How to Become Immune to Disordered People

[zachira]

Truly one of the best articles I have read on how to manage the vicious cycles of retraumatizing ourselves with the wrong kind of people:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/narcissists-cant-stand-traits-heres-111829720.html

[livednlearned]

This is really interesting, thanks for posting it here zachira. I like that it has actual skills, and doesn't just say "you did this wrong, this is how you ended up like this."

This one really struck me:

"Listen to your body. It's smarter than your brain."

A lot of my healing has been about validating my own nervous system and what it's trying to tell me. When my BPDx behaved badly a few dates in, I remember feeling the same sort of stone cold disconnection that I often felt growing up within my family.

Because that was a normal feeling to me, I didn't register the extent to which something was seriously off.

When he turned the dial back to love-bombing, it felt like the warm ray of sunshine I felt when uBPD brother directed his full charisma toward me.

I know this now, but I don't know if it would've helped back when I was so emotionally disconnected from my body. I spent so much time ignoring signals from myself it would've make so little sense to listen to my gut.

What would've helped though, is the advice to not share any vulnerabilities so soon, making it less likely someone with narcissistic traits could exploit those vulnernabilities. And to be a little more careful about validating people or offering praise early in a relationship.

[Methuen]

It's helpful to have it laid out like this (in the article), rather than always having to learn by the school of hard knocks.

"Don't give praise or validation easily"  This kind of goes against my natural instinct, as in my profession I worked from a "strength based" perspective, and it was my place to encourage and to help build confidence and character in addition to skills.  But I remember a conversation with my mom a few years ago that made me do a double head turn in my personal life.  I think my mom is typical BPD in a lot of ways - extreme waif.  She is needy, insecure, childish, lack of sense of self, constantly seeking validation, emotionally unstable, her feeling of abandonment is triggered every time we go away...etc etc.  So, at a time when she was "low", and visiting our house many years ago, I was in my "strength based mode", and gave her an example of something I thought she did well as a mother.  Holy - did that boomerang, and now I can see how it completely fed her narcissistic supply.  I got an indignant lecture on what a great mother she was.  I could write a book about the ways she wasn't a great mother, as could all of us.  Until then, I was blind and didn't see the narcissism.  That was a turning point for me when the light bulb finally came on for that trait - or maybe it was in that moment that I "accepted" it.

"Make your boundaries clear − and stand by them". My husband has done this well.  He doesn't have all the grooming I've had, and he doesn't have the emotional psych baggage (parentification, fear etc).  All her FOGGing doesn't have an effect on him.  It's been good for me to observe his detachment.  He doesn't feel guilt.  I frequently turn to him for guidance when I start feeling the push-pull.  He let's me know that I "don't need to do this or that" to "supply" her.  I don't seem to know what normal is, so I turn to him for that guidance, including holding my own boundaries.  

"The first thing you have to do is recognize who you're in the room with," she says. "What you don't know can and will harm you." I can't say enough about this.  I know I've said this before, but I think more could be done in the schools and maybe community groups to teach communication skills with difficult people, relationship skills, and mental health education. At the risk of sounding gloomy, I think this world is full of difficult people in home life, work and community life, and government. It's hard to respond in a healthy and self-protective way if we don't recognize who's in the room with us, especially if we've grown up in a dysfunctional FOO, or with dysfunctional people in our lives.  

Thanks for posting the article.  

[Notwendy]

"Don't give praise or validation easily"  This kind of goes against my natural instinct, as in my profession I worked from a "strength based" perspective, and it was my place to encourage and to help build confidence and character in addition to skills.  But I remember a conversation with my mom a few years ago that made me do a double head turn in my personal life.  I think my mom is typical BPD in a lot of ways - extreme waif.  She is needy, insecure, childish, lack of sense of self, constantly seeking validation, emotionally unstable, her feeling of abandonment is triggered every time we go away...etc etc.  So, at a time when she was "low", and visiting our house many years ago, I was in my "strength based mode", and gave her an example of something I thought she did well as a mother.  Holy - did that boomerang, and now I can see how it completely fed her narcissistic supply.  I got an indignant lecture on what a great mother she was.  I could write a book about the ways she wasn't a great mother, as could all of us.  Until then, I was blind and didn't see the narcissism.  That was a turning point for me when the light bulb finally came on for that trait - or maybe it was in that moment that I "accepted" it.

"Make your boundaries clear − and stand by them". My husband has done this well.  He doesn't have all the grooming I've had, and he doesn't have the emotional psych baggage (parentification, fear etc).  All her FOGGing doesn't have an effect on him.  It's been good for me to observe his detachment.  He doesn't feel guilt.  I frequently turn to him for guidance when I start feeling the push-pull.  He let's me know that I "don't need to do this or that" to "supply" her.  I don't seem to know what normal is, so I turn to him for that guidance, including holding my own boundaries.  

Yes, great article. I agree- we have a lot of programming/attachment to a parent than to someone we have just met. This may be why your H is able to be of help to your mother and not have it affect him emotionally as much.

The giving praise/validation aspect. With my BPD mother, it also includes doing things for her. Her responses have startled me sometimes- how she seems to grab on to it. She can't seem to get enough of this and feels she lacks it.  But she has it- all around her - she has people who have tried to befriend her, she's had material needs met, and she can't seem to perceive this. Encounters with her are transactional- meet her need in some way, even a small thing- because it's the dynamic she wants. I might call her to see how she's doing and she will end the call with "need more pictures of the grandkids" or  something and it's that she needs this in the relationship. So even if the "need" isn't something I wouldn't do- it's that this is the relationship- and the choice of words.

[Pook075]

Most of my department at work was laid off in March so I quickly looked for a replacement job.  I found something semi-local, about an hour away, and it paid well so I applied...despite incredibly negative reviews of the owner online.  The company messaged me back within a few hours of my replying (red flag) and asked if I could come in for an interview the next morning (another red flag). The interview lasted about an hour and I was told at the end that I'd receive a decision the following Monday, that they were very close to hiring.

Anyway, I got a job offer the following Monday and went to work, only to be called to the owner's office throughout the day, every day.  Sometimes it was to talk about being a better sales rep (I wasn't hired for sales, I was hired to train & lead the marketing team).  Other times it was to bad mouth my co-workers, often in front of other people.  Not about big stuff though, just nit-picking their personalities and making unfair accusations.  I didn't play along because that's not something you do when you're building a team; I invest in the people I work with.

Within a few months, the owner's ire turned to me.  He stated that I didn't actually do anything there and didn't deserve my paycheck, so I began to state how we've made major gains on certain accounts and the company has become more profitable.  The owner exploded with anger, shoved everything off his desk and became red in the face.  He screamed, "You're a <bad word> liar!," then got up from the desk with his fists balled up and started coming towards me.  I de-escalated the situation and calmed him down, but the damage had been done.  I was working for the biggest narcissist that I've ever seen in my entire life.

The next few days, he made me work from his office and belittled me throughout the day.  He called me "princess" in mocking tones because I was so tender-hearted, and I honestly think he was trying to provoke a fist-fight.  This brought me right back mentally to my wife leaving 14 months ago and I was not okay, but I didn't want to quit on the spot either because of finances.

This past Tuesday, we were having a fairly productive leadership conversation with the owner and out of nowhere, he looks at me and says, "I'm going to have to cut your salary down to $60,000 a year until you're able to start selling to our accounts."  I told him that wasn't acceptable, I couldn't live on that.  He calmly nodded, but shortly thereafter kind of broke down that we've lost so many clients this year and he constantly has to hire and fire people to make ends meet.  

So I shared a little bit of my story to him, how I ran my own business for years, was wildly successful, worked 15+ hours a day and stayed stressed out, only to wake up one morning and have a heart attack.  I explained that I almost died and realized that everything I had worked so hard for didn't matter...my health and family was what was important.  I then said that if money was the issue, I would rather leave the company and help him from home as I worked another job.  

The owner's head stayed staring down at his desk and it looked like he might have been crying.  he replied, "When I got out of jail, nobody would hire me because of my past.  I worked so hard building this business and everyone leaves, nobody appreciates this company or what we've done here."

A few days later, I was fired via email...but with kind words thanking me for caring about the company and being a professional.  That's easily the nicest thing I had ever heard come from the owner, and I think his decision to fire me came down to shame.  He couldn't stand the fact that I made him feel vulnerable and he actually opened up to me.  My last day was Thursday.

I won't say that I was "immune" to his disorder because it did create stress and chaos in my life.  But the important part was that I recognized he was sick and I showed him compassion instead of mockery.  Most of the time, after getting screamed at over something my department had nothing to do with, I would walk out of his office and smile, because I refused to give his disordered words actual power.  They were just words, after all, spoken by a 53 year old man having a temper tantrum while he was unstable.  Why should that make me upset?  The problem was his, not mine.

That, my friends, is how you overcome this disorder.  They spew hate, you counter it with love and understanding.  Before long, the disordered person loses their fire and begins to stabilize.  

I hope that helps someone- and I am looking for a remote marketing leadership role if anyone comes across anything, LOL.  I usually land on my feet quickly though so hopefully I get a few interviews next week.