My friend just sent me this short Runkle video.

I watched it, and I found her nuances helpful:

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Takeaway points, for me, is that the labels are much less important than the experience itself.

Most of us are are interacting with very troubled family members, one way or another, these days.

The ‘stress’ of the world is bringing out the PTSD symptoms more and more, there’s just no hiding the bad middot any more.

But the real issue I think comes down to taking responsibility for our own bad middot, and how they impact others.

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The last few weeks have been quite a rollercoaster for me, trying to digest all the new insights about  my family dynamics, and how they impacted me then – but more importantly, and really the main point, how they have still been impacting me today.

Because honestly, the past is the past, and it doesn’t really matter so much, as long as the ‘danger’ from then, the horrible behaviours from then, are not still continuing on today, in 2025.

But what I realised a few weeks’ ago is that the same ‘bullying’ from then has been following me around ever since, with a certain member of my extended family.

And I also realised, that this person is NEVER going to admit what’s going on, try to change, try to fix things, start over – that’s really the ‘ground zero’ of being a true narc, and not just a troubled person.

Because in some way or another, we are all troubled in some way, these days.

But only narcs totally and absolutely refuse to acknowledge their share in whatever mess has been made, and try to destroy you for even mentioning something is not working properly.

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What I’ve realised, though, is that if we’re genuine about everything coming from God, including the bullying narcs, then we also have to look for the real solutions to these difficulties inside ourselves.

To give one huge example, I have realised that it’s my own weak boundaries that are causing me the issues I now have with people trying to take more than I can give.

And the only way to fix that, is for me myself to take responsibility for me myself, and to ask God to give me stronger, healthy boundaries, so I don’t get sucked in to other people’s dramas and problems inappropriately.

As part of this process, I just read Anna Runkle’s book Re-regulated, which is very helpful, and I also got the second book Connect-ability – which my husband grabbed first, so now I have to have a little patience, as he reads way slower than I do.

But bottom line: I can’t change anyone else.

I have to just hold God’s hand and work on myself.

It’s easy to say, and not at all easy to do, consistently.

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My last thought for now has to do with the real you is the you at home.

Our communities are full of ‘tzaddikim’ and ‘tzaddekot’ who apparently just do chesed 24/7 for everyone else, and especially, on social media.

The reality is how their kids experience them.

What I’ve noticed is that so  many of these ‘tzaddikim’ and ‘tzaddekot’ have kids who are really miserable, feel disconnected from their parents, and often, have massive issues of feeling unseen and neglected – compounded by the ‘guilt’ of daring to criticise all these big tzaddikim parents of theirs, who put everyone else first.

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The real you is the you at home.

Try this: send some ‘Crappy Childhood Fairy’ videos to your kids, and invite them to compare and contrast with their experience of you as a parent (if they are already grown up enough to be out the house and able to give you a real answer.)

The people who want to keep thinking they are perfect, and who have no real interest in working on their bad middot – those people would probably rather gouge out an eye with a fork, than send a video from the Crappy Childhood Fairy to their own kids – or siblings.

Me?

I sent the link to my girls and husband the first time I realised she was helpful, and I encouraged them to see if anything ‘speaks’ to them.

I am happy to keep working on the stuff I messed up, and I’m not pretending there isn’t a ton of it.

And really – that’s what counts.

That’s the bottom line.

Not to be ‘pretend perfect’, but to continue to show up and take responsibility for being ‘real flawed’.

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BH, I hope this becomes the new trend in the Jewish community.

Heaven help us, otherwise.