Narcissism

A theme that has come up a lot lately,is narcissism. Therefore I thought I'd  write my thoughts and perspectives on this subject, and what harm narcissistic caregivers / family can do in an emotional perspective.

The term narcissist can in my view be broadly divided into two meanings. One is what we colloquially call a narcissist when we think a person is obsessed with himself, and only acknowledge the person's own thoughts and feelings as reality. The second is narcissist in psychiatric significance. Because I'm no expert in the psychiatric  field, I will discuss the first variant, and on the basis of my understanding, experience and my intuition.

In my eyes, one of the most harmful issues with narcissistic caregivers or others around you, is not necessarily that this person did not allow you to express your thoughts and feelings, but rather that you were not allowed to have the feeling initially. What I mean by this is that it is one thing to have your own feelings and thoughts but not express them, and to suppress the fact that you have the feeling or thought in the first place. This mechanism forces you to turn off and reconsider all your emotional guidance, and not just lie or not talk about your emotions.

Although this is a logical mechanism for most people in similar situations, I would argue that it is perhaps an even stronger mechanism in people who are highly sensitive and / or Empatic. The reason for this is that you have an even greater ability to take on the narcissistic person's thoughts and feelings as your own, which in turn results in a rejection of your own emotional guide system. This is extremely harmful and can potentially pose major damage in your life in the long run. Emotional neglect and repressed emotions is something I have written about many times on my blog, if you want to read more go to the post about Emotional neglect here:

www.kristinectora.blogspot.no/2016/05/emotional-neglect.html

So what to do if you're in a situation right now? I think you have two choices:

1. Create distance. By this I mean that if you recognize the situation you find yourself in as harmful, the best thing you can do may be to create distance between you and the person.

You are the most important in your life, just like the person in question is in their life, and you are  responsible for your own life.

2. Focus all your energy towards you and what you want. The reason for this is that you are currently using most of your energy on the person and not on yourself. If you're working on your own situation and energy by going against what feels good, you will ,because of the law of attraction, either bring that person with you when you take a higher frequency, or you will no longer reside together anymore because their energy is no longer an energetic match.

Healthy boundaries

I have always had problems setting boundaries for myself. Which is something most of us struggle with, in my experience, one way or another. I am a highly sensitive person and I have never really had a sense of boundary between my energy and others. Like I was just an extended part of everybody else. I think many people struggle with this, and maybe HSP's (Highly sensitive persons) in particular. So how does one start to sort out where you start and where you finish?

Boundaries in my opinion does not only mean what you allow other people to do towards you. It is just as important to know what you like and what you don't like. What is my likes and dislikes down to the smallest detail, I like this flavour instead of that flavour. I have always had problems with saying, no I would rather have this one, or no I would rather go there. I believe that the journey towards finding yourself really comes down to this issue. What do I like and what do I dislike. For example I like to hike alone. So, I don't like company while hiking.

Specially I think it's important for HSP`s to know because we have a gift of being overly concerned with other people's reaction to us, and we easily observe small details in others reactions that makes the smallest reaction very apparent to us. But that being said, I think this is something everybody struggles with to some extend.

So what can you do today to start this journey? I think the most important thing is to take baby steps and to have patience for yourself. If you have lived your whole life with little or no boundaries, it will take time to get there, and that's ok! Maybe the first step is to ask yourself, do I like tea or coffee the most. If you don't like tea, don't drink tea!  At first you don't have to tell anyone if that's too hard right now, all in it's time. The most important thing is to honor your energy and respect your own decisions! Start small and build your way up when you feel comfortable doing so.