If My Own Children Can't Forgive Me, How Dare I Forgive Myself? | Episode 009

The hardest truth about parental accountability isn't admitting you were wrong-  it's living with the consequences when your own children can't trust you enough to let you back in. This is the podcast your toxic Mom doesn't want you to listen to.

This week, I sit down with Crystal Allon, a mother, content creator, and recovering alcoholic who is estranged from two of her adult children. Together, we explore what real accountability looks like when your kids go no contact, not the defensive "I did my best" narrative, but the raw, honest reckoning with how your own unhealed trauma created an emotionally unsafe environment for the people you love most.

Crystal shares her journey from active addiction and emotional dysregulation to recognizing the painful truth: her children felt about her the way she felt about her own toxic mother. She breaks down the "playpen analogy" that's helping other estranged parents understand boundaries, why "you can't outwit trauma, you either heal it or pass it down," and the difference between taking responsibility and playing victim.

This episode will validate adult children who are tired of being told they're "too sensitive" for protecting themselves, and challenge parents to look beyond their own pain to see the damage they've caused.

Guest

Crystal Allon, Content Creator and Recovery Advocate

Follow her on TikTok here.

Transcript

0:00

I did the best I could to raise my kids, I was a mess and I missed a lot. And I messed up a lot. And I did things that caused them harm, that they're going to now have to try to figure out how to heal as adults. 00000. So I've seen online this creator called Doormat Mom, and she talks about her adult children not talking to her anymore, and she's the total victim in this and completely blames them. And I've actually seen videos from one of her children talking about this, but it's this really interesting dynamic that I'm seeing more and more where adult children are going. No contact or low contact with toxic moms, toxic dads, abusive parents and whatnot. And I wanted to talk about this kind of from the other side, from someone who is not taking the route of blaming other people. But what does accountability actually look like? And so I want to have Crystal introduce herself and just kind of talk about, why did I pick you to talk about this topic? Hi, Lisa. Thanks for having me. I'm really, really pleased to be here. So my name is Crystal, and I'm a woman, and I actually, I'm 58 now. I'm not even going to lie about it. I'm 58, and, I spent a lifetime trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And about two and a half years ago, I started this TikTok channel called Fabulous 50s and I thought, well, I'm just going to go out there and I'm just going to start talking about my life and talking about my pain. And as I started talking about it, people would say, you do realize that what you experienced in your childhood isn't quote unquote normal and that you might have trauma. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I was just shocked by it. I was like, what do you know? It's normal that parents did this and that and this. And the other thing. And I soon came to realize that, no, it wasn't normal. But the reason I started the healing journey was because about three years ago, a little over three years ago, my youngest son, I have four children, and my youngest son bravely came up to me and said, mom, you have a drinking problem and if you don't get this under control, I'm not going to be a part of your life anymore. And that just knocked my socks off. It rocked my world. It terrified me and I got my ass into treatment immediately. Within three weeks, I was in treatment. Yeah, And then I came out of treatment and I relapsed. And as you know, a healing journey is not linear. It can get very messy. And mine got very messy with a messy divorce and me not understanding how to emotionally regulate myself and about a year and a half ago, my two youngest sons decided to go. No contact with me completely. Let it be so painful. It it it is painful. It. Don't get me wrong. It is. I kept thinking, no, no, just give me a little more time. I'm trying to fix this. I'm trying to fix this. But it got so messy and ugly and I understand why they decided to go. No contact with me. Because I was not emotionally stable, I really wasn't. And what child wants to see their mom be an emotional mess? You know, kids don't want to see that. But it started to click for me when I actually went. No contact with my mom. I went for contact with my mom for about three months, and I knew I always had a very difficult relationship. Complex relationship with my mom. I think a lot of daughters can relate and mothers can relate. We have very complex relationships and, there was this one time we were we were out at a brunch and I was sitting there with my mom, and after 2.5 hours of being in my mom's company, I thought I was having a heart attack. And I kept saying to my mom, I think something's wrong. I think something's wrong. Like my chest was hurting, my everything was hurting. And I was like, I think I'm having a heart attack. And she's like, oh, you're fine, you're fine. So I dropped her off and went to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack, and I found out that I was having a panic, anxiety, panic attack. And I realized that being in my mom's presence causes me to panic. And I'd already been kind of on a healing journey for about a year and a half, and I decided I need some space for my mom so I can figure out what that is. So then when I was no contact with my mom, I would think about my mom and I'd be like, oh, it just ate my heart pounds. Every time I see her name come up on my phone. And then I went, Oh darn. My kids have said that to me too. And so I started realizing my kids felt about me the way I felt about my mom. And I went, oh my God, it's me, it's me. What happened? What happened? Because I swore I was never going to repeat my mother's patterns. I swore I was never going to be my mother. And I turned out in some ways exactly like her, and in some ways completely opposite from her. But one of the things I often say, on my live streams is, you can't outwit trauma. You either heal it or you pass it down. Those are the two things you can do. You can either heal it when it comes to kids, heal it, or pass it down to your children. You can't dealt with it. You can't. Don't think it. You can't think going to do the opposite of what my mom does, because then you wind up in another toxic state, both of which are extremes. Right? And so I started seeing it from my children's perspective. And I realized that they needed space from me, just like I needed space for my mom. Yeah, that had to hurt, though, right? As much as it's like, okay, there's some honest truth, it's like a gut punch of. Who in need space because, yeah, because then I was like, okay, if I see some of my mom's behaviors as quote unquote toxic, but recognize those behaviors in myself, then I know I've had an effect on my children. I know that I did. And you know what? Here's the thing. A lot of people say to me, oh, you need to stop blaming yourself. I'm like, I'm not blaming myself, I am not. I have learned throughout this healing journey that that this generational trauma that we have in my family, in particular me, I'm indigenous to Canada. My mother is a residential school survivor, and that runs very deep in in our genes. And so this generational trauma that went from, you know, my grandmother to my mom, to me, to my kids, I didn't recognize the role I played in that. But I also recognized after a while, if this didn't start with me, I read a book called it didn't Start with you. And another book called What Happened to You? And those were the two books that made me realize, I think I have childhood trauma, and if I have childhood trauma and I haven't healed it, that means I likely have toxic behaviors that I'm not aware of. And then I went, okay, I got to start looking at this stuff because my kids deserve better. I deserve better. So people have asked me, you know, have said to me, are you're blaming yourself? I'm not blaming myself. I'm taking responsibility for what I did. And the reality of it is, I, I'm not going to cry. Lisa, I did the best I could to raise my kids, I was a mess and I missed a lot. And I messed up a lot. And I did things that caused them harm, that they're going to now have to try to figure out how to heal as adults. And so as their mom, the least I can do now is leave them the hell alone so that they can figure it out. It's the least I can do. Yeah. I'm going to start crying. And now I feel like I'm going to start crying. It's so, you know, my kids are seven and nine, and I think obsessively, it's almost like a millennial thing, right? Where we're like, got to be the perfect parent. And to, you know, you're at a different generation. But that obsession with parenting them in the perfect way so that I don't create trauma. And I'm reminded of my sister being like, we all f our kids up in some way. The point is to try to reduce the harm as much as possible. And I'm like religiously going to therapy to make sure that I don't pass this down to my kids. But I think so much about what that would be like. And even in watching your content, I'm like, if my kids didn't want to talk to me anymore, oh my God, like, how would I handle that? What would I do? Because I think what I understand about moms, even that woman doormat mom, what I understand is the defensiveness of like, hey, but I did my best and hey, but your dad was abusive and hey, but my mom did this to me, and my dad did this to me, and it's not my fault. And that's not fair. I get the feeling. Yeah, but as soon as you spew all of that out at the person you've harmed, you're not taking accountability. You're deflecting. And so, like, I get the feelings, but like, maybe go unpack that in therapy or with a friend or. Something Y yeah. And that's why I some people will say to me, how come you you never bad mouth your children? Are you never say any. Bring up your own stuff. I'm like, that's for my therapist in me. And I'm not that bad in all my children. I never have I, I never have, and I never will. Simply because that just feels icky to me. It just they're my children. But, you know, the one thing that hit me was when you said, oh, what would I do if my kids didn't talk to me again? I that was a huge wake up call for me. If my kids don't like the person I am enough to be around me, I need to take a look at myself, not at them. Children naturally love their parents and adore their parents. That's a natural thing for a child to do. But there comes a point in time when. Parents have to stand up and take responsibility for it and say, okay, two things can be true at the same time. I tried the best I could and I damaged my kids. In the meantime, I still fell short. I tried the best, I could, and I still fell short. I tried the best I could and I still traumatized my kids. both can be true at the same time. The one thing that has been very, difficult along this path is self-forgiveness. because there's always that thought in the back of your mind that goes, if my own children can't forgive me, how dare I forgive myself? Does that make sense? Oh, my God, that hit me. That makes so much sense. We talk about that, idea of self forgiveness. But how can you just live your life like, okay, I forgave myself and somebody else is still going, wow, it was that easy for you? I don't exactly, exactly. So I've been working diligently in therapy now on self forgiveness because this is the way I look at it. So I've got a few analogies, but one of them is a play pen analogy. And and this is how I see it to to moms whose kids are low contact or no contact. You know, when our kids were small, we used to put them in the playpen so they could be safe and we would get our work done. We get our laundry done, our dishes done, our vacuuming, whatever we needed to get done. And they were safe. We didn't have to worry about them. I often tell parents, now think of your child the same way as is a no contact child. They are fine. They are safe. They are doing their own thing. This is your time to get your work done because those kids may they just may. There's there's no guarantee, but they just maybe peek their heads out of that little playpen area and say, hey, are you still the same? Have you changed it all? Have you accepted any responsibility? Or are you able to acknowledge the pain that you caused me? Are you able to validate me and hold space? No. Okay. And off they go again, right? Yeah. that's what tends to happen often. So I say to parents, now is my time to look at this as a gift. This has been one of the most painful gifts of my life. But it's been a gift because I now have my eyes are open to my own behavior, to my own toxicity, to my own crap. You know, like I often, you know, people say, well, what kind of toxicity are you talking about? Well, if I wanted my kids to do something a certain way and and they're adults, keep in mind they're adults and I and and they were like, no, I want to do it this way. I would try to do everything I could to convince them to do it my way. And that's just manipulation. I didn't understand that at the time. I was like, I just want them to do it my way. But I didn't understand that. And now see that I did that. How do you think that if you use that specific example, how did that affect them? It made them feel unseen and unheard. It invalidated their opinion on their decisions, on what they want to do and how they want to live their own life. Mom, you're not in charge of me. I'm now an adult and you completely invalidated me by me saying, okay, I'll give you an example. My oldest son, at the time that this whole Covid thing was coming out, he decided to not get vaccinated. I decided to get vaccinated. He was right. He was wrong. I'm not going to be here to debate that stuff, but I tried everything I could to convince him to vaccinate, and he was he said to he said, mom, that's not your choice. That's not your decision. I'm a like that. And I hear that. I hear that in my head now. And I go, I wonder how many times I did that to him, because that's the time I remember. But for every time I remember, there's probably plenty of times that I did that, that I don't remember, but they do. It might have been a normal Tuesday for me, but for them, it was a day that their mom invalidated them. And made them feel unimportant. Yeah. And when that happens repeatedly. And make sense. And I was emotionally unstable. I was one of those moms that I was not emotionally stable. They never knew what version of me they were going to get. If they were going to get the calm, mellow mom like you, you know, or if they were to get the erratic, emotional mom that was crying and, you know, drama, drama, drama. And they just didn't know what they were going to get. And so I can't imagine what it would have been like for them to, you know, see my name pop up on their phone. Like, I know what that feeling is like. And so when I recognized that that's what I was doing to my kids, I just wanted to stop doing that. I wanted to stop hurting them in a way, you know, and and. One child decided to, write me a long text and tell me exactly what he what he. The reason he was going no contact. Told me he was going. No contact. Told me why I said goodbye and blocked me on everything. The other one just ghosted and and and so they don't respond to me at all. And I don't blame them. They need their time. They'll come back to me when they're ready. I sometimes on birthdays and stuff, we'll say happy birthday. I buy a text, but I don't expect anything in return. I just want them to know. You know, your mom's thinking about you today. I hope you have a good day. And I hope that just even that little bit of contact lets them know that I'm here for them, but also isn't overstepping those boundaries like some moms show up at their kids door and, you know, unannounced and show up at their jobs and text them and text them and text them. And it's like, leave them alone. Just let them have some space. Yeah. I feel like, you know, in the effort to reconnect and like, you know, give me a chance and keep trying. You're also doing the complete opposite of what they've asked for and what they need, which only shows them that you're not healing, you're not changing. In fact, I see this even in the context of an abusive relationship where people say, you know, how can you know if he's changed, if you won't let him back to show you part of the fact that he's bulldozing you and railroading you to come back and show you, shows you that he hasn't changed because you changed. He'd respect you. Yeah. I don't think it's any different with an abusive or toxic parent that you're trying to go no contact with. It's just like, no, but you need to hear me. You need to see that I've changed. The demonstration of change is in, frankly, what you're doing. Yeah, you're describing that. That's what I'm hearing. And I think that's incredible. It's so rare because you see so much on line. I actually once got, a DM from someone on Facebook, and it blew my mind. I was so confused by the message because she said I just saw one of the videos where you were talking about going no contact with the toxic parent, and this is what I think. This is so unfair that it always gets put on the parent. I don't make content on this topic. I don't know what she was talking about. To this day, I have no idea. She might have confused me, but it seemed like she had just watched a video and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about, lady, but it sounds like your children are adults. It sounds like they've gone no contact. I'm sorry for that. And I wonder if you might seek therapy. She thought I was offering her working with me. That's not my wheelhouse specifically. I do talk to a lot of survivors of abuse, domestic violence, narcissistic relationships that have difficult relationships with their parents. But it's not my primary topic. But I could see in the message from her why her kids went no contact. Yeah, she was like flying off the handle to a complete stranger defending herself. For what reason? The defensiveness, though I get. Have you struggled with that? Because you sound like you accept it, but where's the struggle in some of this? Like it had to have been really hard. It has been hard to get to this point. I mean, I did send a letter to my youngest son. But I still wasn't in the greatest of headspace, so I probably shouldn't have sent the letter. I made it more about me than it would have been about anything else, but I recognize that now. I don't blame my children. I think it's because I. I see it from both perspectives. I see it from the adult child perspective. When I look at my mom and my relationship with my mom, and then I see it from the parent's perspective. When I look at my children and I try to offer them what I wish I could have gotten from my mom grace, compassion, understanding, validation, all of the things that I'm trying to heal from now, I'm trying to give to my children from a distance, if that makes sense. Yeah. And, and I live fairly close to my, my kids, like, we don't live that far apart, you know, I often, sometimes will look around. I do all the time. I couldn't say often, sometimes virtually every time I pull out of my garage, I'm watching for them just to see if I can. If. And I've only run across them twice. So. missing them. I almost can't even find the words missing them. And they're right there, Wanting them to to reconnect. I completely get you're talking a lot about your two youngest. What about the two oldest? Where's that? Okay, so Reader's Digest version. This is a very long story, but I first became pregnant with my first child when I was 14. I had her when I was 15 and then was married to her father when I was 16 and had another child that year. So by the time I was 16, I was married with two children. Yikes. The age of 18, my ex-husband's, my husband at that time, his parents decided that they wanted to raise the children and that we were going to divorce. Okay, they came and took the kids, on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of the afternoon. I tried to get out of the house with the kids. I couldn't get out of the house with the kids. So I ran across the street to phone the police. And while I was across the street, they put the kids in their vehicle and left with them. So I didn't get a chance to raise those two daughters. That's heartbreaking. While here's the thing. When my my sons went no, to no fault of their own. No, absolutely. This is no fault of their own. But when my two sons went no contact, it triggered the pain from losing my two daughters. Now I am in contact with my older two daughters. I we've rebuilt a relationship. This happened in the 80s. So it's a while ago. We've rebuilt and we're very connected. Especially my oldest daughter. So I have relationship with them. I just don't have a relationship with my two sons. I that's heartbreaking. Do they have a relationship? Your sons and your daughters. I encourage it, and I've said to my daughter, I said, do not talk about me. If you're going to have a relationship with your brothers, it don't make it about me. Because that's going to triangulated them and it's going to make them. It's going to you're going to feel like you're in the middle of something. They're going to. And it just it's not healthy. Have your relationship with them, whatever that looks like. Is it close? No, it's not close. They probably speak to each other a few times a year. Yeah. Well I mean that's good. You know, it would be nice if everybody was close and all the things. But, you know, life and trauma and I get it. Let me kind of shift and ask you, because I know that you came out of an abusive relationship as well. Do you think, you know, keeping keeping accountability in mind? Right. How did that relationship affect you as a parent? Because I know having been in an abusive relationship myself, you cannot be. This is my subjective opinion. You cannot be the best parent while you're in an abusive relationship. I think it's it puts you in a pressure cooker. You're not yourself. You're not thinking clearly. You're reactive. All the horrible things. So what's your take on that? First things first, I'm going to openly say and admit that that relationship was toxic on both ends. I see my own and I have made, Peace with the fact that I messed up in that relationship as well. There was a lot you had to grow. You had two people who were. It's so interesting because when we met, we were just both both in horrible situations and both a little broken and and feeling a little broken. And we just connected over, you know, our traumas. And then we would trigger each other and the whole trauma bond stuff. And, I was very much a pick-me girl. So I would put men before my children and I. That's horrible. That's difficult to admit, but I always put my relationship with men before my children. And so, how did it affect my kids? It made them feel less important. It made them feel like they weren't the most important thing in my life. You know. I it's heartbreaking to, you know, I had, an episode of this podcast where I was interviewing Logan Cooper, who's a trauma therapist, and talking about what type of parents, what type of behavior, what type of households create victims of future abuse and romantic partnerships. And a lot of what you describe, you know, feeling unseen, unheard, unloved, manipulation, neglect, those kind of things that often leads people into bad relationships, which really only can layer the guilt for parents whose kids are struggling to have relationships with them. If, yeah. you accept that guilt. And again, it's just it's so refreshing. It's such a weird sort of thing to say to someone, but it's refreshing to hear someone who actually feels like I messed up and I want to do better instead of just like, fine, I messed up. But that's not fair because and gives you all the reasons. It's like, I wish more parents. Yeah, that's could. Gain something from watching your content or listening. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to work with parents whose kids have gone low contact or no contact, to get them to understand and shift the perspective. You know, some people have asked me as well about my daughters in law because both my sons have long term relationships and because, again, a lot of these parents want to blame the daughters in law. They want to say, you know what? I'm like, if anything happened with my sons and I'm so grateful for this, they found healthier women who knew and looked at me and went, your mom's a mess. And I think that that helped my sons to understand what a healthier relationship is. Do you know what I mean? So I'm. Yeah, I'm grateful to my daughters in law that for for being good partners, for my sons, you know, healthier partners and that they didn't wind up getting into relationships that were incredibly toxic. Now we don't know what goes on behind closed doors all the time, of course. But for the most part, I think, a lot of especially moms will blame the daughters in law. And, it really isn't. It's it's more times the daughters in law are are seeing the toxicity, seeing the dysfunction and pointing it out to our sons. And, that's putting them in a healthier position. And it opened my son's eyes to some of the stuff that he might not have ever needed. My sons might not have ever spoke up to me had they not had strong, healthy women in their lives. It's healing for them. I love yes. Yes. And I that's all I've ever wanted for my kids is now is to be able to heal from what damage was done to them. You know, for. Yeah, that's so true. I mean, it's all anybody wants. That's why I overthink my own parenting constantly. Is this the right thing? Is this the right decision? I am a human being. So shocker. I have yelled at my children, you know, have and we all but something that my own therapist says to me and I really appreciate this because they kind of need this sometimes to be reminded that we're humans, and sometimes we yell and we make a mistake. The repair is the key. And yeah, it's so much of what we're talking about is your repair right now is longer term. But when I see these little moments because my kids are so much younger, if I yelled, if you apologize, it's not that it erases it, but it shows them what accountability looks like. It shows that you understand that what you did is wrong. Yeah. So I will say, if I might say to them, you know, I know that I yelled, but I want you to know that it was because I was having big feelings and that had nothing to do with you, and it was on me to walk away and take a deep breath and calm down. And I didn't do that. And I'm sorry, it's not like. But you. Yet you were frustrating me, you know, if you hadn't just put your toys away, then I wouldn't have had to have yelled. Yeah, that kind of. That leads up to if you just had been a better son, then, you know. And that's right. That's not helpful. Blaming a child, especially a literal child. Your children are adults now. And it's again, it's hard for me to even picture not having my kids in my life. But my therapist also said to me, and I love this, that if that ever happened where they felt like something was so bad in our relationship that they were going to go no contact or needed to reduce their contact with me, she was like, you would be open. I can tell that about you, that you would be open to hearing what you could do better and you would try to fix it where you know not to harp on this poor woman doormat mom, because she's clearly struggling. But I'm you're going about this in the most backwards way you possibly could, and it's it's not going to result in a relationship. But I almost wonder, do you think I know this is just speculation? Do you think her or people like her moms like her? Do you think they actually want to reconnect with their kids? I have been in contact with parents who have said, no, I don't want anything to do with my kids. I have been, I have I have had parents like that who said no. It's a blessing for me that my kids aren't in my life. And I and you know what? I my response to that is, I agree. I agree 100%. If you think it's a blessing that your kid is not in your life, then I agree for your kid's sake, I agree. Yeah, no, because. Better for them. Probably better for your child. Yeah. You know, some parents have said, well, I've got no contact with my child. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no contact goes from adult child to parent. Parent to child is abandonment. You don't get to you don't get to walk away from your kid because it gets too hard. That's an interesting way to put that. I actually really I agree with that so much because I see and I mean, like people disagree, but, I can't imagine how the parent is the one with the power, so to speak. So you can't go no contact. You don't get to blame your child for things that happen to them as children or blame, you know, but you didn't try or, you know, the the somebody said this to me the day the phone works both ways. Yeah. No. Yes. But that's not fair in this context. It's up to you to maintain a relationship with your kids. It's not up to your kids to be the one calling you and seeking you out. I think that in a child again, I'm talking about adult children that feel like they have to chase their parent. Yeah. Rocks. Yeah. Really sucks. So, you know, I. I did that with my mom. I noticed that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm going to say it from an adult child's perspective. I, I have forgiven my mom, I, I but I still struggle, I still struggle, I still struggle with my relationship with her. I still get triggered quite a bit from, you know, all this stuff that we've got in our past. It takes a long time, but I've forgiven my mom for all the things that she did or didn't do when I was younger. But I also have something that some other parents, some other adult children don't have. I have an apology from my mother. My mother apologized to me. She said to me, I'm so sorry. I wish I was a better parent. I didn't do things right. I didn't know how. I see it now and I wish I could have done it differently. And so just having that level of accountability has gone so far in repairing our relationship and so far in me having some compassion for her, some grace for her. You know, the other thing parents say to me is, well, how come I'm supposed to do all the work? You know, my kid is just mad at me. I'm like, okay, how old are you? I because I'm 58. And I started my quote unquote healing journey at 55. That's when I started becoming aware of my own bullshit. My kids are in their 30s. They're still figuring it out. Give them the space and grace to do that. Give them the space and the freedom to do that Does it hurt me? I miss my kids. I miss my grandkids. There's two grandkids that I don't get to see. And I, I mean, I don't know them after a year and a half, I don't know them anymore. And that's sad, but They're not my children. They are my children's children. They don't belong to me. I don't have grandparents rights. Grandparents get privileges. The privilege right around a grandchild if the parents so choose. But my my kids get to choose that. So I, I release that. I let that go because that is how they want to raise their children right now is to be have some distance from me. And that is totally okay by me. I think that's amazing. You know that you have that attitude. Do you have any advice? Not for the parents, because I know that's what you do. That's what you talk about. Do you have any advice for the adult children that are considering no contact or low contact or just really like anxiety ridden and stressed out about their relationship with their parent? Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing that that I, piece of advice I would give to an adult child is learn how to set and maintain boundaries, learn what a boundary is and, and then, and of course, adult children go, but my mom doesn't respect boundaries. I'm like, listen, we don't set written down boundaries or a verbal boundaries with people who get boundaries. We set it with people who don't get it. So you're going to have to some pushback from your parents. It's your job to maintain that boundary. So understand I opt into I talk to the adult children, and I do run programs on boundaries and how to how to maintain those boundaries under pressure because that's that's really key, especially once you're an adult. You should be able to set boundaries with your parents, even though it feels scary to do so. If you can learn to do that, that's that's the first step. Number one. I think that's first thing you should try. if you feel like you're being triggered by your parents a lot, then obviously there's a lot of trauma there. And I suggest that you figure out a way to heal that, whatever that looks like for you, whether it's traditional, methods, indigenous methods, holistic, spiritual, psychological, whatever works for you, incorporate all the tools and try to heal that stuff, because that stuff's to just go with you for the rest of your life. And the last piece of advice I can give to an adult child is if you're still wanting and looking for validation and an apology from your parent, and you're holding on to that, it's the holding on to that that's hurting you. If you can figure out how to release that need for your parent in their life. But then how do I get you have to learn to validate yourself. You have to learn to say, I know this happened. I'm okay with my parent not acknowledging it. I'm okay with it. So that's about where I would start. I would say. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. You know, you said something earlier about really kids wanting their parents approval. You want your parents love connection. But the truth is, when you're not getting it, you have to find a way to get that from yourself. And I mean therapy. If we have a good therapist, it can do wonders re parenting yourself. IFS is amazing. I've even done some empty chair exercises in therapy. It's painful as hell when you're talking to an empty chair, but you're envisioning a parent, a person in front of you, and it can be really healing because you get to just say the things that are on your chest. They probably can't say to your parent or your ex or whatever. Yeah, that's very important. we know now through research and everything that we've learned that trauma lives inside our body. And if we don't release it just eats at us. like it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So releasing it with an empty chair exercise with a letter to your parent that you burn afterwards with, conversation with a good therapist where you're getting it all out. It's important. It's a release. And if we don't release that pain that we carry with us, it just compounds and it shows up in toxic behaviors. An inability to emotionally regulate yourself. All those things will show up in that way if you don't get it out. So getting it out. I've seen those empty chair exercises. I want to try one. It will rip your soul... You have never tried eMDR? I have heard about it. I've done brain spotting, which my therapist says is similar but not quite. An eMDR. I've heard such great things about. I've heard only that it can be retraumatizing if you don't have kind of a base of how to handle some of this, you might want to get some coping skills first. But have you done eMDR? I have done eMDR after I went to treatment for addiction and I realized that didn't work. I thought it was going to be a this beautiful magic pill and I was going to be fine after that. It helped. There were some things that helped in treatment, but going into trauma therapy was, probably the most helpful for me. Also, I've done plant medicine journeys. So I'm a firm believer in that too. And so eMDR was one that was recommended to me by my trauma therapist. And, I tried it, and at first it was just weird because you're just watching a ball go back and forth on a screen, or you're holding on to buzzers that alternately buzz in your hands and make, you know, these weird sensations. Go on. And then, you know, 3 or 4 days later, you feel this release like something has been just lifted off of you. So it's really I think it's very important to try different modalities of healing, figure out what works for you, because what works for each every person is different. I haven't I know of IFS I understand the basic outline and concept of it. I've never experienced effects as as a form of treatment. It gets you that gets you. You talk about the different parts of you that are holding on to things, or that feel angry or protective, or it like it's really if you have a good therapist on that, it's it's difficult work, but I recommend it. But you are totally right. I love, you know, it's a perfect thing to say that if something is different for everyone. So you have to really find what works for you. And I always think, you know, if if it's not working, you have the wrong therapist or you have the wrong modality. But therapy works and breaking this generational trauma is so important, so, so, so important. that's why I'm proud of my kids. They've they've had the courage to break that chain of generational trauma. And at one point I was saying I was breaking it. And I remember my son saying to me, well, mom, it's not actually you, it's me. But that's okay. And I was offended by that. And I'm like, what do you mean? I'm doing all this work? You already raised your kids crystal. He already passed it down. He already passed it down. Now I'm healing for me, now for me. Yeah. And they'll do the same. I'll do the same. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully. Thank you so much for. Thank you for being here. I'm so glad to have this conversation with you. And I will put all of your contact info where people can follow you in the notes so that people can connect with your content and learn from your experience, learn from your mistakes and learn from your your healing. So thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate the time.