{"id":536,"date":"2012-09-13T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T09:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.narcissismcured.com\/blog\/?p=536"},"modified":"2018-09-03T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T07:03:03","slug":"handling-verbal-abuse-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/handling-verbal-abuse-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 5 – Aloof or Manic? Dealing with Each"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earning Respect Dashboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>oday I want to deal with a couple more defensive behaviors you may come up against. These include a person who is needy and talking too much or the opposite ‘lights are on but nobody home’.<\/p>\n

Glazed Eyed and Aloof<\/h3>\n

D<\/span>o you know a person who sometimes sticks their nose in the air and gets a ‘glazed eyed’ look, as if they are not really present with you at all?<\/p>\n

This is a common type of defensive behaviour.<\/p>\n

It’s true they are not really present. As the saying goes; they are off in their own little world.<\/em><\/p>\n

The trouble is because their nose is in the air, it may look like this person is very arrogant and aloof, but this may not be the case at all.<\/p>\n

More than any other defense, this is a person who is in fact very fearful.<\/p>\n

Arrogant or Just Plain Scared?<\/h4>\n

This person may have experienced trauma in their life, including physical abuse or feeling unwanted as a baby or child.<\/p>\n

This one is pretty easy to deal with. Instead of being self conscious or feeling offended, it may help to actually get close to this person and hold the back of their arm, give them a pat on the back or if appropriate even give them a hug. You could also take their hand or do something reassuring that shows them they are physically safe with you.<\/p>\n

You may help prevent this person going into defense around you if you give them this type of physical contact when you greet them and say goodbye.<\/p>\n

This person lives in a fantasy world out the back door of their head<\/em> so using touch to get them back into their body is a good place to start.<\/p>\n

Mr. or Mrs. Manic<\/h3>\n

The person who talks too much and is needy and draining is tougher to deal with, but not impossible.<\/p>\n

The key is to realize this person is scared of abandonment and may also fear you are secretly judging them.<\/p>\n

As unpleasant as it can be to be around someone in this type of defense (who may also drink or smoke too much) and as much as you may feel like pulling away (and in fact judging them), the trick (as when dealing with most other defenses) is to do the opposite.<\/p>\n

The reason is that our defenses unfortunately attract the very thing we fear.<\/p>\n

So the person with their nose in the air who is afraid of violence makes people think they are arrogant and want to punch them . . .\u00a0 while the talker who is afraid of abandonment makes people want to get away!<\/p>\n

This sets up a cycle, often making the defensive behaviour even more ingrained.<\/p>\n

So with the talker, be clear you will stick around for awhile, but also be clear and honest about what you want to have happen and what you need from them. You can say “I am not going anywhere but let’s go and look at the stars for a few minutes – I need to see you relax.”<\/p>\n

Helping them relax, may help them start being able to hear you.<\/p>\n

This Baby is Feeling Unloved<\/h4>\n

Another thing is to feed this person and make sure that they are warm. You see when people are in this type of defense they feel like a baby who has been left alone too long and some inner memory of this is feeding their fear.<\/p>\n

Calming down a hungry baby that is overwrought or upset is not always easy and so this can be a tough one, but walking away or competing to get a word in will probably just make the situation worse.<\/p>\n

You cannot feed and keep this adult baby warm forever, but by helping them to calm down and giving some direct reassurance and speaking your mind, rather then scaring them you are silently judging them; you will slowly over time build trust with this person and they will hopefully learn to be a bit more relaxed around you.<\/p>\n

If you fall into this type of defense yourself you cannot demand anyone do these things for you. Instead you may find it helpful to make yourself a nutritious snack (even if you don’t feel like it) and make sure that you are warm. You can also take yourself outside to spend some time in nature and ‘fill your self’ with some beautiful sights and sounds. Listening to the sounds around you and observing the landscape, while also feeling the sun or breeze on your skin and perhaps even taking in the smells.<\/p>\n

It takes time and thought to help our loved ones feel safe when they are in defense but it is time and effort that will be well invested in the long run as their trust in you begins to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I want to deal with a couple more defensive behaviors you may come up against. These include a person who is needy and talking too much or the opposite ‘lights are on but nobody home’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[324,320,325],"post_series":[353],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verbal-abuse","tag-earning-respect","tag-gold-level-members","tag-members","post_series-verbal-abuse","entry","no-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narcissismcured.com\/thelovesafetynet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}