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DoctorRamani
Saying good-bye to toxic enablers in your life
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Hi everyone, it's Dr. Ramani. Welcome back to this YouTube channel on narcissism. This next video is a bit of a sort of a painful, I don't know if I'd call it a cautionary tale, but the kinds of boundaries we have to set in these relationships and why none of this is easy. I think a lot of people want the quick fix of, just leave the narcissistic relationship. It ain't that easy. There's a lot of collateral harm that surrounds these. So if anything, this is really a video about how enablers legitimize toxic people and what you should do with those enablers.
Okay, so I'm going to tell you a story about myself, as detailed a story as I can. I'm going to tell this story in a bit of an obtuse way because I don't want to hurt some of the people who are involved, but I learned a lot from this story. I still ruminate about this, so I know there's something to be learned about here. And so some time ago I was at an event. I didn't really know anyone, but one of the key organizers of it is a very sweet, kind person that I've known for a long time. So I accepted the invitation to support her.
It felt like the empathic thing to do, and she was so happy to see me. And it just felt good to be there, nice to see her. It felt like the right thing to do, and I was glad to do it. I introduced myself to other people who were at this event. It was in someone's home. I looked at the books in the shelves, the pictures on the wall. Again, I'm an introvert. Parties are not my strength. I don't like it. I don't ever feel comfortable. Now the sweet person saw me and she started introducing me to various people from her life.
And let me tell you, having the intuition for what is toxic is sort of a curse at these times, because at this particular event people who were really dear to her, more than a few of them were simply awful. The kind of types of people who sort of look at a point in the distance when you talk to them, a bit contemptuous and judgmental. For example, I'm not very fashionable and I'm a bit overweight, and so I do my best, but I'm not gonna show up looking fancy. But people at this event made digs at me. It was a bit of sneering entitled snobbery. I don't care for that stuff.
The sweet person though just adored these people and they just weren't nice people. Now I wrote it off to her having known them for a long time. I liked her. I don't need to like her snobby friends. But then one of the people very close to her started insulting me to my face over and over and over again, about a dozen times over a three-hour period. At one point this person even went out of her way to approach me to insult me. Now the person who was insulting me was very dear to the sweet person. So I was experiencing cognitive dissonance at a galactic level.
The question was, do I leave? Would you have left? Well I didn't leave. And my reason for that was I thought it would hurt the sweet person. Now does that mean I'm still living in my trauma-bonded self or am I just being nice? You tell me. At that point I was so confused. Keep in mind I didn't know the insulting person at all. I had never met her. I don't think she knew who I was. Then at one point the insulting person approaches to talk to the nice person who happened to be standing near me and I was in a corner and I couldn't get out.
She started going at me again and in a very calm voice I apologized and I said I'm sorry if there's something I did that offended her in any way. She then sneered at me and some time went on and then I said please let me know what I could do to appease you. I know what you're all thinking or thinking. Dr. Romney don't go deep. Why are you engaging with this terrible person? Again I was doing this in my head because of the nice person. Well then my nice friend who again is very close to this person said about and to the angry person, oh come on, oh yeah look at her.
She's being silly and she's saying to the mean person she's saying look at this is my friend and when the person insulted me again my friend sort of laughed it off and said isn't she so silly. I got to tell you folks silly wasn't the word that came to mind. I thought to myself of various toxic people who continue to occupy my world especially some of my family members. I remember when that particular family member insulted about who's also in the family and I kind of lost it. I screamed at the toxic person. I defended the insulted person who had done nothing wrong.
I know the toxic person's behavior won't change but the person who was insulted oh thanked me. He knew that it was culturally it was difficult to do what I did to yell at an older person but he said he felt heard and seen and even though like I said the toxic person's behavior won't change I wanted the person taking the hits from the toxic person in my world to feel supported because so few do.
I understand that in the situation I was in at this recent party I went to the awful person was really important to the nice person and very influential in her life so she was clearly accustomed to enabling her behavior but she never wants my friend never once stopped to check in with me seeing I was okay because I don't think she thought the person was doing anything wrong. Now I'm sharing my long story here with you because I recognize that the awful woman at the party one thing I noticed that everyone really liked her. Now I'm going to tell you now why she didn't like me I'm not sure.
I think at one point I may have laughed loudly at something someone said maybe it was that I also had to check my phone at the table because I had a family member who was going through something I need to respond to them maybe it was that but I'll tell you now even if it was those things none of those behaviors warranted this woman's behavior. The unkind and insulting woman was in a way very much legitimized by the nice woman. I could see that the mean woman got a lot of juice from the nice woman and sadly I'm not gonna lie. My conception of this kind woman who I've known for 20 years it fell off a bit.
The multiple toxic people I met at the event started to make sense. She had created a world in which she was enabling a lot of people and had almost been indoctrinated into this is how people are who knows why but when you entered their tiger's cage lion's den and call it what you want it was clear you would get torn apart at least I did and the nice person wasn't going to let her worldview be changed and see these people clearly. She was deeply embedded into the structure. I had some empathy for her need to maintain the status quo. I also didn't agree with her allowing all of this treatment to persist when it hurt someone else.
There are those multiple truths I always talk about. At the first appropriate break in the action so I wouldn't hurt the nice person's feelings although my conceptualization of her is so so nice has shifted a little bit. I excused myself from the event a little bit early. The insulting woman was glad to see me go. I will never be able to get a straight answer on why she didn't like me. When the nice person introduced us the insulting person wouldn't even shake my hand and she said she had never met me nor had she ever heard of me so I didn't think it was something I had done.
Now this is the catch-22 survivors find themselves in all the time. In the course of that afternoon a thousand bad memories flooded me at this event. The damned body holds all of these memories and I felt sick. I got into my car and I called one of my best friends just to hear her voice to be in the safe space of a friend who does have your back. I didn't tell her what happened. She didn't know the people. We chatted about nonsense but she's someone very kind insane and important in my life and that helped me help bring me back down.
Being deliberately cruel isn't my style and I didn't want to hurt the woman who's who was sort of the center of the event. However this woman is also having some follow-up events and I've already told her no I won't be coming. I didn't tell her why I made up some story about travel that felt plausible. We can conduct ourselves well enough in the moment not take the bait, hold our heads high, breathe through the traumatic memories popping up in us, try and do the right thing and show empathy and still not have to go again. And we can learn. The fact is nice person didn't step up, she didn't notice, she didn't check on me.
Her enabling was more important than showing compassion to a person who was clearly being treated badly. Maintaining that other relationship with the difficult person was far more important to her. It doesn't mean I'm going to reject her but she's definitely been demoted a bit in the sort of matrix in my heart of safe people. Not that she's not as safe, she's not as close now. Healing from narcissistic abuse is a series of calibrations. All of us let dangerous people into our inner sanctums once before. That can't happen anymore. This isn't about no contact. I'll definitely see her again but only one on one, never amongst her group of people.
Healing from narcissistic abuse is also about being flexible. Listen I have no idea if this insulting woman was narcissistic. I only encountered a thin sliver of her. She definitely has terrible manners and clearly has some strong opinions and no self-awareness. I don't know if it was narcissism and it doesn't really matter. Her behavior was hurtful. The kind of icky people at that event all enabled the most toxic person there. Might have been cultural. They were all of them as a group were people who had known each other for a long time.
But it became so clear that the most toxic people at this particular event were absolutely legitimized by the enablers who were more invested in how this system flowed and in keeping the system running than in stepping in the face and helping out someone who's being treated badly. My guess is that I wasn't the first and I definitely won't be the last. These kinds of things happen in antagonistic systems all the time. I actually during this event was so overwhelmed I grabbed my phone and started taking notes. That's actually where the idea for this video came from. I figured I may as well share the pain and foster some growth.
Personally though this event was one of the first times I saw how healing had actually happened. Healing does happen because for the first time I didn't blame myself. For a minute I did wonder what was so offensive about me but I was quickly able to assess my behavior and recognize that it wasn't me. Despite being flooded with painful memories of childhood ostracism, not fitting in, being chastised and shouted at, being told that most things I did were wrong, something at this event clicked in me and I even got to keep my own empathy. Now I got to tell you folks I wish I had left about 30 minutes earlier.
True confession I stayed the extra 30 minutes for dessert. That's on me. Had I left 30 minutes earlier then I got to give myself some credit I would have definitely stuck the landing. But this is a process. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll leave one of these situations before the proverbial appetizer. But I have to say I also didn't lose my empathy and disrupt an event that mattered to the nice person. It's all a balancing act and for now my introverted ass is staying home and no more holiday parties or get-togethers for me. But it is a warning to be careful of the enablers.
Their legitimization of the narcissistic and toxic folks in our midst may not have created the monster but they sure keep it fed. Thanks again. .
S K R Y B O T
Skrybot. 2023, Video transcriptions from YouTube
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