There are many different reasons why people stay with narcissists. You may live with one and financially you can’t escape, they are family you may have to be around sometimes, they may be your boss. Or you may be in a relationship with one because of kids, financial reasons, religious reasons or you don’t feel ready to let go yet. So it is important that you learn how to be around a narcissist. Narcissists don’t really change or it is a small chance they do but it is not something you can bank on.
Being around narcissists can be so confusing and harmful. They make you feel hurt, alone and feel terrible about yourself. That is why you need to learn how to deal with a narcissist and learn how to protect yourself. Here are some tools to help you deal with being around a narcissist.
A lot of times when you have a relationship with a narcissist they will make you feel responsible for how the relationship is going. They make you feel like you are responsible for their feelings, for when things go wrong and for their happiness. So you will take on that responsibility and carry the relationship and the narcissist on your back. You will try to figure out how to fix yourself or how to help your narcissist like look things up on the internet (and why you are on this blog post haha).
Come to terms that it is not your responsibility at all. Your narcissist is the way they are unfortunately and they have reaffirmed in your brain over and over that it is fault why things are the way they are. No matter what you do or say you can’t change their mind. They live in their delusional world and they want you to fit the narrative that they have created for you. Accept that this is them and you can’t help them.
Now with understanding that you are not responsible for them or their happiness, you need to focus on you. When you deal with a narcissist, you deal with their selfishness and they have made everything about them. This can cause you to loose yourself, forget who you are, do things to make them happy and solely focus on them and trying to defuse situations or finding ways to get their approval.
So now is the time when you need to stop focusing on them and focus on yourself. Who are you? What do you want and need in life? What are your feelings? or your interests? The only thing you can do is focus on yourself because the more you focus on yourself, the easier it will be to deal with your narcissist.
Being around a narcissist can be so draining on your mental health. They will take over your inner voice and you will start to hear yourself tell yourself the things that they tell you on a regular basis. The constant verbal abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting will cause you to doubt yourself and cause you to feel like you are going crazy or that you don’t have your own thoughts anymore. It has been consumed with you trying to be better so your narcissist will make you feel worthy or good enough.
So it is important that you work on the way you talk to yourself. When you recognize your narcissist’s voice in your head, replace it with your own which is a nurturing, positive, calm loving person. When your narcissist says things to you make sure you do not take on what they are telling you. Say nurturing things to yourself and remind yourself that you got you and everything’s going to be okay.
Boundaries are just fences that we put up to protect ourselves from things that we don’t want. Narcissists will try to always disrespect and test your boundaries. They don’t view you as someone with feelings, they view you as a tool that they can use and are able to do whatever they want with you. Narcissists don’t care if certain things make you uncomfortable or if you don’t want certain things. That is why it is important that you don’t tell them you are setting boundaries but you need to just enforce the boundaries.
If there are certain things that you don’t like talking about with your narcissist then you let them know that you will no longer discuss it with them. If they try to make you go out at 9 pm and you don’t want to then you tell them you don’t go out past 9. Maybe they call too much, let them know or don’t pick up the phone. Whatever they do that makes you uncomfortable or upset, put a boundary on it and let them know what you will and won’t tolerate.
Being around a narcissist causes you to constantly doubt yourself. You are constantly verbally abused and told/made to believe you can’t trust yourself. They manipulate and gaslight you to believe that you are always wrong and they are right so you need to listen to them. These constant little reminders then become your voice in your head where you become afraid of making decisions, afraid of being wrong and doubt that you are correct.
So because of this, you need to build the trust back in yourself. We all are born with intuition. Intuition is a feeling you get in your body about things that you can’t explain. You have had that feeling a lot in your life but you have ignored it. Get back in touch with that feeling again. Whenever it goes off listen to it. You also need to recognize when that negative voice is in your head trying to steer you away from it. That voice will keep you staying stuck in self-doubt so you want to make sure you don’t listen to that negative voice but replace it with yourself with is the positive voice.
In my What happens when you stay with a narcissist post, I go into the cycle of abuse. And in part of the cycle after they go through their rage, there is a stage where they love bomb. Basically that means they will try to shower you with intimacy,gifts, love or tell you things you have been wanting to hear. It is a time period meant to confuse you and make you question if they are really that bad.
That is why it is important for you to be aware that this is what it is. It is another tactic in their agenda. It is a nice moment in time and that is all that it is. They are still a manipulative toxic person that is trying to make you forget what they have done. And you want to make sure you do not fall into the trap. You still need to keep your boundaries up and not allow them to get to you. Accept that moment as just a nice moment in time.
In a normal healthy relationship, we are able to give criticism or express things that we feel are wrong about the other person and they take what we say into consideration. With a narcissist, you can’t do that. As I am sure you have seen, they will turn it around, make you regret saying anything, and make you look like that bad guy. So to protect yourself you want to stay away from correcting them or criticizing them.
They are delusional and live in their own delusional world. No matter what you say, they will find a way to make you look wrong or lash out on you. They have bruised Egos so they can not take anything you say that is not what is in their image of how they want to be perceived. You are not actually doing anything wrong but they are not healthy enough to receive what you are saying. So criticizing or correcting them will just lead you to deal with their rage, you want to accept that they are not normal and you can’t help them.
Instead of criticizing or trying to correct them, you want to steer more in the direction of teaching them what you will and won’t tolerate. So a narcissist main thing they do is try to get reactions out of their victims. Whether it is negative or positive attention, it doesn’t matter, it is still attention. They did not learn how to healthy ask for what they want or was not aware of what they want so they are stuck at that age they were abused at and will throw a fit to get some sort of attention/acknowledgment.
If you notice, they will try to bait you to make you react so then you fit the narrative of the “bad guy” or the “abusive one.” That is where you want to make sure you don’t take the bait but rather respond than react. Reacting is when you try to defend yourself, get all emotional and angry, and you may focus on trying to prove yourself. They got you right where they want you. Understand that you can’t defend or prove yourself to them because they are incapable of taking your feelings or viewpoint into consideration. Nor do you have to prove or defend yourself to them.
You know exactly what is going on and you know you are not the person they’re trying to make you out to be. They are the unhealthy one, not you. So you need to let go of trying to defend and let go of trying to prove yourself.
Responding is when you don’t go off of emotion but rather you respond to them in a calm unemotional manner. So instead of yelling back you will respond and say “I’m sorry you are upset but I don’t agree.” Or “I am not responsible for your feelings.” See how that is not taking accountability for their misbehavior but also letting them know how you won’t tolerate the way they’re behaving and you won’t take it on. Those are the kind of statements you want to stick to.
This is a survival tool that can be used every once in awhile to buy you time. It is not something you can do on a daily basis as it is draining and won’t work if you do it constantly. So what fluffing is, is you give a compliment to your narcissist, basically stroking their ego to make you be on their side. This can be hard especially when you see who they are and you are feeling negative towards them.
So you will tell them something like ” wow you did a great job I wish I thought of that” Or they made a meal and you tell them it was delicious and you want to learn from them. This tool is meant to help you buy time in times like a boss where you need time to find different work or time on a project. Or maybe you are emotionally exhausted and you can sense they’re going to go into a rage soon. Sometimes you need a break and this can help with that.
Now the downside to fluffing is that it can make you feel manipulative and drain you as you are having to give them something you may not want to. So it is important you have outlets and detox like go for a walk or journal, take a bath, talk to a friend. Whatever it is just find an outlet to release the stress so it is not bottled in. Remember you are trying to survive and sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like to save your mental sanity.
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
2 Comments
Thank you for the informative post. It’s much needed!
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