Setting Boundaries in Toxic Relationships

Setting boundaries is a skill that you must develop when dealing with a narcissist! It is a skill you need to have anyways, but the need for it is more prominent in toxic relationships.

Narcissists and other toxic personalities will take extreme advantage of anyone who shows the smallest sign of weakness in their boundaries.

What type of boundaries am I talking about?

• Having space to safely express your own thoughts and feelings

• Being able to disagree without major issues

• Being free to go visit with a friend or family if you want

• Not feeling obligated to explain yourself or defend yourself on everything

• Feeling comfortable expressing your own likes and dislikes, and pursuing them

To build the skills of boundary setting, don't start with the hardest person you have in your life. Do not start by trying to set boundaries with your toxic partner or toxic parent. Because our boundaries are being obliterated by that toxic person, this person is our focus. We begin our journey by trying to establish boundaries with him/her. This is the same as a brand new driver choosing to start learning by jumping on a high-speed interstate at night in the rain. The safer approach is to learn to drive on lower speed roads in daylight and good weather.

So start building your boundary skills in easier scenarios and more cooperative relationships first. Express your thoughts and feelings with your friends, family and co-workers, even if you believe they will disagree. It is okay to disagree and still be good. Give voice to your own likes and dislikes whether others agree or not. Let go of that feeling that you have to explain yourself or defend yourself. You do not! You are simply allowed to have opinions and preferences.

As you become more skilled in boundary setting and self-expressing, you will feel more confident in doing this with the narcissists in your life! Be patient with yourself as you go. Learning new skills takes time and effort.

To learn more about how to help your kids set boundaries, watch the Q&A video with Renee Swanson here.

Check out her book Parenting with a Toxic Partner here. Get 3 free bonuses when you purchase the ebook. If you buy the paperback on Amazon, let her know at renee@covertnarcissism.com. She will send you the free bonuses if you submit a screenshot of your receipt.

The Narcissist's Constant Victim Role

The Constant Victim Role

Covert narcissists are constant victims. Everyone has done them wrong. Everyone has injured their precious ego at some point or another. The whole world is responsible for their anger, negativity, lack of initiative, lack of motivation, and even their lack of empathy. From the tiniest injury to the grandest, the covert narcissist continues to be the never-ending victim, who feels entitled to treat you however they choose. They have no filter on their words or actions and no ability to see how this entitlement affects others.

This causes all relationships with the narcissist to be strained and exhausting. When the covert narcissist plays the victim so well, it leaves you with two roles in life. You are either their therapist or their enemy. You are either their rescuer or their perpetrator. The trouble is that healthy people should not and do not fulfill these roles with their loved ones.

Your Role as Therapist

Healthy individuals recognize that they cannot serve as a rescuer to their parent, spouse, adult child, friend, boss, etc. This is a normal and healthy boundary in life. When a person is constantly relying on your approval and validation in order to feel good about themselves, this is a destructive situation. You are not helping them or yourself. You are not their therapist and should not serve as such. They need to be working on their own problems on their own, just as you should be with yours.

You might think, “But I’m just trying to be supportive? Wouldn’t it be mean to not let them open up to me and talk with me?” I’m not saying you shouldn’t be a supportive friend or family member. It is okay for them to share with you what they are dealing with and what they are learning, as long as they are learning and taking action to work on it for themselves. What are they doing to get healthier and stronger internally? Are they doing anything? It is not okay for them to expect you to make them feel better so they can then go back to ignoring the problems they have. This is an endless and exhausting cycle that will leave you completely drained!

Your Role as Enemy

On the flip side, healthy individuals also do not want to be seen as the constant enemy or perpetrator. A covert narcissist will play the victim role over and over and over. Their constant hypersensitivity and gaslighting allows them to always find ways to be wounded. You begin to feel like their number one enemy. They are extremely good at being the victim and can convince the kindest person in the world that they are to blame for all the narcissist’s problems and unhappiness. Every bad feeling the covert narcissist has is somehow your fault. This is simply not reality and is known as blame shifting.

When they see you as the constant offender, everything you do and say is wrong. For a covert narcissist, everything is offensive to them. You will apologize over and over to them, even at times when you have no idea what you are apologizing for. You apologize anyways, simply to try to put some peace back in your relationship with them.

That peace, however, will be short-lived. There are not enough apologies in the world to satisfy the victim role of a covert narcissist. Their pain comes from within, and yet they constantly look for external reasons and external solutions. Those solutions will NEVER be good enough. To stop being the perpetrator, you have to set your own boundaries and walk away. They will never stop, so you must!

It is not possible for everything that is wrong with them to be your fault. Please hear these words!! It is not your fault!! You are allowed to be human. You are allowed to do things that maybe you could have done better, to say things that maybe you could have said better. No one decided that you have to be perfect, except the covert narcissist in your life. They decided you must be perfect and then set you up again and again for failure. Stop playing their game!! Simply walk away.

Of course, they will then blame you for abandoning them. But that is simply not true. You are an adult making an adult decision. Set your boundaries and stick with them.

The Distorted View of an Abuse Victim

A Distorted View of Reality

When my son was around 9 years old, he apparently needed glasses. We did not know that he needed glasses. He was not aware that things were blurry to him. He thought that what he saw was reality. For example when he looked at trees he saw a green blurry mess. For him this is what trees looked like. He did not know any differently. This was a distorted view of reality, but it was all he knew. He had no way of knowing that what he saw was not reality. So to him it was reality!

When we discovered this, of course we took him to the eye doctor to have his eyes checked. The doctor confirmed that he needed glasses. He put on his new glasses, and we walked outside. He immediately exclaimed, “Wow! The trees have leaves!” For the first time, he could see clearly the individual leaves of the tree. He was so surprised at this and found it to be very enjoyable. Now he was seeing a clear picture of reality.

Check Your Symptoms

Before getting glasses, you might experience bad headaches and not know why. These headaches can cause you to be frustrated and tired. Yet you still do not know where this is all coming from. Kids can even start having bad grades as a result of vision issues. If these things are going on with your child, you start trying to figure out why rather than fuss at them for not being good enough, right?

So take a look at yourself. These are some of the symptoms you need to be checking.

• Do you feel like everything is your fault?

• Do you feel that you are never good enough?

• Do you doubt everything you do, say, or think?

• Do you see yourself as worthless and hopeless?

• Are you losing motivation in life?

• Do you struggle to get out of bed?

• Do you feel you have no purpose in life?

If you are experiencing these symptoms, then you need to start exploring. It may not be from abuse, just like your child might not need glasses. There can be other reasons for headaches and bad grades. And there can be other reasons for your symptoms. One big thing to ask yourself is - Are you especially experiencing these symptoms around one particular person in your life and noAbust around others?

The Distorted View of Abuse Victims

Victims of abuse definitely experience a distorted view of reality. Not physically, like my son’s eyes. Rather, your distorted vision is turned inward. You do feel like everything is your fault and everything is your job to fix. You feel that no matter what you do you are not good enough and never will be. You doubt everything you do, say or think. You see yourself as worthless and  your situation as hopeless. You have an extremely tough time seeing a clear view of reality, and you might not even be aware of it. Your vision is extremely distorted.

A distorted view of reality absolutely affects you physically, mentally, and emotionally. You find yourself with no energy, tired all the time, not feeling well, and all sorts of physical ailments.Yet you do not know why. Your mind goes into hyper-drive until it reaches a point of total exhaustion and shuts down completely. Emotions become too painful to feel anymore. Your relationships suffer. Consequently, you lose all motivation to even function. There seems to be no purpose in life anymore. Building the strength to even get out of bed can prove quite challenging. You easily become more and more isolated from the world, and even from those you love, and yet you continue to blame yourself for all of this. This has a disastrous effect on your life.

Gaining Perspective

You are just like my son, trying to decide if what you are seeing is real or not. Are the trees really a blurry green mess or do they have individual leaves? Are the words on the board at school written with a blurry marker or are they clear? Is all this your fault or have you been manipulated to believe this? Are you completely worthless or is there great value in you?

Our son would never have known he needed glasses if he had not spoken up to someone, anyone. He asked me if I could read the words on the movie screen. “Yes, of course,” I replied. “What does it say?” he asked. I was surprised. “You read it,” I said. He responded, “I can’t. I can’t see the letters.” So the process that lead to contact lenses began.

You also need an outside perspective. You need to open up about what you are going through. Start talking about it. Start asking questions. Don’t keep it inside any longer. Even if your friend or family member doesn’t understand, that’s okay. The more you can talk about your feelings, the sooner you can start getting some clarity on them. Quit assuming that you know all the answers already. Let go of the belief that you can tough your way through this.

You must admit that you need help. There is absolutely no shame in that! Join support groups. Read books on healing from abuse and on mindfulness. You need tools that can help you get a better perspective of what reality is. You have to be able to get out of your own mind and see life from a healthier perspective. Just like you would go to the eye doctor to check your view of reality, don't hesitate to go to a counselor, therapist, psychologist, or any other form of help to check your view of reality.

Keep picturing those blurry green blobs that my son saw as trees. Accept that your own perspective may be every bit as blurry. There is a reason you are here looking for answers. You are not alone on this path! I wish you much peace on your journey of healing!

From Victim to Survivor to Victor

When you are dealing with a covert narcissist, it is so incredibly hard to see the abuse, especially at first. You may know that something is wrong in the relationship, but you are just as likely to blame yourself as you are to blame your partner. In fact, you are probably more likely to blame yourself. I think all of us begin in denial.

The Denial

“I’m not being abused. This doesn’t apply to my relationship. He’s just…… or she’s just…….” Fill in the blank. Tired, cranky, busy, angry, not feeling well, socially awkward, recovering from an abused childhood, and so on. How many years can these excuses go on? For me, it was 17 years. For others, I have heard as many as 45 years. Excuse after excuse after excuse. At some point, I started to realize that the “He’s just….” was not an excuse but rather a definition of who he was.

If I’m always making excuses for him because he is cranky that day, but it’s every day, at some point I have to realize that cranky is just who he is. That “recovering from an abused childhood” becomes an excuse and a crutch when it explains their bad behavior for years and years. He is never going to get better. He likes his crutches and hides behind them.

The Victim

So the fog started to clear from my mind. I felt like a beaten down puppy, living with a justified owner who could talk to me anyway he pleased without a care in the world. The denial went away, and I ran head first into the realization that I was a victim! It took one visit to a therapist to really get me to see it for myself.

“OH, $^*&^%*&^*&!!! What is really going on here?!?” This realization was incredibly painful! I thought he loved me. I committed my life to him. I thought we were teammates, facing the battles of life together.

As quickly as the clarity came, it would also disappear just as fast. One minute the abuse was clear in my mind. I could see it. I could explain it. But the next minute, it vanished into thin air. I couldn’t grasp it anymore. I couldn’t explain it. Instead I doubted myself and blamed myself, for the millionth time.

But I continued pondering, watching his attitude, listening to his words, observing my feelings and reactions. He was the reason that I felt beat down and insecure. He was the reason my anxiety level and exhaustion were so high. At this point, I found myself all over the board emotionally. I rotated between disbelief, resistance, despair, grief, denial, anger, even rage. This was the roller coaster from hell!

At this point, the need for external validation is incredibly strong! You have received practically no validation from your partner or anyone else up to now. Many victims, including myself, will desperately try to get their partner to see how they are treating them. You want them, so badly, to see the abuse they are dishing out for what it is. Maybe this is in hopes that they will change. Maybe it is because you want them, just once, to finally feel bad about it.

In this stage, anger is strong in the victim. They vent to anyone who will listen. The desire to expose the abuse is huge. Revenge is screaming at their heart. “Look at what they did to me! This isn’t right! It isn’t fair! Look how much it has hurt my children!” Daily, you gather more evidence and more examples of the abuse. You want to scream this from the rooftop!

A problem arises though, your friends and family don’t see it. They don’t understand what you are saying. They don’t agree that you have been abused. They tell you that you are over-reacting or being petty. This is incredibly painful!!! A harder hit than some of the abuse itself. Despair and self-doubt replace the anger.

What do I do now??

The Survivor

The second phase is that of the survivor. When does it hit? It hits when you run out of fuel in the victim phase, when you just have no energy left and can’t take it anymore. This is when you fully realize that they are never going to get it and you stop trying to explain it to them or change them.

Everyone stays in the first phase of being a victim for different lengths of time. How long you stay is based on various factors:

• Your own awareness of the abuse

• Length and intensity of the relationship

• If you have kids with them and the age of the kids

• How hooked you were by their love-bombing

• The extent of your own support group

• How secure or scared you feel about leaving

• How determined you are to change them

• Your willingness or unwillingness to accept that they will never get it and move on

• Your willingness to stand up for yourself

None of these things make you a bad person or the one responsible for the break-down of the relationship. They do however play a huge role in determining the amount of time you remain hooked in the narcissistic relationship. Some people run for their lives early in the relationship, maybe one year in and before marriage or kids. Others, however, remain for decades, as many as 40 or 50 years.

For me, the survivor phase hit when my energy tanked out. I had nothing left inside me. My fuel tank was empty, and I hit rock bottom. I no longer had any desire left to try to explain anything to him. I had tried so hard, and he combatted everything I said, all the time. I was done!

At this point, I realized that this was having a huge effect on my physical health and mental and emotional well-being. So survivor mode kicked in. It was time to quit trying to help him and instead to focus on helping myself. I became completely indifferent to him. I no longer cared what he thought or said. I no longer reacted to his attempts at baiting me. I no longer wanted revenge, as this just kept me trapped in his web. I just wanted out. I later discovered that this is called going Grey Rock. I didn’t know it had a name until much later. For more on grey rock, read my recent post When I told my Covert Narcissist that I was Done

One other gigantic step to move from victim to survivor is to quit gathering evidence of the abuse! This is extremely necessary. Yes, in the beginning, you need to gather the evidence. You need to prove to yourself that you aren’t crazy and that he/she is abusing you. You need to get clarity in why you feel the way you do. But at some point, in order to move forward in your own healing, you have to stop gathering evidence. You need to trust what you have learned and close your case. You must be able to say, “Now, the prosecution rests.”

The realization that they are never going to get it is a tough one, but also a very freeing one. You no longer feel responsible to be the one to show them. It wasn’t my job anymore. I can’t change him, but I can change me. So I started taking steps toward moving one. Everyday I simply did the next right thing, whatever that was. Sometimes they were small things and sometimes they were huge things.

It is easy to get stuck in the victim phase. Move on!! You have much better ways to spend your time and energy. You have other things to think about and do. You have other people that need you in their life. Your thoughts and feelings do matter in this world. They don’t matter to your narcissist. So staying in the victim role, still battling with him/her, will keep you feeling like you don’t matter. You will continue to desperately try to prove that you do. There is life outside of narcissism. Start taking care of you and your family because you deserve it.

The Victor

The Victor phase is amazing!! This is a phase of empowerment and growth. You have truly moved on in life and no longer think about this narcissist thing.

How do you know when you have reached this phase?

• When you no longer wake up every morning with him/her on your mind.

• When the constant internal arguments are gone.

• When you all of a sudden realize that you haven’t thought about him/her in a long time.

• When you realize that you carry positive energy for a change.

Please know that it is impossible to get entirely to the phase of victor if you cannot get him/her completely out of your head. If you are still seeking revenge, you won’t get there. If you are still holding on to the anger, you won’t get there. If you are still checking their social media, you won’t get there. Unfortunately, if you are still raising kids together, you won’t get there….not entirely….not yet.

If you are not quite to this phase yet and want to be, you might ask yourself these questions.

• What would I be thinking about if I wasn’t thinking about him/her and all this narcissistic garbage?

• What would I be doing with my day if he/she had never been a part of it?

• What would I be researching on the internet if I wasn’t googling narcissism, emotional abuse, unhappy marriage, etc?

Find a few things in life that you really enjoy, things that make you feel happy and satisfied. Think about these things. Ponder them and explore them. Learn more about them. Make them a hobby and use them to begin to occupy that time you are trying to fill with other things. Learn about the resources out there. Find others who share this interest. What kind of things? you might ask. I don’t know where to start. Here are a few suggestions: dancing, nature, reading, music, sports, cultural history, photography, a new language. There are so many wonderful options out there.

In this process, pay close attention to your thoughts. They will try to wonder back to all the garbage of your past, especially at first. Don’t sweat that too much. It is that way for everyone. Just be aware of it and purposefully shift your thoughts back to your new positive things to ponder. There are a ton a great resources out there on mindfulness. To get started, check out my Resources page. Give yourself permission to move on and enjoy life once again.

There is life after narcissism!!