i left a comment on another redditor’s post yesterday explaining how boundaries work that gained a lot of traction and i wanted to expand upon what i said for the entire narcissistic abuse community at-large.

here’s my original comment from yesterday, which was replying to someone asking how boundaries work with narcissists:

“boundaries only work if you use them to protect yourself and not if you use them with the intent to control the behavior of other people. a healthy boundary establishes what you will or will not tolerate from the people you allow in your life and you must be prepared to enforce the consequences if someone is unwilling to respect your stated boundaries — which means you appropriately distance yourself from them.

if you are using boundaries as a way to manipulate people to change or do things differently, that’s not going to work. all you can do is be specific about what behaviors you will or will not accept and then you let people decide how they want to show up in your life. you can’t control them or force them to make different choices by drawing a boundary. boundaries only serve to protect yourself and if someone refuses to respect them you must not allow that person to continue having access to you.”

here’s the thing that i feel i wasn’t clear about and saw other people struggling with in the comments — when you properly state a boundary with a narcissist (ex: i will not tolerate being treated like that and if it continues i will be taking a step back from this relationship), it’s almost a foregone conclusion that the narcissist will absolutely not respect your boundary. in fact, they most likely will do the opposite and stomp all over it, often doubling down on the very behavior that you had the courage and strength to say that you will not tolerate.

but the most important part of boundary work with narcissists is your enforcement of stated boundaries. i know how hard this can be because i am grateful to be able to say this as a survivor of narcissistic abuse. it took an enormous amount of work on myself before i finally stopped trying to control how someone treated me and instead shifted my mindset to “i deserve to be treated with respect, compassion, and empathy.”

this is why boundary work is grief work.

once you accept that you have value and that you deserve to be respected and protected, everything changes. you have to say “no” to the narcissist and stand your ground when they react like the emotionally stunted individuals that they are, and most likely you will be forced to cut that person out of your life. someone who cannot respect your boundaries is someone who should not be allowed to have access to you.

but when a narcissist forces you to go no contact because of boundary violations — THIS MEANS YOUR BOUNDARY IS WORKING. it’s doing what it is supposed to do, which is to protect you. it’s painful and difficult and emotional but it’s what is necessary and when you finally choose yourself, you will then have to do grief work to process the loss of the person you are cutting out of your life.

this grieving is vulnerable because it’s an emotional process of acceptance, self-validation, letting go, and owning your truth. when you draw a boundary and stand up for yourself, you are saying to someone that you know your value, that you won’t tolerate being mistreated, and that you are worthy of being protected.

for a lot of victims of narcissistic abuse, none of this will be easy. trust me, i know, but it’s worth it and you are worth it. so work those boundaries, process the loss, and protect your peace.