Breaking Generational Patterns—One Woman’s Story of Healing Childhood Wounds with Melanie Shankle
Episode Notes
Episode Show Notes
What do you do when the person who was supposed to nurture you becomes the source of your deepest wounds?
In this episode, Dr. Alison sits down with writer, speaker, and host of the Big Boo Cast, Melanie Shankle to explore the complicated terrain of mother wounds, emotional enmeshment, and the long road toward healing.
From the outside, it can look like “normal family tension.”
But in the body, something feels off.
Together, they explore:
- What happens when your nervous system knew something wasn’t safe before you had language for it
- The quiet impact of criticism, competitiveness, and emotional parentification
- How shame can keep you believing the problem is you
- The difference between honoring a parent and tolerating harm
- Why distance sometimes becomes part of healing
This is not a conversation about blame.
It’s a conversation about truth-telling.
About untangling enmeshment.
About breaking generational patterns.
About discovering what safety actually feels like.
If you’ve ever felt torn between loyalty and self-protection…
If you’ve wondered whether what you experienced “counts”…
If you’re learning to trust what your body has always known…
This episode is honest, nuanced, and ultimately hopeful.
Because healing one life can change a generation.
More Resources:
Connect with @melanieshankle on Instagram
Order Melanie’s latest book Here Be Dragons.
Connect with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Join the 80,000+ soul menders in our email community and receive weekly reflections and gentle practices here.
If you liked this episode, then you’ll love:
What Does It Mean to Honor Your Parents?
Episode 128: Generational Trauma—Overcoming Inherited Dysfunction & Legacy Burdens with therapist Gina Birkemeier
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
So much of my self -image, so much of my self -doubt, so much of everything came
from the voice in my head, which was my mom's voice. She was the first person that
ever made me feel like I wasn't ever going to be good enough. I had lived so much
of my life in that self -hatred of if I could just do this, if I could just act
right, if I could just behave in a certain way. And so all of a sudden, the grace
to be like, no, I just accept you however you are. It's biblical. I mean, the
truth set me free. And so that changed the trajectory of my life.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm Dr.
Allison. I'm so glad you're here with me this week. If you're new here, I'm
especially glad you've joined us. This podcast is a space where we try to live
honestly, where psychology and faith aren't at odds, but always in conversation. We
care about the complexity of real human stories. We slow down, we name what's hard,
and we look for wisdom that is both grounded and compassionate. This is our weekly
deep dive episode where we take one topic and explore it more fully. Before we jump
into today's conversation, I want to briefly connect it to something we explored back
in January on The Best of You Every Day. These are the daily eight minute,
sometimes more devotionals where we anchor in scripture and reflect through the lens
of psychology. And in this episode in January, it's called What Does It Mean to
Honor Your Parents? We wrestled with Exodus 2012, which is the commandment of the
Ten Commandments to honor your mother and father. And we asked a really important
question. How do we approach harmful parenting without becoming reactive, without
becoming kind of the way our culture sometimes can right now, which is to cut off
too quickly, while still honoring the reality of harm? Because honoring doesn't mean
denying. And it doesn't mean tolerating harm. It means learning how to live
truthfully and wisely in the aftermath of what shaped us. Today's conversation lives
right in that tension. Today on the show, I'm talking with Melanie Schenkel. She's a
beloved writer, speaker, and the co -host of the Big Boo Cast podcast. And her book,
Here Be Dragons, Navigating Mean Girls, Motherhood, and Other Mysteries of Life was
an instant New York Times bestseller. From the very first page, you can feel it.
This is a story about facing what's been hidden, about looking honestly at family
dynamics that shaped you. even when they're painful, confusing, or layered with
moments of love. And as I was reading her book, I kept thinking, these are the
very themes we talk about on this podcast all the time. Prentification, enmeshment,
toxicity that often registers in the body before we understand what's happening with
our minds, and that complicated space where you love your family and yet something
isn't right. When someone isn't taking accountability and when distance becomes the
path. toward healing. One of the most striking parts of Melanie's story is how her
body knew something was off before her mind did. And so many of you tell me about
a similar experience. You talk about how not having the language for what happened
was so hard or feeling like I can't quite name it but my body feels anxious.
Melanie talks about how her nervous system was carrying signals long before she
consciously understood the pattern she was living inside of. We talk about what it
means to grow up taking care of a parent emotionally, to feel responsible for a
parent's feelings, to become the steady one, the good one, the one who manages the
room. And then... as adults, to realize you've internalized those patterns,
that you may have taken on some of your own mother's ways of coping, that you may
be repeating dynamics you swore you'd never repeat. There's so much compassion in
this conversation because healing isn't about laying blame, right? It's not about
laying shame on somebody. It's about becoming aware of the patterns that shaped us.
It's about telling the truth without turning cruel, but so that we can free our own
selves. It's about honoring reality in a way that brings healing not only to our
own souls, but to everyone who will face that truth with us.
And we talk also about something many of you wrestle with quietly. What do you do
when healing changes the shape of a relationship? At the end of our conversation,
we touch on Melanie's decision to stop having contact with her mom. And I want to
say this clearly. This decision is hard. It's painful. It's deeply nuanced.
There's grief involved. There's no one size fits all answer when it comes to contact
or distance with a parent who has harmed you. Some relationships can shift with
different boundaries. Some can soften with a little space. can change with healthy
conversations and even undergo seasons of repair and deep healing.
And some require limited contact. And for some people, this becomes the healthiest
path forward, especially where there has been sustained, prolonged harm. What I
appreciate so much about Melanie's story, both in the book and in our conversation,
is that she doesn't present it as simple or clean. It's layered. It's emotional.
It's costly. It's deeply personal. No matter what kind of family of origin you came
out of, whatever parenting you had, or whatever season of life you're in now,
there's something in it that rings true for all of us. If you've ever felt torn
between loyalty and self -protection, if you've ever wondered what honoring a parent
really means when harm is involved, if you've ever sensed in your body that
something wasn't right but didn't yet have words for it, this conversation is for
you. It's honest, it's brave, and ultimately it's hopeful because at the heart of
Melanie's story isn't just rupture, but healing. What happens when you stop denying
what your body already knows? What happens when you begin to untangle enmeshment?
What happens when you get into healthier relationships and start to realize how old
patterns have shaped you? What happens when you begin to live with clarity instead
of confusion? I'm so grateful that Melanie trusted us with her story. Please enjoy
my conversation. with Melanie Schenkel.
I am so thrilled to have this conversation with you, Melanie. For the listener,
we were just talking offline a little bit about this. It's such a sensitive topic
and it really touches on so many of us. I'm going to kind of call it the mother
wound. That's a loose category.
talk about it so beautifully in your book. And we'll get into why it's so
sensitive. But before we even get into our conversation, what I want to name, as
I'm reading this book, Here Be Dragons, your story in some ways,
not in all ways, is extreme in the sense of just the level of harm that was
ongoing. And also, so many of us can find elements of our stories in it.
yeah and also it's such a tender topic because that relationship is so sacred and
something that is so and you you illustrate this so beautifully and we're going to
get into it in the book it brings out so much in us we want to protect that
relationship so many of us are moms we're so aware of our own failings how we've
been so imperfect we're so scared you know what i mean it's yes it's so tender for
so many reasons i just want to start by saying thank you for being willing to
speak so honestly just It's such an honest book into this really delicate
relationship. Yeah, it's a really hard, and you know, you said offline and it's so
true, is I mean, I did not write this book until after my mother had passed away.
I don't think it's, I don't think I could have been this honest. had she still
been living. So there was a freedom in that because I think so many people are
still wrestling with it's still a struggle. You know, I'm still trying to figure out
how to navigate as a grown woman, as a mother yourself, how do you navigate your
relationship with your mom? And if anything, after writing this book, I'm like, wow,
there are a lot of us out there that are trying to. figure this out and do it
well you know. It is so true and we'll get into that it but especially I think in
our generation we're roughly the same age and then you can also say and you allude
to this in the book there are ways in which our generation has overcorrected. Yes,
for sure. Right? Yeah, for sure. And we're seeing some of the pendulum swing on
that, you know, with the over -parenting. So before we dive into the deep end,
because you can tell I'm chomping to get there, I want to set the context for my
listeners who haven't yet read your book, and I can't recommend it enough. You have
said that the first mean girl you ever encountered was your own mother. And so for
listeners... for whom, you know, this is new, take us back into that home
environment and help us understand what that dynamic actually looked like. Yeah,
you know, I tell the story in the book, but my parents got divorced when I when I
was eight years old is when they first separated for the first time, they didn't
get divorced until I was nine, 10. But It was the realization of and I think it
took it was almost you don't recognize what it is, because what I say is when
you're a kid, I think part of God's protection is that whatever you grow up in is
what you think is normal. Like you just assume this is the way all families work
and this is the dynamic. So it was almost before I got to college when I started
to look at other mothers and daughters and thought. they don't function the way my
mom and I function. And so I started to realize that so much of my self -image,
so much of my self -doubt, so much of everything came from the voice in my head,
which was my mom's voice that always told me, if you could just act better, then I
could be better. If you weren't such a disappointment, if you could be this thing
for me, if you could live up to this standard. And she was constantly... tearing me
down and there was a competitiveness there um in terms of looks and um and kind of
almost even my dad's affection even though they were divorced i think there was such
a resentment there because my dad and i were so close and so it almost took
watching my daughter in high school go through her mean girl stuff that she had to
deal with for me to put language to it and go, oh, that the first person that
ever did that to me was my mom. She was the first person that ever made me feel
like I wasn't ever going to be good enough. What a just vivid reality check.
And you're saying something so profound. And you talk about this in the book, that
there's a protection in the fact that we see our own families as normal. But also
there's a whole undoing that then later on in life, you have to go back and rewire
yourself from an attachment perspective of, oh, you describe in the book how this
wasn't safe. Well, what does that do to a nervous system that learned young,
this is what quote unquote safety is supposed to be. So why is it landing so funny
on my nervous system?
well put as a child, kind of feeling in your body that you wanted to get away
from your mom. Yeah. But not knowing why, right? That's that dissonance from such a,
it's like your body knew. Yes. Before your mind did. Can you tell us a little bit
about that? That's, you know, it's so funny, Allison, because there's, I tell the
story of the book, but there was, my mom used to always say, and kind of in a
resentful tone, that from the time I was like three, my mom's name was Suzanne, and
that I would walk in the kitchen and she said my eyes would kind of flash dark
and I would say, what doing, Suzanne? And I just thought that's such a metaphor for
kind of like the way that always was, because it was like, I think there was
always this question of like, what are you doing? Like something didn't seem. right
to me or seem safe. But as a kid, I couldn't, I couldn't name it. It was just,
it was this constant instability and a constant walking on eggshells. And so I look
back and I can remember that so clearly, just feeling that disconnect between what
felt true to me and what I was living in, which,
you know, how are you that perceptive as a kid? But there's just, I think, you
know, something is not right here. And to me, there's a beauty in God's design of
the nervous system that it's this registering this isn't safe, even though I'm being
told this is what safety is. Another thing I think that you said that was
interesting is you said you describe your childhood home as a house on fire that
you wouldn't realize you actually needed to escape until years later when you
realized it could destroy everything you actually wanted. to build yeah and I thought
again just that for my listeners we talk about trauma on the podcast but the way
you describe the visceral sense before the rational before the logical before you can
put names on things it just takes you into that because that's where shame enters
in right we yeah Yeah. And I think it's so funny. So my sister and I have been
going back through after my mom passed away. She got all these old VHS tapes of
like home movies of, you know, Christmas and holidays and things that my grandmother
recorded. And we've we've laughed, but it's. You can tell in every video, the
underlying theme is I'm so annoyed to be there. Like there's just a thing where my
body language is completely closed off. I'm rolling my eyes at everything that's
said. And I just remember this sense of, especially as I got into my high school
years and just started to know more where it was like, I just don't feel like I
belong here. This doesn't feel safe to me. I don't feel accepted here. I don't feel
loved here. I don't feel like my whole self is welcome here. And so it's been so
interesting. look back and go, everybody just thought I was a surly teenager. But I
was like, no, I was shutting down because of what I knew the response to my real
self was going to be. Here's what I wanted to ask you. So in the book, you're
telling us these experiences of,
for example, just how your mom made moments, especially as you were becoming a
teenager, that were really about you, about her there's one instance where you were
going through a really painful breakup and you just described like gosh you know i
i just gone through this really hard thing in my own life i think you were in
ninth grade and we were talking and then my mom started making it about her
boyfriend or her breakup is that am i yeah I mean,
it was always that, you know, I mean, she would come in and she would be like,
well, what's going on? And then she would start to tell me, well, you don't
understand what's going on with me. My boyfriend and I just broke up. She had this
on again, off again boyfriend all through high school. And there was just always
drama there. And she would bring me into it and treat me almost like a girlfriend,
but not in a healthy way. And just so I felt the burden of her emotional well
-being, which now I realize is. a mother your child should never feel the burden of
your emotional well -being and that's what as i'm listening i was like taking notes
i was like parentification emotional enmeshment um you know all these words that we
talk about all the time on the podcast you're describing so beautifully and the
confusion of and you say this again so well uh part of me is kind of mad But
part of me feels like I should take care of her. And I think that that's what's
so hard about that. Because I think I, as a kid, you want your mom to be okay.
And I loved her because she was my mom. So it was like, if I can just behave in
a way, if I can just give her what she needs, if I can just emotionally be there
for her, then she's going to be okay. And it's hard to separate that out. And you
think this was, you know, you can appreciate back in the 80s, there was not
language like enmeshment or attachment. We didn't know. any of this we had no
language around it and so i didn't know what i was feeling wasn't normal and so
that's what i yes so it's so well put i think for so many in our generation there
wasn't online social media where you could go and hear people talking on tick tock
for better or worse about what's happening to give it a name your muddle and so
again I'm guessing in hindsight you can put words on it, but in the moment,
was it just tremendous dissonance internally? Yes. Yes. It was just a constant.
And almost it felt like with her, sometimes the harder I tried, the more she would
sabotage and the more she would gaslight me. Like it almost, if I came in too
vulnerable, then she really took advantage of that. And I didn't understand what that
was. at the time or why that happened and so it would just make me and then there
was so much shame and guilt in me because all of this was and i bet there's
people that can relate to this all of this was masked in a lot of church language
too so i thought if i could just i just can't be a good enough christian if i
could just love jesus more than i could love her more or i could give her more of
what she needed and there again i look back and go that is never a child's
responsibility exactly in a parent's life
One of the things that I really respect your honesty. So we're talking about
patterns of constant criticism, parentification, where it's about her needs.
We're talking about a lot of competitiveness, like you're saying.
The minute you started comparing looks, the minute you started to have happiness.
sabotaging you. She also did it to herself. Even, you know, you talk about your
wedding day, you know, so many different really, that's what I mean by extreme.
Yeah. I think many of us can see moments, but pretty overt instances of just
undercutting you at every turn. You, Melanie,
you talk about how you in your own relationships, at least for a period of time,
adapted some of those same patterns in a way talk to us tell us a little bit
about that that was what was modeled for you so how in the world would you know
otherwise so how did that play out for you in your own relationships with women
during high school and college I mean, I think that I was raised in a way that
and I think when it comes into like to give you the backstory of my mom, my mom
was I say she was a high school beauty queen. She was beautiful. She was blonde.
She was blue eyed. She was the pride and joy of my grandmother. So she was always
I mean, when you look back at pictures of her, she was just immaculate. I mean,
she's like the 1960s dream, you know, with her baton twirler uniform and all the
stuff. And there's even a picture of me as a kid where I'm like, oh, for
Halloween, when I was eight years old. She basically dressed me as herself. I was
in a baton twirling uniform. I wore a mask with a blonde wig because obviously I'm
not blonde. I'm brunette. But that was the standard. And so and that vanity ran so
deep in that family line. So I was very much raised to believe that other women
were my competition, you know, where it was just who's prettier, who's better,
who can get this boy's attention. And so. I operated like that.
I mean, because that's what had been modeled for me. I just thought that's how
women were. And it was, you know, and now I look back and I was like, it was out
of my own insecurities that I felt like I didn't want anybody to be better than me
or I wanted to be the prettiest or I wanted to have, you know, all these boys
like me. And I would, you know, if a boy liked a friend, then I would try to go
after that guy, which was the very thing, you know, I was becoming a mean girl
because that's what I had learned. Of course, it makes sense. And the fact that you
connected those dots, I feel like it's going to be freeing to a lot of women who
then have shame about the patterns in their own lives. And it doesn't take away
responsibility, but it explains some of this learned behavior.
Yeah. And you and you look up and there is that you look back and go, oh, my
gosh, like, I can't believe that I was that person. And and I guess the gift is,
is like I've raised my daughter to be so different because, you know, this is so
harmful. And like women are always stronger when we're building each other up and
we're going to be a girl's girl. And there is no competition and all of us make
each other better. But. That has to be modeled for you. You know, you just whatever
you see in your home is what seems normal to you. That's right. And how your own
soul learns to live out of love versus out of scarcity. There's a lot in that I
resonated with. I want to. So I want the listener where I feel like I'm fast
tracking. It's it's such a powerful narrative that puts you in.
Those moments. And I think storytelling is a really powerful way to heal because
it's cathartic. You feel it with you. It's really beautifully written. Thank you.
And I'd love now to talk a little bit about where you are today and your own
healing journey. Yeah. If that's OK. Yeah. And I'd like to kind of cover a couple
of different fronts you touch on in the book as well as kind of.
how you're on the ongoing work of retraining your own soul. So if it's okay,
I noticed in the book, and I'd love for you to speak to each of these three, you
talk about meeting a healthy friend, reconnecting with Jesus, and then meeting your
now husband as three pillars of your own turning point toward healing.
Could you tell us a little bit about, and then I would say there's a fourth one,
which is, when you had kids of your own yeah and you actually then began to set
stronger boundaries with your mom yeah I, um,
yeah, I think for me first, I think in college, a huge turning point for me was I
met my best friend. She's still my best friend. Um, I call her Gully. That's her
maiden name. Um, her first name's really Amy, but, um, but we met in college. She
was also from divorced parents. Um, she also had hers was her father in her case
who, um, was an alcoholic and toxic. And so she and I just,
as we got to know each other, we kind of bonded. And it was that moment of, you
know, what does C .S. Lewis say, you know, friendship is when you're like, you're
not the only one. It was just all of a sudden, it's like I found this safe place.
And for the first time in a female friendship, I felt so safe and so seen and so
loved. Um, because we could identify it was the, she was the first person and now
there've been several, but she was the first person who was like, yes, I've
experienced some of these things too. And I get what you're saying, because I think
the hard part is up until that point, I really did always think the problem was
me. You know, I just hadn't got to the point of. Because I didn't know and nobody
tells you any differently and nobody sees what goes on inside the walls of your
home except for you. I mean, even when I wrote this book, my dad read it after
the fact and he was like, I didn't know all this was going on to this extent.
Because I didn't talk about it because I thought it's because something's wrong with
me. So to have that safe space and a friendship to have somebody say, I see this
and I see the value in you. And for me to look at her and see how lovable she
was made me realize that maybe I could be lovable too. So that was a real shift
for me. How old were you at that point? I was, we, we first met, I was 19.
So it was my sophomore year of college. And so that was a pivotal point.
The other thing that happened was towards the end of college. And I mean, I
continued. Listen, I made I made bad decisions. I mean, if there was a theme for
college, it was bad decisions. But after I had I had been engaged,
I had broken off that engagement because I realized it was I tended to go after.
guys that treated me the way my mom treated me. So that would say nice things,
but then tear me down and make me feel insecure and gaslight me. And that's what I
thought healthy looked like. So I was coming out of that engagement and another good
girlfriend at that time said to me, you need to go to this Bible study. It's
called Breakaway. It's at Texas A &M. They still have it to this day, but back then
it was really small. And I had grown up in church. I mean, that's the irony. I'd
grown up in church. I knew Jesus. I knew all of that. That was the first time
that I walked into a setting where my faith became real to me, where I really saw
Jesus for what he was and the healer that he is. And that it wasn't just about
salvation. You know, it wasn't just about, OK, you know, so you won't go to hell.
It was like, no, he's really here to heal and to make you whole and to and to
fix you where you've been broken and wounded, you know. And so that was I mean,
if there's any thread throughout my story, it's the goodness and grace of God to
meet me. where I was and to help me have grace for myself because I was able to
see myself maybe more fully the way God saw me. I want to pause there because you
already alluded to this, and I think you even use the word religious trauma in the
book. God had been used in a toxic manner through your mom,
whether explicitly through actions.
What was different? What was different about this group? How did God show up in a
different way that helped you, whether it was conscious? I think these things happen
in our bodies before they happen in our minds. We just feel something different. But
tell me how that felt different to you than what you had experienced before, even
if some of the same words were being used. You know, I think maybe it was a
maturity thing. Maybe it was a desperation thing. I think coming out of the
engagement, I very much had the whole, that's a whole other story. But I had had
this moment when I was making that decision where I was like, God, if you will
help me figure out how to get out of this, I will quit messing around and turn my
life over to you. I mean, it was kind of one of those desperate plea bargains that
you make, you know?
I really started a spiritual journey after that of trying to figure out what that
was going to look like. So I felt like walking into this group who I think it's
because it was people my age. It was led by college kids. So it was like people
who were in the same phase of life. Everybody was very honest and very vulnerable
and very real. And so it all felt sincere. And I think it's not that I when I
look back to my childhood church. I don't know that they didn't talk about grace. I
did not hear grace. And maybe that's because I had so much self -condemnation going
on that I just couldn't hear it. But I was met with such grace there. And I was
met with such love there. And so it felt like for the first sense of, I saw Jesus
as, I don't care what you've done. I don't care what you've become. You know, what
you've become, just come to me. And so that was the first time I had ever felt
that in that setting. So. And how did that create meaningful change in your life?
And maybe that leads to the third pillar meeting, meeting your now husband. But how
did that? Yeah. It I mean, it just it freed me up. I mean, all of a sudden,
you know, and it was still I mean, I'm still entangled with my mom. So there's
still you've still got that dynamic. So it's not like this, but it just I helped.
it helped me to see myself with more grace it helped me to see myself as somebody
who was i think there's such a difference of when you're walking in the spirit as
opposed to just trying to blindly figure out stuff on your own like it gave me a
level of kind of some wisdom and discernment about different relationships in my life
that i hadn't had before I think I surrounded myself with healthy people who
encouraged me and who called out the good things in me and made me realize that,
you know, your girlfriends aren't your competition and you can operate as a healthy
and whole person. So I just I think when Jesus starts to heal those places in you,
it affects every part of your life because all of a sudden I was making good
decisions again because I had the discernment to make those good decisions.
We kind of bumble along and we bump up against these pockets of goodness. And we
don't even really know yet how to put all the pieces together of what was broken
or what might still be broken. But we're just drawn. It kind of brings tears to my
eyes. We're just drawn to there's good here. And our souls kind of, you know,
go in that direction. And then there's more. And then there's more. And then maybe
at a certain point we start to put pieces together. But that's kind of what I hear
you saying, just the goodness of God. Just showing up and, and something in your
responding. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just, I think it was the grace of realizing I
was never going to be good enough and I didn't have to be perfect enough. And it
wasn't about that because I had lived so much of my life in that just. self -hatred
of if I could just do this if I could just act right if I could just behave in
a certain way and so all of a sudden the grace to be like no I just accept you
however you are just it's you know it's I mean it's it's biblical I mean the truth
set me free and so that changed the trajectory of my life and that's when I was
22 years old it's like God is we talk about God as a good father but when there's
that mother wound God is also a good mother
That grace of you're just gorgeous the way you are. You're just beautiful the way
you are. It's like, oh, that's what I've always needed. I just didn't have it.
Yeah, yeah. And it heals something in you. You know, I think it's I just read
something the other day that said that we look at the word salvation as salvation,
but salvation also means healing. And I'm like, that is isn't that what Jesus does
to us our whole lives is he heals the things that are broken because there are
going to be things in this world that are going to break us. Yeah. So then you
meet the guy who is your now husband. Is that right? Yeah. Tell us a little bit
about how that relationship, and right, this is right out of, you know, so the
therapist in me reading the book is like, this is attachment 101, right? We have
the attachment wounds. And then, and I mean, I'm literally like tracking it, like we
have the attachment wounds and then a friend comes in, right? There's an attachment
and then God comes in as this reparenting figure. And then we meet often our
significant other, which can be a huge. healing relationship for better and worse for
these old wounds and so it sounds like that was your experience again tell us a
little bit about how that that played out I you know when I met Perry it's we met
and we first started hanging out as just friends and I think God was so kind in
that because I had had such a um kind of skewed view of men um and just didn't
view them as like I never saw relationships. This can actually be a friendship. This
can actually be like, we just enjoy being together and not me trying to prove
something or to earn love or whatever.
Perry came in and was just, um, just the kindest, um, so fun,
you know, just amazing, um, man. And we just got to be good friends. And so there
was something in that too, where I was able to kind of, because we were just
friends at first, um, I kind of told him my whole story worth warts and all, I
wasn't trying to put, put on a face or be dateable because I didn't care at that
point. So, um, he just got the real story and so i told him a lot about my
childhood and the way i had grown up my mom had um i write about this more in
the book but my mom had really caused me to vilify my dad and my stepmom yeah um
and had painted them as the you know kind of the the malevolent characters in this
whole story. And so that's the viewpoint that I gave to Perry is because that's
what I had always been taught to believe. And then it was interesting because then
when he met them both, we got to the point in our relationship where we were
serious enough where he met my mom and then he met my dad and my stepmom. And he
was the first person to say to me because and now I see it because he's such a
his discernment is spot on like that. He just said, hey, I don't think the story
you've always been told is the right story.
Just, and it, you know, I tell that. It literally breaks tears to my eyes.
I don't, it's just the power of a witness. Yes. Yes. Someone to witness the reality
of your life. that's it. And I think even, you know, even the story of writing
this book and having people like you who, you know, you, you counsel people for a
living, even as I wrote it, I think there's so many things that are so entrenched
in you as normal that I was like, are people going to read this and be like, what
is she whining about? This isn't as bad as she thought, or this isn't, this is a
lot of drama over nothing. And so it's so validating to have somebody say,
yes. you aren't crazy this is this was not right this was not healthy and that's
and when perry said that to me he confirmed what had always been running through my
head where i was like it just doesn't add up because i knew who my dad was and
so The fact that she always wanted to make him into this bad guy, she wanted to
paint him as this man who had abandoned his family and left us. But I was like,
but he calls us every single night to check in. This is not it doesn't add up,
you know. So Perry saying that to me then freed me up.
At that point, I was 23, 24. And at that point. it freed me up for the first
time to have a conversation with my dad. And I'd always been scared to ask the
hard questions. And my dad had always been gracious enough that he was not going
to, he just let it ride. I mean, he wasn't going to put me in that position,
which now as a parent and an adult, I have so much respect for because that's a
lot of restraint to not want to defend yourself. He did the opposite of what your
mom did. He didn't throw her under the bus. And in fact, at that moment, you
learned that she had been lying. Very deceptive about the whole.
What's interesting to me, again, is your body knew. Your body knew that your dad
was safe. But you're being told this narrative. And how can a child make sense of
that? You cannot. That's it. no and if you argue against it if i ever questioned
anything there was so much rage from my mom that you learn you just go with it
like you you don't anger it because i would have to pay the the cost of that yeah
and and i lived under her roof and her rules and she had so much control you know
over my life that I just went along with it, but I knew. And so, you know,
when I had that conversation with my dad and he was able to kind of say, okay,
now I'll tell you, this is how this all really played out. It was, it was
astonishing. I mean, it was, it was life changing. Oh, I, I, yeah, it's a, and so
how from there. Tell us a little bit about how then, the more information you get,
the more truth you get. Your own life, I imagine, is your first priority. You're
starting to live your own new life in a new way. How did your relationship with
your mom evolve? You know, it was when I first got married, I felt like,
and I dreaded my wedding for, you know. all the reasons that I write about in the
book, because it was absolutely as bad as I thought she was going to make it. She
lived up to all of my worst case scenarios. So, but we got past that.
And then, you know, I finally had what I had always longed for was this is my own
family. This is my own fresh start. Like I'm not bound to her anymore. And she
doesn't have control over me. And so there was able to be some distance there. By
this point, she had remarried. She was like, in Oklahoma, so she was about eight
hours away. And so there was some freedom there, but I just started to realize that
every time the phone rang and it was her, I could feel everything in me. tense up.
And it was the same feeling of always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I never
knew when she was going to call and rage about something or tell me that I hadn't
done something or blame something on me or drop a bomb on me. I mean, I talk in
the book about, I mean, she dropped a major emotional bomb on me. I found out that
I had an older half sister that I didn't know I had. She dropped that on me in
my first couple of years of marriage and she had decided to go find this long lost
daughter. So there was just there was always a stirring up. And so the the longer
I was married, the more I was like, I just want distance from this. I don't want
to have to deal with this constant drama and toxic behavior in these words.
And I also now had a husband who was able to say, hey, this is not healthy like
this. Yeah, you should not feel this way. This is not normal. Yeah. So and and so,
Melanie, then you have. Girls of Your Own. You have one daughter. Is that right?
One daughter. One daughter. Okay. You have your own daughter. And the book,
which I think is really cool, is a little bit about the parallels of then learning.
Like you said, that was sort of your moment of awareness was that your daughter
started dealing with mean girls. And that was another breakthrough moment for you.
And I want the listener to hear it again. That's why I think the book is such a
valuable. the storytelling it shows how this is all healing is such a journey it's
all these different moments it doesn't happen all at once
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So you do, at a certain point, decide to cut off contact with her. Can you tell
us a little bit about that decision? And I want to frame that because, as you
know, I'm sure this is such a sensitive issue right now in the media. Yes.
It's getting a lot of attention. I think there's a reason that Lindsay Gibson's
book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, has been a New York Times
bestseller for, you know, there's a lot of interest in it. And then the no contact
conversation has got a lot of interest. And I want to say for the listener, this
is complicated. There are, it is so sensitive and there are not easy answers to
this question for anybody. If you are someone who has had to cut off contact as I
want you to talk to us about, it is, it is. a hard decision to arrive at.
And it is necessary if one arrives at that. That's not to say there are some
people who arrive at that and it's not exactly for the right reasons. That can also
happen. But for those for whom it is a real necessity, it is so deeply necessary
for healing and so sensitive in a culture, especially in Christian culture,
that doesn't always understand that. And I also want to say on the other side,
talking the best of you about the spectrum of toxicity, there are a lot of
situations where we can also find ways to reduce contact and establish boundaries.
And that might work for many people too. So there's no one size fit all for this.
But with that kind of larger contextualization for my listeners who I know are
coming at this from a lot of different angles. I also know I have parents listening
who are hurting from adult children, you know, suddenly setting boundaries with them
in ways that are confusing, right? So there's a reason this is so fraught. It's so
sensitive. It's so tender. With all of that being said, and I love how you speak
to this, will you share with us your story of realizing this is what I need to do
for my own healing, for my own daughter, for my own family, my own marriage, my
own health? Yeah, I'm so glad you framed it that way, because I think that's the
first thing is I would say to somebody is and I've had so many people that have
contacted me and I'm like, this is this is not a decision you make after one
heated conversation. This isn't a decision you make because maybe your political views
are different. This is a this is a deep emotional thing because I don't think it's.
at all what God intended for the parent child relationship to be in healthy context.
So for me, when I had my daughter, Caroline, I was 32 years old.
I talk about this at the beginning of the book, but it was a light bulb moment
for me when I held her, you know, the first or second night I had her home for
the hospital. And I just thought about, I was so overcome with love. You know,
you're just a hormonal, emotional, tired mess. And I just, in that moment, I thought
my mom never loved me like I love this baby. Like I just knew it. Like it was
like a puzzle piece finally like clicked. where I thought, because I was like, I
would sacrifice anything for this baby. I would do anything for her. And so that
was a big light bulb thing. The other thing about my mom that I will say is, as
the years went on, her behavior got gradually more and more chaotic. There again,
this was, by this point, we're probably, you know, Caroline was born in 2003. So
she, at this point, was older. So there had been probably almost 30 years of
prescription drug abuse. I mean, I talk about this some in the book. I think she
was self -medicating because she was bipolar. I think she had, you know, now that
I've read more, I think she even had like a borderline personality disorder. So this
wasn't just we don't agree on the same things. I mean, she was toxic.
She continually found ways to sabotage situations.
One of the things I write about in the book, I had started a blog that was the
beginning of my writing journey. And I wrote a post that was just a happy birthday
tribute to my dad. And my mom came on as an anonymous commenter,
but I knew it was her and left like three or four just vile, hate -filled comments
on that post. And at that point, Caroline was probably about three or four. And I
remember at that point, I wrote a long letter to her. Because I was like,
I'm going to cut off contact. I'm going to, I'm going to be done. And I wrote
this long letter and I just felt something in me. I just couldn't do it. Like I
just wasn't ready. And part of that process for me was, um, as I prayed about it,
as I asked God to give me wisdom and how to handle it. I knew that when I, when,
and if I made that decision, it couldn't be out of bitterness. It couldn't be out
of anger. It couldn't be out of unforgiveness. If it was, then I was going to
perpetuate the same cycle I was trying to break. Like it had to be out of a heart
that said, I forgive you and I love you because you're my mom, but I can't be a
part of this anymore. And, you know, when Caroline was six. And I and,
you know, Perry and I had these constant conversations because there also became this
thing of now I'm not just protecting myself. I'm protecting Caroline. And I thought,
what lies was she going to tell Caroline? What was she going to do to her? And
all of a sudden that carries a whole different weight than myself. A hundred
percent. You're that's a really good point. What just just before what was your
contact like with her up to that point? It was I mean,
we would talk on the phone every now and then, you know, we would we would have
conversations. You know, some would be good, some would be bad. That's what was so
hard about it. Because we would have these moments where I would be like, we're
good. We're in a great place. This feels really good. And then she would call two
weeks later. And she was infamous for, and my sister and I both agree, there's
still this phrase where she's like, remember when you said, and she would come back
and has totally twisted something. You describe that in the book. It's just a
dagger. It's just a dagger. Yeah. Thought was safe, then suddenly becomes a weapon.
Yeah. And I'm like, what? I don't even remember. That's that wasn't my intent.
That's not what I was trying to say. And all of a sudden I was defending myself
for something that I never. said or intended, but she would twist it and turn it.
And so there were different things like that. And then there was a moment that she
had offered me and I tell the story in the book, but she had offered me money to
go on this trip that I really wanted to go on. And this was, you know, my husband
and I, we were, you know, we were just starting off our new businesses. We had a
young child. We did not have the financial means. So she offered this money. Perry
said to me, he was like, I'm not going to tell you that you can't take that
money. He said, but you have to. think about what that's going to cost if you do.
And I knew he was right. You know, it's one of those things where you're like,
dang, why did you have to be right? That's so disappointing.
I wanted to do this. But when I called her to tell her, thank you so much.
And I dreaded that conversation because I knew in the back of my mind that that
was about her trying to regain some control. And so I was like, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. I just don't think this is a good time for me to do this
trip. And at that point, she told me, she said, you have caused me more hurt than
anything in my life. You're a continual disappointment to me. And it was just, you
know, another.
And then a couple of months later, I was on a trip with my daughter. It was
supposed to be a fun trip. My mom called. She left me an awful voicemail message
because I didn't pick up the phone. And she basically ended. And this is after, I
mean, I'd been praying for years about, God, I don't know what to do. Show me what
to do. Let me know when and if I can walk away and still honor you because all
of that was so important to me. But she left a message and she ended it with,
if this is the end of our relationship, then so be it. And it just, when I heard
it, it was like, that's my door. Like, that's the door I've been looking for.
Okay. Yeah. I will honor your desire. Yeah.
Because I just, there again, because from the lens of being a mother, I thought I
would never say to my child. If this is the end of our relationship, then so be
it. And I thought for her to be able to say that just I was like, OK.
And so that really gave me the freedom. And what I will also say to anybody who
is thinking about that or debating that or struggling with that, you think that
that's going to feel amazing or it's going to feel really freeing or that that's
going to be the end of having to deal with it. And it's not. It just changes it.
But it never feels good to say, I don't speak to my mom. I mean,
that never feels, you continue to wrestle with that. And I continued for,
I mean, she lived 14 years after that decision and we did not speak again until
the last two weeks of her life. And I continued to pray about that decision.
all the time about God, if I'm supposed to reopen the store, if I'm supposed to go
back in, if I'm supposed to let her back into my life, I will do that. I just
need it to be really clear. And I do feel like God was really faithful to always
let me know that I was still on the right path. And part of that was my sister,
I have a younger sister, she maintained contact with my mom. And what my mom would
always say to my sister was, I can't think of one thing I've done that. would
cause Melanie to do this well and you know as a mom you I can sit right here and
go I can think of a million things I've done already so just the sheer you know
where I was like wow there's no ownership of I did this and I thought there's no
change there's no change and I kept thinking if at some point there was some change
and she was the hardest thing because you would hope for a spiritual change but she
had always been in church she was in bible studies she was in all these things so
I was like so where where is the change going to come from yeah um and there
again there was the mental illness component there was the drug component there were
a lot of things going on there so were you and your sister able to navigate that
making different decisions through that we were um it was it's been easier our
relationship's been easier obviously since my mom passed away yeah um but my sister
will and she's very gracious to recognize You know, and I think this happens a lot,
especially as I've read things about like borderline personality disorder. I think one
of the things they do is they pit their children against each other. Yeah. And so
one of the one of the things my mom did is my sister, Amy, was always the good
one. I would imagine. Yeah. And I was the bad one. And so she catered to Amy.
She really but Amy knew there was always an awareness of because she was so
volatile. So Amy experienced a lot of that, too. Yeah. She wasn't in denial. You
know, it's the reason I respected my decision. Yeah, because it's one of those
family roles that there's a golden child, usually a scapegoat often. It sounds like
you were more in the and that is it isn't. It's not healthy to be a golden child
either. That has its own set of issues. And often adult siblings do navigate the
boundaries differently. And it is warranted. But I'm grateful that there was an
ability to respect. the different boundaries. And that's just what's so toxic. And I
love, I know we're running up on time. Thank you for going along with me. I want
to honor your time. But this is just so the heart of what we do here on the
podcast. But it's why, and I love that you said this, and I want to highlight it,
that this isn't God's design. And that's why, but that was never your fault. You
were a casualty. in this toxic situation. So it was never your responsibility to
heal it, to improve it, to make pretend like it was okay. It was your
responsibility to tell the truth and to heal your own soul. And I love that you
said that it came to a point where it wasn't about retaliation. It wasn't about
revenge. It wasn't a shallow like. this is the best day of my life because I'm
free. It was, I'm going to tell the truth. And the truth is that I have to,
this isn't an actual mom in the way that God designed that role.
It is hurting me. It could hurt my daughter. And that is just, these are the cards
I was dealt. And I just, I really, I just appreciate your telling it,
your story. beautifully and honestly um it's it's a hard story i love that you said
it isn't there's still pain they're still healing yeah you're still rewiring your own
nervous system right for safety and health And I think that's what that's one of
the things you said that I so appreciate. And I'm learning because I think when I
started writing this book, I was writing it from this standpoint of like, oh, I am
healed. Like this story is this story. This whole thing is closed. My mom has
passed away. This chapter has ended. And as I started writing the book, all of a
sudden I was like. I think I have to go to therapy and talk about this. I mean,
all of a sudden I was like, I'm not as okay as I thought I was. And so I do
think healing is a continuous process that we do throughout our lives. As we grow
and know more, you start to realize other places where maybe you're not as healed
as you thought you were. A hundred percent. And that is our work that we do have
control over. We can't change this other person, but we can. um,
continue to lean into that. So I, there's so much more we could go into about
parenting and we'll have to have a part two. Um, but, uh,
tell, tell my listeners just who will, I know, want more of you and your wisdom,
where can they find you and your work? I know you've got a podcast and I do. So
I have a podcast called the big boo cast. Um, it is, as my dad calls it, it's a
podcast about nothing. It's just, I do it with my friend, Sophie. We talk about
hair, makeup, life. All the things. You can find me on Instagram is where I
typically post, you know, just updates and different things like that. And then I
just started a sub stack that I'm writing on a couple of times a week. And so you
can also find my writing on sub stack where I just share, you know, everything from
here's what I cook last night to here is what God is currently doing in my life.
And then here be dragons is available everywhere books are sold. The paperback just
came out and it includes they had that my publisher had. my daughter write an
afterword for it, kind of telling some of her side of the story. So I just,
I highly recommend that just because it, it made me weep. And just if you're
wondering if doing the work pays off in your own children, I will say that that
afterword made me. thinks this has all been worth it. I just, it's beautiful. I
just put a post up on social media, I don't know, last week or something, I said,
you know, healing, the healing of one person can change a generation. Yeah. And you
are, you're living evidence of that. It's all the grace of God, you know,
and I think it's, and what I would tell anybody is, I think God is so faithful to
give you the strength that you need to do the hard thing. And so, and it is the
hard thing. But I think, you know, you start by trying to set boundaries and,
and see if that, works. And, you know, then you just trust that God's going to
give you the wisdom to know the path that you need to walk with those difficult
relationships. Yeah, we'll link to lots of resources. There's some great thankfully
now we do have more resources out there about how to un -enmesh and disentangle and
find that kind of healthy, differentiated place that we're trying to raise our own.
I'll just say one last thing. I'm thinking about raising young adult women, right?
And I mean, I think the The best, most powerful example of is when my young adult
daughter can say, question me or say, why did you do this? Or why did this happen?
And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I guess there's enough safety that there's actually an
ongoing conversation because it sure isn't because I was perfect. That's right.
You know, and so there's so much humility in this whole dynamic.
mothers and daughters and daughters and mothers and yet just some necessary and
important naming and truth telling that we all need to be doing. So I'm so grateful
for your voice in this. Thank you. Well, I've loved talking to you today. So thank
you so much for having me. I'm so thankful for your voice. I mean, for giving
words to so many things that we're all trying to process. Oh, thank you. Thank you
for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much
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