Hell I m Darren Magee and todays topic is continuing on the question about recovering from
having been in a toxic, unhealthy, narcissistic relationship. Today I'm going to be focusing on
looking at recognising, and setting and even reinforcing boundaries. But it's something
I don't think I could cover in the one video so I'm going to break it down into different parts,
and for today I'm going to start with two things. First of all, recognising and understanding what
boundaries are and in order to enforce him, or indeed reinforce them I m gonna invite you
to think about what to stop doing. Now, if you like this video. If you find it helpful,
please consider subscribing to my channel for future updates on mental health related topics.
But just as a reminder, this video is not a substitute for support from a mental health
professional, nor is it a tool to be used to diagnose someone. Now just to recap,
narcissism is often characterised by a sense of entitlement. There is a need for admiration.
There's being either highly resistant or highly sensitive to criticism. There's being intensely
disagreeable, a lack of empathy and a need to control others around them. So before looking
at how to manage boundaries with difficult people. First of all, let's understand what
boundaries are. Now when you think of boundaries, well we have physical boundaries. For example,
we generally don't like other people invading our personal space, but when we think of other
boundaries, well you think of your limits, your values, your integrity. Think of the difference
between meeting and managing expectations, not just your own, but the expectations that others
place upon you. I think boundaries are a good way of recognising what s mind and whats yours
when it comes to things like thoughts, feelings, experiences, expectations and indeed behaviours.
Yes, it's a good healthy thing to do to respect each others boundaries. But not necessarily at
the expense of your own, not at the cost of your own self respect. Whenever we continually give in,
whenever we continually compromise and the other person isn't, that's not respect. That's just
giving in. Now people can cross each others bounderies, but cross them without actually
recognising that they've crossed them. But we can generally communicate with each other. We may say
things like. I don't think what you're asking for is reasonable. I didn't find that funny. It was
actually quite insulting , and even if we don't agree with each other or fully understand each
other, we can at least respect that and adjust our behaviour. But other times we meet people who
cross boundaries to see how far they can go to see what they can get away with. They can make you
feel crazy, selfish, make you feel unreasonable for having boundaries in the first place.
And they keep on going a piece at a time until you end up accepting their behaviour as normal.
Now in cases like that, I would suggest they're not actually crossing boundaries,
what they're actually doing is violating them. They know exactly what they're doing.
So the narcissistic person in your life, now it could be a parent, could be a family
member of partner on ex-partner. It could be a work colleague or even just a friend even.
But if you've been in a long term relationship of any description with a narcissist, you're probably
aware of the gaslighting, the guilt tripping the shaming tactics that they use to dominate,
manipulate to make you feel crazy, to make you feel as if you are obligated to them somehow.
So something to think about is narcissist and have feed off reactions. They feed off drama,
and crossing boundaries is a good way to create drama in order to feed off. They wear you down
with passive aggressive remarks, temper tantrums, ignoring you, punishing you, acting like they
don't know what you're talking about whenever you raise it. They re actually feeding off your
distress, your constantly giving in, apologising and explaining yourself while they give little
to nothing back in return. And the affect of a long term relationship like this can have someone
not really knowing how to fully assert themselves without sounding as if they re in the wrong or
sounding insane. They re no longer fully aware of what their values or limits are and they've
been emotionally blackmailed and manipulated so much they question their own sense of reality,
their own sense of integrity. They keep on giving that narcissist things that are never going to be
reciprocated. So when it comes to recognising managing or even reclaiming your boundaries,
the important thing to think of first is to make sure you're safe. Asserting yourself is
not about trying to antagonise someone, but narcissists can be very vindictive.
That imagined slight, that emotional wound stays with them a long time, so make sure your safe.
With boundaries, I think a good place to start is by maybe recognising what is acceptable to you
and what isn't. What is a redline, and what are you perhaps okay to be flexible over. Now you
may well know the difference between good natured banter or teasing and being insulted. You may know
the difference between someone raising their voice when they're debating something, they are very
passionate about it, and when they're raising their voice to intimidate and threaten. So
if not, then ask yourself a few questions. First of all, am I really prepared to accept from them
the very things that they won't accept from me? Am I prepared to give them the things they re denying
me? If you're not already aware, when you start asserting yourself with a narcissist, expect some
kind of a kickback. Expect them to maybe ramp it up about, change their tactic in order to do
the same thing. So like I said earlier, you make sure you're safe, but also stay strong. As always
I sometimes think it can be healthy to look at things the opposite way round. It's not always
about what we need to start doing. Let's look at some of the things to stop doing whenever
we're managing our boundaries. So the first thing is stop expecting validation from them.
Now the need for validation, I think that's hard wired into us. We are social creatures we, we need
others to validate us, to mirror us, to reflect us. We, we need others to empathise with us now,
even if it's just for the sake of feeling scene. When you re dealing with a narcissist, that's
generally not going to happen, because if you think about it more often than not, narcissists
never really received any of this when they were growing up, so they don't really know how to
attune to others genuinely and effectively. Now the very socialised ones, high functioning
ones can mimic it in order to reel people in, but it generally doesn't last forever because
it's only a performance, it's not real. And they can do it with other people in front of you,
but that's not real either. Some just don't have the capacity to validated others. Some fear that
if they were to validate others upper feel as if they're invalidating themselves, and that would be
far too crushing, far too shameful for them. But then there are also those who actually get a kick
out of invaliding you. They watch you as you struggle with their continuing invalidation
of your thoughts, your feelings and your experiences. And I think that because there's
a lack of insight, a lack of emotional depth narcissists don't really grasp the concept that
validating someone doesn't mean they agree with them, neither doesn't necessarily mean they have
to fully understand. All validation is saying to someone I respect you enough to hear how that is
for you. So stop expecting them to. Remember what I said earlier, it's what mine and what s yours.
Now if you hear like I used to hear all the time, I don't understand why that's a problem , well,
you're not really asking him to understand, you just asking him to accept it.
If they can't, or if they won't, that's their stuff. Secondly, stop excusing them.
How many times have you excused them? It's not their fault, it's their trauma. It's not their
fault, they don't know any better they had a very poor upbringing. It's not their fault,
it's their illness. It's, it's not their fault, I shouldn't have left them alone for an hour while I
was visiting my friends. What we're really doing, when we're excusing them is we're allowing them
to continue. We re normalising it, we re actually telling them it's okay for them to behave the way
they do. Now narcissistic or not, people generally know the difference between right and wrong.
What they re doing is they re not accepting any responsibility for their actions Now
chances are you've explained yourself till you're blue in the face, only to have them continue. Now,
think of it this way, if you have explained yourself, even just once, then they know
that what they're doing is hurting you. Thirdly, don't expect that giving them what
they want will change them. They want to change, that's up to them, but sadly with narcissism
they generally tend to believe they don't need to change. It's everyone else who needs to change,
they re already perfect. They're already virtuous. They demand that you and everyone
else sees them that way as well. Sometimes the most people ever see is the changing in a tactic
in order to get them what they want. Now I often look at it this way. There's a scene
in the Terminator movie where the guy s trying to explain to the girl The Terminator is a machine.
It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, it doesn't feel
remorse. It only has the one programme and it will not stop ever until it completes that
programme. Now with narcissists, what we see is that programme is me. It is my exaltation,
it is my way, it is my entitlement. It is my happiness. The more you hope for change
by either giving in or trying to reason with them, the more you keep looking for a change,
the more you tend to lose a sense of yourself. Your self respect, your autonomy your self will.
And she keep that cycle of abuse and neglect going. And lastly, for today,
stop explaining yourself. Stop justifying or trying to defend your actions, your thoughts,
your feelings, your beliefs. They ve generally no interest in debate or even clarification. They
probably even enjoy watching you struggle to get through to them. Remember, narcissists generally
tend to use any information at all against you. Even if you were to say something as simple as
you prefer tea, not coffee, that's going to be used against you somehow to have you to
second guess yourself you know or have you feel embarrassed or guilty. You know, You're lying I
saw you drink coffee three years ago . In the end up explaining yourself, Yeah, I tried it
once and it didn't like it . But once you've done that, they are now trying to find other examples
to prove that you re lying to them. When you're explaining yourself a lot of time you're giving
them a feeling of control over you. They may even ask very intrusive questions, but
criticise your answers. Pick them apart like it's an interrogation. So rather than explain yourself,
either say nothing, give a one word answer or why not have them do their own work? Now there's
probably better ways of asking these questions, but things like, Why is that important?
What would you do with the information even if you had it? Why would I think that? Why would I do
that? When did this happen? Give me an example and on and on it goes. Now you may not like what you
hear from them. But they're doing their own work. You're not doing it for them. So that's the first
part, looking at ways to manage boundaries with narcissistic people by first of all, stop hoping
for validation, stop excusing them, stop hoping for they ll change and stop explaining yourself.
Now I hope you found this information helpful. As always there are always some interesting comments
and conversations starting around these videos. Please feel free to use the comment box below
and do feel free to share any of the ways you use to manage your boundaries, some others may find
it helpful. If you like this video, if found it helpful please consider subscribing to my channel
for future updates on mental health related topics and until next time, thanks for watching.