Christina McKelvy: 0:14

Welcome to Opology. I'm your host, christina McKelvey. Today we're going to be speaking with Lan Nguyen. She talks about her work with adult children whose parents may have borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, and how she assists her clients in their healing. She also speaks about her own experience and the importance of being a cycle breaker of trauma. We're going to be right back after this short break. Welcome to Apology stories of hope, healing and resilience. I'm your host, christina McKelvey. Today we have Lana Nguyen. How are you doing?

Lan Nguyen: 1:29

I'm doing great. Glad to be here.

Christina McKelvy: 1:31

Yeah, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I know you know we met through a mutual organization for therapists, and so I always love having therapists on, because there's just so many topics within the therapy world, so thank you so much for being here.

Lan Nguyen: 1:48

Yes, I'm so glad to talk about what we'll be talking about today. I do think it's important information and, yeah, I'm really glad to connect with a fellow therapist Same.

Christina McKelvy: 2:03

Well, let's begin. You know, tell me a little bit about the topics that you wanted to, you know, share with listeners.

Lan Nguyen: 2:06

Yeah, I guess overall I've just noticed more and more female clients coming to see me in my own private practice, but I would imagine this is a growing concern. But it's basically adult children of parents who exhibit borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. I focus more into borderline. I've just seen that come up within my caseload more than 20 times. Come up within my caseload more than 20 times, so I've lost count. But at one point 20, 20 clients out of maybe my 40 clients, mothers, and they were all female, female and mothers with traits that I would say were pretty in line with borderline personality disorder. I can't make that formal diagnosis, of course, but knowing the patterns, there were just ways to navigate all of that, heal from it, recover and just cope.

Christina McKelvy: 3:12

So you saw this pattern of clients coming in with these traits. What made you like? Did you initially start practice with that in mind, or was it just something that happened?

Lan Nguyen: 3:25

Naturally it wasn't something that I thought of and I was like, oh, I definitely need to focus on. This seems to be finding me with that kind of insight. I noticed patterns. If you do have a mother or a father who has kind of these unstable traits, it naturally lends itself to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, trust issues, imposter syndrome, social anxiety, the gamut of issues right, Complicated and complex, grief, post-traumatic stress disorder, complex post-traumatic stress. So when I dug deeper into family history you know, maybe they live with their parents, maybe there's been strained family dynamics I noticed that if I dug into oh wow, let's talk about your mom, what are some things that you notice? And then if I kind of gave them a battery of questions ones that you necessarily wouldn't find in the DSM, because the DSM is quite vague about it.

Lan Nguyen: 4:33

For instance, do you feel like your mother happens to be a lot nicer in public than she is at home, almost like she's wearing a mask? They'd be like, oh yeah, definitely. Or do you ever feel like your mom is insistent that she did not do something or can't remember doing something and you have maybe three or four witnesses to say she did and you have maybe three or four witnesses to say she did, and those sorts of like nuanced kind of day-to-day interactions? They would be like oh my gosh, I thought I was the crazy one.

Christina McKelvy: 5:06

Yeah.

Lan Nguyen: 5:07

Yeah, so definitely not in your DSM manual.

Christina McKelvy: 5:13

Okay, I'm curious how those individuals with borderline personality disorder, how complex trauma and intergenerational trauma, play into individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and how that might also play into, maybe, parenting and the clients you see inevitable.

Lan Nguyen: 5:34

I mean borderline personality disorder. It's hard to say where the trauma gets you know enough into a field of like oh, this is full blown a personality disorder. But both of my parents were refugees, right. So they escaped to Vietnam in the midst of the fall of Saigon, with the war and everything collapsing, so there was trauma there and I would imagine all of this right. I do think naturally within certain cultures, shame being a predominant kind of motivating factor. I felt that very strongly in my household, with my mom straight up telling me all families go through this. You don't have to tell anyone about this. Telling me.

Christina McKelvy: 6:18

all families go through this. You know you don't have to tell anyone about this. And then, as we at least my experience, when I started doing my own work and working as a therapist and all that insight started coming like oh, that's why, oh, yeah, and how do you use your personal experience, or how is your personal experience growing up? How does that shape your treatment approach when you are working with your clients?

Lan Nguyen: 6:40

Well, I think it often starts with validation. My parents didn't, you know, beat me per se. I know they didn't have the best marriage, or, but they sacrificed for me. And so there's so much of this narrative of while maybe still being, you know, stereotypically, a good parent, being human yeah, being human but at the same time they, they might shield themselves from the reality of, you know, maybe it wasn't as normal as they thought. And so I think the validation piece comes into play where I have to teach a lot of my clients.

Lan Nguyen: 7:18

You know, your health meter might be a little wonky, right. You might've been told that this is fine when you know, I don't think you would ever want that or wish that upon anyone else. So for a lot of my clients, they can see that for others, but not for themselves. And I do think validating and having that experience myself to be able to go into more of the nitty gritty, not just the DSM kind of textbook, answer um allows people to feel understood, did not feel crazy, and to finally kind of regain their voice, because maybe they've been silenced or maybe they felt like, you know, my voice isn't important because I'm the crazy one.

Christina McKelvy: 8:02

When in reality that wasn't actually the narrative.

Lan Nguyen: 8:11

No, yeah, and that's the the interesting part narrative happening that they had been kind of tricked into this other reality, when the reality ahead of them is like you know, there was nothing you could have done. You were just a child, you did not deserve that. You deserve more, you deserve the best. And so I think for a lot of my clients it's hard, especially given other kind of like cultural factors, a lot of my clients being Asian, american, pacific Islander or just people of color. Naturally there's filial piety. I can't say these things about my parents, it doesn't feel right. The respect, yeah, yeah, even even just speaking about it, I remember even telling myself that I would never be able to write a memoir until my parents died, because I'm thinking I don't want to disrespect them, at least not when they're alive and that's the, I think, maybe the concept of shame.

Christina McKelvy: 9:27

You know, I'm curious like how like shame can play into, how shame can hinder the healing process. You especially like, maybe with cultural factors and other norms like that. She's nodding her head up and down.

Lan Nguyen: 9:42

Yeah yeah, shame is huge in. I mean, like I said, it's a huge motivator. I talk about this concept of fog. It stands for fear, obligation and guilt, and it derived it was coined by a book in, I think, the late nineties, about emotional manipulation, emotional abuse. But that's basically what happens in these dysfunctional family systems where you're seeing, you know, if you only like loved me or you're so ungrateful, how would you treat me like this? Or you know, after you only like loved me or you're so ungrateful, how would you treat me like this? Or you know, after all we've done for you, all the sacrifices we've made, how can you disobey us like this? There's a lot of those sentiments being circulated and so a lot of my clients come to me in the fog fear, obligation, guilt. They're making decisions out of that fogginess, out of that confusion, and they're wondering why they're running on empty. They're wondering why they feel so unfulfilled or they're burnt out or they're just, you know, triggered easily by everything.

Christina McKelvy: 10:52

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and so setting that framework, you know, really helps them kind of start that process yeah, after they're able to, like, basically demonstrate some self-compassion.

Lan Nguyen: 11:07

You know, having some self-compassion for themselves allows them to finally have the appropriate kind of anger right. They might not have anger towards anyone but themselves, and maybe they could actually have anger towards anyone but themselves and maybe they could actually have anger directed towards the right sources right. Maybe they could actually grieve and I do a lot of that with my clients right, they can't change their parents, so they're grieving the reality of their childhood. They're grieving the reality of their current present day interactions with family.

Christina McKelvy: 11:38

They're grieving the reality of their current present day interactions with family, grieving what could have been. You know I have with some of my clients. I will have them, like part of a reparenting process, you know, write a letter to them, to their childhood self, as you know, an older mentor or big brother or big sister or a parent, and kind of like validate what they went through. And then I might even have them re narrate their story, like retell their story and how they want it to be, and I have noticed that has helped them feel healed. I don't know if that made sense Experience healing.

Lan Nguyen: 12:13

No, I definitely see that I do a lot of that kind of helping clients to reclaim their narrative right. I am also certified in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, which a big component is narrative. I wouldn't say I formally have gone through the protocol. Through the protocol, I do employ a lot of those techniques to allow clients to look back at their history more objectively. Right, who were they before the trauma, who were they after? What might they name those chapters of their lives? What might they want to name their entire book and how would that healing look?

Lan Nguyen: 13:00

But, like you're saying, I do a lot of letter writing, or at least I suggest it to clients. I can't force them to do it and a lot of them shy away from doing the hard work because it's a lot, it's very emotionally taxing. But it might look like writing a letter to their younger self. It might look like writing a letter to their younger self. It might look like writing a letter to their ideal parent. You know, here lies my ideal parent. You never showed up. I really wanted you to be there. Could look like writing a letter to their sibling or to their actual parent, ones that they will never send because at some point some of the processing and acceptance just needs to come from their own experience. So yeah, the practice of unsent letters is really common in my practice.

Christina McKelvy: 13:48

Unsent letters. Yes, same, I do have some feedback. Hopefully I don't know if I'm going to have to, hopefully I don't have to edit out, but someone's doing a weed whacker right now oh, okay, no, they never do they never do. It's just, it is. I don't have a studio. I'm, you know, I'm not that bougie where I have like, yeah, I don't eat.

Christina McKelvy: 14:10

So I told my husband he had to leave because garage door triggers my dogs to bark oh no, well, this may or may not be edited out, because it's kind of fun to have a little silliness yes, yeah, so my dogs haven't barked yet, but that's because he already left right before we started recording well, you might hear my cat, but he's so cold he's buried under blankets right now, um, because he's, like I, winter. He's a desert cat and we don't live in the desert anymore, so a little burrito right.

Christina McKelvy: 14:44

Yes, oh, I love that. So tell me a little bit about your healing journey. You know did. Did it look similar to how you navigate your client's healing journey, or did it look a little different?

Lan Nguyen: 15:01

you navigate your client's healing journey or did it look a little different? I would say a lot of it looks similar and depending on the client, it may take longer, it may take shorter, Right. Um, I just remember I considered myself in my own therapy as like an A plus student right, my own therapy as like an A plus student right. I did the readings. I did above and beyond the readings. You know I read body keeps the score all by myself, like over the span of, you know, two evenings.

Christina McKelvy: 15:28

And that's such a clinical book. Like I was, I was telling the clients all about it and then finally I read it myself. I'm like this is a textbook.

Lan Nguyen: 15:36

Yeah, it's very dense. I would not. It's not like your summer Um in in a way. I just I really wanted to heal faster. I guess I mean a lot of what I was learning like fascinates me and also informs my practice. So it's almost like concurrent. I did both at the same time, but it's very similar, right. It really helps me to have compassion for myself, to grieve. So there was a process of grieving. I did also go through EMDR and now that I'm EMDR trained, I am so happy to be able to provide that service to my clients and allow them to kind of go through the same healing journey I did right.

Christina McKelvy: 16:25

Once they're ready to kind of go there, we can go there yeah, I'm noticing more and more clients really do appreciate that if their therapist has some sort of insight or commonality to what they're going through yeah, I mean, at the very least, a lot of my clients come to me because they might be Asian and they just want to, you know, gets it.

Lan Nguyen: 16:53

They don't want to explain family dynamics, filial piety, the pressures of like, you know, conforming and an obedience, all of those kind of like very anti-individualism sort of like topics, but you know, very much kind of more held in esteem for a lot of the collectivist societies, literally, you know, of my culture, asian, whether it be certain other pacific islander kind of populations, or maybe just generally people of color yeah, I was one of a couple of my podcasts um interviews before.

Christina McKelvy: 17:39

We talked a lot about how a lot of psychology is very um western, normative and male-centric. You know the ivory towers, like freud and young and stuff like that, yeah, and does it really speak to a lot of individuals nowadays, even generation, generationally and like you said, you know, um asian pacific islander people of color, like it's not what we're, what we were taught or I was taught 10 years ago. It doesn't really align.

Lan Nguyen: 18:08

Yeah, time yeah, I mean I've had my slew of, like you know, going through the mental health system and being told well, just don't listen to your parents, and I'm like that's not that easy what that means.

Lan Nguyen: 18:19

You know that basically means getting disowned in a lot oh yeah, I mean maybe good for clinical and kind of personal disclosure kind of stuff. But I have been disowned, so there there's elements of that in my story as well. But I also have like a redemption arc where I'm no longer disowned and so there's a lot of pieces of like healing that, um, I, I can meet clients where they're at, I can understand, I can kind of measure the risks and the benefits and the costs and kind of play it out with them.

Christina McKelvy: 19:00

Again, you're aligning with them, yeah.

Lan Nguyen: 19:05

Yeah, I do a lot of that. I think that's why clients come to see me. I think they find me like. You get it, You're personable. I like that. You have lived experience. You know you're not speaking from just like your textbook knowledge. Right, I'm not lecturing them. I can actually relate, having gone through my own mental health issues, my own trauma, my own you know therapy experience. And letting them know this is, you know, maybe it's not normal that you don't feel comfortable talking to your therapist, or maybe you should explore different options. Or maybe I'm not, you know, the best therapist for you because that's not within my scope of practice. So I do love to be able to equip my clients with a knowledge base that allows them to make informed decisions, so they know that they have options, which I never really understood, that that was a thing in the mental health system we were taught blank slate, you know don't disclose, or very minimal, and I haven't found that helpful.

Christina McKelvy: 20:11

I do believe you don't want to disclose too much or disclose the unnecessary things, of course. Yeah, well, you know you mentioned, so you were disowned and then you were not disowned, so that's like your redemption arc. Yeah, a little bit more about that.

Lan Nguyen: 20:26

It's like a like I mean, it's a really cool story. I mean so my faith background. I do identify as Christian. I do strongly, you know, practice my faith. I would say I'm pretty devout in fear. It was primarily because of what I knew about my identity in Christ, which meant fear was not part of the equation. Right, if there is fear there, there's no love. And I had recently you know this is back in 2016.

Lan Nguyen: 21:10

2016, I had gone on a short-term missions trip to Indonesia where I learned, like a lot of I not only just was able to contribute in my very small way we helped out an orphanage, we held a vacation, bible study, but Bible school for the kids, um, but they taught me so much about love and about patience and about healing. I got to share parts of my story with them and they were touched by it. You know all of this with translators and of course, you know I don't have language, but coming back from that, I realized that my dynamics within even just going on that trip was a lot of it was based in fear. I didn't want to tell my coworkers that I was going on a mission trip because I was like they're going to think I'm weird or they're going to judge me or they're going to fire Like my boss is going to fire me because I'm going to be gone for two weeks. My parents aren't of the same religious background faith background as me, so I was afraid they wouldn't improve and they they did, fortunately. But there was a lot of fear about telling them about why I was doing this and I needed to fundraise and do all these sorts of things in order to afford the trip.

Lan Nguyen: 22:30

When I came back, my now husband. He proposed to me and it was met with a lot of I wouldn't say they were approving. I showed my dad my ring and he just frowned at me and shook his head. He didn't say any words. He just looked at me, shook his head in disappointment and said nothing and I was like he late.

Lan Nguyen: 22:54

You know, I was elated. I was like dad, look, it finally happened. Like I've been dating him for you know, four years, like this is happening. My dad said nothing. My mom, I think, was like less enthusiastic as well and I was living with them at the time. But basically my story culminates with a decision for my husband and I to basically, in a sense, elope. Right, they're pleasing my parents. They had very high expectations for what it would look like to get married. I was living at home with them and they almost had this sentiment of, like traditional Asian culture, you don't leave the home if you're a girl until you get married, and so, in a way, my husband thought he was rescuing me by, like marrying me off and you know, is your husband part of the same culture?

Christina McKelvy: 23:49

is he?

Lan Nguyen: 23:50

yes, he is okay, yeah, so the language barrier is not there. The cultural barrier might be because he's from a different region in terms of also like socioeconomic status, like I would say. My parents are like upper middle class to upper class. You know my dad's very much like he. He thinks education is everything. You know higher education is everything. Be better, do more, study more. My husband, his parents, didn't go to college. They are working class, kind of blue collar. They've made it kind of just by working hard and doing kind of sometimes menial jobs and so very different kind of. You know, we have the same culture, we're both Vietnamese and Vietnamese American, but in a, in a lot of ways, very different culturally. It's almost like prince and the pauper or something like that, just very just out there, I don't know, kind of Romeo and Juliet, just like SES, right socioeconomic status yes, ses socioeconomic status, just not not there where tears, I guess.

Lan Nguyen: 25:07

Um, of course, my mom wanted me to marry rich, right? Um, my dad was saying no to no. You need to be self-sustaining, because he saw his sister undergo some kind of tragedy where she had to end up being like the primary breadwinner, right. So, in his mind, don't depend on anybody. Use your wits, be better, because you're a minority.

Christina McKelvy: 25:31

You know work hard.

Lan Nguyen: 25:32

So I had almost like the expectation to be the man, you know, stereotypically in Asian culture, but also the woman. So, I don't know, confusing, very confusing. You know, they have a different, uh, faith background. They didn't like that. We both identified as Christian. So it ultimately came down to my dad telling me you're not going to get married, you cannot get married. I command you, you know, you must obey me, do not get married. Um, we got married. We invited them. My mom criticized our invitation. She just said we were making a mistake. My brother was I have three older brothers um, only one of them attended my wedding. They were all invited, but the other two aligned with my parents and said you're breaking up the family, you're hurting mom and dad, so that that started like about six months of just no contact. And my dad, you know, kicked us out of the house, said like we, if we don't even know you, how can you be a Christian when you do this? You would only, you would even betray your own family and call yourself a Christian.

Lan Nguyen: 27:04

A lot of hard things I had to hear as I was packing up and moving out my mom, you know, maybe this might, I don't know trigger warning, I guess. Um, my mom, um, basically said she wished she had died on my wedding day. Yeah, she wished, and she even brought God into the equation. She was like I wish God had killed me so very, um, extreme statements of like suicidal gesturing. She said that she lost two of her children that day because my brother walked me down the aisle and she no longer regarded me as her own child. So she only had two out of four kids at that point.

Lan Nguyen: 27:50

A lot of ridiculous things, you know. They both told me not to tell anybody about our marriage. If you tell us, shame, yeah, a lot of shame. If you tell grandma she's going to have a heart attack because how could you do this, how could you be like this? Um, the redemption arc is basically I mean, I still held true to my faith. You know, my, my wedding day was beautiful. I mean I still held true to my faith. You know, my my wedding day was beautiful. 60 of my closest friends and, well, family from my family of faith, right, so spiritual kind of mentor, mother, father, figures, um, you know, attended. It was beautiful. Um, it was like a great day um, that same evening. So my, my wedding anniversary is coming up. It's actually the 23rd of December.

Christina McKelvy: 28:38

Oh, congratulations. Oh, right before Christmas, that's a lot of celebration in a row, yeah.

Lan Nguyen: 28:44

I mean it's interesting. It was only that way because we got married on our five-year dating anniversary and I was in school when we started dating, right? So I came home for the holidays and that's when he asked me out and we just decided why not make that our wedding anniversary date as well? So actually my husband, like he said, he's going shopping for our anniversary gift right now. We'll see how he does.

Christina McKelvy: 29:13

There we go yeah.

Lan Nguyen: 29:14

But it will be our seven year anniversary and, uh, but at the time, right, Six months or so of not being sure if I was still under their insurance because it was messy. Six months of not hearing from my siblings or only hearing from them to say that you, you messed up, that you like damaged everything. Six months of being, like, revoked from family gatherings just a lot of, like, confusion. But I had a lot of healing moments with my community outside of that. So the redemption basically comes when I decide for mother's day and father's day following my wedding, to send them both a letter separately to just acknowledge and honor the parent that they were right.

Lan Nguyen: 30:09

I didn't acknowledge all the ways they messed me up. I want you to focus and say you know, mom, I still appreciate you for demonstrating generosity. I still want to honor you for being a loving, you know contributing, you know hardworking woman, very, very hospitable, very, very sweet kind of woman. Right, I wrote that in a letter. I sent it with a Polaroid picture. It happened to be around Mother's Day at my church and they had Polaroid cameras so you can write letters to your moms. I used that opportunity to honor my mom and I felt that conviction because of that Sunday sermon which was about honoring your mom.

Lan Nguyen: 31:00

Even though she might not be the best but there are still qualities that you can still look back on and appreciate. She was your mom for a reason. Similarly, I reached out to my dad for father's day. Very similar message of you know he provided, he was hardworking, he was a strong, sacrificial sort of person. You know, very I think I get a lot of my humor from him. So aspects of that that I had to, you know, call out and admire and honor.

Lan Nguyen: 31:33

And as soon as I did that email started coming, my dad emailed me back hey, when are we going to meet up? Hey, we're ready to talk again. Interestingly enough, when we do meet up and my dad says, hey, we're going to sit down and pray, he prays over our meeting and he basically says I have a daughter again and I am so thankful she's here. And I could tell my mom was a little, a little dragging her feet on this about like recognizing that I was married and now she has a son, yeah, through my husband, you know. But it was interesting to say that they both were able to acknowledge it and they wanted to celebrate. So they kind of did like a mini public dinner wedding thing for me and my husband, just to introduce us as married to the rest of the family, which a lot of the family knew, but they just didn't.

Lan Nguyen: 32:39

They weren't allowed to talk about it, I guess. So I mean at this point it's been like pretty good, I think, that healing, I mean maybe I would say even that boundary of setting that with my parents. They crossed me in that way because I think they know they could lose me again in some sense.

Lan Nguyen: 33:01

Yeah. So there were times where I felt like, oh my gosh, they are only 10 to 15 minutes away from me. They could show up at my doorstep at any time and start, you know, pestering me or invading my space or, you know, criticizing me. It never happened and I think maybe it was because they knew they couldn't take that chance with me. I had already grown up. I was now a married woman and hopefully they saw me more as an adult rather than their baby.

Christina McKelvy: 33:34

Hmm, that transition that a lot of parents have to go through.

Lan Nguyen: 33:39

Yeah, I know, for my dad, up until I got married, that was something he like pleaded with me. He was like I know you want to move out, but I just want to see you, even just like your shadow, when you come home at night. We don't have to say anything to each other, I just want to know that you're around. And he was, you know, you know, getting more sentimental. He sent letters to my brother saying things that he regretted or that he wished he did, and he cried and like this is a man that does not cry. So he was getting very, very sentimental and kind of mushy, and so I knew he couldn't become like an empty nester. He was dreading it and I think that's ultimately why he said you cannot get married, right?

Christina McKelvy: 34:28

Are you the youngest? I am the youngest and you're the daughter.

Lan Nguyen: 34:32

And the daughter. I know, and my dad has told me on many occasions, you are my favorite child and I would be like, yeah, you can't say that, it's so jacked up oh, now you're telling the whole world. I know I mean they'll find out eventually. I do want to read more they have to know someday eventually yeah yeah, I I have to say things have come a long way.

Lan Nguyen: 34:57

I don't really understand why it had to be so dramatic, but in a way, maybe that's just how my family understands boundaries. It's not until you like a huge, severe consequence where they understand.

Christina McKelvy: 35:15

Oh, they mean business severe consequence, where they understand oh, they mean business, and I'm maybe that you would only know was how they understood boundaries from their parents and how their parents understood boundaries from their grandparents, and, oh, I wouldn't even know that because, like I said, my mom keeps a tight lid on her history.

Lan Nguyen: 35:34

I've never met my grandmother on that side. I've never met certain siblings on that side. She only talks about them in like passing by. But yeah, I think, for my dad especially, I think I know his trauma right. He's never been hugged by his own dad. His dad never told him he loved him.

Christina McKelvy: 35:55

My dad's a hugger because he's the opposite direction.

Lan Nguyen: 35:58

He was like if I never got hugs, I'm gonna make sure my kids hug me yeah yeah, hug your shadow. Yeah, he's like a physical touch guy. So it's interesting how he he took that and, though for a while it did traumatize me because I didn't want to hug my dad because I was afraid of him. He's terrified of him. He was scary. I understand now that he was like trying to reclaim his own hurt, never got hugged by his dad.

Lan Nguyen: 36:28

He never got told I love you. My dad's very, I guess, on that. In that sense he's very affectionate. He's never experienced any of that. He's more's very affectionate. If he's never experienced any of that. He's more on the affectionate side.

Christina McKelvy: 36:40

He, when I see him nowadays he'll just be like where's my hug open arms and he'll be, like you know, very, very affectionate in that way he's reclaiming, like you said, he's reclaiming that and by doing that it is changing future generations in that generational tree, the generational patterns, oh yeah yeah, like we've.

Lan Nguyen: 37:05

We've done some like overhaul in this garden. So this tree, some of those like branches that have been rotting, they've been pruned. The roots probably had to be retrained to go a different route. I don't know. I think there's a lot of work in the family that I can see. Like I, I pride myself on being a cycle breaker. Right, if it started with me and it's kind of gotten ripple effects, then I am happy and pleased to say that it's happening. It's happening now rather than generations later.

Christina McKelvy: 37:56

Being a psycho breaker, and I millennials, gen zers I feel that is, at least as therapists, that is a lot of the focus like we are going to be psycho breakers right, like we don't want this dysfunction to continue.

Lan Nguyen: 38:12

It stops with me. Yeah, I'm gonna my healing and I see so much of that in my office, right With my sessions, my clients a lot of them come to me. I don't know how this works. I've never had therapy before. I don't really want to tell my parents I'm in therapy. They don't get it. They think I'm crazy or they think therapy is silly or just for crazy people. So I see a lot of that. I mean, I'm the first person in my family, my immediate family, to get therapy. I think one of my brothers has gotten gotten therapy, not sure about the other two, but I do see a lot of healing happening and I guess maybe it started backwards with me, right?

Christina McKelvy: 38:57

It's usually the daughters.

Lan Nguyen: 39:00

What can we say?

Christina McKelvy: 39:03

I think, we're just smarter. Yeah, so I always. Where did I hear that? It's usually the daughters. So we're getting close to time and I hear the redemption arc reminds me of hope and resilience, and that is what my podcast is about. You know, hope, healing and resilience. So what brings you hope?

Lan Nguyen: 39:26

Well, I would. I would bring it back to my faith in Jesus Christ, because you know, I'm a very different person before I met Jesus. I have hope because I have Jesus. I used to be a very pessimistic, kind of nihilistic person. I don't know if I would be cut out for this field if I were just to tell them all my clients you know life sucks, you're just going to die and that's it.

Lan Nguyen: 39:54

But I would say, would say, yeah, I can't do the things that I've done, for instance, reach out that olive branch with honoring my parents right without even hearing a sorry from them or any kind of admission of guilt or responsibility on their part.

Lan Nguyen: 40:16

So I feel like a lot of my motivation and conviction and my worldview has been the hope that I have in a God that is so much bigger than me, so much more loving, so much more wise. I know I'm so finite and I think that's where I find so much hope and so much peace and knowing that I don't have to have it all together, but I have someone who is on my side and is fighting on my behalf and the victory is already there. Yeah, so I would say my faith. Really I don't know if I could do what I do on the daily without my faith Cause I'm sure you've probably met therapists that are burnt out, jaded. I think that's generally naturally what's going to happen If you hear enough bad news day in and day out, or you're stuck with clients who aren't making progress, or things just seem bleak and hopeless.

Lan Nguyen: 41:15

But I know, at the end of the day, it's not about what I can do, it's about what is being done through me. I have a hope that is bigger, more beautiful, it's eternal, it's just beyond me, so I live for that.

Christina McKelvy: 41:32

Thank you, that was beautiful Well.

Lan Nguyen: 41:35

I'm glad to share that. I'm really glad to be able to share a lot. I didn't think I'd go into so much of my story, but any consolation, there is hope.

Christina McKelvy: 41:45

There's always hope, sharing your story and being very vulnerable. You know, with my listeners and you know it sounds like a lot of the takeaways is being a cycle breaker and honoring your parents where they were at too, and being open to healing. And yeah, thank you, you're welcome, you, you're welcome. Another great interview. You can find Lon on Instagram and YouTube. I will put that in the show notes along with her website. Lon specializes mostly with AAPI or BIPOC. Adults, millennials who are coping with intergenerational childhood or complex trauma, narcissistic abuse, codependency, grief and first time therapy seekers are also additional clientele she works with. She helps those through dating and self-confidence, attachment issues and unhealthy family dynamics. Again, you can find all of her information in the show notes, where you can follow her on Instagram, linkedin, facebook and her webpage. Thank you,