Invalidating your boundaries by calling you too sensitive is just one of the many tricks toxic people play on you. And it doesn’t even matter whether they are narcissists or not.
Another example is: “You’re living in the past” while the truth often is: people who say this to us are keeping the past alive in us. And us tolerating these invalidators means saying yes to the parasite and no to ourselves, sacrificing ourselves for the “greater good” the relationship with the parasite allegedly is or could be, “lol”, when in all honesty, we’d be better off without them.
And sometimes they know this, too. So the only way to maintain power over you is to convince you that your perception is wrong, your feelings are wrong, your impression is wrong and they’re actually wonderful and full of good intentions for you. (lol) – Gaslighting.
I’m coming to the following realization in my life:
It doesn’t even matter whether a person wanted to destabilize me or not, whether they had malicious intentions or not, whether they are a narcissist/Cluster B or not, whether they are related to me or not, whether they are gaslighting me or not, whether I’m too sensitive or not – I have the right to dislike them.
I have the right to dislike them personally, on a personal level.
I have the right to dislike their behavior.
I have the right not to want them in my life.
And this doesn’t make me a bad person. This makes me nothing but a person with likes and dislikes. A completely normal, sentient being. – No matter what the species. There are many animals (cats, dogs, and other animals) who simply don’t like a certain person and there is nothing anyone can change about it.
And usually, they have a really good reason not to like them.
The thing is: animals trust their intuition and humans often don’t. Humans talk themselves out of it or let other people talk them in and out of things. Rationalizing everything.
Denying my own feelings, whether I’m being “too sensitive” or not, doesn’t change the way I feel about it. It only stuffs down feelings that are entirely valid. Why? Because all feelings are valid. They are ALWAYS a messenger. They carry a message we should listen to and take seriously.
Usually this negative, sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach is the biggest red flag we have – and we ignore it way to often, by invalidating our own intuition.
And it doesn’t matter whether we’re being “sensitive” or not. Being sensitive is a good thing. Being sensitive and demanding all kinds of stuff from other people is a bad thing. That can be entitlement and narcissistic.
But if you simply don’t like the way a person is talking to you or about you, or the way they are treating you, or the way they are neglecting you, for whatever the reason, then that’s just how it is, and denying the fact that you dislike them and questioning yourself is denying your emotions and intuition.
And if it gets to that point you’re already violating yourself. You’re in self-denial. You’re already disconnecting from yourself or disconnecting even further. And what for? So that you can somehow associate yourself with a person you find highly questionable. – This is tragi-comical, isn’t it?
If you’re right with your impression, you’re possibly getting the most valuable heads-up of your life – and if you ignore it, this is not going to improve the relationship you have with yourself.
If you’re wrong with your impression, you’re still being told by your brain and body that you simply don’t like something about this situation and person. So even if you’re wrong, you’re still invalidating an important message.
Either way, choosing “the other person” and not yourself is going to make you pay health-wise. If you keep exposing yourself to situations and people you don’t trust or like, your health is going to decline. You can deny your emotions, but you can’t fool your body. The body keeps the score.
And this is why I am telling myself: no matter whether a person is cluster B or not, if they are simply not adding joy and connectedness to my life, why on earth should I bother liking them or getting along with them or having them in my life?
There is absolutely no reason to.
There is nothing in it for me that could make up for the loss of joy, connectedness with myself and my health. No one can restore your health once it’s gone. (They can just keep saying you’re being too sensitive, “lol”.)
Simply being tolerant towards everything and everyone doesn’t necessarily make you a better person. In fact, there are a lot of enablers and co-narcissists around highly narcissistic people and I don’t want to be one of them.
So whenever I’m in doubt, I choose myself and the way I feel about the situation. Because you know what? You can’t lie away your feelings anyway. If you’re not feeling good about a situation or person, trust that feeling. If the only “solution” is that you “suck it up” – that’s not a healthy situation to begin with.
Why waste your life like that? Why keep exposing yourself to something where you constantly have to stretch your boundaries and limits while the other person is “just being themselves”? – Don’t you have the right to just be yourself, too? Don’t your boundaries and limits deserve to be taken seriously?
Usually it’s exactly those people who keep telling us that we’re too sensitive who have extremely high standards for other people themselves. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
Leave and find situations and people that don’t make you feel terrible. You deserve it. Your time on this planet is limited. Your health is limited. And you have the right to dislike any person or any situation for whatever the reason. Do not diminish and invalidate your own feelings simply because other people have no problem doing that to you.
Questioning and invalidating your own feelings and intuition is one of the traits that will ALWAYS attract more exploiters into your life.
They sense how you feel about yourself and they will use that to their advantage.
So wake up and learn to trust your gut instinct.
You have all the right in the world to dislike a person or situation and you don’t even need a reason for that. You are not even obliged to give people an explanation.
“No, thanks” is sometimes more than enough or more than some invalidators derserve.
But simply saying “no, thanks” is a very good strategy, because it will show you who respects your boundaries and who keeps trying to change your mind, invalidating you or prompting you to give an explanation for why you feel a certain way.
“I simply don’t want to” is a valid explanation. But still, even the tiny little “no” is a complete sentence and should be respected by everybody.
And a person who doesn’t respect your boundaries is a person you don’t want in your life. Because this can get dangerous very quickly. At the very least, it can make you completely disconnect from yourself. And this is already the definition of narcissistic abuse.
The transitions between patterns where people don’t respect your boundaries and full blown narcissistic abuse are fluid. It’s all on a spectrum, but it’s a terrible spectrum in general and none of it should be tolerated.
Your emotions and boundaries are valid.