How To Meet Safely With a Narcissist If You Must

Protect yourself physically and emotionally

Photo by Dustin Humes on Unsplash

A Caution

The first rule for meeting with a narcissist or someone who has been abusive to you in the past is, “Safety First”. Don’t put yourself or your children at risk of violence. If you have any doubt about your safety do not meet with a dangerous person.

Boundaries

Now that we have the most important caution out of the way I can go over some boundaries you can use to keep yourself emotionally and mentally safe from the narcissist. These are just suggestions to help you start thinking about the rules you need to set for yourself if you will be spending any time iwth a narcissist.

1. Have no expectations so you won’t be disappointed.
2. Radical acceptance of who/what they are. Don’t think that just because they are kissing up to you they are a “new” person. They are the same toxic and abusive person you have experienced before no matter how “nice” they are pretending to be. These people are master manipulators and know how to push your buttons.
3. Weigh the possible positive outcome of the meeting against how the narc will use what you say against you in the future.
4. Keep your emotions under lock and key. Your emotions are none of the narc’s business. This is an important way to protect yourself.
5. Do not share anything personal no matter how badly you want to show the narc your life is amazing now that you have esaped from them. They will believe what they want anyway. Also, your success is yours. If you share it with them they will claim it as their doing later when they tell all their flying monkeys about your meeting.
6. You don’t have to answer any questions or say anything you don’t want to. Stand strong.
7. Stick to the subject you agreed to discuss and nothing more. Don’t give them anything for free. Narcs are all business so treat this like a business meeting and know what you want out of it.
8. Meet in public where there are security cameras and a quick response from police or security is possible. Upscale areas are a good choice. They will more likely keep it together if the environment…