Confession: I have spent more years than I’d like to admit as the source of narcissistic supply in many of my relationships. This was a pretty hard pill to swallow. But as part of the healing process from my divorce in 2018, I have been learning as much as I can about the patterns of narcissistic abuse and how to protect myself from it.

In the past year, I’ve read just about everything there is to read on the cycle of narcissistic abuse: how narcissists got the way they are, how they appeal to their victims, the danger of the devalue and discard phase, etc. There are stories here on Medium, amazing books you can read, and accounts to follow on Instagram.

But in spite of all my research, I wasn’t able to find a satisfactory answer to my most pressing question: how can I protect myself from getting sucked into this vicious cycle again?

“Anyone can be duped by a narcissist. If you are a kind …sensitive person who knows how to love, you can be duped.” — Pyschology Today

If narcissists are as diabolical as we’ve been lead to believe (and they really are), and if anyone is susceptible to being duped by a narcissist (also true), what are people like me — once described by a therapist as Grade A Narcissistic Supply — supposed to do?

If you’ve also been subjected to the cycle of narcissistic abuse and have the same question, I’m here to save you some time.

I believe people shy away from asking how victims can protect themselves because it feels too close to victim-blaming, and that’s valid. An especially insidious piece of the narcissistic cycle of abuse is their use of emotional manipulation to convince the victim that everything is their fault. Breaking the habit of blaming yourself takes time.

In fact, I’ll say it again in case you really need to hear it: nothing the narcissist did to hurt you was ever something you deserved and it was not your fault.

The narcissist’s actions are the narcissist’s fault, and no one else’s. However, if we place the blame for the narcissist’s behavior squarely on them without also acknowledging that there ARE things we can do to protect ourselves, we are left feeling powerless.

But I am not powerless, and neither are you.

Here are six things I’ve learned about how to avoid becoming a source of narcissistic supply:

1. Here’s what makes you ‘Grade A’ supply

First of all you, need to understand that you’re probably an extremely nice person. You are empathetic, compassionate, authentic, and honest. Unfortunately, this may also mean you have shitty boundaries (as I did and sometimes still do).

Restating because you probably need to hear it again: this still does not make the abuse your fault. It means that when a narcissist looks for someone to fulfill their need for supply, you seem like a good candidate — again, because you are compassionate, authentic, honest, and loving — all wonderful things that we should all aspire to.

But it’s the potentially lethal combination of an empathic, loving, compassionate spirit and a lack of boundaries that make you the perfect narcissist meal:

“By being in a relationship with such a nurturing, loving person, the person with narcissism is able to consume that person’s authentic love and extract narcissistic supply. Once fed over the course of days, weeks, or months, the person with narcissism is satiated and may grow bored with his or her partner. He or she must secure the supply of another target, usually in short order.” — goodtherapy.org

Your job is to learn how to protect yourself while also retaining all of the things about you that attracted the narcissist to you in the first place. It’s not easy, but also not impossible.

2. Understand That You Fawn, and Why

We’ve all heard of fight or flight, and maybe you’ve also heard of fight, flight, or freeze, but there is a fourth response, known as fawn:

“When you’ve tried fight, flight, or freeze several times without success, you may find yourself using the fawn response … You can recognize this if you notice that no matter how poorly someone treats you, you are more concerned about making them happy than about doing what’s right for you.” — betterhelp.com

If you grew up in a home with abuse, if you’ve been in a relationship with a narcissist for an extended period of time, or if you have often referred to yourself as a “people pleaser” you’re probably good at fawning — stroking the ego of another person as a method of self-preservation. Although the term “fawn” was first coined by Pete Walker, this article by Sam Dylan Finch does an excellent job explaining the fawn trauma response.

One way to keep yourself safe if you are in danger is to compliment, soothe, placate, and otherwise make the abuser feel good about themselves. This can diffuse tense situations and keep yourself (and maybe others, like your kids) safe.

Give yourself credit for this being an excellent strategy. It’s probably kept you safe more times than you can count — but remember that it’s a self-preservation strategy and not the only way you have of interacting with others. If you’re really used to fawning (people-pleasing) you may be neglecting your boundaries in favor of making others feel good. In short, being an expert fawner also makes you an excellent candidate for narcissistic supply.

3. Avoid the Narcissist Rabbit Hole

It’s tempting and easy to fall into a pattern of learning everything about narcissists in an attempt to protect yourself. We think that if we can only understand why they do what they do, things will finally make sense, and we will be able to recognize other narcissists in the future.

It’s a hard truth to face, but you will never understand the person who hurt you because you are not narcissistic. Their choices or reasons will never make sense because you are not capable of such a thorough and complete disregard of the needs and feelings of others. If you have even an ounce of empathy, you are not ever going to be able to understand the rules that narcissists play by.

Be kind to yourself: this was another survival mechanism for you, and it worked. You learned to pay close attention, to read subtle shifts in their mood and behavior, you learned to walk on eggshells, and because of this, you survived.

But now it’s time to focus on you.

Focusing on what is wrong with the narcissist is simply another way of focusing on the narcissist. This is what you’ve been doing during your entire relationship with them (in order to survive), which is part of why it feels so comforting and familiar.

In fact, I believe this need to figure out and understand how narcissists work is just another way for us to, on some level, maintain our relationship with them.

This is why I prefer to talk about narcissistic abuse as a type of psychological abuse that can be perpetrated by anyone — whether they are a narcissist or not. This puts the focus on the behavior instead of the person. It’s the behavior that hurts us, and it’s the behavior we need to recognize. This also prevents you from attempting to diagnose another person with a mental disorder (which, assuming you’re not a trained therapist, you can’t accurately do anyway).

Spend some time in the Narcissist Rabbit Hole if you feel like you need to, but also realize that learning about narcissism is only one of the first steps on the path to healing.

4. Learn How to Parent Yourself

No one is coming to save you, except you.

This is a terrifying realization, made worse by the fact that narcissists use trauma bonding to make you believe you’re unable to survive on your own.

But as an empathetic, compassionate, authentic, and honest person (see #1 above), I’m willing to bet that you have top-notch caregiving skills.

Turn your nurturing tendencies inward and take care of yourself instead.

YOU are the one who is MOST CAPABLE of taking care of yourself. You are the only one inside your own head, inside your own skin, who feels what you feel. You are the expert.

One of the best ways to maintain a healthy relationship with another person is to spend quality time together, right? The same goes for your relationship with yourself. Spend time getting to know yourself well enough that you don’t have to turn to others when you need attention and comfort. A regular journaling practice is the best way I know of to have a consistent, on-going conversation with yourself. I also recommend following @the.holistic.psychologist on Instagram for more tips on self-care.

5. Become a Boundary-Setting Expert

Setting boundaries when you’ve never done it before is kind of like growing a brand new body part. But setting clear boundaries is the single most important skill you can learn to protect yourself from narcissistic abuse— malleable boundaries make you easy to manipulate and basically paint a narcissist supply target on your back.

Before you engage in a new relationship of any kind (friends, neighbors, co-workers included) your number one priority is understanding your own boundaries.

This area, in particular, is one where I didn’t find a lot of helpful information. I struggled for years to understand how boundaries work, and I wrote about that here.

TLDR; you are the foremost expert on the topic of YOU, and you can protect yourself better than anyone else can. Learn to feel where your boundaries are, and practice every single day.

6. Increase Your Window of Tolerance

Your window of tolerance is essentially the space between hyPER-arousal (freaking out, probably in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) and hyPO-arousal (feeling empty or numb). When you are living in the cycle of narcissistic abuse, you are likely outside of your window of tolerance — and because of what you’ve been through, your window of tolerance may be fairly narrow:

“When we have unhealed traumas, our systems may not be fully present. They might not fully know or feel that the danger has passed and can become fixed in states of hypoarousal and hyperarousal or fluctuate between the two states”. — good therapy.org

In order to heal, you’ll need to not only get inside your window of tolerance, but you’ll need to learn how to stay there.

Start with a good therapist (keep trying until you find one that clicks — remember that your boundaries are just as important with therapists are they are in any other relationship). Maybe you also need a support group, a coach, or a spiritual advisor (again, watch those boundaries).

Or maybe you need a fancy journal and lots of pretty gel pens. Maybe you need meds. Maybe you need all of these things. But a big part of self-care is understanding that it’s ongoing. It’s not one walk through the woods followed by some journaling and a hot bath, and then you’re all done.

The more you learn how to best take care of yourself, the more you will increase your window of tolerance and your ability to weather the worst of storms.

I’ve heard many people with experiences similar to mine refer to themselves as warriors, and if I’m honest, the term felt hyperbolic to me at first. But as a survivor of narcissistic abuse, I’ve learned that keeping yourself safe does require a warrior mindset: you will need to practice self-awareness, self-care, reparenting, boundary-setting, and increasing your window of tolerance.

Every. Single. Day.

With practice, things will definitely get better. But they will also sometimes get worse. That’s life.

This is when you will lean into everything you’re learning now. You’ll practice your favorite self-care strategies and make sure you’re within your window of tolerance. You’ll do a boundary check and see what doesn’t currently feel right with your relationships. You’ll make adjustments as necessary, and you’ll take steps to make things better.

And best of all, you’ll discover how many amazing things you are capable of when you’re not someone else’s source of narcissistic supply.