Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all about parenting, communication and developing good
relationships all over the world through the lens of the principle self-government.
In this video I'm going to be talking about handling narcissistic behavior in adults.
In this video I'm going to share a story that I was privy to that I think could resonate with a
lot of people here and then we're going to talk about certain things that you can do in order to
protect yourself from narcissistic attacks while also sometimes still loving the person. Years ago
there was a mother who was so exasperated. She contacted me, she all of her children were adults
and her son who was in his mid-30s was she said a narcissist. She contacted me and she said is there
anything, absolutely anything that I can do to help this son not be a narcissist to control this in
some sort of a way because it's horrible and it's ruining our family and I instantly felt so bad.
I knew that real narcissistic behavior is so hard to handle and it just comes with all of its little
attacks from every different angle. In fact if you haven't seen my video about the narcissistic
effects on relationships then definitely go there because that video talks about all the different
ways that narcissists will try to plan their attacks and their manipulations. It could be really
enlightening but I know what they do and it's so hard to sort through especially when you love them.
When they're your child you know or even a spouse somebody that you're very near and dear to, how in
the world do you handle that type of relationship and still love the person at the same time and
she wanted to know if it was possible to even change that person. Sadly, I had to tell her I
don't want to say impossible to change from being a narcissist but you just don't usually see it. You
don't see a truly narcissistic adult who's got the full thing, narcissism or sociopath or psychopathic
behavior, you just don't usually see them change and decide to not have those tendencies anymore.
It's super hard and that was a hard thing to tell her. I said but there are some things that
you can do though and because you have to be able to handle it, you have to be able to
deal with the situation and stay healthy yourself. So that's what I'd like to talk
about today is what we can do. Some of these things can help the narcissist a little bit
potentially if they choose to accept it but they can definitely help you and you've got to focus
on helping you if you've got a narcissistic adult that is part of your life. So let's talk about what
to do there. Probably one of the most important things is to actually learn about narcissism.
So if you're thinking something might not be right in my relationship or I feel abused sometimes then
it could be that you are being psychologically abused and that there is a narcissist that's in
your life that's doing that. Now narcissists can be anywhere. They could be at the office, they could be
at home, they can be in our extended families. We could be married to them and that's really
difficult because some of those people we can't get away from and ideally, you do remove yourself
from the presence of that narcissist and just get away and try to start your life over again
even though I have to say they sometimes make it very, very hard. So I've had some experiences
where people that I have loved have been connected to people who are narcissists
and those people will come chasing after them when they try to remove themselves from relationships
or create distance in those relationships and it's been really hard to see sometimes how many
years it takes to get away from a true narcissist. Anyway you have to learn about narcissism, you have
to learn about some of their tricks. I have other videos on this channel about narcissism, please
look at those and learn more too. There is a great book written by a therapist named Shannon Thomas
called Healing From Hidden Abuse. This book gives so many great ideas for things that you can do
to understand narcissism and what you can do if you happen to be loving a narcissist, living
with a narcissist but how to protect yourself so that you're not the victim of psychological abuse
anymore. So number one, just get the book healing from hidden abuse because there's a ton of stuff
in there truly that she can say more in book form than I could ever do here on this video but let's
talk about some key things that I know are very helpful for handling a narcissistic person in our
lives. Before I give you some of these strategies and ideas of things you can do to help protect
yourself and hopefully work toward healing some of your relationships, click that subscribe button now.
There are a lot of great videos on here not just about narcissism but about healing your
relationships and helping to empower yourself to have more self-government. Once you've done some
learning about narcissism, then you're going to have to identify what's really happening. You've
got to pinpoint the moments where someone is trying to control you and you have to accept that
they really do exist. You have to say when that person does that to me, they are controlling me.
When they are buying me things one day, that's controlling me. It may seem like they're loving
me by giving me attention at that one moment, doing something special for me at that one moment but
the next day or even a few hours later, they are attacking me, knocking me down with their words
and their emotions. They are threatening me, they are doing things that I know are not right so I
know that even when they're being nice, they're trying to control me. They're trying to keep me
with them so that I will be the victim for them, so that I will be their target for their narcissistic
tendencies. You have to acknowledge it, you've got to say it out loud and tell yourself this is what
is happening to me. There are therapists just like Shannon Thomas who specialize in narcissism and
I highly recommend finding a therapist who really understands narcissism. Okay who really understands
what it means to be psychologically abused and they've done a lot of work in that field because
there are some therapists that will think you're crazy and they won't know how to help you because
they don't truly understand what narcissism looks like or feels like but you can look
and test out a few people and see if someone seems like they really get it. They really understand and
if they don't, go towards somebody else. You've got to find people around you that will bring your
brain back to sense regularly, that you can declare what is happening and feel like you've gotten it
out to somebody so that you can start coming up with solutions. The more you hold on to that as
you are dealing with this adult in your life, the more you will think it's normal and that you
have to keep putting up with that psychological abuse. You don't. So, learn about narcissism and
then find someone that you can trust that you can talk to and then start identifying
what is happening and don't be afraid to call it abuse because it is if it's true narcissism.
This is going to probably be a hard process especially that point where you have to say
it wasn't my fault. All these years they told me it was my fault but it wasn't my fault. It could
feel good for a second but then you might also feel bad that you waited this long to figure
it out . There's a natural grieving process that is part of healing from this type of
psychological abuse that might happen to you. So, allow yourself to have some time to
also do a little bit of grieving and feel bad about the fact that you didn't know before but
then don't stay there. Okay, don't stay there. Give yourself a minute to say yep, I should have known
and that's going to fuel you to make sure other people around you know if they're in the same
situation but now you can move on. Moving on is super important and there are two key things
that I want to share about moving on in this video. Well actually three, let's do three. So number one
is you have to drop the subject which means don't keep reliving the psychological abuse from the
narcissist in your head again and again. You have to say that's over, I'm moving on. I am not allowing
it to control me whatsoever. I have someone who's really dear to me who was mistreated by someone,
a narcissist and that person had to work very hard at this step to drop the subject,
to say I'm not thinking about that anymore, it's not going to control me anymore. It was hard,
they loved the person so much but that person was toxic for them and they knew it so they had to get
away from that person even though it wasn't something they ever hoped to ever have to do
but they said you know what? It wasn't until I actually even went to God and said
help me drop the subject, help me be done with this, help me forgive that person for mistreating
me that they were finally able to be done with the psychological abuse because that's the thing.
When a narcissist psychologically abuses you, it goes on and on and on if you let it in your
head. So, recognize the power that you have and you know as you're going through this process,
be patient. You may not be able to let it all go in one moment but try your best and employ
spirituality too. Turn to God if you're a God-fearing person and ask god to take that
away because He can and we need extra help when we've been abused like that. The second step that
you want to engage in is setting appropriate boundaries. So, this can be difficult if you live
with the person. So let's say you have a parent that's a narcissist or you have an adult child
that lives in your house that's a narcissist or you have a spouse that's a narcissist. This is
very hard. You have to decide what your boundaries are. Sometimes you have to get away from the person,
sometimes there's no way to make that marriage work because that narcissism is never
going to stop plaguing you and at that point, you might have to just create distance. So get
away if you can but let's say it's like it's your parent or it's your child or something like that.
You love them, you want to have a relationship with them but you've got to have boundaries so
you tell yourself the boundaries. I will not you know allow this to happen, I will not allow this
to happen or you say something to yourself like okay I will see that person only when I am with
other people but I won't see them alone because whenever I'm alone with them bad things happen and
they say and do things that get into my head and I just can't do it. So, you're going to just
have certain rules for yourself. You may or may not declare those rules to the narcissist. Usually
narcissists are so cunning and like to play so many games that you probably don't want to declare
your rules to your narcissist. But if you have to ever put up a stop sign and say oh you know
what? Sorry, I don't actually get together with you unless I'm with other people. If you have to then
you have to. Probably you'll just say oh no, I'm not able to but hey I'll see you at the family party
on Thursday, that's what's going to happen so that you can hopefully maintain a relationship.
The third thing that you're going to want to do is find better healing relationships. Okay
so you are going to want to reach out, make new relationships with new people, new family members
that you become close to that you know that you can truly trust, new friends, new job maybe. Maybe
you have to leave your place of employment, maybe that's the boundary you have to set because you
work with a narcissist. Leave your job, get a new job, make new friends, move on. There are always
ways to heal. There are so many people out there and there are so many caring people out there
and they want to attach to somebody who cares about them as well. Find and make new
healthy relationships. I know that at a point of abuse when you're at your low spot, you feel like
nobody would like me, how can I even have a good relationship, do I even trust myself to discern
in a relationship but you know what? You can. You can find those relationships, allow yourself to
have hope, have patience too because relationships take time but allow yourself to dream that there
are other people out there who will appreciate you because there are. So a happy ending, this
mother that contact me about her narcissistic son. She did a hard thing. She decided that even though
she loved him and she wanted to help him, she was going to create a little bit more distance and
she wasn't going to allow him to just attack her on a regular basis. And so she reached out to some
of her other children who had not been getting as much of her attention for all these years because
of that child and she started making plans to spend time with them and she started healing.
She had boundaries, she made new attachments even though she still loved her son, she kept her
boundaries with him so that he did not have the opportunity to abuse her as much anymore. Obviously
he still tried but she was able to drop the subject and move on and one of my family members
was able to find someone that truly appreciated them. When they were hurt in a love relationship,
they weren't sure if anybody would want to be with them again and you know what?
They were, it was really powerful. So we can heal from psychological abuse caused by narcissism.
If you've enjoyed this video, I'm pretty sure you'll like the free class that I have for you.
So, I teach all about self-government and the skills and principles that I teach parents
to teach their children are for adults and everybody too. They truly are life changing
so if you've liked this video, click on the link to the full class,
the Not So Known Secret to Parenting Success so that you can find more help for navigating
the tricky parts of your relationships at home and making healing relationships so that everybody can
make home the safest place to make mistakes. Click on the link to that video now. I'll see you there.