I’m an experiencer of a narcissistic enmeshment. It took about 2 years for the pain to disappear. I would like to help you speed up the process today.
This content does not replace therapy.
Questions to ask yourself in order to evolve ouf of a narcissistic enmeshment more quickly:
- “What’s in it for me?“
This is not a selfish thing to ask. How are your efforts in the relationship/fakelationship being reciprocated? Are they? And is that enough for you? Are you the only one putting on effort? Are your boundaries being respected? Do you have any boundaries at all?
If you’re with a narcissist or untreated borderliner or any other kind of toxic personality, chances are that all of your answers will be rather negative. - “Is that person my ally?“
Determining whether someone is truly your ally can be a nuanced process that involves observing their actions, considering their behavior and values, and assessing the trust and support they offer. It can also take time. This is why you can’t jump into a relationship with anyone, but it needs to grow organically. When a person is treating you well, is there consistency over the course of a long time? Can you trust them? What are their intentions?
An ally is someone who listens to your concerns, tries to understand your experiences, and shows empathy, compassion and understanding. They are interested in your perspective or at least respect it, they validate your feelings and demonstrate a willingness to learn and grow alongside you.
Hot tip: Try to be your own closest ally first!
If you’re not your own closest ally, you may have low standards for the people in your life as well. As a result, you may hold on to toxic relationships and be in love with their POTENTIAL and a ton of broken promises – instead of what really is. You may be setting for too little. You may even gather people around you who do not have your best interest in mind, but are rather enemies to your well-being (knowingly or unknowingly – which doesn’t make a difference in the negative effect that has on you). - “Am I trying to fix something with a person who has been toxic to me and if so, why?”
What’s in it for you, really, and what’s toxic, unrealistic hope that actually goes back to childhood issues? You can dive deep into this question with your therapist and/or in your journal.
Sometimes you have to admit to yourself: this person is just not giving me what I want. I cannot have the experience or relationship I want with that person. Maybe you want (an aspect of) the person, but you don’t want what they bring to the relationship.
In that case, it’s easy to fall into toxic hope and say: well, it might get better if I/he/she/we/they do this or that, maybe I/he/she/we/they will do that… if they only did this or that… This happens because many of us had to maintain high hopes throughout our childhoods (“my parents actually care about me deep down inside”) in order to survive.
Pay attention and don’t fall prey to your own toxic hope, loving a potentional instead of what you have in front of you. Talk to your therapist and make sure you’re giving your inner child/core identity what it needs, so holding on to a potential or a dream can stop. Learn to accept reality, and if it’s painful, let it go and create a new reality for yourself. You can do it! - “How can I live my dream life already today?”
This question can involve creating a self-care list. I have made self-care the top priority of my daily activities. Why? Because love is a behavior, not a feeling and not a word. Of course we can talk about self-love and feel it sometimes. But love really shows in the behavior we live throughout the day. Self-care is the appropriate behavior, if you want to make self-love your new normal.
The more respect you show to yourself, the more respect you will expect from other people. As a result, you won’t settle for a lack of respect anymore. This will make both attracting narcissists and being attracted to narcissists more and more impossible. You just won’t need them anymore. You won’t have time for them anymore.
Some day, your narcissistic ex might contact you again (the one who brutally discarded you and blocked you for 3 years) and you might just be absolutely unphased and ignore it all – because it genuinely doesn’t interest you anymore.
You can’t live on artificial sweeteners.
If you replace all the fake “love” and attention for your ego with real love, care and attention, you just won’t be interested in the fake version anymore – no matter where you’re getting it from, yourself or other people. Nevertheless, always love yourself first, so you don’t depend on anyone emotionally.
Emotional independence is very healthy and attractive to healthy people. This is where true confidence without arrogance comes from. This is when we can be securely attached in a relationship.
Being needy for outside approval, being codependent and not really connected with yourself however, attracts vampires. And it will also make you feel attracted to vampires, which is the actual problem.