The Parallels Between Toxic Families and Toxic Workplaces

So when it ca- when it comes to your book, It's Them, Not You, what type of people is it for? So what type of toxic, um, childhoods, toxic parents would your book apply to?

So the book itself, I think, w- speaks to anybody that's grown up in any kind of dysfunction because the main, uh, bulk of the book is to take you on a journey to try and reclaim your story, right? Um, but when I talk about...

The reason I talk very specifically about toxic parents is because, look, I think that most people are a little bit of good and a little bit of bad, right? Um, and I think there's lots of us that need to do work around understanding that.

But I also think that there's a, a, a group of people larger than most of us would, would care to believe who grow up with parents who, who, who really never take any accountability, who really, really are difficult to hold down any kind of a relationship with.

Um, and that relationship that we have as adults, adult children, with our mom or our dad or our caregiver, irrespective of the degree of dysfunction, and I will also say abuse, that we might experience at the hands of those people, uh, so much of the support and advice that we will receive from other people will be centered around finding a way to have a relationship no matter what.

"You only get one mom and dad.

They did their best.

You'll miss them when they're gone." And, um, look, perhaps there's some weight in, in, in those sentences when we're talking about the average dysfunction that one might experience with their parents, but it's not always valuable, um, when you've experienced sort of high levels of dysfunction or abuse at, at the hands of your parents.

And in those instances, uh, those people are, uh, in society often have to remain silent because, because nobody can support them in the way that they deserve.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and I, I agree.

I think setting boundaries, and sometimes it's healthier to not be in a relationship with people, even if they're your parents.

Um, sometimes those boundaries are what's needed, and sometimes those bou- boundaries are for a period of time because people can evolve over time.

Although when they're truly toxic, when they have a deep-rooted personality disorder, like narcissistic personality disorder, then it might be another story.

They may never change in this lifetime.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, you, you talk about an important point there, which is that we know that some people do change, right? I, I, I sit here today as somebody that would say that I've made a drastic change in my life, but we also know that some people don't, right? And then as an adult, where does that leave us if that person is our parent, right? We can't...

It's not fair to expect somebody to try their whole life to hope that somebody will change, to put their life on hold in the hope that somebody else will change.

And so, like you say, I think the kind of boundary that we're talking about, low, minimum, no, some contact, all variations of that- Um, can be something that is ever changing and ever evolving through our lives.

And then, like you say, I think there are instances where the only thing that some people can do is actually go, "Actually, I really need to put a real firm, rigid one that I don't go back on." And look, where anybody sits on that is something that only they can truly know through their own ex- explorative work.

But I, what we need to do as people, I think, and as a society, is have better open, inclusive conversations about it, rather than the kind of old school, "You only get one mom and dad, so you must love them no matter what."