Setting Boundaries Will Set You Free

I was never good with setting boundaries. My upbringing was similar to the millions of other girls; be kind, don’t be bothersome, listen to and obey your parents, what the neighbours will say, and all the additional emotional baggage, we as girls are burdened with from the young age. My growing up was even a bit more complicated because I was the only child; more looked after and pampered by my parents to avoid any unnecessary harmful influence from the environment. Feeling weak, insecure and having no benchmark in the form of siblings how to cope with life issues and adversities, I faced the life challenges, hardships etc. on my own, which caused a slow-paced building up of self-confidence. At that time, I was susceptible to other people and their needs and desires; I was a people pleaser as defined by the book, which made me easy prey to the ruder, manipulative persons. With hindsight, I realise that I should have listened to my inner voice of younger me when shouting ‘’stop it’’ more often.

I came across the term ‘’narcissist’’ or ‘’narcissistic personality disorder’’ only recently, I heard this word in the past but never really paid particular attention to it. It dawned on me that certain personality types, with which I identify, attract them, but the lack of firm boundaries keeps them around.

Based on my personal experience, I would say that men are more prone to narcissistic behaviour than women. However, I encountered quite a number of them in my professional life and some also in my private life. Their shared, prevailing traits that I noticed:

- with men; predominantly very charming and handsome men, quite often celebrities or public figures;

- they act very convincingly, appear very self-confident at least on the outside, but very often insecure and self-doubting when knowing them from more personal, private side — suckers for attention and public (media) recognition and validation;

- manipulative (master manipulators indeed), very good with their words, a bit less enthusiastic to follow up with their actions;

- money, money, money; add position and power to that, but money is their driving force;

- very rational people, emotionally distant, aloof — they may act that they like or love people, often faking empathy and humbleness –their compliments are artificial, learnt, don’t sound genuine;

- they treat other people as objects — be it to provide for or satisfy their intellectual, sexual, financial etc. needs and desires — they ascribe each person a function they play in their world;

- self-centred, not keen on making compromises, their attitude is often their way or the highway;

- control freaks, always tempted to have the upper hand over someone;

- they don’t take NO for an answer, very persistent, even forceful and vengeful;

- although they present themselves often as intellectuals, who value evidence-based facts when presented with the opposing views, they rarely accept that, especially when this could be threatening to their public image or their ego;

- prone to projections, guilt-tripping and even emotional blackmailing;

- belittling and badmouthing of people, who dared to reject, figured the out or even ‘’disclose’’ them;

- their favourite phrase is ‘’you should’’, therefore not very fond of people who don’t accept their ‘’good intended recommendations’’ and do things as they please. In short, they don’t like people who set and keep clear and firm boundaries, which prevent exploitation;

- the dichotomy between the public image they portray to the audience and as a private person, a real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and players of a victim’s role just like calimero.

Setting boundaries, especially for empathetic people, with good hearts, is difficult. Their concern is that setting boundaries might hurt the other person, but narcissistic personalities have their own agenda; they don’t care for the emotions of an empathetic person; they are quite capable of stomping on that person to satisfy or fulfil their unmet desires and needs. Every time I dealt with an NPD person, the encounter left me emotionally drained; they are real energy vampires. Therefore, setting clear boundaries, and not being too emotionally invested is a necessary shield when dealing with them. There is one more thing to keep in mind; they will test us, pushing our emotional buttons, trying the firmness of our will to defend the limits we set out for them; their attempts are very sneaky, they are the master manipulators after all.

What did I learn when I started to set boundaries? In the beginning, I felt uneasiness, but the more I did it, the more experienced I’ve become. It’s not that difficult after a while when you get used to it. We have to be ‘’healthy’’ selfish with our time, energy, money, emotions, etc. we give out because if we don’t respect ourselves or our limitations, nobody else will. If we want to be the master of our life and live it the way we want it and not being somebody’s doormat or their puppet on a string, we should learn to set boundaries and stick firmly to them, every time we face the attempts and temptations to lower them.