Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Jessica:      Do you feel ready to start? Do you need a minute, or do you feel good to go?

Claire:        I think I'm good. My body is shaking a little.

Jessica:            I know. I can feel it. I can feel your body is a little⁠—this is going to sound like a weird question. Do you have chocolate in the house?

Claire:             Ooh, chocolate. I have Thin Mints.

Jessica:            Thin Mints. Will you do me a favor? Will you go grab your Thin Mints and just have them near you? Because I feel like your body is kind of in a weird anticipatory zone. It might help to have a nibble, and then maybe throughout the reading have tiny nibbles.

Claire:             Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Have a tiny nibble because I can feel your system could use it. High-quality chocolate can actually help to ground, which is part of why when we felt terrible, we often go to chocolate, because it can actually be a little bit grounding. So yeah. Nibble it up.

Claire:             This was great. I needed that.

Jessica:            You did. You needed a little chocolate. You did. You did. I mean, this is a Ghost of a Podcast first is making someone eat chocolate for a reading.

Claire:             Oh, really?

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But sometimes a person needs chocolate. Do you feel a little better?

Claire:             I do. I felt it immediately.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             It was really good. Okay.

Jessica:            It's weird. Sometimes that's just what the body needs. Okay. So, Claire, welcome to the podcast. What would you like a reading about?

Claire:             Thank you. So I think I'm going to read my original question. So my question goes, "Hi, Jessica. Thank you for everything you do. I am writing to you because my dad has cancer, and my mother has told me to back off from helping him. My mother has a volatile mental illness, and there is not much I can do other than to block her and hold my boundaries. My dad requested me to stop advocating for him because he just wants, quote unquote, 'peace.' And now he says he just wants to be left alone. However, I don't want to stop caring for him during his time of need, and I really just want to help. Is there anything I can do to show up for him while still protecting myself from my mother? It feels impossible right now, but I'm hoping you might have some insight or advice."

Jessica:            I hope so, too, because that's just awful. I'm really sorry. I'm really, really sorry.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And we are not sharing your birth information. The people can know you're a Pisces. You were born in 1997. That's all a person needs to know. So, for context, also, you have a Scorpio Moon; hence the privacy, right?

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. I respect that very much. So I'm going to ask some contextualizing questions before we kind of really dive in. Are your parents physically close to you? Can you hop in the car and drive and go visit them easily?

Claire:             I can. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. And your parents are married, I'm assuming from the question.

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            Do you feel that your mom is actually taking care of your dad through his illness?

Claire:             I don't know. It is hard to tell. I think she does but inconsistently, depending on how she feels.

Jessica:            Right. Is she bipolar?

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, in your birth chart, you do have a Pluto square to your Sun, Mercury, and Venus. And so, unfortunately, it's not like that means you have bipolar disorder in your family, but I mean, that's my first read based on this aspect in your chart. And she's not medicated, I'm assuming.

Claire:             I don't think so. She has been, but I don't think she is now.

Jessica:            Currently. Okay. And do you mind if I ask, is your father's cancer⁠—I mean, all cancer is serious, but is it terminal? Is he getting treatment that might bring it around?

Claire:             Yeah. So it's actually prostate cancer, which has a really good prognosis in general. At first, it was⁠—I had no idea if it was that serious, but now we know he has a 75 percent chance of a full cure.

Jessica:            That's amazing.

Claire:             And then, if not, he still has options. So it's really amazing, and I'm grateful for that, for sure.

Jessica:            Okay. So that part is really good news. I mean, there's no kind of cancer where somebody tells me they⁠—you know, someone has it and I'm not like, "Oh, that's awful," because that's cancer for you. But okay. When you were helping your dad, or when you were trying to help your dad, what was the conflict that happened? What happened that made your mom say, "Stop coming around"?

Claire:             So my dad is also private in his way. And so he didn't want to tell the extended family, which is very large. I have a lot of aunts and uncles. He didn't want to tell anybody yet that he was sick. He is also taking care of my grandma, who has been sick as well. But my mom, kind of on a whim, one day just told everybody while he wasn't home. He didn't know. So that was upsetting to my siblings and I. I could tell that my sister was getting really worked up about it.

                        And so I was like, "I don't want to fight with my mom because I know how it ends. But I do want to step in and say something, I guess." So I said, "I think we should respect Dad. This is his body. This is his illness. And I think that we should come together as a family. So, if you think about doing something like this in the future, can you bring it to us so we can all discuss it and get Dad's permission?"

                        And at first, I was trying to be really respectful and just⁠—I remember you said it's not about what you want to get off your chest sometimes; it's about what you want the other person to hear.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             So I was trying to go for that.

Jessica:            That's good. That's good.

Claire:             At first, I thought she might've got it, but my mom kind of has a delayed time-bomb reaction. So then, a couple days later, it just completely blew up. And she was like, "You disrespected me. Stay away." And then it was like⁠—

Jessica:            It was just that? It was just you saying that one thing?

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            Oh, wow.

Claire:             And I thought I was being so⁠—tiptoeing. But yeah, it just really blew up to the point where she even said, "Your dad let you disrespect me, and he hasn't made you apologize to me. So I don't want to take care of him anymore."

Jessica:            Oh my God.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But she has gone back and taken care of him since then, or no?

Claire:             I don't know. That's kind of the difficult thing. But my sister is there, so I'm kind of relying on her to keep an eye on and monitor.

Jessica:            So okay. We're just going to go full psychic here, okay? So bear with me. I'm going to have you start off by saying your full name out loud, and then say your mom's, and then say your dad's.

Claire:             Okay. So my name is [redacted]. My mom's name is [redacted]. And my dad's name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Thank you. So, first of all, I do want to say your dad is a bit of an enabler. He's a bit of a passive guy. But he's actually very strong. I mean, he uses his strength in really not very productive ways, it looks like. But he is strong.

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            And so, if he was actually scared, if he was⁠—I mean, he is scared. He's very scared. But if he was scared in the way that you're scared, if he was like, "I'm not okay, and I need care. And I'm not getting the care," he would ask for help. Does that track for what you know of him?

Claire:             I guess, yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like he puts his foot down⁠—not often, but when he's serious about something, he's like a force to be reckoned with.

Claire:             Oh yeah. He's like, "I need you to help me right now." Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Exactly. So that's a good thing for you to keep in mind. And it's like I'm glad I saw it at the start because, I mean, some of what your father's going through his denial because it's scary, because cancer is scary, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And he's also very adept at denial. He gets a gold star. He wins all the prizes. He's very good at it. So he's experienced. And it's not surprising that your mom's mental health struggles are triggered by something as scary as her husband having a cancer diagnosis. But I'm seeing, also, she wants to be the main character of the story. That's really important for her. She feels like a victim of your father's cancer.

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Claire:             She said, "His body is my body." And I was like, "What are you talking about?"

Jessica:            I mean, that is like there's some cultural threads to it, but it's mainly like a narcissistic⁠—it's a reflection of her mental health problems. Again, there are some cultural pieces to it, and also just their very consensual but wildly unhealthy marriage, if I may say. Sorry. But may I say that?

Claire:             Oh yes. Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. It is consensual, to be fair. You don't consent to it.

Claire:             No.

Jessica:            But the two of them consent to it. And this is really, really important. So say your mom's name out loud again in not English.

Claire:             [redacted].

Jessica:            What do you call her?

Claire:             I call her Mom.

Jessica:            Are you the oldest?

Claire:             I am the middle, but I have oldest energy.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. And is your elder sibling a boy or a girl?

Claire:             A brother.

Jessica:            Okay. So you're the oldest daughter.

Claire:             Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay, because that's a thing. I mean, oldest daughter⁠—it doesn't matter how many brothers you have.

Claire:             It's true.

Jessica:            Oldest daughter. Yeah, because she has determined that you are the person that is oppressing her, and because you are oppressing her, she has to fight you in order to keep her and your dad safe. I'm sorry.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Claire:             Oh my gosh. Yeah. And it's interesting because I think we kind of look at each other that way. I think it kind of goes both ways.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Well, I think it goes both ways by design. And this is really important because it's not like she's your pal. She's not your friend. She's your mom. And she created this dynamic with you because she decided when you, firstborn daughter, came around that you were either going to be for her or against her. You were either going to do what she said or you were going to be someone who fought her. And that's an impossible setup, even for a Pisces like you.

Claire:             It is. Yeah. I spent a lot of my life being completely for her, and then I realized that things were wrong. And then I was suddenly just completely rejected.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. I mean, listen. Your birth chart⁠—you've got Mars in Libra. You've got a Taurus Rising. You've got that Sun/Mercury/Venus in Pisces sitting on top of each other. You have "people pleaser" written all over you. I mean, sorry. But I mean, you know, it's not like you came out swinging. It's not like you came out fighting your mom. For you to have ever spoken back to her meant that she was trampling all over you to such an extreme point that you didn't feel like you had a choice.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And your mom⁠—I mean, do you know her dad?

Claire:             I know of her dad. He died before I was born.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And do you know her mom?

Claire:             I do. Yeah. She passed recently.

Jessica:            Okay, because I don't want to get too much into her relationship with her parents, but she kind of projected a lot of stuff from her relationship with her parents onto you but treated you like you were the more⁠—I can't tell if it was her mom or her dad that was kind of rough to her. Was it her mom?

Claire:             It honestly could have been both.

Jessica:            Okay. That makes sense why I can't tell which one it was, because she⁠—it was like on some level, she was like, "Okay. If you're going to be my adversary, I'm going to win. But you're going to oppress me, and I will triumph." It was like she decided that when she looked at your little baby self, on some level. And it was honestly like⁠—not completely abnormal human maladjusted feelings, plus pretty severe mental illness that went unchecked. And so it became worse. And what also made it worse is that she was enabled in your family a lot.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Like, a lot. Your brother⁠—does your brother not talk to the family?

Claire:             He kind of does. He'll dip his toe in the water. But I actually just observed this the other day, that he doesn't say what he actually thinks.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             So he kind of can come in and say something, but it's not something that he actually feels. So he's kind of protecting himself in that way.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, he was raised to be that way. He was raised to go do him. He'll be fine. Everyone will be fine. You really got oldest-child shit.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            He got the perfect-son shit. And it's not like he's beyond reproach in the family. It's just that he's not accountable. No one expects him to be accountable in the family. As long as he's ticking certain boxes in his life, it doesn't really matter what he does when he's sitting in the kitchen with everyone, whereas, I mean, you could do anything, girl. You could do all the things. And if you look at your mom sideways, she could decide to disown you. It's unpredictable and wild is what I'm seeing.

Claire:             Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. And this is like a whole big topic. But when I come back to what's happening with your dad, here's the real talks. If you were like, "Okay. My biggest priority, my primary objective, is to have access to my dad so I can just sit down next to him and talk to him and just witness where he's at," if that is actually your primary objective, from what I'm seeing, if you did something elaborate⁠—I don't know if it's a gift plus, but the plus would have to be saying to your mom, "You're right. I was incredibly disrespectful. I respect you. You are the most important person in my life. Everything you do is essentially right. Please, I'm begging for your forgiveness"⁠—don't mention your dad. If you mention your dad, then it's not about her. It has to be about her being beyond reproach and you feel terrible. And so she can be a little tight with you and then let you back in. Does that feel correct, like that's how that would go if you did that?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Claire:             But I'm like, I don't want to do that.

Jessica:            No. No, you don't want to do that.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But it is an option. And you're close enough to your sister, who is still at home, to get real reports on what's happening; is that right?

Claire:             Oh yeah. Me and my sister are really close.

Jessica:            Okay. Great, because I feel like if you find out from your sister that your dad's health is tanking in some way, that's in your back pocket. You need to keep it in your back pocket. And it's not because⁠—you obviously don't think that. Don't think that. I beg of you, don't think that. That's obviously a bananas statement.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's a bananas statement. But if you were able to know that that was bananas and that you're just getting your needs met and you're just saying something to her that she needs to hear, that's a move you can make. It's not my recommendation, per se, but I think it's important that you remember you have this as an option if your dad's health tanks⁠—

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because it's not worth it, because I'm not going to say it's⁠—you and your mom are having a power struggle. Your mom is being abusive with her power. So you have nothing to do but either be harmed or struggle. You know what I mean?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You're not pals. You're not equals. She's your mom, and she's wielding her control by taking you out of⁠—basically not giving you access to what she knows is the most important thing to you, which is your dad⁠—

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—which was your sin, right? You weren't supposed to care about him more than her.

Claire:             Oh God.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Claire:             Yeah. Wow.

Jessica:            But she heard what you said, and part of her was like, "Yeah. Actually, yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah." And then another part of her was like, "Oh no. Why no? No. I'm not sure why no, but no." And so she had a few days, and she thought about it, and she ruminated, and she ruminated, and she ruminated. And then she decided, "You're out to fucking get me. Why are you trying to get me?"

I don't know that your mom is manic right now. I'm obviously not a diagnoser, but when I look at her, she has a lot happening with her mental health. Bipolar disorder would not be it, I would imagine. You really are either her enemy or her⁠—not even her ally, but her employee.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's either/or. And this starts to sound like borderline personality stuff, right? She really personalizes everything. If she hates the color green and you come to visit her in the color green, she feels offended about why you would like the color green.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            She really personalizes things in a way that is really awful. And I want to just acknowledge for a moment how hard it is to be her because she feels like she is being attacked fucking 23 hours out of the day. She does. It's not true objectively, but she feels she is. And so, when she goes to educate you about how you harmed her, she means it. She's not trying to manipulate you. She actually feels that way. And I want to acknowledge that that is really⁠—that just must be a horrible way of living.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And that even as I acknowledge this pain that she's in, it's like the pit drops out of your tummy. I could just feel your resolve weakens, right?

Claire:             Yeah. I felt it, too.

Jessica:            Yeah. You may want to nibble a tiny, tiny, tiny nibble on chocolate.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            We're doing a chocolate nibble here. Sorry. And I don't want to get you addicted to chocolate every time you feel bad, but just in this reading moment, this is like a thing I'm seeing will help your body. So this is a huge part of where holding boundaries is challenging you, because when you have empathy for her, you cave.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So this fucks you up because either you turn into her where you're like, "I don't give a fuck. You're my enemy," or you cave, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And you don't want to be like that. This is not who you are. This is not who you want to be. And so I want to acknowledge that you have within you the capacity to have empathy for your mother and also have empathy for yourself at the exact same time. Now, you were raised to have empathy for her, period. That's it. Everything else, betrayal.

And so, of course, when you started to have empathy for yourself and realized what it was costing you to center her all the time, you had to go in the opposite direction and be like, "I don't care what she's feeling. She's mean"⁠—whatever it is. You had to. It's the only way that humans work. When the pendulum swings too far to the left, it absolutely goes too far to the right before it hits the center. That's just how it works.

                        And so I want to acknowledge when you start to feel empathy for your mom, you start to lose empathy for yourself. And that's what that feeling was where you started to just feel like, "Oh, I'm falling apart."

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, when you start to feel that, I want to give you this homework of, first of all, being like, "Oh shit. That's the pit feeling." And then, if it's helpful, you can number it, like on a scale from one to ten, where is it at? That one felt to me like a solid seven, six, something like that, like a bad⁠—like something dropped out of you.

Claire:             Yeah. My core was like⁠—it was shaking a lot during this, I think.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             It's hard for me to hold it. But then, all of a sudden, like when we were talking about my mom's perspective, it just felt like it was all sinking away from me somehow.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's exactly how I was pulling it. Okay. First of all, I'm sorry. And second of all, this is a pattern that happens for you. It happens most dramatically with your mom, but it happens in other relationships, too. It is, in no small part, because you were raised to decenter yourself. Your mom was the only person that was supposed to be important. Her truth was the only truth that was supposed to be important. And your dad enabled it. As he was enabling her, he was abandoning everyone around him because he wasn't taking care of anyone. He was letting her dictate everything.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. And so your parental models of love in this regard suck, like just terribly so.

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. Terribly suck. And so what you're doing is you're just freeballing it, like trying to figure out how to have empathy for yourself and others at the same time. You have no models of that. I mean, you've seen it on TV. You've heard it on a podcast. But you haven't seen it in your childhood. And so now you're pre-Saturn Return. You're doing great, by the way, going through this pre-Saturn Return. Great. Good⁠—

Claire:             Good.

Jessica:            ⁠—because your Saturn Return will have a lot to do with your parents because you have Saturn in the twelfth. Sorry. I know.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But also, everything has to do with your parents on some level because of how you were raised to decenter yourself and only center your mom. So, kind of coming back to that pit, the next time you feel that pit, the practice I want to encourage you to adopt is to breathe into the pit because what happens is you start to feel like you're sinking and you're falling apart, so you pull back and away from yourself, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when you pull back and away from yourself, you're reenacting the trauma. It's like you're taking on this role that your mom played, but you're doing it to yourself. And to be honest, we all live out our trauma throughout all our days. So you're not behind schedule that you're working on this now, at all. When you make a practice⁠—and I say make a practice because you're not going to be perfect at this. But when you make a practice of breathing into the feeling that you're falling apart, then what you're doing is you're not abandoning yourself, which doesn't mean you feel better. I'm sorry. It doesn't. It means you feel your feelings.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And by not abandoning yourself, you start to strengthen your ability to tolerate emotions, which is a thing neither your father or your mother has. So bring your attention back into your belly because it's happening again. Can you feel it?

Claire:             Oh, it is? Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. Can you feel it?

Claire:             I think so. I think so.

Jessica:            So your mind went off a little bit just then, eh?

Claire:             It did. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is like a secondary thing that happens, I'm seeing, is that⁠—do you tend to have a sick tummy?

Claire:             I do.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's just where you hold stress. It's just how and where you hold stress. But what I'm saying is⁠—okay. So I was talking about things that are heavy, and you started to future trip a little, and then your brain just kind of shot off into too many directions at once. So you were kind of in your head, but it wasn't a clear train of thought. Is that correct?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            That's another way⁠—a less painful way, but another way that you abandon yourself. What I was saying is, as you were doing that, as you were really more focused on your mind, your tummy was just settling into being a little sicky feeling.

Claire:             Yeah. It kind of feels weird right now.

Jessica:            Yeah. It does. Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's anxiety. The family pattern, the thing that your mom instilled into you and that she is still doing, is, "Do not talk about the painful things. Do not look about the painful things. And sure as hell don't tell outsiders about the painful things."

Claire:             Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so here you are talking to some stranger on a podcast, no less. It's like I'm super-duper not in the family. On all the levels that your mother would think are important, I am not in the family. And so there's this part of you that really just wants very clearly and desperately to get out of this shit suit, to just get out of this family pattern. And then there's this part of you that is always going to be loyal to your mother first. And in part, what that means is that you need to deal with things on your own. You need to push your feelings down. You need to make it work, whatever it is, instead of find yourself in it.

Claire:             Yeah. That's like a huge theme in my life in general, is like instead of trying to just make it work to make it work, just of⁠—like, where am I? Where am I in this? Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So we're coming back to your mom because in truth, there's a way that you've just never left her, that you've just never left her, because you feel bad for your mom because your mom suffers.

Claire:             I didn't even know that.

Jessica:            That she suffers?

Claire:             No, that I felt that way inside. And it's really interesting that you got straight to the point, I think, beneath everything is like I put her in a box. And I put the box in the closet, and I don't know how to open the box of crack without it spilling out and just consuming me.

Jessica:            Yeah. You're never going to know how to until you decide to do it, and then you deal with the mess. It will, 100% of the time, spill out everywhere. And I don't mean to be like, "This is how terrible it's going to be," but let's be realistic. You pull that box out of the closet, and it is just trauma soup. It is⁠—you're bad; she's good. I just feel like saying, "Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark." I just feel like your mom is very harsh and very verbal and very intense.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And you've got too much of her beliefs, too much of her trauma, too much of her feelings, too much of her needs in your head in such a way that it overrides your feelings, your thoughts, your needs. And to unpack that is to step into shit. It's to be in pain. And again, I keep on coming back to your mom is the victim in all of her stories. She's always the victim in her stories.

And your adult self knows that's some bullshit. That's pathological. That's not right. But your little girl inside of you, the part of you that existed for years and years before you figured out this was not normal and this was not right, had no reason to not believe your mom.  Everything she experienced, she was the victim in, which means everyone was perpetrating harm against her, like everything, everyone, everywhere. And it gave you this really deep drive to protect her.

Claire:        Yeah.

Jessica:            The habit that you have around it, the way you were trained, is to protect her by emptying yourself out and being nothing. And so, even in this really small way as we were talking, there was a way that you started to empty out and kind of be nothing. Your mind went off into kind of nowhere, right? It's like this go-to coping mechanism that you have. When I was talking too much about a thing⁠—like I can see psychically now I should have reined it in a little bit because your mind kind of couldn't hold it, and so it went off. And it's not like your mind couldn't hold it, like you're not smart. It's not about that. It's about emotions.

                        So you just kind of emptied yourself out. You were just like, "Okay. So I won't be here anymore." It's a habit that you're not thinking of; it's so ingrained in you. And so, when you did the objectively normal, well-adjusted, right thing of going to your mother and being like, "Hey, lady, this isn't about you. Maybe we could do this thing together as a family. I want to be a part of this with you"⁠—you didn't criticize her. Even when you did that, I mean, you were walking on eggshells. You were so careful. You were so careful. I see it, like too careful careful, like very, very, very, very careful. And still, she found harm in it. And the reason why she found harm in it is because she needs an enemy.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            She just needs an enemy. And the cancer is not the enemy. Wouldn't it be cool if she treated the cancer like an enemy? But she's not treating the cancer like an enemy.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's her circumstances that are her enemy, and you happen to be in there. Let me come back to it's really important that you practice having empathy for yourself, for this being your raw deal with your mom, for the fear and grief that you have around your dad's cancer, for all the things. You deserve to have empathy for yourself, and you can even have a pity party. I know pity is kind of like a trigger for you because your mom has a lot of pity for herself.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Right. But you're allowed to have pity parties. But I think for you, a really good idea might be to literally have a pity party, like to literally be like, "I am scheduling a pity party for myself, a pity party for one. I am allowed to feel, 'Why is this happening to me and only to me?' and all of the⁠—indulge it. Let yourself have pity for yourself and to say to yourself the same things that you've heard your mom say to herself. Sorry. It happens. Am I right that it happens?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             I think I just reject it so hard, though, because I'm just trying to be the exact opposite of her, like⁠—yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So this is really important. Most of us who come from trauma decide we're going to be the opposite of our most traumatic parent. But when you are the opposite⁠—think of it as a coin. When your mom is heads and you're like, "Fuck that shit. I'm going to be tails"⁠—right? You're still the coin. You're still the coin.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So being the opposite is being exactly like her, except for in a different way. So we don't want you to be opposite. We want you to be different. So opposite of your mom is not having pity for yourself. But different from your mom is giving yourself the space to have your emotions, to explore them, and to evolve and grow emotionally. That's what you really want. That's not the opposite of your mom. That's just different than your mom.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is why I'm actually recommending⁠—and I would say an actual pity party, if it helps you, because you have a bunch of Pisces in you, and visuals really help. You can literally be like, "When I have a pity party, I wear this hat. I wear this bracelet. This note denotates to my brain I am allowed to have pity for myself. I can go deep into the most pity-oriented thoughts and feelings that I have. But it's a party, and parties have beginning hours and ending hours." So you're allowed to go to sleep feeling pity for yourself, but when you wake up⁠—when you wake up⁠—you are no longer at the pity party.

                        So now you can recognize you have these thoughts and feelings and also that those thoughts and feelings are not facts. They're just feelings that deserve space and care because you weren't given the kind of parenting that taught you healthy boundaries and structure and nurturance and support. You're doing what humans do when we don't have that, is you're overdoing it in both directions. You're being a total jerk to yourself, way too structured, way too mean in some ways, and then allowing yourself to overindulge other things.

                        The truth of the matter is dealing with your mom is not like dealing with other people because she's not quite right, and she has power over you because she's your parent. And that is a very specific thing. And there is a cultural context to her saying, "You need to respect me as your mother." That is her cultural context and not completely your cultural context. She's not from the States, eh?

Claire:             No. Yeah. They're both immigrants.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. It's what it feels like. And this is the thing. When our parents are from a different culture than us and they specifically brought us here so that we would have this culture, it's a real mindfuck because her values are not your values. That's its own messy conversation that gets smashed into her abuse and her mental illness stuff. And it's very hard for you to parse these parts apart. You do understand that there are ways that you naturally behave that are American, much more American than she likes or understands.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But that's like⁠—in the pie of all of these conflicts that you have with her, it's like 2 percent of the pie. But she makes that shit like 89 percent. That's a very big percentage to her. But it's actually not really true that you're disrespectful to her. Even by her own cultural contexts, it's not really true.

What she wants is someone to abuse because she was somebody's punching bag once. And you're the oldest daughter. You're the one she's going to abuse, and that's it. On some level, it is that simple for her. It was that simple for her. And it's not like she thought it through in those words, but it's a trauma pattern for her. Was she the oldest daughter?

Claire:             So she's one of ten.

Jessica:            Wow.

Claire:             And she's kind of in the middle, and she has an older sister. So she's like the younger daughter and the only out of two. Yeah.

Jessica:            Only two daughters out of ten.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Interesting. Bear with me. There's something I'm missing. Okay. That's it. Okay. So I'll just share what I'm hearing. Okay. So, oh my gosh, you're like, "Okay. You're talking about Mom too much." We need to come back to you because this is what happens, is you start to try to figure shit out for yourself, and then you get thrown off with your mom. And I just fell into it, and I just overfocused on your mom. And the truth of the matter is she can't be dealt with.

Claire:             No.

Jessica:            [indiscernible 00:35:54] strategies with your mom. It's not like dealing with a person, any other person in your life.

Claire:             No.

Jessica:            And because of that, it is truly about you. And part of what you are needing to deal with is the fact that you cannot change her. So you did a great thing, the way you communicated with her. And doing the right thing sometimes is the best you can do, even though it doesn't work and it was never going to work. It was never going to work.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            There's no perfect thing anyone could do that is telling your mother even half a no that doesn't blow up in that person's face. You did the right thing for you. Again, when I look at it energetically, you were really tiptoeing. So, in a way, you were communicating your fear, and so she was like⁠—she attacks that.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Sorry. But you know what? And maybe next time, you won't communicate your fear. It won't change the outcome very much because this doesn't happen because of you.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            She is who she is who she is who she is. And so for you to be able to communicate in a way that feels like it's in integrity with you and it is the healthiest and strongest thing you can do in a bad situation⁠—that needs to be its own reward because it's not going to magically change her.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not going to magically give her meds. It's not going to magically give her decades of therapy. It's not going to magically give her any of the things she would need to substantially be different as a mom and a person.

Claire:             Yeah. I felt surprised that I⁠—I don't know why I felt a little hope again, like, "Maybe if I say this just right, she'll"⁠—and then I was like, "Of course not. Of course not. You know this. Of course not."

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, there's two things I'll say to this. One is I don't know that that hope will ever go away completely, and I don't think that's wrong. That's human. If you're working hard to evolve and change, it's hard to fully accept that other people aren't doing that, too. Also, she's your mom, and you love her. You may fear her. You may not like her. But you do love her. And it's hard to not want more from and with people you love. The truth is there's so much grief here, it's really hard for you to give yourself the space to feel that grief and not turn it into my fault/her fault, my fault/her fault.

Claire:             Yeah. It keeps coming back to that. Like when it blew up and after I said that to her, I was like, "You shouldn't have done that. Why did you do that?" You know? And it's like⁠—

Jessica:            That's your training. That's how you were raised. And so you've got that interjected perpetrator in there still saying, "If I'd just been quiet, there wouldn't have been any drama." No. There was drama. That's why you weren't quiet. There's going to be drama no matter what.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you did what you felt was most important at the time, which was to advocate for your dad. And it is hard to accept that someone you love is not trying to be different or better. But you love your mom, and she is not trying to be different or better. The way that you are, it feels like if you fully accept that, it's like saying you don't love her because I said to you, "You're not trying to be different or better. You're just stuck." It would be like a knife in your heart. It would be like such a mean, terrible thing to say to you because you are trying so hard⁠—

Claire:             Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You are trying so hard. So for you to see, oh, that your mom is not at all trying, it feels like a betrayal of her because, again, you're supposed to see her as a victim, not as an architect of her own misery.

Claire:             Yeah. That's so interesting. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I have bad news, which is, yeah, you gotta feel grief. You have to feel grief, right? That's where you are, is feeling that grief. But there's something that kind of came up for me that I want to ask you about.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            If you just drove to your parents' house, knocked on the door, and walked in and you brought your mom something⁠—I feel like she responds well to gifts. Am I seeing that correctly?

Claire:             Yeah. She loves stuff.

Jessica:            Okay. She likes stuff.

Claire:             And particularly probably desserts.

Jessica:            Okay, because I was seeing, like, food and flowers and food and flowers. I don't know⁠—

Claire:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Food and flowers. So, if you showed up with her favorite food and some flowers and you pretended that nothing had ever happened, do you think she would let you get away with it and it would just be fine?

Claire:             Yeah. I think so.

Jessica:            I think so, too. Now, listen. With your mom, it depends on her mood. It's like you've got a solid 94 percent that would work, but that 6 percent could ruin your life a little bit, right?

Claire:             Oh yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, it's just like you cannot predict. But what I kind of want to bring you back to⁠—because I know I love to therapize, but we are talking about your dad having cancer and your very real fear about that and your concern for him. And you could⁠ just decide to pick up fruit and flowers or whatever the fuck it is, bring it to your mom's house, and hang out with your dad and do something super nothing-ish, like watch TV with him or do a crossword puzzle with him. That's what he does, right? That's his happy place, is kind of hanging out next to you but not really talking about anything real?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Okay. Good. So you could do that, and it would make you feel crazy. If it goes well, it would make you feel crazy. It would suck on some level because you don't want to believe that it's that fucking nuts in there. But it is. It is, is one way of holding it. I mean, another way of holding it is, if you truly accept who your mom is, then you have a lot more options of how to engage with her.

If you and I had a fight and I was like, "I can't believe you said all that shit to me," and I was mad at you, you couldn't just walk into my house like nothing happened. That wouldn't work. In most relationships, that wouldn't work. But your mom is not like most people.

Claire:             No.

Jessica:            And that is not something you can change. But if you accept it, then there's actually something that works to your advantage in this situation, which is if you're willing to pretend that nothing is happening, so is she.

Claire:             That's why my brother does that.

Jessica:            Uh-huh. It works.

Claire:             Because it works.

Jessica:            Because it actually works. Yeah.

Claire:             Wow.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            You're constantly thinking. You're thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. You're thinking tunnels and castles, like high and low. You're really always thinking. You have a Pluto/Mercury square. You are thinking about deep and intense topics. You're thinking about them deeply. You are seeking meaning all the time.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You're picking at scabs, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Literally. Yes. Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pluto square Venus can make you a bit of a picker, you know?

Claire:             Oh, totally. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Total Picker. Yeah. It's a metaphor.

Claire:             Can't just leave it alone. I can't.

Jessica:            No. No, of course not. Of course, you just gotta get rid of everything all the time, immediately. So you imagine that your mom is sitting there ruminating, and she is. But she's ruminating like a bird in a cage, like a squirrel that hasn't eaten enough. It's manic. It's not like deep and penetrating thoughts that she's having.

One can be manic and have deep and penetrating thoughts. She doesn't. She gets really distracted and pulled in seven million directions, and the one thing she knows is that people are out to get her and she has to defend herself. But other than that, she's actually pretty malleable. Her story can change at the drop of a hat. You must have seen it in other relationships.

Claire:             Oh yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. So, if you go in there and you basically treat her like everything is normal and she's lovely⁠—you respect her and you bow to her rules or whatever the fuck⁠—you can have access to your dad. And I do want to say that you may not be able to do that in a healthy way. If you cannot do that in a healthy way, you may choose to not do it. And that is reasonable and good. And also, you may be able to do that in a way that is only 50 percent healthy and 50 percent not. And that might be the best choice you can make since your dad has cancer.

                        You don't have to do any one thing. And you can try a thing as an experiment and see how it goes. You don't have to write this strategy in stone. So, in other words, you can decide that you're just going to try it and see how it feels and whether or not it's in integrity for you to do, whether or not it costs you your mental health too much to do, whether or not⁠—maybe you'll have bad luck, and you'll get that 6 percent freak-out on her. You know? It is like there is this way that in trying to protect yourself, you get a little bit fixed and you think that, "Well, I have to figure out what to do, and then I have to do the thing."

Claire:             Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Kind of like⁠—okay. If you're driving on the freeway⁠—right? You're driving on the freeway. There are certain lines. There's only certain lines. There are those extra lines that you're not actually allowed to drive in unless there's an emergency vehicle or something terrible happens, right? There's rules. You have full expectations when you're driving around on the freeway that everyone's going to respect those rules. And that's how people don't get into accidents, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You are trying to come up with that kind of a strategy for dealing with your mom. But that pre-supposes that your mom has learned the rules, cares about the rules, will play by the rules.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And what you know is she won't. If you were to accept that, then you could say, "Okay. So driving on the freeway with my mom is just not a safe thing for me to do ever. And yet sometimes I have to get in my car and go on the freeway. What are the things I can do in this unsafe situation to best protect myself?" What you've been trying to do is say, "Maybe if I do this, she'll be a safer driver. Maybe if I do that, she won't be so bananas on the road."

And nothing you can do is going to make her a better person or a different person or a more careful person. Nothing, because you didn't create the problem. And I know that she has trained you to feel that you are the reason why she gets mad at you, but you also are now old enough to know, when you look at all of her relationships, that she has the same identical⁠—no variation⁠—narrative about everybody that she has about you. Does that feel correct?

Claire:        I think so, maybe to varying degrees. I think I'm her archnemesis.

Jessica:      Yeah.

Claire:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You're her Mini-Me, actually, which is why you're her archnemesis. She identifies with you. So, when you agree with her, you're the center of her universe. I'm guessing you were the favorite in all the moments when you aren't the enemy.

Claire:             Yeah. Besties, sidekick.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You're her Mini-Mi, 100 percent. And so, when you do the smallest thing that she wouldn't do, she has this really unhealthy response, which is like, "You are rejecting me. You hate me."

Claire:             Oh.

Jessica:            That's what that is.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            So she's just so in her experience, again, it could be something as simple as she likes the color green; you don't like the color green. She thinks it is you rejecting her if you don't like what she likes. And she will then fight you, and she'll fight you on any number of things. But it's because you didn't line up with her. What's important here is that you understand that it must suck to be her. It must suck to feel that fragile. And also, she was like this before you were born. And she's like this when you're not in the room.

                        You can't change or control that she's like this. But what you can do is what you have been doing, which is having better boundaries with her, and what you haven't yet been fully doing, which is having better boundaries in your own thinking about yourself. Say your full name out loud again.

Claire:             [redacted].

Jessica:            How do you feel about being alive?

Claire:             About being alive?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Kind of weird about it. I'm not really great at articulating these kinds of things, but being alive⁠—sometimes I think it's beautiful and so meaningful and precious. Then, sometimes, I⁠—in really bad times, I'm just like, "I don't want to."

Jessica:            Yeah. When you had that conflict with your mom recently, and in general when you have conflicts with your mom, do those feelings come up of, like, "I don't even want to be here. I don't want to do this"?

Claire:             Yeah. I just want to not exist.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So what I'm being shown⁠—so that's the part that kept on going⁠—trying to talk about family members and a way to find what's going on here. But it's that feeling of, like, "I just can't. I don't want be here. I don't want to deal with this shit. I can't." I just want to acknowledge those feelings because it's kind of your best line of defense against your mom that you have now. And it's a terrible line of defense, to be clear, but it is your best one right now.

                        And it comes up in other parts of your life where you just⁠—you're dealing with things that are grossly unfair or unpredictable and unsafe, there's kind of this go-to of collapse and, "I just⁠—fuck this. I don't⁠—I want out."

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And it's not like a suicidal ideation, if I'm seeing this correctly. It's just, "Let me disappear into the floorboards. I just want to be gone."

Claire:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. I want to encourage you to practice noticing it when it comes up, and I want to encourage you to number it, like, "On a scale from one to ten, right now it's at a three. Right now, it's at an eight," because to a certain extent, you got a lot of Pisces in you. You got Saturn in the twelfth house. Yeah, you're going to feel that way sometimes. I think a lot of us feel that way a lot of the times.

And then, on another hand, it's like the only way to win with your mom is to stop existing; just stop taking up space. Even though my advice is just walk into her house and act like everything's normal, you have to pretend that you have no thoughts and feelings or trauma around the way she acted towards you.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like choosing to not exist. I'm so sorry. And so practicing noticing it so that you can cope with it, so that you can cope with, like, "This is how I feel," and start to develop ideas about how you can support yourself with those feelings outside of your relationship with your mom⁠, will help you in ways that have such a profound ripple effect on your life. It really will.

And also, it will make it more possible to be able to walk into her house and not feel like you have to disappear to do it, but instead feel like, "I know I'm not going to get my needs met in this house, so I don't bring my needs to this house," which takes time. It's like one thing to know it in your brains, which you already do. But to feel it, I mean, to be working on that emotionally is just⁠—I mean, that takes a lot of effort and time.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And your dad⁠—between the two of them, he's a more loving parent. I mean, he's not actually, I'm sorry to say. He doesn't actively⁠—he doesn't aggress. He's not actively causing problems. But he's not protecting you or himself.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            When I look at how you feel about your dad, I do want to say that it does feel like it is worth trying to just march into that house like nothing happened so you can sit with him. I mean, it doesn't sound like he has limited time because of this, but if⁠—God forbid⁠—something happened and you didn't sit with him a little bit more, I think it would be really hard for you.

Claire:             Yeah, it would be.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             For sure.

Jessica:            Yeah. And I think if you do this strategy of just pretending nothing happened or whatever⁠—being like, "Mom, everything you said is right and I'm wrong," whatever strategy you have to use⁠—because if she doesn't let you just march in, then you'd have to lead with that cockamamie story⁠—you would have to, in your head, be repeating, "I am doing this to get what I want. I am doing this to protect myself," just over and over. "I am doing this to get what I want. I am doing this to protect myself."

                        There can be empathy in there for your mom. There can be empathy in there for you, hopefully. You can't forget why you're doing the thing you're doing with your mom. It's ultimately to get your needs met. And your need is to be able to be physically present with your dad. That's the reason to put up⁠—to engage in this situation.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            This is not sustainable. You can't do this frequently with your mom. I mean, it's not sustainable. It costs you way too much mentally and spiritually and emotionally. But it's worth it a little bit now is what I'm seeing.

Claire:             Yeah. That makes sense.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so you're going to feel like shit. That's part of the terrible truth of the matter.

Claire:             Ahh.

Jessica:            I know. I know. I'm so sorry. But I don't think it has to feel bad in the way it has, exactly. Your best-case scenario is that you feel grief over accepting your mother for who she is, and you feel grief and sadness over the relationship that you wish you could have and the kind of fake relationship you once had where you felt approved of and loved and protected by her.

That is the healthiest, best-case scenario is that you feel grief for those things, and you have the ability to feel empathy for her and empathy for yourself at the same time without believing her version of the story, not because her version of the story is wrong, but because her version of the story is exclusively about her 100 percent of the time.

                        So you don't have to be the one to decide what's right and wrong, because that feels wrong to you, because that's what she does. So it's like you go out of your way to not be like her that way, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's not about who's right or wrong. It's about the fact that 100 percent of her story is 100 percent about her. It's not about you. It's not about your dad, about your sister or your brother. It's just about her. And that's how you know something's fishy.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And that, you can hold, because it's not about deciding who's right or wrong. It's about having a baseline way of assessing reality. Of course, we should consider each other, right? And if you are able to use this model at work, with people you date, in your friendship circle, to be like, "Wait a second. Everything this person thinks, says, and does is ultimately about themselves and not about other people, unless it's about how other people are harming them," okay, that's always a red flag for you.

And then you don't have to decide that they're wrong or they're right, but you can assess, "That means this person is unhealthy in a way that I'm really vulnerable to because it triggers my shit with my mom."

Claire:             Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. So okay. Let me throw something in here. So there are so many ways that humans are shitty to other humans. There are so many ways we can have problems with other people. But the ways that I am most vulnerable to⁠—me, Jessica⁠—that I'm the most vulnerable to and that fuck me up the most are the ways that mimic my childhood trauma. They're not the worst ways or the best ways. It's not about that. It's about the ways that I'm vulnerable to because of my past.

                        And you may have radically different triggers from your childhood. Therefore, you're going to be in social situations with people who treat you in a particular way that triggers your childhood stuff, whereas somebody might act in a particular way to me, and they might act the same way to you, but you'd be like, "Oh, whatever. They're kind of a jerk. Moving on." You don't even think about it that much because it's just obvious to you that they're a jerk. It doesn't trigger your inner child being like, "Wait. What's real? What's not real? Do I have a right to exist?"

Claire:             Oh my gosh. That. That all the time.

Jessica:            That all the time. Right.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's about recognizing, "Okay. This person is triggering this thing in me." If you can identify, "This person's triggering a thing in me," okay. Then you can know that you're likely to go into daughter mode. And that means⁠—okay. This is important. That means that it is a really good opportunity for you to behave differently with that person or in that situation than you do with your mom because you're just working out your trauma.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mom's not going to change. So working it out with her is very challenging because she's stationary, and you're moving. So you always have to come back to her⁠—every time you interact with her, you have to go back to being 11 years old. You're going back to being 11 years old. And at least at work and with jerks you date or whatever it is, it's adult you.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, I'm going to pause. I know we've talked about a lot of heavy shit. And I just want to see if you have any questions, if I addressed your primary question enough. Take a moment to check in. See how you feel.

Claire:             Yeah. I think you hit a lot of the points that I came here to maybe talk about. And it's interesting because I do need to work on accepting my mom for the way she is, and you're right. I was just trying to assume that we were on the freeway and everyone knows how to drive on the freeway. And yeah, there's a lot to think about with that. And before this conversation, I would be like, "I will never just act like I don't have needs and appease her." And you're right. That's really unhealthy for me to do. But right now, it's a unique situation where maybe I can use that to see my dad.

Jessica:            Yeah. And hopefully you don't repress your needs as you're doing it; you're more like, "I know I'm not going to get my needs met, so I'm going to act this way"⁠—instead of actively doing it, telling yourself it's going to be an act. And again, it might actually help you if you get yourself a hot-pink rubber bracelet that you wear every time you go into that house knowing that you're not going to get your needs met and acting like it doesn't hurt your feelings, to have something physical on your person that reminds you, "This is⁠—it's by design. I'm making a choice. I'm doing something on purpose."

I don't know why I keep on seeing that wearing an article of clothing to remind you would help, but I'm seeing that it would help you to be like, "No. I'm choosing this. I'm taking this on on purpose," instead of feeling like you're being victimized by her.

Claire:             It's funny because sometimes I say, like, "Oh, this⁠"—when I dress, it's like armor to me, like I'm going out to do something. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             So yeah.

Jessica:            That makes sense. And again, it has to be something subtle that she's not going to clock, but that you know it's like a representation of your will. It's a representation of your strength and of you being intentional instead of going in and slipping back into being that little kid again, which is what will happen a little bit because that happens to all of us.

But again, if you go in being like, "I am doing this on purpose to get my other needs met. She's never going to meet all these needs, so I'm going to get this other need met," it might really help. And if you never mention it to your father, that would be best because your father narks.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            He can't be trusted, which is so weird. It does nothing for him.

Claire:             Isn't it weird?

Jessica:            It's so weird. It's like, "Why? Why would you do that, you dummy?" But⁠—

Claire:             "I'm trying to help you."

Jessica:            I know. And he wants your help, but he's just⁠—I mean, I guess it makes sense. They are in a consensual dynamic. She is the victim 100 percent of the time, so of course, he reports back to her all the news so that he is not the perpetrator.

Claire:             Yeah. And it's like, "Why?"

Jessica:            Yeah. Why? I mean, and this is the thing, is that when it comes to our parents, sometimes it really helps to understand their dysfunction, and sometimes it really helps to say, "I don't need to understand it. I can accept that it's real and not take it personally," because the truth of the matter is every child feels that our parents are like the center of the world. They define what's normal and what's healthy and what's love and what we are.

                        And then, eventually, you grow up a little bit and you're like, "Oh, these are just broken people. These are just broken people who happen to have made humans out of their bodies." That's just what this is. And it is really painful to accept, but if you accept that your parents are limited in all these ways we're talking about, it allows room for you to be just emotionally so radically different than them. Your emotional development is already just way, way beyond them.

                        And I see. Ah. I see. Some of that is what's hard for you because it makes you feel lonely in your family. Even when you go there and you're getting along and there's no real drama, it still feels lonely because you're not relating to them in a real way that reflects who you are and what you're capable of being. And the more you grow, it's almost like the more you outgrow her, which feels to her like further betrayal. And to you, it just feels more lonely. Even though you get happier and healthier, it's also true that you get more lonely.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to say that that's not going to last, that part. It's this feeling of loneliness, of being so different from her, when you were once like her Mini-Me⁠—eventually, you're going to get to this place where you can actually enjoy the parts of her that is possible to enjoy in the moments when it's possible. You'll be able to enjoy those more because you will not be as vulnerable to the childhood trauma triggers.

                        So this feeling of loneliness and being further and further from her, making you more and more alone⁠—it's a very young part of you that feels that way. And if you stay with this work, as I imagine you will, it's not going to last forever. So there are certain parts of this difficulty with both your parents that, yeah, they'll last forever because your mom is who she is.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But some of this will transition out. It's like the development with your parents is kind of tumbling. It's tumbling slowly down a hill where you're just feeling every bump. I mean, it is very difficult. I'm really sorry. But you're the one who keeps on choosing to stay with it because you actually want to figure this out. You do. And I think you will. That doesn't mean you're going to magically have a lovely mom. It just means that you won't treat yourself like your mom treated you, and then it'll be easier to navigate her because she won't trigger you in the same way.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            It is much easier said than done, girl. It is much, much, much easier said than done.

Claire:             I know. I'm going to wade into that trauma soup.

Jessica:            I know. I'm so sorry. But your Saturn Return⁠, when it comes⁠—you're already doing so much work to prepare for it. And you have this Saturn intercepted in Aries in the twelfth house. And so, when your Saturn Return comes, you will learn the core lessons of Saturn in the twelfth, which are developing backbone, deciding that you deserve to be here and you deserve to have your own inner structure. You deserve to identify what is reality and to navigate your own inner reality as well as the world around you.

                        You're big. You're supposed to be big. You are ambitious and weird, and you can be loud and sometimes pushy. I mean, we've talked about all these other parts of you, about how you like to hold back and you're quiet and you don't want to rock the boat. But you're here to make some fucking noise. And so, when you're post-Saturn Return, it'll be easier to know what that means because of the work you're doing on yourself now and that you will continue to do through that Saturn Return of identifying where you begin and end and accepting other people. Does this make sense, how they're connected?

Claire:             Yes. Yeah. These are my biggest struggles. It feels like the constant reoccurring theme, like finding my backbone, finding myself in any situation, accepting people for who they are⁠—these are all major themes.

Jessica:            Yeah. They're the biggies.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you had all this shit worked out before your Saturn Return, what would life be? It would mean astrology didn't work, first of all. It would just mean astrology didn't work at all. But also, you're not behind schedule. You are where you are meant to be right now. And as hard as this thing is with your dad, it is provoking major growth, like major growth. And this major growth will change the course of your life, not just the course of your relationship with your parents or your mental health, but the direction of your life.

                        Pluto is currently squaring your Midheaven at 1 degree of Aquarius. Pluto is squaring it. And so the power struggles you're having with your mother, the power struggles you're having inside of yourself⁠—you're probably having power struggles elsewhere. And this is happening because you're stepping into your fucking power⁠—or not. Right? So, some moments, you probably aren't. In some moments, you really are.

                        What you were trying to do when you confronted your mom was to not stomp into your power, but to just gently slip into your power. And you got the reaction that we could have predicted you'd get, right? Your mom acted like your mom.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            She didn't magically become a different person. Okay. Okay. There is a way that you could drive up to your parents' house, walk in with desserts pretending nothing happened, and it could be an act of weakness. There is a way you could do the exact same action; it could be an act of strength. It really does depend on your sense of intention and entitlement. You're entitled to see your dad. You're entitled to disagree with your mom. Technically speaking, she's entitled to be a huge jerk. We're not worried about her entitlements right now. It's about you believing in yours.

                        This will really help you with this Pluto square to the Midheaven. And when we learn how to step into power and even engage consciously with your own entitlements, like the ways in which you are entitled to take up space in your own life⁠—inevitably, sometimes, you overstep and you act entitled in that⁠—like, "Don't be an entitled blah, blah, blah." Right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's the risk. Again, no pendulum swings all the way from the left to the center. It always goes all the way to the right before it finds its center. And so it is okay if sometimes you do stupid shit where you're like, "Oh my God. I'm acting like my mom," because we all act like our moms. We all act like our dads. We all act like our guardians or the people who shaped us in the worst and in the best ways, at least some of the time. And it's about exorcising those parts of you out. It's not about repressing them. It's about letting them come to the surface so you can make conscientious choices in response to them.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is why you could go to your parents' house, and it could be tail between the legs, disappearing. But it could also be like, "I know you, lady. I know you, lady. I know that if I just give you candy, you'll let me back in the house. And you just bark, bark, bark to scare me, but there's no substance behind it. I'm going to own my place in this house. I'm not going to earn it; I'm going to own it. I already have it. I own it." And that's much more of an empowered stance.

                        And you might be defensive. You might be a little egotistical as a way to do it because that's the only way you know how since you have historically only been really weak there. Okay. All right. You find the center by going off center sometimes. That's the process. And if you do something that's authentically wrong, just say, "Oh shit. I'm sorry." Don't beat yourself up. Don't shrink yourself back down.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            We learn from mistakes if we're willing to. And I think your mom's a great example of somebody who's not willing to learn from mistakes.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Your dad's actually not a bad example of it either. But you don't have to be. One last thing I'm going to say is back to your stomach, that pit in your tummy. It's your body talking to you. If you're running that interjected perpetrator, then you're going to do what you did in your relationship with your mom. Your tummy talks to you, and you're like, "I don't want to hear that. I'm not listening to that. No. I don't want to know."

                        But if you're being authentically different, then you can be like, "Shit. Okay. There's that pit in my stomach. I know that means something. I don't know what it means now. I can't figure it out. But I'm going to just take a moment to put my hand on my stomach. I'm going to listen to my body. I'm just going to be like, okay, something's off. My system is telling me I feel off. I don't have the time to figure it out right now, but okay, system. I'm not abandoning you. I'm just organizing my attention."

                        So, again, it's like a small, subtle difference, but it's a dramatic, meaningful difference. Does that make sense, this little bit of advice I've given you?

Claire:             Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Claire:             Noticing.

Jessica:            It's noticing and also acknowledging. It's acknowledging. This is a gift you'll never get from your mom because she is not capable of it, not because she doesn't love you. I should say⁠—I don't think I have said this already⁠—your mom really loves you. She really actually super-duper loves you.

Claire:             Oh, wow.

Jessica:            She really loves you. This is just how she treats people she loves.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            She does love you. I mean, can't you tell sometimes the way she looks at you is like she's very proud of you? Do you not see that anymore?

Claire:             No.

Jessica:            From what I'm seeing, she does love you. I just don't think she knows how to love in a healthy way.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's really important that you practice loving yourself in a healthy way because it will make it easier to have healthy boundaries with people who can't treat you with kindness.

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And it'll also make it easier for you to let people in who can, which is also kind of a goal, right?

Claire:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Claire:             For sure.

Jessica:            Okay. Did we do what we came here to do?

Claire:             I think we did. Yeah. I think we did.

Jessica:            Do you have a final question?

Claire:             I think I had a question about finding myself in a situation versus feeling completely lost and adrift. But I wonder if that is just acknowledging my tummy and also stepping into my power and letting myself be that.

Jessica:            I think that's about it. I think in those moments where you're like, "I don't even know"⁠—because I felt it. I felt it, the way your mind just kind of takes over but it's really dispersey⁠—it's like it's hard to track where things are. And it came up a bunch in our conversation where I was like⁠—I found myself going in a direction confidently and then being like, "Wait. No. Wait. What? What? I don't know." I think that's kind of the pattern that happens for you.

                        The answer is always to return to your body. You've got your Mars, North Node, Chiron in your sixth house. Your body has so many answers. And so it's about being like, "Okay. So I'm feeling like schloopy-doopy-doops. What do I feel in my body?" Always ask yourself the simple question, "What do I feel in my body? What do I feel in my body? Where do I feel it? How does it feel? How do I know I can feel it?" because that first time that it happened where I could feel your brain kind of taking over, first, I felt your tummy. I was feeling your tummy still, but you had left your body. And so you weren't feeling your tummy anymore. You were just in your head.

So it's a really well-developed coping mechanism for you to leave your body because your body feels bad and unsafe. But your brain isn't helping, unfortunately. So, in those moments, it's always, "What am I feeling in my body? Where am I feeling it in my body? How do I know I'm feeling it?" And that won't answer the question of "Who am I in this situation?" But it will give you access to that answer. And in the moment, the answer is always, "I don't fucking know." That's why you're asking the question, because you don't know in that moment. But that's okay if you're not abandoning yourself or punishing yourself for not⁠—whatever, being happy, being easygoing, being okay with what's happening, whatever it is that has triggered you, right?

Claire:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You don't need to be punishing yourself. I mean, it's your habit. But habits can be broken. I mean, habits like this take some time and a lot of effort, but they can be broken. So, yeah, it's come back to the body.

Claire:             Okay.

Jessica:            That's the answer. So, my dear, I hope that you eat at least one more piece of chocolate after we get off the phone. And I'm really sorry about your dad and your mom.

Claire:             Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. But I do think you're really on the right path with it.

Claire:             That's really great to hear. Thank you so much.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Claire:             Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome.