What happens when childhood dysfunction follows you into adulthood?

In this deeply healing episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy sits down with licensed therapist and ACOA specialist Kara Lissy to unpack the lasting effects of growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home.

Together, they explore childhood trauma, nervous system dysregulation, people pleasing, grief, shame, perfectionism, emotional neglect, boundaries, and what healing actually looks like as an adult child of dysfunction.

If you've ever struggled with anxiety, hypervigilance, relationship issues, emotional triggers, or feeling “not enough,” this episode will help you understand why and show you that healing is possible.

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Did you grow up walking on eggshells, feeling hypervigilant, anxious, emotionally neglected, or constantly trying to keep the peace?

If so, you are not alone.

In this powerful episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy sits down with licensed therapist, ACOA specialist, and author Kara Lissy, LCSW, to talk about what really happens when you grow up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family system and how those childhood experiences continue shaping your relationships, nervous system, self-worth, and emotional patterns as an adult.

Kara brings both professional expertise and lived experience to this conversation, sharing her own story of growing up with alcoholism in the home, navigating shame, grief, hypervigilance, people pleasing, and eventually turning pain into purpose through therapy and healing work.

Together, Tammy and Kara discuss:

✔ Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) and dysfunctional family patterns

✔ Childhood trauma and nervous system dysregulation

✔ Why people pleasing and perfectionism develop

✔ Shame, grief, and healing your inner child

✔ Emotional neglect and hypervigilance

✔ Why leaving home doesn’t automatically heal trauma

✔ Boundaries, emotional regulation, and self-trust

✔ Breaking generational cycles of dysfunction

✔ How to stop living in survival mode

This episode is for anyone who grew up in chaos, emotional neglect, addiction, criticism, unpredictability, or dysfunction and wants to finally understand why they struggle with triggers, anxiety, emotional overwhelm, or relationships.

Healing is possible. And no, it was never your fault.

CONNECT WITH KARA LISSY

Instagram: @kara_bout_yourself

Website: www.karalissy.com

Blog/Substack: karalissylcsw.substack.com

Grab Kara’s book: Healing From a Dysfunctional Family

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As an international inspirational speaker, NLP Practitioner, Trauma-Informed Coach, Neurofit Trainer, and Best-Selling Author, I bring both deep personal experience and professional training to the work I do. I believe in prevention, not just intervention — and use a body, mind, and spirit approach to guide others toward becoming the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves.

My holistic toolbox includes nervous system regulation, trauma-informed coaching, nutritional support, and natural healing strategies,

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Well, good morning, everybody.

Welcome to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.

Today we have with us Kara Lissy, and I am super excited to talk to her because I feel like we have so much in common.

We just spoke for a few minutes, but I know what she does for a living.

She is an ACOA therapist.

So for those of you that don't know what that is, which I don't know if there's anybody listening to this that does not know what adult children of alcoholics is.

And now, as, again, I've mentioned in a lot of my podcasts that they've actually kind of broadened that term to adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families, because as we all know, dysfunction is dysfunction, and it doesn't necessarily to be alcoholism that brings you into this world with these questions and problems and just patterns.

It can be any kind of dysfunction.

So it kind of encompasses all of it.

But I love that I have Kara here today because my experience with two alcoholic parents is probably very similar to her experience, I'm sure.

So welcome, Kara.

Thank you so much for having me.

I, as a therapist and just like a consumer of podcasts, this is really exciting because I feel like when I listen to podcasts, this is sometimes a topic, like people will touch on it, whether it's a therapist or a celebrity, but to have a whole podcast dedicated to it, like a special space for us is really, really something.

So thank you for what you do.

This is great.

Oh, well, thank you.

And I like knowing that there's people out there that are willing to talk about it, because much of it, you know, and.

And a lot of the people that I do have on my podcast are, you know, healers and therapists and doctors, and because they went through it, and they went through probably a whole process.

Process to undo some of the stuff that happened to them in childhood.

So tell me a little bit about your background.

I'm sure your story is going to be sprinkled through this entire podcast, but talk a little bit about how you got started doing what you're doing.

Yeah, I was thinking about this this morning earlier in prep, and it's kind of like the personal and professional have sort of always been woven together, even from the time that I was really, really young, just because, as, you know, growing up in an alcoholic home where we become, early on, very attuned to what's going on around us.

I think my first ever therapist bio said I was always interested in my family's behavior.

That's like, where the seed for therapy Was planted because why did he act like that?

Why did she say that in that way?

Why is there tension that I can't figure out that was always sort of like brewing from a very young age?

And I think also with the support of my mom, who was.

Was not the alcoholic parent, I learned about 12 step programs really, really early.

So I was in Alotine, eventually Al Anon.

When I moved to New York City, I discovered that ACOA Adult children was its own group, specifically working on intimacy and relationships and how that affects, like, your development.

And so it's always been sort of like a through line in my life.

But I also knew that I wanted to make it my career because it was interesting to me.

And I think it was a way that.

And maybe a lot of therapists feel this way.

We can have some sort of facet of control over a situation, not in like a crazy way, but just in like an understanding way.

So that sort of is where it all came together.

I think the biggest part of my childhood was wrestling with the shame, which I'm sure many people can relate, many children and adults.

But the not being sure when to talk about it or even what was going on, or even like labeling the emotion shame.

I don't know when that came into my vocabulary, probably in a psychology class.

But understanding that and that you feel different.

But really, when you examine everybody's home and everybody's family, every family's got something.

And I think that's sort of the irony of the ACDF evolution is that every family has a little dysfunction.

It's just inherent in systems.

In the same way that every job has some dysfunction and every government has some dysfunction, wherever you turn, there's going to be something that's not working.

So kind of as a therapist, it's my job to figure out what's not working and how to empower, in my case, each individual to find their place in their family and then in their own community outside their family.

Exactly.

And I'm sure when people come to you, if they say, I had two alcoholic parents, it switches just a tiny bit because it's like you've walked in their shoes.

And I tell people when they're looking for a therapist or a coach or a mentor or whoever it is, if you want that.

Really, I don't want to say, yeah, I mean, that empathy that.

That someone being able to walk in your shoes kind of therapist, there's nothing better than someone who has gone through it.

And I say it all the time.

I remember my first client said to Me, you know, Tammy, I've been going to therapy for 11 years and in 18 minutes you told me more about why I am the way I am and gave me something to do about it, like today.

And I was like.

Because I was you.

Yeah, I get it.

Like, so what do you.

When did you start on your journey of.

Did you know your whole life?

Like, did your mom talk about.

I guess it was your dad's addiction then.

Yeah.

So it was talked about to a point where I think she was aware of my awareness as like a 10 year old, 11 year old.

Just people were wanting to come, you know, your friends want to come over, you want to go to sleepovers, you're out in the world more, you're learning more.

And I think it was born out of, oh, she's going to have questions and I don't have all the answers because I'm not going to speak for him.

And I'm on my own journey with healing.

And so she brought me, kicking and screaming, I might add, into her journey.

I did not want to be there those first few weeks.

It was so uncomfortable.

And I think sitting in that discomfort is what ultimately made me stronger throughout the years because the more that you share and the more that you see what other kids are going through and what they've endured at home and how, and sometimes even like how the families have evolved and gotten better, it like releases some of that shame.

When you share it, it ultimately divides.

And so I learned that at a really, really young age in those basements, just like, even if I didn't want to talk, listening, I would take things home.

Like, oh, yeah, I remember she said she felt that way too.

Or, you know, like, well, her dad also hasn't stopped drinking and mine isn't either.

So, you know, it's like you find camaraderie in those, in those spaces.

And I took that with me because that's why I went back to ACOA so many years later.

It was just like the adult version, like fast forwarded.

Right.

Oh, stuff that I didn't continue working on.

And I'm sorry, I forgot what your original question was.

I went on a tangent.

I don't know.

But that's okay.

That's.

That's totally fine.

Yeah.

Now tell me, did you go with your mother?

Did you go to Al Anon?

Oh, just to Alateen.

So the grown ups would go and then the kids would go with other peer leaders downstairs.

Yeah, it was like the upstairs and the downstairs.

Yeah.

And I went to Alotine and it Was funny because I remember my father.

I was about.

I think I was 12 or 13, and my father said to me one day, tammy, your mother and I are doing irreparable.

I'll never forget this quote.

He said, we're doing irreparable damage to you and your brother and sister, and I don't know how to help you.

This is before the meetings, or it.

Was before the meetings.

Yeah.

So I think I was 12 or 13.

And he's like, I don't know how to help you.

So I was.

I just asked, like, I was like, what do I do?

So I. I think I asked a guidance counselor or something like, hey, is there something for kids whose parents drink?

And they sent me to an alotine meeting.

And I'll never forget it.

And it was.

They were talking about empathy, which is why I. I laugh now, because now I have very much.

But back then I did not have any.

And they were trying to talk about, you know, your parents, you know, they're struggling with their own demons and, you know, to be able to walk in someone's shoes or to be able to, you know, have a conversation or try to put yourself and see what they're going through.

And the night before.

It was the night before.

I'll never forget it.

My mom was.

I don't know what she was doing, but she.

It was a custody battle, basically.

Yeah.

And back in the 80s, it wasn't an easy thing to show that mom was unfit.

You really had to prove her unfit.

Yeah.

She was pretty much the default, right?

Like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did.

They went.

Kids went with Mom.

And so she was trying to do every.

She knew court was coming up, and she was trying to do everything she could to get my father to look bad.

Because even though my father was an alcoholic, he was.

He would never have laid a hand on us.

He would never.

He just was not that kind of guy.

And so she called us down in the middle of the night, and she was burning cigarettes on my father, trying to get him to hit her so that we would have to testify against her.

Antagonistic.

She was antagonist again.

Yeah.

And so.

And I'll never forget it.

And then the very, like, two days, days later, I want to say it was like, I went to this alotine meeting and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

And so I left.

I made the mistake.

So if you're out there listening and you have a child and, you know they're going through this, don't let them leave without trying.

It Three or four times, yes.

Agree, agree.

The first time was horrible.

The second time was bad because I knew what it was like.

The third time, it was kind of like, all right, this is what we do now.

We go out to eat after.

So at least I get my.

Whatever it was.

McDonald's, Wendy's, a shopping trip.

Like, she brought it to me for sure.

Right Then you kind of.

Then I remember telling one friend at school, one best friend I told I will never forget over instant message.

You know how we all used to go on, like, AOL and everything?

I said, I have to tell you something.

My dad has some problems, and I've been going to a meeting about it, and I feel a lot better now.

And she was so supportive.

And it was like, you tell the people in the meeting, and then maybe you can tell one person in your personal life, and maybe then that one person holds your secret and is a really good friend and you can kind of like, breathe a little bit easier in the world.

Because what you're describing, too, is what so many of my clients say, which is, but my parents don't hit me.

You know, they provide for me.

They work, they do this, they do that.

In your dad's case, that doesn't mean there's not something going on that is really painful to watch or witness or be a part of in the family unit.

It doesn't have to be physical.

It could be emotional.

And that's what is important to share with other people.

Exactly.

And even just, you know, I. I always say my dad never.

I mean, he drank every night.

He.

He was so tormented, even.

And my kids loved him till the day he died.

I mean, my kids, we lived with him at certain times throughout our.

My adulthood when I was moving and things like that.

But they would say, I mean, he was the gentlest, kindest man in the whole world.

But when he would fall asleep, and they would always, like, put all the pillows and the blankets on his floor, and they'd all watch a movie and fall asleep, and he would sit there with the scotch next to the bed and drink.

But my daughter said to me one day, I'll never forget it.

She's about 8.

And she said, you know, I love Grandpa so much, but I hate when he sleeps.

And I thought, that's a weird thing to say.

And she said he would cuss and cry and drop every F bomb.

And in his sleep, in his sleep, he was so angry.

And so.

So, I mean, he never got the help he needed, you know, so.

But that just was.

I Was like, oh, my gosh.

So when I talk about, you know, he never did anything wrong, I also say, God bless him.

He was never there emotionally to be able to do anything right, if that makes sense.

Yes.

I mean, and that's the perfect way to put it.

Like, he was there for me.

He provided for me.

He drove me to my sports.

He.

He did all that stuff when he could.

When he wasn't fighting with my mother,.

He was like the parental body in the room, like, could do the things.

Yeah, right, right.

You know, whereas my mom, I was holding her hair over the toilet so she could puke, so I could call in sick to her boss and say she's got the flu.

Like, that was a totally different.

You were her parent, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly.

So there are both of those cases.

But, you know, at the end of the day, it's.

Again, you said, you know, it goes back to that shame.

I couldn't tell anybody.

I mean, it was kind of a joke.

I know this is horrible, but my friends and I used to call my mom the I mean to her face.

Like, it was so bad.

And I think about it now, and I'm like, hey.

And I.

It was.

There was.

Think about the home you grew up in.

And that was a norm.

That was like, well, this is what I'm gonna do.

And maybe watching it on, like, a TV show, or if you heard someone telling you that, it now would be like, whoa.

But at the time, it was like, yeah, why not?

That's.

I mean.

Yeah, she was mean to me.

My friends knew she was mean to me.

I wasn't allowed to bring people into the house.

Very, very seldom did I ever bring in Buddy into the house.

And the couple times I did, it was a disaster.

So I stopped doing that.

But, yeah, it's.

But you.

You have that shame.

I mean, in our family, it wasn't.

My dad said, I don't know what to do for you.

My grandmother was kind of our rock.

She never drank a day in her life.

Well, I take that back.

She drank at my kids.

Confirmation.

And because she didn't realize she was drinking wine coolers, didn't know what they were, and had three of them.

And it was like, we can let that go.

She didn't realize, you see that?

Yeah, I'm like, I'm gonna let that one go.

But.

But, like, having people over at the house and everything, that wasn't a thing.

And so we were told, and my mom clearly flat out said to me, my mom.

My mom was a child psychiatrist.

So she, she was a very intelligent woman.

So when.

And she was also a severe narcissist, which I didn't know at the time, but obviously I didn't know.

I didn't know any of that.

No.

But you know, I always say looking back at him, like, man, I was manipulated by the best.

Well, it's true.

It's like when people have a gift, they can use it as a tool or they can use it as a weapon.

Yeah.

And I think also even your dad, the image of him like crying when in his sleep, that's so emblematic of like alcohol does not fix your problems.

You can think it will and it will find you in your sleep.

Right.

Like in front of your grandkids.

It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't regulate in the way that we hope it will or when the way some people hope it will, I guess.

Right.

And he didn't know back then.

He, I mean, he was Vietnam, you know, he was Vietnam in a very stressful situation.

He had actually ended up dying of Agent Orange cancer from going and blasting out the weeds and stuff.

So he was in, in the, the thick of it.

He also was sexually molested by his uncle for a long time when he was a child.

And I didn't know any of this, you know, I didn't, I found this out.

Yep.

Much later.

And, and, but again, after all the healing I had done, I, I don't even have any hard feelings for my mother.

Like it's, I get it.

Like, yeah, I guess she was a sick mentally ill person who is trying to drown her pain flat out.

Yep.

And the hard feelings only hurt you.

Right.

Like that's something that I had to learn about.

So my dad actually passed when he, when I was 15.

And he had not taken care of himself clearly, other than the alcohol.

Like it trickled into everything.

He was a stonemason.

He worked really long hours, didn't take care of his body.

Brilliant like House Creations and such a hard worker, but had a lot of illnesses that he didn't take care of and self medicated.

And so the one thing I had to learn was similar to what you're saying.

I'm only, I'm carrying the pain now.

Like if that's the legacy that I want, then that's what I get.

But I, I can remember happy times.

I can remember he used to make my mom very happy.

I can remember me being happy and simply just the fact that he's my dad.

And that can mean something if you want it to but you get to decide.

That's a big part of what my new book is about, is like, you get to rewrite the narrative going forward.

Whether they're in your life, they've passed, they're not in your life, or you set a boundary with them.

You can decide what you need to have a good relationship with that person.

And sometimes it's.

It's compassion, and sometimes it's not.

But I think it is kind of like what you choose to take with you in your life.

Right.

And it's.

You know, we could get into a whole nother podcast episode on just forgiveness and all of that.

But you said it perfectly before when you just said, you know, well, I don't even know how you said it, but you.

You can't let that control you.

That pain you're carrying, the pain.

I mean, they're gone.

Yep.

So why would I continue to want to do that?

And so looking at it and just being in now, I can tell stories, and some of them are horrific.

Like, I. I kind of joke and.

And I giggle now because 30 years ago, I would have been, like, suicidal telling a story.

The same story.

Now that I can say, oh, yeah, the.

You know, the year my mom pimped me out to the drug dealers, you know, it's like, right.

You just kind of.

And now it's just like, oh, yeah,.

It was just part of my journey.

Yeah, part of my.

Part of my journey.

Exactly.

And yeah.

But so talk about what you did yourself, besides the a.

You know, the Alan to really heal.

Like, what were some of the things to let go of that shame.

Talk a little bit about that.

So much was grief, but it wasn't just grief that.

And this is hard to explain to people who haven't lost a parent, but it's not just grief.

For he's not in my life, and he's missing now all of my life.

My daughter, my family, my wedding, my house, all these things.

It's.

I am always grieving the childhood that I never had.

I am always grieving the person who wasn't there.

He was a shadow version of himself because of the alcohol.

And I think that sometimes I have to check in and think, what am I grieving?

Am I grieving?

Like, oh, our house is.

Things are falling apart.

And I say to my husband all the time, my dad could have fixed that.

My dad could have done that.

I miss those times.

But then sometimes I look at even my husband and my daughter, and I get really deeply sad because I'm like, she is never gonna have to feel it's happy because she won't ever have to feel what I felt.

But it's a little bit sad for my own inner child.

So I think, like, naming the grief, but also like, knowing it's complicated grief.

It's not so black and white, like this person was on a pedestal and now they're gone.

It's like I'm grieving the past, always in the present.

Not always, but, you know, it comes and goes in waves, I'd say.

Right.

And becoming a mom has just like cracked that wide open.

So that's a piece of it.

Just like acknowledging the grief.

I think one thing I talk about in my book that has also been a real through line for me is self regulation.

Um, not just on a nervous system level, like stopping, slowing down, checking in, like the basic things you read on Instagram, but also, like, if I want to connect with people, I have to be regulated.

I cannot have an attitude, be flustered, say the first thing on my mind, and expect to be well received by anybody, by my clients, by my husband, by my mom, by my friends.

Like, that's just simply not effective.

So it's like self regulation when you communicate, when you have boundaries, when even just like, what do I need in a given day or weekend?

Some of it's executive functioning, like planning ahead.

Don't wait until you're in a crisis to use all your coping skills.

But I think if I had to put it in a nutshell, it would be like grief work.

And self regulation work for sure has helped me.

Yep.

That's.

I mean, I.

You were talking about that Instagram thing.

I'm actually doing a thing right now.

It's a 30 day nervous system reset on Instagram.

But it's.

It's more than just the nervous system.

Like we said that just now with the regulation.

Like today I talked about when you get triggered, pause and ask yourself, is there a threat right now?

Yes.

Or is this something from the past?

And, you know, move yourself from this part of your brain, you know, from the amygdala, move it to the, the logical processing part of your brain.

So, I mean, it's funny too, because in.

When going through all of my stuff, it was very, I want to say, helpful to read about the science behind what happens to children that go through trauma.

That to me, helped me let go a lot of the shame.

Because even though you can say all day long, none of this was my fault, I didn't do this.

It doesn't matter what was wired as a child when Your parents told you I drink because I don't have a life now because you were born.

You know, even if it's in jest, right?

Even if it's joking, even if it's said lightly and you know it's a joke, something like that will stick with you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I talk about.

Sometimes in my talks, I talk about the mom that's leaning over the.

The bed and grandma and grandpa and everybody's oohing and eying, and you're going to be the president.

You're going to do this, you're going to do that.

You know, you picture those parents over that crib.

And then you picture my mom over my crib.

Like, damn it, why were you born, like, every single day?

That gets so deeply in there.

That's why I said, you know, you can.

That's why I do.

I think a lot of the nervous system work, though, because I feel like those true core angers and, and sadness is.

It gets in your tissues.

It does, it does.

And when you learn, like, the perfect example of, like, I'm not being chased by a bear, there's no threat.

Like, everything's fine.

When you learn to spot that in your body, like, for me, it's usually in my shoulders or like my, my hands.

If you even just do that first, then your brain is like, oh, okay.

Like, we're.

Like, if you're relaxing your body, we must be fine.

Yeah.

And it, it all goes back to yeah.

Like, those moments get coded because then you have to come up with a survival tactic or an adaptation tactic to get through life, because that is the image you have is a negative critic in your head about something.

So what do you do in response to that?

You become.

Some people become perfectionists.

Some people become people pleasers.

Some people are just anxious all the time about everything.

Some people get depressed because they're like, what's the point in leaving the house?

And that's all.

It's so hard to see it this way when you're in it.

But on the other side, it's like, those were all ways to try to protect me.

If I'm perfect, no one will criticize me.

Right?

Like, and I talk a lot about that too, just even in my work on a regular basis.

But, like, how is this serving you?

And.

But are you taking it to the nth degree?

And it's like not serving you anymore.

Like, bring it back down to a reasonable.

I mean, there's no reasonable perfectionist level, but, like, reasonable striving to be good level.

Right.

And I always tell my clients, you know, whatever, when that little guy sits on your shoulder and tells you you're bad or you're stupid or you're ugly or you can't do this good enough, I always say, sit next to your, your best friend.

In your mind, sit next to your best friend, your daughter, your somebody that you love and care about.

And what would you think of that voice saying that to her?

Or, you know, put yourself, like, put, put your, I guess set your standards for your own, for yourself as you would for your best friend.

Because that's where that perfection and we set, we set the standards so high for ourselves.

Where I did something and I said, oh my God, that sucks.

If my daughter had come back with that same thing, even at 25 years old, I would have been like, oh my gosh, that's amazing.

Maybe not your best work, but absolutely amazing.

Yes, yes.

And we can, we have the same goes for when you're anxious about something.

Like you would tell a little child, that's okay, we're gonna figure that out.

It's gonna be okay.

Like, we'll just do the next thing and then we'll go from there.

You.

We can't say that to ourselves when we're dysregulated.

So it is a really good practice.

Like, how would you talk to a child or your, your child?

Yep.

And that's the easiest thing for me to do because sometimes you, it's like you can't turn it around and look at yourself because so many people, honestly, I mean, and I did myself, I had so much self loathing as just not, you know, I was never enough.

I never did this.

But I remember like they talk about, you know, take a little picture of your baby self and put it on the mirror and tell it you love it.

I hated that little thing for a while.

Yep.

I mean, I literally was like, you were weak.

You should have said this, you should have done this.

Like, you know, you should have been better.

I mean, really, for a long time.

And then it's like all of a sudden it's like you keep doing it and you go, one morning you wake up and you go, oh, look at her little eyes.

She was sad.

You're not living in her reality anymore.

Thank God.

That's not your life.

That's not your day to day nervous system experience.

Being around those, you know, parents and those behaviors.

And you can say like, oh, yeah, that really wasn't your fault at all.

Like, if anything, you were to be cherished and protected.

Like Right.

And wanting to spend time with.

With that.

Yeah, I think I.

That was a hard thing with my dad.

Just as you're saying that, like with family vacations and involvement in the family, he was checked out.

Like, didn't come on family vacations, didn't come to Thanksgiving on my mom's side.

Said he had to work, which I also think he had like a workaholism thing that went in tandem with drinking, but.

Right.

That was always really hard because it was like, why can't you put first.

Why can't you put whatever is going on in your mental health aside to just come on the vacation?

Like, what is so hard about that?

And, you know, I would look back on pictures and be like, he didn't want to spend time with me for some reason.

And it's like, oh, no, he didn't want to spend time with anyone.

He didn't even want to spend time with himself.

That's why he.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

He was partying or doing fun things at home without us.

He was home alone, asleep, you know, like it was.

It's sad.

You kind of feel it makes you do a little bit of reverse.

You almost feel bad for the parent.

So.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the empathy, empathy part and the compassion part.

And that's how you can heal.

You can say, oh, my gosh, yes, he did this because he was hurting.

And when you can turn that flip that in your mind, I mean, my mother was cutting and anorexic or bulimic or something, it like 13 or 14 years.

And her father, who is also a child psychiatrist, sent her to boarding school for four years.

Oh, yeah, that'll do it.

That'll fix it.

Yeah.

You know, so like when I found that out, and I did find that out when she was still doing the brutal things and.

But there was so, I mean, that was kind of, you know, you're in that.

You're in the throw of it.

It's just a daily battle.

And, you know, I wasn't going to have any sympathy at that point or empathy at all.

But afterwards I could look back and go, God, you know, I. I could have been kinder.

But I'm not beat myself up about that either.

No.

Because that comes with maturity and time.

Yep.

There's no substitute for that.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

So.

Wow.

So it's.

Yeah, you had, you had it.

I love that you took what you did or what you had done to you and with you and whatever not for you and turned it into Something great.

And you're helping a lot of people.

I can only imagine how many people you're helping.

Yeah, I'm trying.

Yeah.

Everyone's story is a little different.

Just when you think you know it all and, oh, I can relate to this part of it, they tell you something else.

And it's like, even if it is an alcoholic home, it's like, I have no experience with that.

So tell me what that part of it is like.

Right.

Which is hard sometimes.

But, you know, it's just.

It's great to.

It's great to be able to offer a mix of personal and professional to help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The lived experience is so powerful.

I mean, I can just tell when you talk to me, I was telling some stories and I could just see your eyes, like, oh, wow.

Like, you could.

I could tell you were in my shoes listening to the story.

Like you were thinking.

Yeah.

I remember when, like, I could tell that looking at you and.

And that adds a whole nother level of compassion.

Yep.

Yep.

The walking on eggshells, the never knowing what you're gonna get and the mood and not.

Not wanting to.

Scared when you're not at home because what's happening at home.

And for me, it was the checking his breathing all the time in the.

On the couch and the recliner just like, okay, chest still moving great.

Like that hyper vigilance, it just never really goes away.

You just find a way to do different things with it.

Yeah, I was.

I had struggle.

It's kind of a side story.

But my dad wouldn't let me spend the night at people's houses because he was always afraid that my mother was going to do something to him in his sleep.

And so I was very hyper vigilant to any loud thumps or noises.

I don't know why.

And I was.

Until I was about 40, like, for some reason it was just something about a thump.

And even, like, even like I was watching some crazy movie on TV the other day and it was.

There was a murder in the movie and it was just something about that certain thump.

And I went.

And I don't know why, because I never heard the thump, but it was a sound that I guess I imagined it would sound like if somebody was getting killed in their sleep.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yep.

Yep.

It's just an association you get, and that's that it just makes sense to you for some reason.

Yep.

Yep.

So.

And I'm sure you work with a lot of that.

I'm sure you work with how you can help people deal with their triggers.

I'm sure.

I mean, I'm sure you work with all of that because that's what you do.

But you work in what states do you work in again?

So I'm in New York.

That's home for me.

But I'm also licensed in Connecticut and New Jersey, so I have a good amount of like virtual folks too.

I'm mostly virtual.

My, I go into the city Wednesdays.

That's like my in person day.

It's pretty booked right now, but I could definitely fit like one more person.

One or two more referrals for in person.

But virtual is what I'm trying to focus on now.

It helps me be flexible with my family to stay home.

No, that sounds good.

And I will put your links and everything that you give me in the show notes so people can reach out to you.

Tell us about your book.

Yes.

So I'm so I was just telling you before we logged on that it came today like boxes and boxes.

So it's called Healing from a Dysfunctional Family.

It's a workbook with new harbinger, very self help, self guided journaling, different tools, worksheets that you can copy and come back to.

There's meditations that I've recorded that you can use from their website and bring with you in your phone if you need them.

And it basically walks through all of the iterations that can happen to an individual as a result of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

So anxiety, depression, boundary issues, people pleasing, relationship struggles and communication.

Kind of everything we've talked about.

And there's skills, evidence based skills and journaling for each issue, I guess I'll call them.

And then a little chapter at the end for like moving forward with your own family and how to not pass on some of the stuff that you've been through.

Yep.

And that's, I think one of the biggest, one of the biggest pieces to this puzzle is the generational part of it.

You know, you.

I remember I learned I, I was really in a kind of, I want to say I was kind of out of it till I was about 26.

But when I started, got ready to have my first child, I started figuring out, okay, this is not normal.

I can't do this.

I can't raise my kids like this.

I have to figure this out.

And that's when I started really jumping in and, and figuring it out.

But again, if you're out there listening, I don't ever, ever, ever want you to go, oh my gosh, my kids Are already six.

It's too late.

It is never, ever too late.

No, never too late.

Never too late to, to just be the best version of yourself.

I mean, start now.

The minute you become aware.

Now it's your responsibility.

I feel like.

Yeah, before you knew, you didn't know you were only acting from.

I, I.

What did I.

One day I did this Instagram and I was just laughing my head off and it was like, you're a poacto.

And people are like, what the heck is a poacto?

And I just had an acronym for, like a product of a dysfunctional something something.

Oh, you should trademark that, Tammy.

That's really good.

It was so funny.

I was like, yeah, I'm a poecto.

And, and I laughed so hard when I was doing it, but it was like a product of a dysfunctional alcohol unit something.

I don't remember what it was, but we.

I laughed so hard and I was like, I finally accepted the fact that what you're looking at right here before I healed was exactly what life would expect you to be based on your circumstances and your environment.

Yes.

And innate in that is resilience.

On top of all the other things that happened to you, there was also a really deep.

I mean, there's strength in all of us, but that's what comes out and that's what gets you through.

So it's not only what you're, not only the sum of what happened to you, but you're how you respond to it at every phase.

And as long as it's, what can I do?

Not what can I do better in terms of, like, I need to be perfect, but what can I.

Am I still growing?

Does this still ring true to me?

Am I living up to my values?

You know, your values are going to be different when you're 20, 30, 40, 50.

They change every few years.

And as long as you're checking in with yourself.

I do have a section on values in the book too, of that, of like, that's a good compass.

Like, am I in line with himself?

Yep.

And I love that because a lot of times when you do come out of the house and everybody goes, oh, they're out of the house, everything's better.

That's when the work begins.

That is when.

No, you don't just leave the, the environment and run away and think everything's going to get better.

That is, that is such a Myth.

Leave a 19 year old with all these loans and stuff and see what happens.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like, they're good, they Got this.

Still figure it out.

I figured it out when I was a kid.

But no, it's.

It's.

It's so insidious and sneaky.

But like I said, never too late.

To your point?

Yes.

Yes, to my point.

It's never too late.

And now that you're aware, you know, you know your values, you know what, how you want to be with your kids.

So now you could start and, and just, you know, power in the pause, man.

Just stop and think before you act.

Is this in alignment with how I want to be?

And you know, there's so much power in that pause.

Just because you're still.

Some of us are still in the fight and flight and freeze and fawn, and we're.

It's still wired.

So just a pause.

And that's why therapy is so great too.

Just another note on that.

Like, that's co regulation.

So if you're having a hard time doing that on your own, of course you are.

If you were never taught how to do it by your parents, how are you going to know?

Like, that's like, people roll their eyes when I tell them, like, take a deep breath.

Like, of course.

But there are steps before the deep breath.

Like, when do I know I need to take a deep breath?

How do I really breathe?

Am I safe?

Like, do I need to do something else first?

Like, there's all these questions.

So a therapist can help bring that all down and literally show you how to do those things so you don't have to do it by yourself.

And then you trust people because you're like, if I could trust one person, maybe I could trust another person.

Person.

Exactly.

And then eventually maybe I can trust my own judgment.

Yes.

That's the whole point.

Yep.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So.

Well, this was great, Kara.

I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

I love this conversation.

It's so important what you're doing.

So thanks again for all the people.

You reach you as well.

And now before you leave, I want you to give the listeners one last final.

Just one big picture.

Words of advice or words of wisdom or one general idea.

One general idea.

Or if you had to sum it all up, what would you say to them?

If you could say one thing right now,.

I would say, don't mistake yourself by thinking what you've been through that no one could possibly understand.

I think that is a huge deterrent of seeking help.

I think it's a huge shame gaslighting thing that's done to us from an early age.

If you can counteract that you will connect with other people and you will see that no one's walked in your shoes.

You've not walked in anyone else's shoes, but people will be able to understand what you've been through.

I. I can't tell you how many times I hear that from clients.

No one gets it.

No one will understand.

People will try.

And the trying is where you're going to make real connection.

So I would say try to work on that.

Perfect.

I love that.

Thank you so much again for coming on and.

Yeah, and for everybody else out there listening, you heard it.

You heard it from Kara.

I mean, she knows.

She's been there.

She's done it, she's helping.

This is amazing.

And just know that again, no matter what happened to you, it wasn't your fault.

And if you want to choose to have more and more joy and more passion and more love and more success, whatever it is, it's out there for the taking.

But you have to decide that you are worth going for it.

And you most certainly are, my friend.

You are beautiful just the way you are right here, right now.

But you can always strive for more.

You can always go get more, because it's out there for you.

So you all have a blessed day, and we will see you back next week.

Thanks again.

Bye.

Bye.