What are "boundaries"? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships)

hi everyone it's dr romini and welcome back to this sort of glossary handbook series that is designed to define the various terms that float around the universe where we talk about narcissistic relationships my hope through this series is to create clarity on terms that are often thrown around but that you may not be entirely familiar with and also maybe introduce you to some new terms today the term we're going to talk about is boundaries but as always before i get to that i always welcome you to please hit the key here to subscribe to this channel hit the bell to get notifications and that will keep you abreast of actually we're putting out more content than ever let you know new content when it comes out to get that notification so let's talk about boundaries so let's start with a question what is a boundary you think about it it's a fence it's a border it's a wall it's a fortress but i'm talking about psychological boundaries and since we're talking about a psychological concept those things are metaphors but what do they really mean what does it mean to have boundaries it's sort of the major psychological buzzword of our time but the fact is a lot of people aren't always clear about what boundaries are psychological boundaries are sort of rules in their simplest forms these could be rules about appropriate times to call someone or text someone or are you allowed to just show up at their house or do they expect you to call first and they make that clear it can be the kinds of topics you talk about politics or some people may view sex as an unacceptable or uncomfortable topic and feel that to talk about your sex life would be violating a boundary boundaries around other kinds of language may also exist for example i don't know sharing information about a salary or bank balance may may be considered violating a boundary but boundaries can also be physical and that could be things about whether you hug someone when you greet them how close you sit to them whether you can touch them in any way whatsoever whether you were to sleep in a bed next to them whether you would ever dream of sharing a bed with them but these are sorts of easy boundaries to understand when they're physical or words people say you can see them you can hear them and in that way you can govern them but boundaries get a lot more complicated when it starts getting into subtle psychological territory a non-verbal gesture may feel uncomfortable for someone a topic that to many people may seem normative may actually feel traumatic or offensive for other people to talk about it may even relate to the volume or pitch of your voice or the tone of your voice so in a way boundaries can feel like rules like having to stop at a stop sign or wait in line at a store or saying please and thank you those are easy rules to understand that get communicated by i don't know signs hanging on the wall like for example a sign saying wait in line or laws that tell us if you stop don't stop at a stop sign you're going to get a ticket or by society telling us we need to say thank you and please as a part of basic manners and they're really clear but that doesn't mean that people always follow even those rules now not following those rules can result in some form of penalty a fine or a social disapproval but the rules are clear our psychological boundaries aren't we don't have signs in our homes or signs taped to our foreheads listing what we consider to be appropriate boundaries so it all becomes an interesting dance when someone violates those boundaries whatever they are we can tell them and ideally in a healthy relationship they will acknowledge those boundary violations and shift the behavior but think about it how many times when someone has violated or stepped on a boundary of yours did you really communicate clearly with them at the time they made the boundary violation so many of us have been socialized or learned over time to keep quiet to work around it to not make such a big deal about it and then it means that our boundaries may get violated over and over and over again but we don't feel empowered to try to change the situation we just don't feel like we have permission to do so and we may not have been given the skills to do so now for some things like a person giving too many details and you want to hear about a one-night stand we may be able to shrug it off and say whatever but what about the bigger ticket stuff for example when a person speaks poorly or negatively about issues or people or aspirations that we care dearly about or when a person keeps foisting more work on you little by little by little either at work or at home or when a person keeps baiting you and gaslighting you and manipulating you that starts to get into much more complicated territory of this complicated issue called boundaries this isn't just about turning your phone off at 9 pm or telling people to not call you so here is where boundaries get really tricky we cannot control other people we can only manage ourselves many times people do not agree or respect the boundaries we have yet they may still talk about their uncomfortable topics they may keep baiting us they may keep invalidating us and they may keep saying and doing inappropriate and disrespectful things what do we do then the rules of the world at large work because there are often real consequences that follow when those rules get broken the same thinking though could be applied to boundaries maybe that people would change their behavior if there were real consequences but that gets tricky in the world of narcissism for a start narcissists and difficult personalities usually don't follow rules they often don't even follow the laws and they generally don't believe rules apply to them their entitlement grandiosity and arrogance all mean that they believe rules are for other people and they flout those rules and get really enraged when they are held to the same standard as everyone else and in fact i am a firm believer that the myriad nitpicky rules and laws our society is required to have largely come down to having to keep the narcissist at bay the rest of us are willing to play by the rules because in fact we respect the people around us so if they aren't willing to follow rules and laws do you really think that they're going to respect your personal boundaries especially given their contempt for relationships probably not so our unwillingness or our inability to set boundaries with narcissists results in all of us enabling them just like when they run the stop sign over time the tickets and the penalties may stop them from doing it not because they believe they should have to stop at a stop sign but because they don't want to pay a fee they don't even believe they have to pay but they want to keep driving but most of us don't set boundaries like that with narcissists why not why do so many of us have so much trouble setting boundaries with narcissists for reasons that are both understandable and also difficult for one thing many of you may not fully understand narcissism and actually believe that people all people will hear you when you tell them something or they'll register the hurt feelings on your face or they will be able to benefit from social cues and catch themselves nope that is not happening with narcissistic individuals ever they are not able to self-govern they are not able to self-regulate so that is not an option secondly many of us are uncomfortable with conflict and add to that the fact that many of us have our own struggles with being enough and even having feeling like we have the right to set and enforce our own boundaries we gaslight ourselves and may say maybe i'm being too sensitive maybe it's not that big a deal maybe it's me maybe i just need to learn to compromise third you may be so accustomed to poor boundaries from your families of origin that the concept of setting boundaries literally feels foreign to you and if you did try to do it in your family you would have been unheard unseen mocked and the boundary violations would continue or maybe even get worse in addition for those with histories of trauma particularly early life trauma physical sexual or other abuse during childhood setting and maintaining boundaries becomes an even greater struggle because those boundaries were violated in such a profound way and the concept of boundaries can remain confusing trauma work addressing this becomes absolutely essential and with narcissists the sad issue becomes that even if you push through all of these barriers and communicate appropriately communicate directly and communicate clearly it probably won't work remember that even that remember that they don't even want to stop at the stop sign or wait in the line of the coffee shop they already devalue you do you really think that your boundaries are going to be heard by them probably not and that is where it gets really toxic it may have taken superhuman effort therapy all anything you could have done to even summon up the courage to talk about boundaries or you may actually be good and able to talk about boundaries and actually did it and saw that very little changed and in fact the narcissist became quite defensive and then they turned the entire conversation back on you with lots of gaslighting manipulation and other abuse many therapists do not build an understanding of narcissism into their work with those living in narcissistic relationships so the guidance to set and enforce boundaries is just really mental health common sense but telling you to set boundaries with a narcissist is like throwing you into a cage with a tiger when you attempt to set or enforce boundaries with a narcissist and these can be simple boundaries very simple like things like could you please not use your phone when we are eating dinner there also may be very nuanced boundaries please don't compare me to my mother given the trauma of that relationship to me when all of that fails you are now thrown into a place characterized by helplessness hopelessness and powerlessness you may feel that maybe you didn't do it right or maybe it was your fault you weren't clear enough or maybe you are being too sensitive and again it's more and more of the self-gaslighting and then the boundary violations persist because you may simply not understand what you're dealing with when you're dealing with a high conflict narcissistic partner and it's in this way that over time even when other people tried to set boundaries with the narcissist it didn't work the healthy or fortunate people were able to walk away from the narcissist once they recognize that their boundaries were not respected but the fact is most people don't do that and over time they stop trying to enforce boundaries with that within with the narcissist and in that way slowly more and more people enable the narcissist because they can't be bothered with even taking this on with them so this dynamic is particularly prevalent in family systems in which a parent does not honor boundaries because as a child it is all but impossible to enforce boundaries with a parent and none of the other adults around them is that can they they can't enforce boundaries with them either and this is a theme that is observed in what we often traditionally term more codependent family systems these family systems are governed by fear of the narcissist's reaction fear of the narcissist's anger and fear that the narcissist will devalue and discard them in this way narcissists do a great job of weaponizing boundaries they pathologize you they make you they paint you as being crazy for wanting them and they foster fear through their anger and their reactivity which results in an even lower likelihood that people will consistently set boundaries and then it can escalate the overall trauma bonding of the narcissistic relationship systems whereby people defend and enable so they can avoid having to dismantle now boundaries in the workplace are a major issue when you're dealing with workplace narcissists workplace narcissist and managers and supervisors violate boundaries in a whole range of ways they ask you to work longer hours and sometimes they'll ask you to do that without compensation they'll give you responsibilities outside of your job description they may ask you to do things that work that are not in line with the job so for example picking up their laundry or researching a vacation for them maybe even sending their mistress flowers and those requests violate a personal boundary they may ask inappropriate questions of your personal life or it can veer into even more oppressive and toxic territory with sexual harassment inappropriate advances and even stalking obviously these boundary violations exist on the spectrum when you have narcissists in the workplace they will violate boundaries it's not will they they will they are sort of the sloppy drunks on business trips and they are the reason we all have to complete these online trainings about very ridiculous fundamental pieces of human interactions most of us understand boundaries they don't boundary violations in the workplace are one of the primary ways that workplace narcissists reveal their narcissism and their abuse and their harassment they will typically gaslight when they are called out on their boundaries so ah i was just having fun with you in this new era you can't even make a joke come on everyone does a little extra to get ahead it's called ambition in the era of me too ironically you would think that this would have slowed some of this down interestingly it's instead it has resulted in narcissistic individuals being even more contemptuous of boundary setting work isn't fun anymore it's impossible to be able to talk with people anymore it's as though they are not able to navigate a world with appropriate boundaries so they reject it and they ridicule it in the workplace it is essential that you document everything this is tedious but it's necessary if narcissists and other toxic colleagues and managers are behaving inappropriately a record of this ideally in sort of two-party sources like emails voicemails etc are essential for human resource or legal advisors to act on anything unfortunately your first person report is not going to suffice and even with the documentation you provide you will be amazed at how often the narcissist will still prevail in these situations another tool is to have firm boundaries from the jump this isn't easy for all of the reasons i already mentioned that people feel like they don't want to be the wet towel from the jump and they want to be able to engage in the workplace banter some people may even be confused by the poor boundaries it can feel like if they're on the receiving end of these poor boundaries that they may be sort of the favored child in the workplace or getting special opportunities but then you realize it doesn't feel good but in these ways you can slowly acclimate to a setting that has confused boundaries and then very quickly find yourself in more problematic situations other boundary setting in the workplace might involve things like avoiding solo meetings with the narcissist when you can avoiding meetings that involve alcohol or other inappropriate settings for meetings such as for example private hotel rooms asking for meetings to be record you should ask for meetings to be recorded or detailed minutes taken and it's important to keep copies of your work in hard copy for your records because if there's any doubt about your contributions you'll need that boundary violations are in fact one of the primary ways that workplace narcissism does its damage workplace narcissists are enabled by the yes men and yes women and sycophants and people who are afraid of killing the golden goose or of angering a terrifying boss just like in a family where the narcissistic parent is enabled the same dynamic happens in the workplace and that is precisely how the mailroom tyrant can get promoted all the way to being the ceo tyrant the fear that they generate is equated with power and strength and the fear of calling them out on their boundary violations means that people enable them shut up or leave the job so what do you do you certainly can't live without boundaries but you have to become realistic about them if you are in a narcissistic relationship first and always you need to practice rule number one of narcissistic relationships you have to have realistic expectations unfortunately narcissistic individuals do not integrate feedback from other people well least of all when it can be perceived as any kind of criticism which is just about any kind of feedback that they receive for long-term narcissistic relationships that you've been in you then realize that your feedback is not going to help and they are not likely to change that much if this is a new relationship a new territory then you need to be prepared that they will not honor your boundaries so it may be a red flag to get out and cut your losses and step away from the relationship second you need to use these expectations to set a different kind of boundary stop engaging and sharing important things about yourself don't share your feelings don't share your emotions don't share your aspirations don't share your negative moods don't share much with the narcissist basically yeah go gray rock in so doing it becomes less about you waiting for them to honor a boundary but instead it becomes about you setting one for yourself that you can honor and enforce it isn't easy in the beginning and over time you start to realize that this isn't really much of a relationship some people may recognize this as the point to leave a relationship that it's completely empty while others may recognize that they cannot be their authentic selves in their relationship and while they may not be willing or able to leave the relationship they may instead to choose to cultivate other sources of support the bottom line is that the boundary is something you set for yourself you don't share you don't engage and you don't take their bait and you sure as heck don't wait around and wait for them to actually honor your boundaries so why do narcissists have such a difficult time with boundaries arrogance entitlement impulsivity poor self-reflective capacity lack of empathy grandiosity short answer the rules they think they don't apply to them they want to do what they want to do and then after they have their impulsive acting out sometimes they apologize they are poorly regulated and impulsive so they will often violate a boundary do what they want to help them regulate their negative mood state at a given time their poor self-reflective capacity means that they are not able to take a moment to think about how their actions or words are impacting other people and then there's the issue of shame shame is actually a very interesting consequence for narcissists when they violate boundaries there may sometimes be a public reaction the family gets mad at them a workplace supervisor takes action they have to face a lawsuit and then they feel their their narcissistic version of bad they feel ashamed now you would think that would mean that they would stop the boundary violating behavior but unfortunately that's not how shame works for them instead it drills down into the most self-loathing parts of the narcissist and it creates a sense of self-anger that they project out into the world and then they violate even more boundaries from a place of contempt and a place of anger at themselves that they project onto the world it's a sad dynamic but it often plays out this way now boundary setting is considered to be one of the most useful strategies with a narcissist but also one of the most frustrating they will not honor them and enforcing the boundaries is a futile pursuit but the boundaries still remain important in the extreme laws do sometimes stop narcissists they don't want to go to jail they may violate a boundary which is also breaking the law like trespassing or carrying a gun someplace they should not be carrying a gun or pushing a person physically who doesn't let them cut ahead in a line and then law enforcement gets called and maybe they get arrested probably not because they talk themselves out of it and maybe they go to the jail probably not but that's a real consequence now interestingly you would think that fear of jail or prison would shape their behavior in the future not as a rule prison is not a treatment for narcissism and once a narcissistic individual comes out of prison the narcissistic patterns remain they may even be worse they also will sit there and view themselves as a victim of an unfair system and will keep breaking the rules and violating boundaries and i can say with some confidence it may literally be impossible to have a narcissist maintain appropriate boundaries when it comes down to it they are limit testing children who always try to stay up one minute later than bedtime and everyone needs to be clear on their personal non-negotiable boundary we all have one for some people in a relationship it might be for example cheating or infidelity for others it might be someone stealing money from them for others it may be physical violence everyone has their non-negotiable and if the narcissist crosses the non-negotiable line then people may actually feel more empowered to do the ultimate boundary drawing and get out but again the idea of creating boundaries that the narcissist is going to honor on a regular basis is ridiculous it's on us to manage our boundaries and the ways we can manage those boundaries is to not engage not have idle banter with them to not spar and to not render ourselves vulnerable so it is on us we have to be our own gatekeepers we have to protect our own boundaries and we have to value ourselves enough and our boundaries and our limits enough to respect our boundaries for ourselves and give ourselves permission to disengage from toxic and difficult people who will never respect our boundaries and in so doing boundary setting can stop feeling like a frustrating and hopeless endeavor but instead it can feel like a lesson in empowerment and the fact that the most powerful boundary you have is to simply not engage with someone who is not good for you i hope this this this episode really highlighted what boundaries are and how they play out in a narcissistic relationship as always please hit subscribe to subscribe to this channel and get notifications hit that bell and we will be keep bringing you regular content not just about these terms but on a variety of topics relevant to narcissism thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 409,913

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: dZrcEmRafwM

Length: 27min 33sec (1653 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020