Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss the intersection between theology and psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their particular stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
Here Be Dragons - An Interview with Author, Melanie Shankle Pt. 1
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Some family pain doesn’t look dramatic from the outside, which is exactly why it can trap you for decades. Emily sits down with three-time New York Times bestselling author Melanie Shankle to talk about her book "Here Be Dragons."
We talk about how helping a daughter navigate mean girls uncovered a deeper story of generational trauma, people pleasing, and the old parental scripts that still play in your head. Melanie shares what it took to overcome gaslighting messages like “you’re being dramatic” and why writing her story forced her to move from a detached retelling into emotional honesty. Along the way, we explore how God’s steadfast love can meet us in the places we most want to avoid.
We also get practical about healing and boundaries within Christian community. What do you do when church culture misunderstands your boundaries and pressures you to minimize your needs. Melanie speaks to the real issues that arise when outsiders only know the charming version of a parent. Melanie offers thoughtful guidance on discernment, prayer, and trusting your instincts.
If you care about being a more empathetic friend to people like Melanie, have difficult family systems yourself, want to understand emotional abuse, and desire to hold the nuance of what honoring a parent can truly mean, this conversation will give you language and clarity! Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.
Resources: Melanie Shankle's book: Here Be Dragons, Anne Lamott's book: Bird by Bird... and more to come in the second part of the interview next episode!
Welcome To Story Matters
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Emily Baker.
SPEAKER_00We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
SPEAKER_02We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
Meet Melanie Schenkel And Her Book
SPEAKER_00We're glad you're here. Today we have a special guest with us on the podcast. Melanie Schenkel is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. And she sat down with Emily to discuss her latest book, Here Be Dragons. I love this title because Here Be Dragons was a warning often written on medieval maps, saying, Do not go into this area. They're fraught with danger. And yet, as folklore has it, often the places where dragons dwelled was attractive and alluring.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and with humor and honesty, Melanie shares her journey of helping her daughter navigate mean girls in high school, and soon realized it overlapped with her personal journey of breaking generational cycles, specifically with her mom, who she realized was her first mean girl. Throughout her story in this book, God's steadfast love was a theme for healing. She beautifully illustrated how pain can be transformed into strength for both mother and daughter.
SPEAKER_00And now while this interview is with Melanie being interviewed by Emily, men, I just want to say this book is not just for mothers and daughters, but it's for all of us as well. Trust me, this affects all of us. We're all born to a mother. And we have wives and daughters and sons, and so this really is a book ultimately about the heart of a dysfunctional relationship being exposed through the author's just beautiful insight. So I would encourage men to pay attention and listen as well. Also in her book, her husband Perry is so important in her journey. And just hearing how he shows up to care for her and shows up with strength in the story is itself a reason for men to read this book.
Why The Book Connects So Deeply
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and fair warning, I'm not a professional interviewer. I just pushed record and started talking with Melanie. It was so fun to talk to her. I do think you're gonna love our conversation. So let's jump in. I think your book is such a tool. I mean, I am literally recommending it to I would say maybe 15 to 20 people in the last week. I find myself not thinking, I'm gonna go recommend this, but I'll be in a conversation. I'm like, by the way, wow.
SPEAKER_01Listen, as an author, there is no greater gift than when somebody recommends your book to somebody else. It's the word of mouth. And I think to see somebody who sees clients on the daily and it's like, here's the value in this story is so validating. Because I think any author, like as I wrote the book, I was like, does anybody even care about this? Is this like a sob story? You know what I mean? Like you just second guess yourself so much.
SPEAKER_02You don't realize you've just given a gift to the world. Well, like we needed to hear your story the way you did it, with humor woven in with your daughter's story, with redemption, with scripture. It's a gift.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. That really means so much to me. When I look back, I mean, this was the I think sixth book I'd written, but it feels like the book that I God always meant for me to write. Like I knew there was going to come a time and I didn't know how it was all going to come together. But you know, there are just certain things that you look at in your life and go, it was so perfectly orchestrated that it could only be God.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Yeah. Well, I and I didn't know you. I'm sorry. But now as I'm realizing what you've given the world, it seems like the Lord gave you that path. You were gaining credibility and people were drawn to you so that they can hear this harder story. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's like if this was your first book, it may not have landed because well, people don't know you. But obviously, you're like everyone thinks they know you from your books, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01Like, I love Melanie. I'm like, well, I do too. How do you know her? That's funny. Because when I started writing my blog back in 2006, back in the olden days, it really was just a community of like friends and women. And even my podcast that I do with my friend Sophie is just like two girlfriends talking. And so I hope that people have built trust over the years. And I think it was so interesting to me because it was something I had never talked about. How many people are like, I had no idea this was your story because I couldn't tell it for so long. Yeah. I mean, it was just, I mean, as long as my mom was living, it wasn't a story I felt like. And so it every now and then at a speaking event or something, I would feel like God was saying, you need to share this part. And so I would, but those were in very small, closed circles because I just didn't feel like it was something I could talk about publicly at that time.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Mapping The Past To Heal
SPEAKER_02So let me just say, I listened to your book because I have a 15-year-old daughter, and so I get the privilege of driving her everywhere right now. So to listen to you felt like you were in my passenger seat when she wasn't there. And I loved it. Thanks. And the very first thing you said was that hilarious Anne Lamont quote. That's that's I'm like, well, I'm already in. I love Anne Lamont. Of course, I say I. My husband reads and then he verbally processes to me. So I think I read and I recommend books I've never even touched. It all works in Lamont. But when I did get your hard copy, because I'm like, I have to have this, I have to have the book to actually underline and relook at the very first sentence in your physical book and the inner cover, navigating the past to heal what lies ahead. Yeah. Well, the first sentence of our website for our counseling practice is we help you imagine where you want to go by understanding where you've been. Oh. So you can see why by chapter six, I'm like, I need to talk to Melanie. Your book is the living, breathing story of what we're trying to help people do. So I would love to hear how did you come up with that sentence?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think because the whole thing, the title Here Be Dragons, was all about how ancient sailors would set off in search of a new land and they didn't know what dangers lay ahead. And so that was the Here Be Dragons. They would mark the maps. And so to me, it was a journey. I think we'd actually that sentence was going to be the subtitle originally, but publishers like a more specific subtitle to tell people this is what it's going to be. But I just thought that to me, I thought the only way you can chart your course to the future that you want is I think you have to deal with your past stuff. And I don't think you even realize that until maybe you're in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, until later stages of life where you're like, oh, there are still places that I can't fully heal or can't fully be who God created me to be unless I deal with some of these patterns and voices that repeat in my head and things that continue to hold me back. So I think it's a lifelong journey of navigating by looking back and go, why did I respond this way? Why do I act this way? Why is this my insecurity? Because we all have our little triggers.
SPEAKER_02Right. And I love that because we get a lot of pushback in Christian circles. We don't look back. Let's not look back. Let's let's press on as if that's, you know, so taken out of context. Yeah. But your book proves so well that you looking back, that has given you the healing that you have experienced. I would love to know about I actually listened to your interview with Dr. Allison.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. She's so she was so good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And you you said that you kind of thought, oh, this is a story that's kind of done. I mean, the chapter's closed, the bow's tied on it, I'm healed, and you began to write your book and then realized, oh, I think I need more counseling or work or something. Would you be willing to share? I would love to know how did you get to the place of being able to name what you named in your book? And then, so like, did you have counseling? Was it just your husband? How did you process your stories?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then how was it like for you while you wrote it?
SPEAKER_01So I had never been to therapy in my adult life. I think we came of an age when people just didn't really go to therapy. So I had just always thought it's fine. And so so much of this I navigated with my husband, us talking through it, with friends who had grown up in similar situations or had similar things through the work that the Lord did in my life with healing and redemption and helping me see my value in him and what he created me to be. So there was that. So I had that framework that I think allowed me to function pretty healthfully for most of my adult life. But I think when I started to write this book, um, my friend Sophie, who's my podcast partner, she's like my number one editor. So she sees everything I write first. And when I sent her the first couple of chapters of this book, she was like, hey, this writing is beautiful, but it feels like you're telling a story about World War II. Like it's like, here are some bad things that happened. She said, but you need to, like, how did it make you feel? Like the readers are gonna want to know what was going on in you internally. And I was like, oh, you know, I kind of put my head between my knees because I was like, oh, this is gonna, this is gonna hurt a little. And so I think when I started to do that, it made me so aware of the places where I still sometimes operated out of my insecurities, out of my woundedness, out of my people-pleasing tendencies about how even, you know, 50 years old, that I was sometimes scared to state an opinion or to advocate for myself because I wanted to make everybody happy and keep everything down because that had been my childhood pattern. And so I think there was like this perfect storm of at the time my 20-year-old daughter was going through a really hard season again after a breakup. I was hitting menopause and I was writing this book. And so I think sometimes God allows these storms in your life where everything comes to the surface. And what I really learned about myself is I didn't think I had control issues, but it turns out I didn't have control issues as long as everything looked the way I wanted it to look.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So I get that, you know, and so it was like, oh, I do, I'm having a real hard time surrendering to what God is wanting to do here as opposed to what I'm wanting it to look like.
SPEAKER_02So you wanted the book to just be almost that 10,000-foot history story. Like this is what happened. And your friend invited you into the weeds of can you please drop us into your emotions as you experience this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that was kind of new for you to have to.
SPEAKER_01It was new because I think I'm a person, it was funny because I even had a therapy session a couple of weeks ago, and she was like, It's fascinating to me that you're still such an optimist and glass half full person in light of your childhood. But I think it's because I just tend to, I'm like, I don't want to think about that. I don't want to dig too deep in that. I don't want to feel the pain that that's gonna cause. Because I think it's like I said, like in the book, you know, we can fix anything on the surface, but to get down to the deep root of something, you have to dig some stuff up and that's painful. And I did not really want to do that. But when I started doing that with the book, I thought, oh, I'm still carrying a lot of hurt. There was forgiveness there, and I wasn't bitter. It was just kind of my own personal feeling of just maybe not loved or not good enough, or wrestling with because I think even as I wrote the book, I would hear my mom's voice that was like, Am I being overly dramatic? You know, like is this me making something out of nothing? Because that was the thing she gaslit me with my whole life, was like, Well, you're just being so dramatic. And so all of that was still in there. So, you know, I just I think don't ever underestimate your need to go talk to a third party person who can help you process through stuff.
SPEAKER_02Well, that accusation of you're making a bigger deal of this than it really is. I cannot tell you how often that shows up. Yeah. It's it's either quit your sniveling, that's that's nothing, or it's you're too much.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02So crazy how in even one person's story, they can feel both of those accusations that are conflicting. I'm either too much and this is too big of a story, or this isn't even a story at all. Yeah. But that that accusation that is often in one of the parents' voices, right? Like we hear it, yeah, really does keep us from engaging our stories and telling them with honesty.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really does. Because I think you hear that voice and you're like, well, this is just me making a big deal out of nothing. And when I wrote the book, that was my fear because you you dream of what your Amazon reviews are gonna be. And and I never look at my Amazon reviews, but I thought our people are gonna be like, I don't know what she's crying about. Because I'm like, I recognize even in the difficulty of my story, there's always the awareness of other people have lived much harder stories. Everybody has their own thing, but you have to realize that like whatever your experience it doesn't invalidate what you went through, that there are always gonna be people with different stories, harder stories, but you still have a story and you still have your own struggles, you know.
Telling Trauma Stories With Safe Listeners
SPEAKER_02Well, and that's why our practice is called story matters because every story does matter, and comparison just kills off any kind of compassion or healing. Because there's always going to be a worse story. Yeah, for sure. There just is. And even the worst of the worst that you think surely this person realizes, you know, this is a Job story, they still will do that. Like, well, I mean, I'm fine. Yeah, you know. So, okay, this is what I'm super curious about. We have been trained in a counseling modality called NFTC. NFTC stands for narrative focused trauma care. So we tell stories of our life in order to engage the trauma, which we often didn't see as trauma. They were just water to a fish.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But we believe that telling, not only writing the stories is therapeutic, but telling our stories in the presence of kind, curious, empathetic listeners is just really powerful. Yeah. In that we get the validation, we get feedback, yes, that is true, or I'm hearing this, but we've told ourselves our whole lives it's something else. So I'm really curious how it's been for you to tell story after story after story. Yes, it's one big story. Yeah. You tell decades of stories that we would engage. I mean, I would engage the story of you in the storm yelling for your mom.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I would spend a whole hour on just feeling that with you and talking through what were the vows and agreements you made in that story, like I'm not safe and I'm not calling, you know, whatever. But you have put your story out there for readers that are not going to reflect back to you necessarily that I mean, it's validating to hear people like me say, Oh, your book is a gift. But by and large, you're letting people read your story that may not be kind and curious. They may be critical. What has it been like for you to put your story out there, not knowing what the response is? Because it's so vulnerable and personal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It felt like I think the week, I remember, I think it was the week before the book came out, which was February of 2025. And the week before, I started having the worst anxiety. I just was like, what have I done? You know, it was just this feeling of like, what have I done? And I can remember one night where I just was in the shower and I started to cry. And my husband, you know, God bless it, he was like, What do you need? What can we do? Do you want to go out for dinner? What's gonna and I was like, I don't know. Like, I just wanted to hide. But I will say that I have been so pleasantly surprised because by and large, I mean, I really don't, if anybody's had a negative response to it, I haven't heard it. I have been so overwhelmed with the number of people who have messaged me to say, you put words to something I didn't know how to put words to. You told a story that I lived and I thought I was the only one. You made me understand that the way my mom treated me was wrong. And sometimes even a different family member where it's like, I've had the same thing, but it was my dad or it's my sister or whatever. I just think all of us are dealing with these things and these difficult relationships. And I think especially, and that's why I wanted to write the book, because I was like, especially in the context of the church, I think that some of these conversations can be so difficult or we feel like we have to keep it to ourselves. Because that was always my internal struggle, is how do I say that I am a Christian who is walking in the ways of Christ to the best of my ability, but yet I also don't speak to my mother? Like that just, you know, because I think you're raising everything is honor your father and mother, and it will go well with you. I mean, it's the commandment with the promise. And so how do you reconcile those two things? So it's really been validating for me to see, oh, it's been worth it because it feels like it's given so many people safety to tell their own story.
SPEAKER_02Good. I mean, I hope that plays a huge role even in your continual healing. Yeah. Because you did an amazing job weaving God's truth, God's promises, a redemptive story throughout your painful, real, truthful experiences. And we've been covering a lot of topics on our podcast, but we've really hesitated and want to do it right to do the honor your mother and father topic because it's such a tool that we believe Satan uses just like he used scripture in the garden with Jesus to tempt that it feels weaponized. Yeah. Like you said, it feels like how can you say I'm a follower of Christ and I don't speak to my mother. And I think your book is such a gentle invitation to just your story, and you do a great job not being prescriptive, not saying this is how it should be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I really have appreciated that about you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
Writing Process And Emotional Cost
SPEAKER_02But yet you illustrate this was my story. And it's hard to argue with someone else's story, right? I mean, that's the beauty in like you're not preaching this. No. Now I think you're I do think your chapter 13 can preach. And I told you that in the email. That may be like a new genre of book for you. Because I just wow, to me, I'm like chapter 13. And so for those of you that have listened, you know, you'll know. But let me go back to kind of your writing process. Ryan loves reading, writing, all of that. And so when he first heard me enjoying your book, he was like, Well, I want to know all about her process. Okay. How did she compile all these stories? Just tell us from the technical side, but also emotional side, what was your process like in writing this book?
SPEAKER_01You know, I wish you would like to know that I have a more organized process than I do, but I don't. I'm a creative. And so it's funny because I've talked to so many different writer friends who it's like, oh, I line it all up and I do post-it notes with themes and where I'm gonna go and all of this stuff. It's funny because just the other day I had opened up my book proposal for this book. And when I initially proposed it to the publisher, it was not going to have this piece of generational trauma. The original book was just gonna be about Caroline's experience in high school and dealing with mean girls and becoming an empty nester. So the outline doesn't even look like what this book ended up being, which is so funny. But I really, my process is I tend to write better early in the day. My writing style has always been like I'm talking to a friend. So I just tell the story the way that I would tell a friend. Like, here is what happened. I've I've always been a storyteller. And usually what I say is it is kind of like Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird, where you know, you have to sit down and you have to write really bad first drafts. And then what I usually do is I write, and then I'll get like maybe a thousand words out in a good day, 1,500 words, 2,000 words on a good day. Your average book to give you like a framework is 50 to 60,000 words, is what a book is gonna ultimately be. In my head, I break that down to I'm gonna have about 12 chapters that are 5,000 words each. And sometimes that works, some are shorter, some are longer, but it kind of gives me a framework. And so I'll write. And then what I usually do is once I write something, I will let it be for a week. Because if I read it right after, I'm like, I hate all of it. It's all terrible. This is all bad. But if I go back to it a week later, I'm like, oh, it's not as bad as I thought. I can pull this out, I can pull this out. This looks, this is a good framework, this is a good story, and then I polish it. So I tend to be able to write in about two to three hour stretches at the most. After that, I feel like my brain is mush. I always say when I'm writing a book, I'm socially awkward. You don't want to run into me at the grocery store. I feel like my husband dreads it because by the time I get to dinner at night, I'm like, I'm all talked out. I don't have anything else to say. So it's cute.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_01It's not my favorite, but I'm not a super organized writer. I mean, I just kind of write stories. And a lot of times what happens is I write, like in that one, I really tried to do it chronologically, but I would remember a story and I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna write out this story about the night of the storm or about my wedding. So I kind of have a list in my head of here are the stories I'm gonna want to tell. But I think one of the gifts God has given me is I have a really good recall and memory. So I remember stuff. And then I have a best friend who's been my best friend since college, and she has an even better memory than I do. So especially from like 19 on, I'll be like, hey, what happened? And she's like, Oh no, this is what happened. She remembers everything. So that's a gift.
Sibling Roles In Dysfunctional Families
SPEAKER_02That is great. Yeah, I wondered if you had to look back at journals. That's amazing that you have a good memory. Yeah. Because that's that's a lot of people's struggle, is they've thankfully their brain, in many ways, we can say thankfully, yeah. We can bless dissociation, that they have blocked out so much of the pain, but then it's hard for them to reaccess or to access those memories. Oh, I love hearing about that. And of course, I wouldn't have imagined you to be the organized post-it note. I mean, because the way you write, I like I said, when I was listening to your book, I really felt like when I would push play, you're like, okay, where was I? Okay, so then yeah. So I can't imagine writing a book. I've written my life stories, and I I think when I finally realized I had a story, I was doing all my work in group. Yeah. And so my problem was I showed up and I said, I don't think this is a story. It's about my family, but it's not about me. Well, then the group helped me realize this is your story. Yeah. I did come home and I pounded away at the computer. My whole family was like, What are you doing? I'm like, I've got stories to tell. Yes, I have a story, you know, and so it is liberating. It is very exciting to be like, oh, yes, and my stories matter. I'm not gonna compare them to the cancer patient, I'm not gonna compare them to the divorced family. So, okay, I want to read you this. I get a text every three or four days because I've been recommending your book so much. I love this. This person says, Oh MG, I just finished listening to this book and it was incredible, full range of emotion, from laughter to tears. I love the author and cannot believe how similar our stories are. Thanks for the recommendation. She said the whole book was just so validating. I would find Myself saying things like, Oh girl, just wait. And it would be right when her mom would do something awful. She had that similar pattern of the push-pull, oh, we are good. Mom does love me. There's goodness, there's an offer just to pull your heart out and stomp on it. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to ask you a question, and this is based off one thing you mentioned with Dr. Allison. Something that's very familiar in the stories we engage with our clients that a borderline mother or a dysfunctional mother of any kind will sometimes have the tendency of doing the labeling of different children. Yeah. All bad, all good. You know, you were the smart one, you're the funny one. And those children are kind of locked into those roles and then they're pitted against each other. And you mentioned that. Because you didn't really bring up your sister a lot in the book. But um I think, and I don't want you to have to like speak for your sister, but I'm so curious. We have found that the harder stories to engage are the ones where the children were favored or they were the all good because there's a there's a difference, they're not ridiculed, and that's something you can kind of catch on cam on camera, so to speak, and people be like, Oh, your mom's awful, of course. Yeah. But when you're the favored one, it's more of a consuming, like, I have to have you, you have to manage my emotions. And that child feels forever obligated.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you want to speak to anything? I mean, what would you want to say about the difference between you and your sister and how you've engaged your story with your mom? Like, how has that been?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think uh my sister's Amy, she's four years younger than me. And so I think there were a lot of factors. I think number one, my personality tends to be more like my dad, and my sister tends to be more like my mom in a in a healthy way, not with the mental illness of my mom, but just personality-wise, they probably responded to things more similarly. And so I think there was already a built-in resentment from my mom towards me because I was like my dad and my parents were divorced. So you think they clearly there was a thing there with them. And I think my dad is such a I say that I get my deep optimism from him. I mean, he's a very happy-go-lucky life is gonna work out, it's all gonna be fined kind of guy. My mom always resented that. And she even said one time, she was like, Melanie just thinks everything works out for her. Like she just, everything works out for her. And I thought, well, first of all, what mom resents that everything works, isn't that what we want for our kids? Um, right. You know, like that's the normal response. But I think with my sister and me, because my sister was always babied, and so she was the baby. She and my mom responded to things the same. My mom was able to baby her. I feel like I always carried this kind of knowing about my mom that made me try to get away from her or kept me at a distance. And I never allowed her to get super close because I didn't trust her. And I think Amy had a different experience. So our that was always very divided. For I feel like for a lot of times, all of my mom's vitriol and resentment and anger came out on me, and Amy didn't experience it. Now, I will say that once I stepped away, I mean, we were adults at this point, but once I stepped away, Amy did get to experience. I mean, she still had to deal with a lot of the erratic behavior and my mom showing up at her house in the middle of the night after she had gotten married, you know, and all of that stuff. Um, because my mom did get progressively worse as she got older. But I also think that once I was out of the picture, a lot of that anger that my mom had, she had nowhere else to, so Amy did experience more of it at that point. Um, so the gift is I think what can be so hard in families is sometimes you have siblings who, like the other sibling, doesn't understand at all why you've made that decision. Whereas I do think Amy understood and had seen enough where she didn't necessarily like it, but she understood it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02It does. And I thought that was a sweet gift. Just uh a little bit of a silver lining to your story that your sibling, although your mom did try to pit you against each other, your sister had the integrity to see and to and to stay connected to you. I thought that was a kindness of God because so many people do lose their entire family if they do any boundary setting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it was, I mean, and let me say, it has taken us both some time and some grace, and it's definitely been easier on the other side of my mom being gone. Um, because I think especially in those last years when my mom was ill, it was really hard for Amy. And I think she was mad and and had some resentment. But also there was still that thing of, but I walked away a long time ago. I didn't walk away just because she was sick, and I can't just get back in this now because she's sick. And what I kept saying is, I will help in any way. I'll help financially, I'll help with resources. I don't want to engage with her. Um, so it's taken us some time. So if you find yourself in that position, just know it's a struggle, and I think you have to fight for that relationship for sure.
No Contact Backlash And Church Pressure
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so the sibling dynamic is a big one for the people I work with of how to navigate wanting to stay connected to siblings while wanting to disconnect with a toxic parent. Yeah. Um, and actually, the client of mine that recommended your book to me, I texted her right away when you said yes to an interview, and I said, Oh, this is all happening because you I said, Do you want to ask her any questions? And so she did. She wanted to ask you kind of about this. She said, There's been a lot of pushback in the media lately about adult children who have gone no contact with their parents. Often these parents can be very charming and public and let me just add, Bible studies and Sunday school classes. Uh, and only their immediate family, or even one child, knows how abusive their behavior is at home. What advice would you give to adult children who have cut off their parents for reasons that aren't obvious to people in the community, but who are now receiving messages that they need to forgive their parent and reestablish a relationship with them? Because you spoke to this. Yeah. That the church the church women wrote you letters. Yeah. Your grandma said, Stop the nonsense. Yeah. So, you know, there's that deception layer of harm that when when a woman is beloved, maybe she's not divorced and maybe she's not on pills. Maybe there's a lot more of that. Um, she looks really good to everyone else. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts or advice to someone like that?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think it's such a hard that that to me is so difficult. And I've heard from people that have said that where it's like their mothers are so. And that's how my mom was, like for so long. Now, towards the end, she was not able to hide it as well, but she was charming. My sister and I laugh now because there was even a time that she was checked into the mental ward of the hospital. And, you know, she reported to my sister that everybody here loves me. Like they just think I'm so great. I've really become a mentor to these other women. And we were like, that's so on brand. You know, like it just it's so like she was the homecoming queen of the mental ward at the hospital. You know. Oh my gosh. And so I get that. Like I think that's so hard. And I've heard from so many women who have said this low-key was my mom, but nobody knew. And number one, I think that you have to realize that there are some people that are never going to understand that their experience with your parent is never going to be what your experience is because they do know how to put on that different face to the world. And I think that's what especially narcissists are so good at doing is you keep everybody at a distance and you just can be so sweet and so great, but you don't know the ways that they are emotionally sabotaging their own family. I think it can be emotional immaturity. I think it can be mental illness. I think it can be a lot of things that make them do that. And then I think you have to trust yourself. I mean, there comes a time where you just have to know this is what I know my experience is, and I'm not going to let somebody else invalidate my experience. Because for me, you know, I would get those letters from these women at the church, but I was like, well, first of all, you've never met me. And all you've seen is this version of my mom at church. And any of us can put on a mask for an amount of time to look like something that we want to appear to be. So I just think you have to trust your own instincts. And for me, I think that was so important why I did it so prayerfully and intentionally, because I I needed to know that I was walking in God's will, that I wasn't doing something that I shouldn't have been doing. And so I think that's why I'm like, you can't just cut off. And I think part of the reason there's such a um reaction now to people cutting off their parents is because I think people do it too quickly. I think they do it because it's like we don't have the same political beliefs, or you offend me by the things you say at the dinner table about politics. And I'm like, it, I just I don't think those are reasons to cut off relationships. I think family and dynamics are always gonna come with you're always gonna have the toxic uncle who says stupid stuff at Thanksgiving. You just are. I mean, I think some of that stuff you just have to roll with it and go, that doesn't affect me. I'm gonna live my life. But I think when you have repeated patterns of abuse and the way somebody makes you feel and the way they continually talk down to you, you have to believe that experience and know that there's a reason that you respond the way you do. And some people will understand it and some people won't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I love the way you describe all that. So I think that will really land with our listeners and just it's so validating to hear you talk about it. And like those church ladies, you could say, You call her friend, I call her mom. Yeah. Those are two very different roles. And I bet she's a really good friend, but you've never experienced her as a mother. That's it. I don't tell you how to be her friend, you don't tell me you had to be her daughter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I don't think you have to respond, you know. I mean, I think the thing is, is like for me, I was like, you don't understand, and this has been my experience, and too bad. I don't think you have to give people an explanation unless you want to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, Kurt Thompson, I'm not sure. Are you familiar with Dr. Kurt Thompson? I don't think so. Dr. Kurt Thompson has written a lot around shame and family dynamics. He has a podcast, he did a whole series on rupture and repair, and he coined the phrase repair resistant systems. And so many of our families we've grown up in, there's no repair process. So uh a snarky comment can't even be addressed because mom doesn't say she's sorry or dad doesn't go there. Yeah, you know, but I think that's when we have to still decide what's the degree of abuse. Can I handle this? Yeah, so I think people there is the eject button too soon. Yeah, but then there's the others that are committed and their loyalty is to family no matter if there's abuse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
Part One Wrap And Next Steps
SPEAKER_02So I think I want to take a pause because I I want us to go into some things you talk about in chapter 12 and 13 that I think are phenomenal. Perfect. Okay, that concludes part one of the interview. Next week, episode 47 will be the second half of the conversation. If Melanie's story is overlapping in any way or parallel to your story, you might enjoy hearing our episode 24, The Godfather Syndrome, about family loyalty structures. In the meantime, I hope you'll have a chance to read her book, and we'll see you next week.