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| Dustie at two months old |
First you will awaken. Awareness is the essential first step in the process of ridding yourself of anxiety. You need to be aware of what it is that causes you anxiety - and WHO it is that is difficult and abusive around you, or in your life.
You need to learn to listen to hear and hear to understand. Seeing literally and figuratively is essential in becoming aware. Look into the face and eyes of the person with whom you are speaking. Relax. Choose to stop your mind from jumping to conclusions - and or jumping ahead of the conversation. Listen.
Secondly, it is important to love yourself enough to begin to place boundaries with everyone and with yourself as in how far you go or impose on others' space, time, and minds. The boundaries you place for others to respect are most essential also.
Then you can begin the real work of enforcing and practicing the boundary setting. Daily encounters even with strangers is good practice. It will become easier and easier with every accomplishment when implementing this process.
Ditch the FEAR. You are fearful because of the NM and her abusive behavior. Deep inside you are positive that most people are to be feared and will somehow have the power the NM had all those years. You fear this from the possibility of losing a job or position to losing a friend and or spouse. This is all distorted thinking from distorted feelings - and it can all be straightened out.
You have to discover what it is about you that draws narcissists into your life, or that makes you want to please them at work, in the community, and maybe even at home. Your kindness and people pleasing attitudes are what narcissists zero in on, and that is what makes you the perfect target. But this can all be changed. You just need to finetune these things. keep the kindness, whilst placing the boundaries.
These boundaries must be firm. Non-negotiable. Do not spill your guts to these folks anymore. In fact, if you must work with them or be around them for any reason, keep your boundaries, distance, personal space, and speak only on the surface of things. Do not give details of your life. Do not allow them to trick you into going back to being too trusting and communicative. Still trust most people, only keep your boundaries. That's the trick. No need to develop paranoia just because you've discovered this one or that one is a narcissist. They are only 4-6 in one hundred.
If you do the above things you WILL stop walking on eggshells because in your boundaries you are telling everyone that you are NOT going to tiptoe around unreasonable behaviors. You won't even do it for reasonable behaviors. Walking on eggshells is fear. Being afraid to relax and live and let live because if you do you know the narcissist will have a tantrum over the the slightest of things you do that he/she distorts as damaging, dangerous to them, costly, or insulting. This is not allowed anymore.
You will be yourself and relax and breathe in your own environment whether at home or at work without the fear of a narcissist blowing up or lying about you to 'get even' or get his or her way with you, or even another person. You don't give these threats the power you used to - you dismiss them without anger. You simply do not care. If they react like a spoiled child because for once they are not getting their way, you simply walk away.
At work you keep a journal and log of exactly what the Narc is doing or has done to you (all the lies they perpetrated and the names of people they told the lies to (the accomplices)) and you share a copy with a credible and trustworthy witness. This will come in handy when the gas-lighting, projection and smear campaign begins. Narcs never miss doing a good smear campaign if you've been placing boundaries. You will need this record for the Human Relations departments in order to secure your position, without the anxiety and fear you previously experienced. If your narc is at home - make the same records and journal for yourself and for authorities should this one day become necessary. It is very important for divorce and or domestic complaints.
Now, try to find another department without a narcissist - or another job. Give yourself time to do so. Do not be impulsive. Think about things slowly and methodically. Allow the information to settle in your mind until it reaches all the stages of thought before deciding what to do.
If your narc is a spouse, you need to go no contact and file for divorce. If there are children involved, be careful of the smear campaign and parental alienation. Know what he/she is capable of and take measures to protect yourself and your children.
Get out. Find support and help in the community and even with online groups. Don't hang on the message boards too much because you want to find a group that is interested in the healing aspect of this ... not so much the suffering and drama. The drama will trip up a peptide addiction in your brain and tempt you to continue negative thinking. He did this and he did that and he is this and he is that and he made me feel this way and that. Know right now nobody has the power to make you feel anything. You do have a choice.
Just know that at this point EVERYTHING your narc does and says is self serving and probably a manipulative lie or half truth. Dismiss, don't care, do not invest, and move on.
If your narc is an NM or narcissistic 'mother' - you will have necessary casualties in siblings and other relatives who just refuse to stop the drama - and worse they do enjoy being the NM's accomplice.
We all do have choices how to feel, what to think, and best, how to react. We need to evolve past our own childhood issues or whatever it is that kept us involved with a narcissist. In accomplishing this all important step, our evolution is inevitable.
Our peace, inner peace, and healing takes hold and also evolves. We are no longer prisoners of our own minds, homes, jobs, situations. We are free. We can take a deep breath and live and let live - do and say and be whatever we want. Suddenly we realize that for the first time in years or maybe our whole lives that we are ANXIETY FREE!! It is possible.
It happened to me. I never would have imagined this even four years ago, but if you do this work it is easily possible. If it happened for me after 50 years of abuse and anxiety issues, it can happen for you maybe even 30 years earlier!! That would just be wonderful. Even if you are my age - it's wonderful.
It's a new life even at 53. I am really free. No longer playing and replaying the negative tapes of the NM in my head - no longer entertaining those peptides. Life is good this way. Everything is better. I don't need as much food to satisfy. I want healthier foods, water, NO SODA, good sleep, and stimulating conversation. Enjoying my adult children who are away, and my pets who are of course here with me as I share this post.
Life. It's a good thing.
