Part 5: How to Heal from Toxic and Narcissistic Abuse: SET AND ENFORCE GOOD BOUNDARIES
Step 2 of Step 5 on How to Heal is setting good boundaries; this is the KEY to preventing being a victim of a narcissistic relationship or organization. Toxicity does not like boundaries.
The 5 steps to RECOVERING and HEALING from narcisstic and toxic abuse:
Recognize the abuse or toxicity.
Set and enforce good boundaries.
Forgiveness.
Know who and whose you are.
Physical health and wellness.
Step 2: SET and ENFORCE good BOUNDARIES
Setting boundaries around yourself and teaching others how to treat you is needed for our mental/emotional, physical, and spiritual health. We teach others how to treat us by what we will and will not accept. Creating mental and physical distance between our self and the toxic person may be needed.
In this series, I talked about a great book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. This book is full of detailed information and gives phases to use which is helpful when starting out setting boundaries - of course, you can change the phrases to make it your own voice.
Examples of setting boundaries and teaching others how to treat you:
“I will speak with you when you can talk calmly (not sneer, smirk, mock, nasty, rude, etc)”. They will have to learn to talk to you respectfully and calmly or will learn that you will walk away. If they want a conversation or relationship with you, they will respect your boundaries. This applies to the office or in any relationship. If your boss is the toxic one, and you are not able to get help from higher ups, you will have to consider whether you will stay and be treated badly (taking a toll on your health) or if you will leave.
“I understand your opinions are important to you but my opinions are important to me and this is how I will precede.” It’s important to let others know you are not looking for their advice or opinions on how to live your life, raise your children, who you will vote for, where you will go, or what you will do. That is if you do not want their advice or opinion. You may find that you need to get more information or education on a certain topic (reading books, articles, researching, etc). If you find that you distrust yourself with your own judgements and are constantly seeking advice and validation, a deeper issue with self-trust from growing up in or being around toxicity may be at play. Counseling may be helpful to precede in learning to trust yourself that you can make good, reasonable judgements and decisions.
“I’m not talking with you about that.” You get to decide in relationships what you are comfortable discussing and what you are not. You do not need to divulge information to others just because they ask. That is setting a boundary. You don’t have to participate in gossip or slander just because someone is baiting you to join in. You can walk away.
“This is not working for me, and I am leaving this organization, group, relationship.” As an adult, you decide what is and is not working for you. If you find you do not have a voice in a group or relationship, that is sign you are not being respected. You may be in the wrong group, friendship, relationship, or spiritual community if your beliefs do not line up with theirs and it is creating tension that cannot be resolved. People change, group dynamics, and work environments change. We may need to re-evaluate certain areas and relationships in our life and choose to be in environments and with people who respect and value our voice.
Counseling or coaching can be helpful to learn to set boundaries with others and yourself. Boundaries say to yourself and others “I will be treated sacredly”.
If you are used to people pleasing and finding your worth by getting praise and validation from other people - learning to use your voice and tell others to stop treating you in toxic ways is HARD at first - but not impossible! It’s hard work that is worth it and gets easier and easier over time.
Maybe at first, your boundaries don’t sound how you want them to - maybe you scream “Stop talking to me like that!” And march out of the house/office/building. When you wanted to say calmly, “If you are going to name-call or try to tear me down, I will leave. We can have a respectful conversation or I will not have a conversation with you at all.” Then leave.
That’s okay. It’s fine to need to apologize for how you said something but let them know that you are not sorry for what you needed to say - just how you went about saying it. That happens to everyone. Apologizing when you are actually in the wrong is setting a good example. Apologizing when you are not wrong - but someone just doesn’t like what you said or doesn’t like that you held them accountable for their behavior or words - is unnecessary. Apologizing frequently is typically a trauma response.
Boundary setting is a process of learning and takes time - remember that people who are good at setting boundaries started learning this skill when they were a child. You are just now learning. It’s fine if it takes awhile and it will get better and easier and with practice. You will find your voice.
Most people have a hard time setting boundaries with friends and family or others because they do not want to be alone and are afraid of losing relationships. The fear of being alone can keep us in toxic and unhealthy relationships all of our life. Someone who wants to be in relationship with you will respect your boundaries and choose to be respectful in the way they treat you and talk to you. They will choose to build you up instead of tear you down.
If you have no one in your life that is healthy, now is the time to start finding new people around you. Find a group, a church, and join other groups that you enjoy as a hobby or meeting new people in classes you take, could be gym/exercise, church groups, community groups, theatre, dance, art classes, groups on meet up, etc. While it would be nice to have a built in support system in family or existing friends - not everyone does. If you do, consider yourself blessed! That is a wonderful start to already have healthy and respectful and helpful people around you - even one.
How you talk to yourself matters also - set good boundaries for your own voice! If you’re telling yourself you are not enough, will never make friends, are boring and not worth befriending, do not have good qualities or gifts or talents - you are disrespecting yourself, which happens when you grew up in toxicity or have been in a relationship with a toxic person. Everyone has gifts and talents.
This is not another thing to beat yourself up over - there is never a good reason to beat yourself up. People make mistakes, do things they wish they hadn’t sometimes, fail at things some times - and it’s all ok. If you were told it’s not, that is what’s not ok.
There is no way to get through life without many mistakes. Apologizing when you are wrong, getting back up and keep going is an appropriate response as well as asking for help. Not feeling like you can ask for help is usually a sign that someone grew up around toxicity. Needing to be in control, not feeling you can trust others to help you without judgement, criticism, contempt, etc - can make asking for help a hard thing to do. But safe people, people who are not toxic, are happy to help and understand that people are not perfect and everyone needs help sometimes. That’s life, not a failure or weakness.
The Biggest ENEMIES of boundary setting and enforcing those boundaries (meaning following through with what you say you will accept and will not accept) are:
Guilt, shame, manipulation, gaslighting and self-gaslighting, lack of self-trust, un-forgiveness for self and others, and not knowing who and whose you are (I will cover forgiveness and knowing who and whose you are over the next two posts - these are big ones).
Shame is toxic. Remember, that is the feeling -the emotion - that is behind narcissism? Deep shame and self-loathing. No good thing comes from shame. Guilt is supposed to lead us to doing the right thing - not lead us to shame and blame. Repent is turning away from the wrong things to the right things. If your guilt is leading to shame - that is not Jesus, that is an oppressive spirit. Christians cannot be possessed but can be oppressed.
Spirit of Narcissism, spirit of criticism, spirit of bitterness, spirit of contempt, spirit of un-forgiveness, spirit of suicide, etc. Any emotions or thoughts that cause damage to yourself or others can be thought of as spirits and can be addressed by the blood of Jesus and bind any spirit and send it to the feet of Jesus. If you have accepted Jesus as your savior, been baptized with water and the Holy Spirit, no other spirit has authority over you. You belong to Jesus and have the Holy Spirit which trumps all. If none of that makes sense, I would encourage you to find a church and go to freedomfighters to learn more. This is boundary setting in the name of Jesus.
Manipulation and gaslighting can be others making you feel bad (or you feeling bad) for setting boundaries for “no reason” and just being “mean”, “spiteful”, “ungrateful”, or “hurtful” - as they will tell you. Toxic people do not like boundaries. They may cry, shame you, rage at you, sneer, mock, show contempt and disregard, threaten to cut you out of their life for setting boundaries, run a smear campaign against you to friends and family, or make other threats. The gaslighting will be them and you telling yourself that boundaries are unnecessary and that they are causing more harm than good. That you should “just keep people happy” by doing what they want and continue to let them be rude and disrespectful to you and be an enabler of their abuse and a doormat.
That is all untrue and will keep you under narcissistic and toxic people’s control - where they want you. Remember, they KEY to not being a victim or being a victim again of narcissistic and toxic abuse is to set and enforce good boundaries.
Good relationships require good boundaries. Both people in a relationship have to be respectful of the other person and consider and value their feelings, thoughts, ideas, and personality. We are separate and do not have to have the same opinions, religion, political affiliations, health or educational ideas - and that does not make someone “stupid”, “silly”, “bad”, “uncaring” or any other bad thing. People are different and have a right to be. If someone finds that they cannot handle how you “do life” or you cannot handle how they “do life” - then that is probably a good indicator that person does not belong in your circle. People can be good people and not be your people, just like you can be a good person and not be their person. We can learn to trust ourselves and others when we develop healthy, reciprocal relationships.
Next post will cover Step 3: Forgiveness. Forgiveness for self and others is a necessary step to healing. Many articles and even counselors and psychologists will say that forgiveness is not needed. I’ve found that’s because they are misunderstanding what forgiveness actually is and also do not understand the spiritual aspect of forgiveness and the blocking of love-power and healing that happens when forgiveness is not granted.