Are you neurotic, narcissist or neurotypical?

Regardless of how hurtful people can be, if we are in a relationship with them, we tend to assume that they share our similar values. But this isn’t always true. And this common assumption can get us in a lot of trouble, especially with narcissists.

While there are others that think like us (to some degree), these days, we regularly encounter people who shock us.  We find ourselves saying, “How could they say (or do) such a thing?”  “Doesn’t he/she care about my feelings?” And if we love the person, we might find ourselves making excuses for a person who has hurt us because we want so desperately to hold onto our original view of the person we fell in love with in the first place.

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What To Do When They Won’t Listen

She won’t listen!

Christine was in a new business partnership with 2 others in Arizona.  She lived in Portland, and was stressed about this partnership.  Her partner in Arizona took on more much responsibility than she could reasonably do, and important procedures were missed and not attended to.  Christine tried to persuade her that she could do the accounting, and that they needed to have an overarching plan about how to distribute responsibilities.  But her business partner was too mired in what she was doing to listen.    She was stressed and frustrated by the potential consequences of what she foresaw happening with the business.   She needed to be heard and valued, but she was starting to worry that regardless of what she did or said, her partner wouldn’t listen.

We talked about how to get her needs met.

I told her

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Overcome Communication Challenges

My client *Sara had a wonderful relationship with her partner.  She considered him her best friend.  But he was in school and she had made incredible sacrifices financially and in terms of the amount of time they had together for the relationship, and she didn’t see how she could get her needs met.  We worked together to release her grief around this, and her anxiety that her sacrifices wouldn’t pay off.   We also got to some core issues from her past that were triggering these feelings.   After doing this,

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