Safety Strategies for Narcissistic Abuse and Antagonistic Stress in Relationships
Being in a relationship with a narcissist or someone with an antagonistic personality style is not easy to maneuver and can keep you off-balance. In fact, a relationship like this keeps you hypervigilant never quite knowing what to expect with their volatile behaviour and covert manipulation tactics. They stonewall you to impose control over you and give you the silent treatment to keep you guessing. This person may rage at you and perhaps even intimidate you with threats of physical harm or abandoning the relationship. Sometimes this person can swing from one extreme to the other. You are noticing what they say does not match what they do.
The repetitive patterns of your partner or family member is taking its toll on you. You are questioning if this relationship is safe because you don’t know what to expect from one day to the next from this unpredictable person.
You are ready to reclaim some aspects of your time and life while maintaining the relationship, but you don’t know where to start. By using my Inner Strength Boundary System: A2LDS, you can move from confusion to conscious participation in your relationship:
Radical Acceptance
When things are good with this person, they are really good. But those times are becoming less and less and yet you are still hopeful for the return of these good times. Your fear convinces you that the cost of awareness is too high. If you admit to yourself that the relationship with your partner or family member is not as reciprocal as you would like, what would that mean for you? Would you need to leave the relationship with your partner? Cut-off this difficult family member? The answer is no. Seeing the person as they are and not as you want them to be opens up the possibility of choice in your response to their behaviour towards you, rather than reacting because you believe you have no choice.
Values Assessment
Everyone has values they live by but if you were asked to name your top 3 values right now, could you? Reflection and awareness of your values, provides the foundation of what is important to you. Values also provide an inner compass that supports you in your decisions. This results in less justification of the other person’s behaviour and keeps you aligned with you.
Limits Review
How often are you overcompensating and doing for another adult that they can do for themselves? How much of your time and energy is committed to this person to the detriment of yourself? When you consciously determine where your line is and hold it with your safety in mind first and foremost, you offer the other person the invitation to meet you there.
Discernment Practice
In a relationship with a volatile person, you become hypervigilant keeping you in a state of threat-seeking and your wise mind stays offline. You tend to react instead of responding. When you accept a person for who they are, how they behave and accept the amount of reciprocity you can expect from them, you can access empowered choices for yourself.
Holistic Safety Planning
Holding boundaries can be met with escalating negative behaviour from the person who benefited from you not having any. A holistic safety plan includes psychological, emotional, physical and financial aspects to prepare yourself to shift from hypervigilance and confusion to conscious participation where you have consideration for yourself in your challenging relationship.
Working with a counsellor who is antagonism-informed can provide you an intuitive space to reveal your inner strength and move you toward conscious participation which is the safer choice. Connect with Christine Ellis, a Registered Professional Counsellor, to schedule your complimentary 30-minute consultation call today.
