What It’s Like to Survive a Toxic Parent & Childhood Trauma

[Music] hi there i'm kyle kiddleson with med circle and today i have the pleasure of interviewing known wells who is a writer podcaster and mental health advocate we're going to be doing a live class with him and if you'd like to attend that class please see the registration information below this video incredible piece you wrote the day i stopped eating i read it a few a few times would you um talk about what prompted you to write that piece yeah thank you for reading it and thank you for having me kyle um i wrote that piece uh i think because i needed a bit of it was it was during a you know intensely sort of healing process i was um really using the tool of writing to help kind of explore my own heart and my feelings and i think at that time you know looking back on that piece specifically there's certainly some anger in there that that has softened over time but it was you know like like many things it was a as a a tool for for healing for for exploring for figuring out you know just kind of what the what the heck is going on in my in my noggin and in my heart and uh yeah i i i'm so grateful that people uh you know are resonating with it it's uh it's happy to makes makes me happy good it's a it's a piece that spoke to me not as somebody who has struggled with mental health although certainly it resonates with many who do but it really resonated because your story is like so many others that have been told right here on med circle um you had difficult relationships with uh family members specifically your father you had some mental health disorders that you had to fight and one of them is anorexia and i don't think we talk about anorexia nervosa in men enough in fact we rarely talk about it at all um what are you comfortable sharing about your mental health history with our viewers yeah really any any of it i'm an open book i i think it's a essential to talk about these things you know like like a a podcast or like a video or like a piece of writing you know it's a it's a chance for exploration and and that can be a reflection for others to you know find that you know maybe in that story they feel a little less alone right they can connect they can relate that's that's the beauty of vulnerability and empathy right and uh in regards to sharing specifically about my experience with anorexia you know it was a crucial part of my childhood trauma and a crucial part of my identity right you know i i think it's essential to um you know especially as we start to kind of go through the process of healing to look back right to figure out like the path that led us here and figure out like okay what is what what am i about right and and that particular experience was very difficult and hard but uh it's you know sharing about it has given me um you know has created community for me and and and healing for others and and that's that's why i share that's why i do it for those who are unaware of your story and your relationship with your father can you talk about the upbringing you had in the relationship you had with him sure i you know i think important context to my upbringing is is my sensitivity i have always been a very sensitive feely guy still am and my family was very loud and opinionated and um aggressive in many ways and you know uh my father being kind of the most he was very immensely arrogant very violent in a lot of ways emotionally manipulative uh and for someone like me who's very sensitive it felt scary right and so my response to that growing up was to just kind of shut down uh emotionally that's a thing that i still struggle with you know i sort of interact with you know someone who's i don't know super masculine or or arrogant or something and i start to shut down i feel it in me that's that's a thing i'm trying to unlearn but yeah growing up i just kind of shut down and tried to observe and tried to just kind of stay quiet otherwise i'd get hurt that was like that was the response i had that was like how i connected that relationship and i think you know uh my father had a difficult time with that he he wanted to you know i was like the the the son or the the the kid he couldn't reach right and for someone who at the time was as arrogant as he was uh and i think you know i'm not a therapist but has some narcissistic tendencies to not be able to reach right me and and like you know conquer me uh you know was you know the thorn in his side i think in many ways um so yeah it's uh he was very difficult to be around and very um tyrannical in a lot of ways and and uh yeah i uh i think i've softened on him over time you know just just as a as a way to kind of create a boundary um in my own healing but it was certainly difficult has he read your piece i'm sure he has i'm not sure i'm sure he has i i don't have a relationship with him today you know i'll i'll see him maybe every couple of years at like a family event and it's it's it's always a little uncomfortable it's always uh difficult and it brings up a ton of anxiety in me and uh you know that's something i'm trying to to learn as well is like i shouldn't allow him to like rid me or rob me of my joy right and and allow that that to keep happening um but uh you know i i think i've you know i'm almost 40 i think i'm i'm at a point now where i have a good boundary in place and i i don't really see him i don't you know connect with him you know virtually or anything and that's that's good for me now that could change you know in time but i don't know he did so much damage that i'm not sure many people have reached out or found med circle because of a narcissistic mother and or father in their life many people don't know what narcissism is until they learn about it and then all of a sudden the pieces start connecting and they go oh my gosh this is what i've grown up with this is why i am the way i am and they make the difficult decision to cut off ties with their parent or parents for their own mental health and while they believe it's good and in many cases it is good dr romini on our channel has talked about the necessity to do that it's still difficult how do you at 40 years old grapple with the fact that you do not have a relationship with your father uh you know it's uh as i sort of come into my own and and do my own unlearning and self-acceptance uh it it's easier but you know i think i have a difficult relationship with my mother as well you know she you know i i had an episode about it on my podcast um sort of documenting an experience i had with her where you know she essentially uh invalidated like entirely what i do for a living she she feels like the work i do in advocacy and mental health is negativity is is wrong in some way and you know there's there's a mindset in her i feel like that i know she feels kind of like we just need to kind of put it aside and and and look elsewhere right and i i don't i don't know if that's correct i i think what has worked for me and i think you know i'd imagine many people in the the therapy field would agree is like you have to look at it you have to be curious you have to work through it in order to get past it right and sometimes you don't even get past it and and maybe it takes decades right um but to answer your question it's it's upsetting it it makes me like it makes me sad it's it's it's it is sad because i i you know just like i'm proud of how i've come to this point right like there was a time uh where i didn't think i'd live to 20 years old you know um and i'm i'm almost 40 and i'm just like hooray you know i just like i feel good about that like and i'm proud of the work i've done i'm i love my podcast i love that i can talk about these things and relate and and you know put more empathy and love into the world and you know certainly as as it is with my mom it's not you know it's it's it's not met with any sort of acceptance or love and that that feels hard but you know at the same time you you have to as a human get to a point where you're just like i'm proud of me and i'm working on that myself as someone who has like immense sort of deep-seated like you know unloved and feeling like i deserve pain and all these limiting beliefs that i'm sure many of the listeners and viewers can relate to but you just have to you have to find what's good for you what's safe for you what's loving for you and the people who are safe and loving and accepting of who you are um that's what matters and and sometimes those people aren't your family and that's hard but you know you matter enough to like find those safe and loving people you know i understand that for sure when you learned of your father's infidelity chronic their entire marriage he was seeing other women in different parts of the country different parts of the world if i remember correctly right do you remember the first feeling you had when you learned of that uh yeah it was it was oh yeah that makes sense it was like that kind of response wow wow um you know i and and uh you know but it felt you know it felt sad too you know i i strangely enough i went through a period of time you know following those experiences those initial you know reveals of his of his uh infidelity um in trying to kind of mediate my parents marriage like that was like the emotional work i set out to do you know i think it was flawed and you know i had no right in doing that but i was also you know pulled into it you know my mother would reach out to me you know she would cry on my shoulder my father would reach out to me and and scream about my mom and i was kind of like in the middle of it you know as a 17 18 year old kid right you know in that in and of itself is a form of abuse i i think but they were struggling immensely right you know they didn't have a great relationship and they stuck together for 30 years which is bonkers to me but i think you know um i think there is uh again i i keep coming back to the word softening i've softened on that a little bit because maintaining a relationship is difficult i think they were probably dealing with uh immense guilts and and their own pains that they weren't looking at right and that's what happens right like if we're not going to be looking at our stuff if we aren't going to be curious about you know our emotions and being willing enough to sit with our feelings like it's it's going to cause some havoc it's not going to be good you know so um yeah i kind of went off tangent there but uh tangents are very acceptable here so thank you you say the word softening what i hear is acceptance am i wrong i i i don't know if i'd use the word acceptance i think it's i think it's a it's not a forgiveness necessarily it's a recognition you know as i so as i'm sort of trying to heal myself and and looking at like the adverse childhood experiences studies the ace scores and all that stuff and my a score is a six you know and and that what you're not familiar with a scores so um the surgeon general of california dr nadine berk harris did a uh uh wrote this book called the deepest well it's it's wonderful but it's all about the ace studies and there was there was this i don't remember when maybe in the 90s or something there was this landmark study about adverse childhood experiences and connecting childhood trauma to depression to suicidality to uh alcoholism drug abuse um you know uh schizoaffective disorder all those things and and you know the the the more um ace the more adverse childhood experiences you have the higher chances of like heart failure and risk of death and all these things um it's it's mind-boggling this this study it's it's a wonderful but it's also you know it's very revealing right and so as i was doing that type of work i i uh i realized that you know and remembered that my father didn't have a very loving childhood you know his parents died when i was a baby he was in his early 30s i think and and from what i you know heard his parents weren't very loving um and and and so i i softened in that way i i don't it's not an excuse for his behavior but it's a it's an understanding that um our experiences as children do shape us and if we don't do the work of of trying to unpack that stuff it is gonna you know cause the havoc that i mentioned before so not necessarily an acceptance maybe it's maybe maybe that's a word for it but i i like the word softening um in your piece the day i stopped eating and as a reminder we'll link to that piece below this video you say from that point forward for the next few years i took on the role my therapist would call the mediator of my parents marriage as you just described i just called it the day i stopped eating it's easier off the tongue unpack that statement for us yeah you know so um there is for some a lot of control in eating disorders uh you know i felt in that moment like i couldn't like i wanted to make a difference in my parents lives i wanted i wanted them to heal right i wanted them to like find love and you know repair their marriage and all this stuff and i i think that was faulty thinking as i mentioned and uh but clearly i had zero impact or control over the matter it wasn't my place and feeling that out of control feeling that you know i was unanchored right and untethered i poured that into an eating disorder i was like okay there's nothing in my life that i can control i was dealing with depression and i didn't realize it and struggling immensely and i was like okay i'm gonna control the food that i put into my body and that's that's kind of i mean i'm looking back on that with 20 20 vision right you know it wasn't as clear as that in my mind at the time but that's that's what it is i was like i wanted to control something i felt out of control and so i started controlling the food i put in my body and that ultimately led to um you know me my heart almost stopping had you struggled with any eating disorders or food control in the past no no uh you know i do think about that at times i was an athlete i played soccer and i ran and my mother was and still is like you know she was a like in a row she was in aerobics you know she she worked for like uh richard simmons for goodness sake you know she she's been at it for a while and so like maybe that was like a in the back of my mind a piece of it but i i don't think so i i think it it was strictly just like here's a thing i can control um and it felt you know it's it's this is maybe triggering but you know that that's the thing it felt good it felt it felt like something i needed to kind of keep me going for a time it's interesting that in your piece you mentioned your father's need for control controlling the family uh you illustrate that on sundays you went to a very evangelical church you were supposed to wear collared shirts and if you didn't all things would you know go to hell in a handbasket he wanted to present his family in a certain way and you know the hypocrisy of him uh not having what appears to be healthy relationships with his family members and infidelity with his wife while trying to present the image of the perfect family is not lost do you think some of your need for control at that point came from what you saw from your father hmm that's interesting i hadn't thought about that uh maybe i mean i i don't know i it you know it's it's interesting because like i i mentioned before like growing up and feeling like i just wanted to hide right you know because of him and then as i got into like my early teenage years it was like i wanted to do everything to to spite him because that's an immense anger and um you know i started to get the sense that like i was you know trying to be one by him right trying to you know he was true he was working on me and i was like no i was a punk teenager and didn't want it right and so uh maybe inadvertently you know maybe unconsciously i sort of picked up on his sort of control but i don't know i don't think so i think i was like i was like i said to this day like i i stumble across a character in a story that has like some arrogance to them you know i'm just like i hate that person you know and that's like my own sort of hang-ups and i need to work on that myself but i don't know i don't think so um [Music] your ability to treat yourself and recover yourself is astounding to me if you look at the the rates of or the impacts and the consequences of eating disorders they're i mean just the highest suicide rates i think i could be misspeaking here of any mental health disorder um how are you able to recover yeah um i think you're right i think the death rate for eating disorders is very high um i you know it's uh it's a good question i i don't really know um ultimately i think i think what it comes down to ultimately is i i wanted to i wanted to live and i wanted to live because for 20 plus years i wasn't really who i was i was a kid who had immense anger i was a kid who put this impenetrable guard around my heart that didn't let anyone in you know not even my own self right and that that got you know i not even like people who wanted to like be in intimate relationships with me like just didn't happen because i was so guarded um and so guarded that like i was struggling with major depressive disorder and i didn't even know it and so i think i had a moment of realization when i was slowly dying in my anorexia where i was just like i haven't been myself before i wanna i wanna know who that person is i wanna like figure out who that person is and it's it's taken me a long time and i think it will continue to take me time you know i think that's the journey of life is like the self-knowing journey self-acceptance journey but i just yeah i just didn't i didn't want to continue living a life where i wasn't showing up as i was as as who i am i feel like we all are guilty of that um at some point and many of us are guilty of that our entire lives when when you said i had a guard around my heart to not let anybody else in including myself i got that i so freaking got that and that that is a scary place to be when you're not letting yourself in and uh you know as i've been very open with my depression and diagnosed at age nine on med circle it's it's it's the worst it's i mean it's just the worst possible feeling that i think anybody could have your story that's what makes your story so unique uh but also so relatable because i think we're all going through a journey that is somewhat similar um to what you just described the i want to go back when you mentioned the heart guard in your piece why do you think that developed yeah i mean it was just uh fear of getting hurt fear of you know just being hurt emotionally being hurt physically by my father and being in an environment where i didn't i felt like i was alone i felt like i didn't fit in um i still feel like i don't fit into my family and you know it's the black sheep thing right but it's like black sheep on steroids it seems because it's it's you know it just felt like i was always in my mind left out emotionally um and you know that that could be you know my own doing my own sensitivities but i was just so sensitive that like i i couldn't bear getting hurt anymore than i already was and it's a natural response you said it yourself like we can also relate to that it's natural response to want to shut down emotionally because it's it's the the the alternative to that is to feel our feelings right however we need safety and we need love around us to be able to really truly do that and when you're a kid and you don't feel safe and you feel alone the natural response is to shut down at least one of them you know you need safety you need love um and it's it's why i created you me empathy it's why i created my podcast is like i want to give people the safe spaces that i didn't feel like i had growing up you know it's there is so much in this world you know including our familial units that doesn't make us feel safe that makes us feel i mean think about all the societal artifices and cultural bullcrap and media and and stories that are told in movies and stuff all these things are in many ways designed to make us feel like we need to fit in certain areas we need to like align with certain ideas about who we should be as humans but ultimately we need to we need to come to that conclusion we need to determine that like that's our journey yeah and you know it needs to start with us like it needs to start with us like we're not gonna be accepting we're not people aren't gonna accept us and we're not going to like have that loving relationship if we're not going to start and be able to give that to ourselves right right it has to start with us and i think even today it's probably harder than it was for uh you know older people i mean these kids today are believe that social media is their key to their happiness and uh they have to discover and find what their happiness actually is uh it's it's actually very scary to me i i worry about what we'll see in 20 years with generations now believing that happiness and self-discovery comes from how many tick tock views you get or who's following who on social media um we're going to go into much more detail and have a much more in-depth conversation during the med circle live class we'll talk about uh your anorexia and depression and specifically how you got the right diagnosis treatment and your sustained wellness i'm excited to hear that you're married very exciting and i do want to ask though how romantic relationships for you were affected or what obstacles you might have faced considering um you know your childhood upbringing i think there's another a number of layers in that one one is the aforementioned which is you know the shutting down of my heart and you know there were moments before i met my partner and we've been married for over 10 years and together for 13. before i met jessica i was it was like um i felt like i kept breaking hearts like not that like all these people wanted to be with me but like you know i was a nice guy i was kind i was warm but i didn't know who i was and so people kind of like wanted to be with me at times and this happened a few times and i it got to a point where like they wanted something more and i was just like i don't know what that is or how to do that um so there was there was a good deal of that and and then in addition to that you know being raised in an environment of evangelical christianity that was very was weirdly strict at times but also like my parents were gone a lot and my my sister like watched us and you know i you know drank alcohol very early and and did drugs and you know like stuff like that um but the christianity piece of it like and the the specifically the sexuality like relation you know piece of like evangelical christianity and like its positions on masturbation and things like that i had an experience like when i was about 10 that i you know i'm still trying to unpack um and but i guess what i'll say without giving that whole story away is you know my own sexuality is like i'm still trying to like allow myself that there was many years where it was like this repressed thing like shame and guilt you know all of that stuff and even like i'm in a a relationship i'm married i'm a married human being and it still pops up and it's it's not good it makes me sad but you know i also have to understand that that unlearning takes time and i need to be kind and patient with myself in that process but i think you know like all of this stuff we just have to be curious about it we have to look at it uh we have to be willing to get a little uncomfortable you know and that's part of it um so yeah this is a unique question but i i feel like you're the perfect guy to answer it do you love yourself and how do you know if you do or don't oh boy uh i try to love myself and what does that look like it's part of it is battling those limiting beliefs that i've held on to since i was a kid you know such as i don't deserve love such as i deserve to be in pain such as i don't deserve joy you know i had an experience recently where i was i mean this was maybe six months ago it's a perfect example of my of this unlearning i need to do i was playing a game of settlers of catan with some friends and i was playing and it was going well and then i started to feel like my wife and my friends were witnessing me have having this joyful experience and i started to feel myself shut down because deep down in my brain i don't feel like i deserve joy and it's just so when you say you know do you love yourself i i think i try and it's why i'm trying emdr right now is trying to unlearn some of that stuff and develop tools to counteract those deep-seated beliefs um because i you know i know the power of loving yourself like i i do because they're in mo there are moments where i do but it's ebbs and flows there are days where it's harder and my depression is bad and you know i still have suicidal thoughts pop up and you know i still have that pop up right and yesterday i did this i led a session at podcast movement and i felt very proud of myself i felt very good about that and in those moments i can feel very good but then sometimes the next day i'm just like does anyone care about my podcast no one's listening you know it's just like it's it's it's ebbs and flows but the goal is to not be perfect um the goal is to just push myself a little bit in the self-love uh direction right and that that just takes time it takes work you know um i think that we're fallible right we we come with a lot of baggage and lived experience and i think being mindful of all that stuff being patient and kind is is important absolutely people really judge their progress in therapy and treatment and self-discovery and improvement and i tell people you're judging progress progress mean it's got progress i don't even care if it's this much this week if you've only made this much progress this week that's a celebration to me not a a time for judgment but it it's hard we we have these limiting beliefs we have these cognitive distortions they are embedded in us uh most of them since childhood they're reinforced uh probably incorrectly through uh you know judgments and experiences with other people and so it is a process but if you can progress man what a beautiful thing to see and then if you cannot judge that progress that in turn is even a little bit more progress because now you're making progress without judgment um like i mentioned in our med circle live class you can register below to attend uh we'll be going into more uh details uh with mr wells uh really great insight today like you mentioned you're a writer and a podcaster where can people learn more about what you do in your services yeah thank you the main place is my website it's feelyhuman.co that's the feely human collective it's like my new collaborative mental health community my podcast umi empathy can be listened to anywhere um i'm mostly on social media active on instagram at youmyempathy and uh human awesome well we'll have more with you very soon i appreciate you being here and thank you for watching or listening make sure you subscribe to our youtube channel where we post new videos all in mental health and wellness each week and go to medcircle.com to learn more about how med circle can help you on your mental health journey i'm kyle kittleson remember whatever you're going through you got this you

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 144,589

Keywords: trauma, childhood trauma, healing trauma, ptsd, abuse, healing, depression, emotional abuse, emotions, relationships, childhood, recovery, narcissistic parents, narcissistic mother, narcissism, narcissistic abuse, narcissist, narcissistic, narcissistic father, personality disorder, narcissistic abuse recovery, father, mother, toxic parents, dr ramani, anger, parents, codependency, narcissistic mothers, narcissists, covert narcissist, child of, parent, mental health, medcircle, video, tedxtalks

Id: 6oZla4_eFt8

Length: 36min 41sec (2201 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020