How to "firewall" the narcissist

hi everyone it's dr romney and welcome back to this youtube channel on narcissism my hope is that this content will help you understand how these relationships affect you these difficult situations these toxic relationships and help you better be able to cope and navigate this really difficult territory i'm going to be doing an interesting video today it's called firewalling now i am not in a position to share the names of the people who suggested this concept but i hope you watch this i've told you it's coming out you know who you are it's a wonderful conversation and it's a great alternative to the idea and the term gray rocking i still love the idea of gray rocking for its intuitive appeal but the twist on the term that these people brought in brings this technique into the tech era and actually captures a bit more of how to really really protect yourself against someone narcissistic and give you a really interesting technique perhaps instead of gray rocking we really need to go into this world of firewalling and it's interesting the people who made this suggestion talk to me about this were people in the world of tech firewalling is a term that is used in computing to refer to protections that are put on a network or a computer to protect the network or computer from malware or other bad stuff from coming in and also is careful about what goes out of your system into other places some of you may have firewalls on your desktop or laptop computers or they may be on networks that you use at work i'm not a tech person so i know i'm oversimplifying this and i i don't fully understand the nuances of firewalling but for example you can even go a little bit further you can have something called a virtual private network and then even the location of a computer gets a little better safeguarded so there's waste in essence put boundaries around your computer i love the idea of taking the concept of a firewall and applying it to how we set boundaries in narcissistic relationships it goes beyond the idea of gray rocking and just being boring or disengaged or uninteresting a firewall is a bit more sophisticated than that it is very much about ensuring that bad stuff doesn't get in and that you don't give up information that could come back and harm the system but in this case the system is you so all of this vague talk about boundaries and gray rocking firewalling elevates it a bit so many people struggle with the idea of having to cut the narcissistic people out of their lives and frankly it is getting pretty damn near impossible to cut them all out people with these high conflict difficult antagonistic toxic personality styles seriously they're everywhere work family in-laws friends you name it i don't know how in today's day and age anyone could attend an event go to a workplace or even a grocery store without encountering this stuff so we need tools that are tighter than just no contact and a little bit more sophisticated than just gray rocking or boundaries so think about it a computer cannot be an island in this day and age we do need to be able to to use and intersect with websites and email accounts and all kinds of stuff that could harbor viruses and the like so the firewall isn't about just taking our computers off of all networks and just treating it as a high-end typewriter but rather about making our computer better protected in dealing with all kinds of potentially sinister and harmful spaces so how could firewalling work as a technique in narcissistic abuse first let's talk about data in because frankly that's where a lot of the harm lies a firewall in a computer is ultimately meant to protect it from things like malware computer viruses hacking and someone getting in putting bad stuff on your computer and misusing our data or breaking down or locking our system it sounds exactly like what a narcissistic narcissistic person does to another person they get in they mess with your head they leave you doubting yourself and your reality you start even believing this the things they're telling you about yourself you start falling apart and experiencing all of the patterns associated with narcissistic abuse and you may even feel like you're frozen and can't function in your life the best piece of firewall protection against a narcissist you know what it is it's to know what it is it's to know what this personality is about what it looks like to identify the red flags understand the justifications they make for their behavior and how they twist the truth to their benefit and understand the other breaches in the system for example those people out there without firewalls letting all that malware in those are the enablers you need to understand how narcissistic people use victimhood to play upon your sympathies and your empathy then there is radical acceptance that it doesn't change these patterns don't change so you can trim down and let go of all this benefit of the doubt stuff or the hope that somehow it will get better this next time malware is malware this is also important because many times narcissistic people like those innocuous files that you may download look just like anyone else in fact they may even be more enticing and endearing because they're often quite charming charismatic confident attractive successful so in order to firewall and protect yourself you have to be on your game know that this threat exists and even that these red flags the charm the charisma the easy confidence they should make you doubt whether you need to download this person from there on the next levels of firewall protection come from the deep technique the deep technique to me is a form of firewalling the don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize just like you can't talk a computer virus off of your computer you can't really say hey come on malware i'm a nice person and i have a paper due tomorrow it's not going to work you cannot get into it or explain your side to a narcissistic person because they aren't listening and it's not personal it's them they do this to everyone for example everyone who downloads that particular file online gets the virus the computer virus isn't personal it's just anyone unfortunate enough to download it but now what about the data out the data that comes out of the system that is also a part of firewall protection you don't want to give away important information like identifiers or passwords and like in a computing system especially with all of us coming off of almost 18 months of isolation we want to share ourselves we want to be vulnerable we want to open up ourselves to other people i wish wish wish there was a pop-up window that could open up as we are just as we're starting to get vulnerable with someone and that asks us before we're about to share something vulnerable or difficult that says just like on a computer are you sure you want to share that information and then you know that little last off-ramp in case we hit the wrong key and they were like no no canceler okay alas computers have more safeguards than human relationships so the best firewalling protection against a narcissistic threat is to move very slowly in any new relationship and be very careful about the data you share what you share about yourself a big part of love bombing is pushing someone to open up too soon and too much to a narcissist because just like a hacker they will use your own information against you it's just a matter of time be careful about sharing your vulnerabilities traumas secrets information you may have other about other people that could come out and gossip opinions that could harm you money resources professional contacts it will either blow up or come back to bite you tread very very slowly especially if you have already experienced narcissistic relationships which is an experience that can scramble our past signals kind of like a leftover virus that never got fully cleaned off the hard drive oh the narcissist will manipulate they may shame you or cajole you or manipulate you to open up they may play an abusive game of if you show me if i show you mine will you show me yours creating a false sense of trust and intimacy and pushing you to open up and render yourself vulnerable too quickly too early or even at all a healthy person will earn your trust over time and you will slowly open yourself up in a way that's comfortable for you in a world that's often characterized by oversharing to strangers there is a risk that create that's created with people opening up too soon to narcissistic people and then getting psychologically hacked when you take your time you can pay attention to the other patterns in the relationship the empathy the kindness the compassion the mutuality the reciprocity the gaslighting the manipulation the red flags i've been sharing in my other videos good or bad you can pay attention to the patterns what's interesting is that if you are disengaged from a narcissist or very slow and engaging and you do that early they often get in disinterested for a minute they may try to shame you for not being vulnerable open or honest and they may call you names like being closed off or being lacking in the ability for intimacy and in that case it means the firewall worked and the narcissistic hacker moves on with enough time getting to know someone and feeling safe you will get there to a place where sharing feels safe and share at your own pace not the pace that someone is manipulating you to be at so they can ultimately control you and then use that information against you a final piece of firewalling is realistic expectations hackers hack malware infects it's what it does you don't turn on your virus protection for just one day or for one hour it's always on it's the same as in your life if you recognize that someone is a high conflict difficult or narcissistic person if even a few red flags pop up the firewall needs to be up all the time you can chat about inconsequential stuff with this person boy it's hot this summer or aren't the peaches good this year or oh did you see they're opening a new coffee shop on main street there's enough little things to talk about but don't share your so-called psychological passwords don't get into it with them and if they bait you or try to escalate you should know it's coming smile politely excuse yourself to the bathroom or just leave and yes they may they probably will just keep escalating but then you can try a little bit of the old school gray rocked breathing indifferent kind of approach that these encounters require once this topic was introduced to me i really love this idea of fire or walling more than gray rocking firewalling is more aware more active and lets you maintain some of these narcissistic relationships that you may need to keep around at an arm's length it's sort of an informed set of boundaries informed by what we know about narcissism about our own vulnerabilities and about honestly how computers and viruses work it allows a gradual exit and a way to keep walls up if you can think of narcissistic people as psychological hackers and your psyche vulnerability and mental health as your hard drive and your data and all of your passwords that they want to get this can actually make sense it doesn't mean you have to get off the internet it just means that you need to be on your game and safeguard your information it doesn't mean you have to fully cut them off you just need to be on your game and keep that virus protection on and recognize that some websites and some files are just not worth the risk so don't download them thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 173,180

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: 49HGOGy8lzw

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021