And they accidentally and inadvertently shut down our ability to release stress and regulate our bodies. That's why we walk around like a volcano about to explode or bleed about to pop whatever and if you want to use like the are literally raising children who are trying to be emotionally healthy in a ways that we were never allowed to brutally shamed for. And we have to make space for when I tell my kid no, it's like the answers no. And like we need to own the fuck out of our no, but not in a punishing way, not in a silencing way, not in a dominating our kids in the submission kind of way. Just a the answers no. And it's okay for you to be sad that I said no. It's okay for you to be disappointed. It's okay for you to be mad at me that I said no. The answer's still fucking no. Like that. And that is one of the the things that I'm most proud of as a parent as I feel like I like army crawled through horrific conditions through my healing to get to a place where most of the time I can hold my no in that space. I can allow them to be pissed. I can allow them to storm off. I don't believe that we need to shut every every little bit of that down. I think they're lines. They're not going to like call me names. They're not going to be aggressive physically verbally. Like I think there are lines here. We're not going to be destructive. But like we've got to allow our kids to show the impact to like get those feelings out. And when our kids are having this like huge meltdown over something that seems so tiny. It's not about that. Yeah. They've been bottling all their feelings. And now they have no more room. Their cup is full and their body is getting it out. Like we need to just trust and believe that this overreaction makes sense in the context of it's the last straw. They don't have any more space. Their bodies just trying to get it out. And they found an outlet here. I'm not in the lungs so much. I think that part is acceptance that what has happened has happened. Whatever that is. And I think even in terms of your right hold in boundaries and even there when you're talking about like name, calling or them strumming off. I would add to that that if your child is that dysregulated and does call you that name does slam the doors and think and even you know when teenage years. That is not the time to implement and hold a boundary when they're dysregulated. When they are out of their rational brain, you cannot speak reason to them. So allow yourself that space. Just stop and even see what happens with them because if you have been a healthy enough parent, if you have modeled to them actually what repair looks like and apologize after you lose in it, they will have learned this. So give them the time. I call this. I say don't like throw petrol on the fire. If a fire has happened and there's an eruption, your only job in that moment is to not throw petrol on the fire and erupt it. So like stomp up those stairs after the morgue. Then what did you just? It's for you. Your job is to regulate yourself in that moment that you're not going to throw petrol on the fire and come back to that and it is important. If they don't come back to that later on or the next day be like what did you think of your behavior yesterday? I didn't like that and that's you know and then talk to them but you're coming to them from a rational reasonable regulated place. Yeah. I 100% to all of that. I find myself saying oh they're dysregulated. Like the more unreasonable they are or the more explosive it is. I find my I try to like have my highest self be shotgun and be like girl he's dysregulated. Let him walk away. Like give him a minute. He needs your help right now. He needs a mom right now. Like that. He needs your help right now. Right. Like he like he has lost control. Like his his impulse control is offline and like a lot of parents will just dig deeper and more but they'll pile on the punishments and it's like but he has lost control. What he needs is like he needs you to hold him steady and hold the know and let him thrash. Yeah. Let him resist your release to regulate and he will regulate and come back and be like why was I so mean to you? Why did I hurt you? What is wrong with me? And you're like nothing. You are seven. You are three. You are 16. Your impulse control and offline. That happens sometimes. Happens to me right? The other day I said something that I didn't mean and I snapped. It happens to all of us and what do we do? We come back and we own our behavior and we apologize. Like jumping back to earlier, you were talking about being a consistent. Like we're going to be inconsistent sometimes. Like the goal is not to be consistent. The consistency that I'm more worried about and I think I started the sentence and ever come back to the consistency that I'm most concerned about. Consistent. You circled back. We got there. I try not to yell. I try not to let my rage which is it just feels like a monster inside of me. I try not to let my rage come out. I try to like oh I'm feeling it's coming. I need to walk away. I need to just engage but the consistency that I'm most concerned about is repair. Like period. Like I do my best to not yell and when I do yell and it's when not if when I do yell, I repair every fucking time. 100% of the time in my children's lives. They have always gotten the apology from me. Sometimes it takes me a little while. Sometimes I walk into that feral space where I just feel like a feral animal and I'm just like rabid and just like animalistic as the rage. It's like so much right? It's like I'm me. This is knowing laughter. I'm not laughing at you. This is knowing it after. I'm the parts of me and I'm the rage and I have a shame and I'm I just feel like it's almost like primal. I move into the space and as it takes me a little while to come back down but like the consistency that we need to be most concerned about is when we fuck up we own our behavior. We own the impact we had and we honor what our children deserve. We say you didn't deserve to be treated like that and I'm sorry and I like no matter what you did. No matter because there's this belief that my kid knows how to push my buttons but who is the parent? Where are they? No matter what you did. I shouldn't have and so that is the part with owning it but I want to go because air kind of aims are very similar than when we're talking about parenting and I think this is where you know we're talking about accountability and responsibility which is so important but then it's also like lower your expectations for yourself as a parent. My expectation is not to create joy and create connection. My aim is to let's have a good enough morning. Let me not shout. Yes. I call it a checho. Let's not have a checho this year. In my head. I'm not saying this to my kids. Yeah. And even when I'm thinking let's not have a checho like I might like put on the radio. They're not of us are dancing around the kitchen, right? But let's not have a checho and then I'm able to engage with them in a different way. But if you set such unrealistic expectations for yourself that now in the morning we are going to be this like cozy family. We're going to have a great day. Yeah. Oh yeah. I know. No I could I think you're just setting yourself up for failure. Well it's almost like the more you bring that energy, the more your kids are like whoa what's that energy about? Yeah. They are hyper attuned to our energy. There's Janet Gonzalez Meena I think it's her name. I excited this in my book. She has said have you heard of the boundaries bridge analogy? No. I think I found it in Janet Landsbury's book. No bad kids. Oh I've I've expanded it a little bit from what their original Janet came up with it. But it's this idea that if kids are walking on a bridge, we're the guardrails, right? And they need like strong guardrails to keep them, right? Like if they're walking without guardrails, think about how scary that makes their body feel, right? They can't feel safe. They can't feel stable. They can't feel steady and they can't feel secure. I love that because they're their own independent, like they have their own autonomy, what walking across that bridge, that's solid. And so the way that I've expanded this is that we are the planks too. We're not just the guardrails. And if you and I were walking across the bridge, high up, and one of the planks gave a little bit, our brain would be like what the fuck was that? High alert, right? Threat, our nervous system would be detecting a threat to our survival because we could fall through, right? And so then we would test the next plank and the next one and the next one. We'd be like, are you good? Are you going to be stable? That's when kids are like fucking with us and like manipulating us and pushing our buttons. It's because we had an overreaction. We were the wobbly plank that gave and our kids are literally escalating to seek consistency. They're like, are you going to be my leader? Are you going to tell me no and hold it? Like when we say no and then we like because they escalate, give up, it feels like they just kicked the plank through. That doesn't feel safe and secure for them. Like them escalating is not their fault. It's our fault. Right? Like it's us not being stable enough. And like we can also in the same breath be like, of course, we're not stable enough because look how we were parented and look how we're trying to parent. Like same, same, same. But like we have got to learn like when my kids catch me at a nine out of 10 and I don't have the space for the frustration and I explode like a volcano, I can expect that they're going to test that a little bit. They're going to be like, okay, I'm going to try it again this time. Are you going to be able to stay calm? That's not them being manipulative. That's their nervous system and their brain identifying a threat and like being over attuned to our energy and like trying to make sure that we're good, that we've got them. They are testing their safety. That's what testing boundary is. They're testing their safety. What is the limit then? I need to know the limit that I can go to the next time. Is that safe? And are you safe enough to hold those limits? Isn't that so powerful? It's one of the most profound. It's so powerful and that image is huge. I'm really I'm really glad. So the the book is in transit to me. I can't wait to read it and I can't wait then to get you back on the next year. It's out in January, is that right? End of January, yeah. Yeah, which is really no time at all. Wait, is it going on pre-sale before? Yes, it's actually out now but we haven't like loaded the cover and everything on all the places yet. But it's technically open now for pre-orders. Well, you will be able to find all Maggie's handles in the show notes that I will have here. And Maggie, as I said, has her online community camp lovable and its signature good girl. We have membership. The one thing I do want to finish on is just by asking you then as the burn-dead over-achieving people-pleasing professionalistic pushover and shapeshifting chameleon, you talking about this then when I think of it in terms of relational trauma and how your kids have highlighted then this internal relationship with yourself. How has this changed or in what ways are you willing to share that this has changed then in your other relationships? Or have you noticed that it has? I mean in every way. Relational trauma which is just such an invisible and insidious form of trauma in our field. Like I had a video series a couple years ago called Things I Thought Were My Personality that It Turned Out to Be Trauma Responses. And they're all relational trauma responses. But I had so many mental health clinicians be like, "Not everything's a trauma response." And I just wanted to be like, "Girl, just Google Relational trauma." Yeah, listen and make form a trauma here. Yes, not everything is trauma responses. But when you're somebody like me with a history like mine, these are trauma responses. And so I think we heal relational trauma in relationships. And so I feel like I am diagnosed with OCD. So my brain is just overthinking and constantly calculating. It's getting better though. I do feel like the more I heal, the more I heal my nervousness and a deep level. I feel like the volume goes down on the overthinking which has been lovely. But I feel like I live and breathe this work. Like I'm cycle breaking with my kids. I'm healing little mags. And I work with clients. And so it's just, it's like I'm constantly in this space. And you are to feel like we live in this space. And like all day every day is this. And so I feel like the universe, there've been some very just crushing and devastating friendship breakups and people that have fallen out of my life. And it's been brutal. But then I kind of get to a point where I'm like, "Oh, that wasn't a healthy relationship." Like that was the universe like taking care of me. And like one time my highest self said, "I was pruning the bush." Like, you know, that was some dead growth on there. Like that couldn't grow anymore. And so you deserve healthy, safe relationships where you don't have to pretend where you don't have to perform fine and perform calm. And like, I am making space for healthier relationships. And so I have seen like if I zoom out, there's a drastic shift towards healthier relationships. And really kind of an unwillingness to tolerate anything else in my inner circle. Oh, I love that. You're making, so for anyone because this, anybody listen to this, I can't see it. You're like making faces like, "Oh, like is this okay? Where is there? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not willing to tolerate it." Yeah. Yeah. Like if I, if I don't feel like I can say no to you, you're, I can't and I won't have you in my inner circle. If you're gonna be shitty and then not own that and repair, sorry, like we can be acquaintances, we can be co-workers, but like you do not, I deserve better than that. And it's wild. Yeah, this is the piece about if we're going to be honest with ourselves with our own internal experience, like even their inner parenting, are we going to be honest with ourselves about how we showed up? And then are we going to show up honestly in relationships? And you're right, there is going to be losses in that and there's going to be pain and grief, but with that there is also such hope for healthy relationships with our kids and also in the interactions that we're, that we're having. All of my closest friends right now are extremely healthy relationships. Yeah. I don't have to like think through how to word a text to not upset them. I don't have to like walk on eggshells. I don't have to stress if they've not texted me back. Like the way that it, it is like relational safety at a physiological level. Like the way my nervous system is just like, we can focus on ourselves. I don't have to be constantly monitoring and watching everybody else like a hawk anymore. Like they're good. And if we have an issue, the pattern shows me that they will come to me and we will have an emotionally mature conversation about it and we will repair and then we will all move on. Like the way that it just helps me move through life is like a more regulated person because I don't have to move into that hyper vigilance and the anxiety of it all. Yeah, man. And then we're modeling that for a kid. Yeah. We're modeling that they deserve that and we're modeling sometimes we have to walk away from relationships that are toxic and that are treating us like shit. Like you don't deserve that either. And I hope with you ever have a relationship that you will take a stand and advocate for yourself or for what you deserve. And if they're not able to do that, I hope you will walk away. Like I feel so proud of that. Maggie, what a what a good way to to end. I can't add to that because I believe so strongly in what you said. It has been absolutely great to catch up with you. I am going to put all Maggie's handles. Just share it there. Your handles on TikTok and Instagram for people. So it's Maggie with perspectives and perspectical things kind of on by but I wear these silly glasses that are turquoise and then camp lovable. Maggie, it's great. All this will be in the show notes. I can't wait to receive your book and all I will say then is until I see the next time when we're discussing it. Thank you, Katie. Thanks so much for having me. I love this. Thanks for being on and everybody. I will see you next Friday with series two where myself and Dr. Ruth Callahan will be answering your questions. See you then, bye.