Ep. 161- Making You the Villain: The Gaslighting Effect of Projection

Ever walk away from a conversation feeling like the villain in someone else’s story? In this episode, I dig into projection—the defense that pushes a person’s unwanted traits and feelings onto you—and show how it warps reality, fuels gaslighting, and leaves loved ones doubting their own character.

I break down the differences between borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder in plain terms: emotion dysregulation versus self-image dysregulation, and how people with both disorders often project  onto their loved ones. I also talk about my training in Transference Focused Psychotherapy to illustrate how expert clinicians address patients who don't want to take accountability for their own insecurities.

Even if you're not a trained clinician, I share practical strategies for defending against someone's projection, like how to reality-check without spiraling, validate feelings without accepting a false story, resist over-explaining when logic won’t land, and set boundaries. If you love someone who struggles with BPD, NPD, or emotional immaturity, this episode helps you stay steady, compassionate, and clear about who you are.

*If this topic resonates and you're struggling with someone who's making you feel blamed and confused, book a free call with me (Dr. Kibby) to learn how KulaMind can get you grounded in your reality again.

• Transcript

  Dr. Kibby: 0:00

  Hi guys, welcome to A Little Help for Our Friends, a podcast for people with loved ones struggling with mental health. Hey little helpers, it's Dr. Kibbe here. Before we dive into this episode, I wanted to tell you how I could help you navigate the mental health or addiction struggles of the people you love. Coolamine is the online coaching platform and community that I built to support you in the moment when you need it the most, like having hard conversations, asserting your needs, or setting boundaries. Even if you're just curious and want to chat about it, book a free call with me by going to the link in the show notes or going to coolamine.com, K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D.com and click get started. Thank you and enjoy the show. Welcome back, little helpers. It's Dr. Kippy here, and I'm going to talk about a topic that I find fascinating, which is projection. So if you have ever walked away from conversations with someone always feeling blamed and a monster and like you were the villain or the problem, but you have no freaking idea what they're talking about, this episode is for you because that could be a side of projection. So imagine being blamed for having intentions or actions that really feel out of character to you, or that you really don't remember happening. Like someone insisting that you are trying to hurt them or accusing you of faults that you're like, what? No one sees me that way, or I don't remember that. That actually might be a situation that's common when you deal with someone with a personality disorder. So I'm gonna talk about how, like what projection is, and how people with something like borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, even trauma, may project parts of themselves that they don't like onto you. So I'll talk about why it happens and how it feels so gaslighty, and what the theory and therapy behind uh this behavior actually tell us. And then, of course, I'm gonna talk about what to do when you feel like someone's projecting all their stuff on you. And I want to say that I'm I'm talking about gaslighting because it when someone projects themselves, their insecurities, their feelings onto you, it can make you feel crazy. It can make you doubt who you are, it can make you doubt what happened. I have a terrible memory, so I'm really susceptible to gaslighting in general. When someone says you did this, you were thinking this, and I go, I'm pretty sure not. I'm pretty sure I don't have those and like I didn't do that. I don't know, but I get so confused. And then I feel in those moments gaslit, but when we talk about gaslighting, I see this on the internet all the time. When we talk about gaslighting, people think it's just like when an evil narcissist tries to make you, you know, doubt everything about yourself, right? And it it's almost talked about as deliberate, like your partner intentionally questioning your own sanity in order to, you know, get power over you. And that does happen a lot of the time, but often gaslighting, especially with projection, is not intentional, right? It's not like they are doing it to confuse you and make you doubt who you are, it's just a coping mechanism. Projection is a really crappy coping mechanism. So, what is projection? Projection is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously blames their own unwanted feelings, traits, or impulses or thoughts onto someone else. Right? So there they are, someone is insecure about something or hates a part of them and they blame someone else for that. They never go, oh yeah, I have that part and you do too, or whatever. But it's like, no, you are mean to me. You are judging me, you are angry. Right? And the reason why people do that is out of shame, of deep, deep shame. So instead of acknowledging something uncomfortable in themselves, like, oh, I have this part of me that I really don't like.

  unknown: 4:22

  Right?

  Dr. Kibby: 4:22

  Instead of doing that, they say, no, no, no, I'm not like that at all. I'm not angry. You are the angry one. Right? Sometimes partners who are, you know, think about cheating or thinking about or even cheating themselves might accuse their partner of being unfaithful, right? By being like, yeah, I don't like this part of me, so I'm gonna blame you for it. This is a really, as you can imagine, really bad defense mechanism. But it's how some people learn to survive and learn to um cope with oh, there's there's things living inside me that I hate and I don't know what to do about them. But unfortunately, this defense, first of all, distorts reality. Like makes them think, I'm perfect. I'm not like that at all. I am passive, I'm a victim. I can't, I'm not the one who causes problems at all. And then they just cut out a whole piece of reality. It allows people to avoid confronting their guilt or their shame or even self-hatred by pushing it on other people. This is one of the most classic psychological concepts because it's like such a Freudian thing. This is how psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy really got there, got there like bread and butter, because Freud first identified projection like over a century ago. And clinicians have since observed that it's really common in people with like really fragile self-esteem and little self-awareness. We all project things onto each other, right? Like the way we've learned to see ourselves and the world, we see in other people. That just happens. But usually it's kind of like only sometimes. Um, and when push comes to shove, you'd be like, oh yeah, I was, I was kind of a jerk, right? But certain people are so committed to cutting that part of themselves out that they might default on their way of coping, right? They use it often, they project often and for many relationships. And you see that when someone gets really, really defensive a lot, when they can't take any criticism, that's like a core part of borderline and narcissistic personality disorder. If they take any kind of feedback, they're like, no, they like, they shut it, shut it down. They react really badly to it. Um, or or they either lash out in anger or they spiral in shame when someone goes, hey, you know, you did this thing that wasn't great. They go, no, they like can't hold it. They can't say, Yeah, all right, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm at fault for that. I'll work on that. They can't do that. It is shoved out. It's like a threat, it's an existential threat to the way they see themselves and their whole reality. So projection is called sometimes in this personality sort of world as a primitive defense. So we all have a, you know, this is psychoanalytic um uh theory. So it's it, this is not uh cognitive behavioral therapy, it's more of a psychodynamic, psychoanalytic world. So they call this primitive defenses, right? Like this way of thinking that happened early in life, and that's how someone copes with the pain forever, right? It's you can see, I mean, I see this in my kid where it's like something that he doesn't like, it's like, no, no, no, no, that's not me. No, I don't want that, I don't want that. When we're happy, he's happy, right? There's like an all or nothing kind of thing. So emotionally, it feels immature because when you grow up, you're able to hold nuance, hold like good and bad into one thing and integrate them. But when you're young, it's like all good or all bad. And some people just stay there. Some people have like a rested development and are emotionally immature and stay in the I'm either all good, I'm beautiful, I'm perfect, I'm I'm successful, I'm I'm a victim, or I'm nothing. I'm terrible, I'm weak, I'm terrible, you know, I'm I'm I'm worthless, right? It's all or nothing. So these primitive defenses at the most extreme level, I'm also talking about splitting, right? That's an old term for seeing yourself as all good or all bad. And then projection is another primitive defense, but it's kind of like, okay, if I'm either all good or all bad, then I'm gonna be all good, and you're gonna be the one who's all bad. So all this to say is that people with borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, or just emotionally immature, externalize the painful parts of themselves, the all bad. Rather than saying, like, I feel bad or I feel unlovable, or I'm I'm kind of a jerk sometimes, they might insist that you are treating them badly or you don't care when really those feelings started within them. The reason why this happens, there's there's object relations theory and also a lot of research in identity, where um it's proposed that the way we see ourselves and our in our personality development is really dependent on combining all of the different experiences and relationships you have with other people into a whole. So let's say you grow up and you have some good friends who see you as a wonderful person, but then you also have people who think you're a jerk and you have fights with someone else, and you mix them all together into an integrated personality. I'm sometimes good, I'm sometimes bad. You know what? A really good, a really good illustration of this was an Inside Out 2. So if you haven't seen it, please go watch it because you could see the personality development when it looks healthy. In the movie, Riley, the main character, is going through, you know, different kinds of relationships. She's she's breaking off from her old friends and getting together with new friends and seeing herself and experimenting with different versions of her. And some are not great. Like she actually was kind of a jerk to her friends in some in some moments. And she goes through this like hardcore splitting where she's like, I'm the worst, I'm the no, it's your fault. And then at some point she integrates and goes, I'm a good friend, but I also can be really inconsiderate to people sometimes, right? So when you're healthy, you develop into a whole. You might still not like those parts, right? Like, you still might not like the part that's like not a great friend, but you still go, yeah, that's me. That's part of me. It's not all of me, but it's part of me. When you go, oh, I'm either a bad friend or a good friend, that's a primitive primitive defense, right? So it kind of goes along with that projection, right? The idea that you're all bad is so terrible, push it onto other people. So with these personality disorders, or maybe you even think about a person in your life that's emotionally immature, it's like they can't hold the two sides. They can't be like, yeah, I meant, I meant well, but I also screwed up. They go, I meant well, and you screwed up. And then you go, did I? I don't want, I don't think I did. And that's the part for the loved ones. That's the part like the projectee that is the most distressing, because you're like, what is real? Their view of reality is so different than mine, and and specifically, reality of who we are in this relationship, right? So I'll give an example in my own life. And uh, you know, when I talk about this, then um uh my mom could probably have choice words, but this is just an example of an argument that I had with her recently that really, really hurt me and was one of the things I had to draw the line with our relationship. But I was going through um, I I just gotten my double mastectomy uh surgery, which is the most intense surgery I hopefully will ever get in my life. Um, basically replay like cutting out my two breasts during breast cancer. And I had tubes coming out of me, I was bandaged up, and I just was like so drained. I um I was so tired and sick that, and I know that my mom loves to take uh my son over to her house and play. But I there was m many logistics that I just couldn't handle at that at that moment. Um, especially because when he comes back, sometimes when he came back from my mom's house, he would get tantrumy. And I and I talked to my husband and I was like, I can't, I can't deal with the tantruming. I can't deal with him thrashing around while I'm, you know, I have literally tubes out of my body. So I told my mom, like, you know, like I think this is not a good idea. Can you just come over? Can we just not do that plan right now? He just, my son gets really tantrum-y and after he comes back from your house, and I just can't deal with that. And she kept texting me. She's like, why? Why is it why is he tantrum? Is this something I did? Do I feed him something wrong? I um she kept like looking for the reason why he was tantruming, and I was like, I don't know, I really don't know, but can you just can you just accept this boundary, please? Um and then she kept asking, and I was so stupid. I mean, I was so sick, and I was just like, I was like, maybe it's the effect you have on people. And what I meant in that moment was stimulating effect. So I notice when they play, and it's just very it hypes him up. And after he gets too hyped up, he gets a little tantrumy. So that's what I meant. But she lost her shit after that. She yelled at me, she screamed at me. I mean, for days. And that was, and she and she was saying things like, now I know who you really are. You're abusive, you're abusing me. How could you do this to me? All I want is to love, and you get you're just the worst. Like, she just she just saw me as a as the monster. And I kind of knew, I kind of expected that was gonna happen because every time I say no to her, that tends to happen. But she was accusing me of things that I was like, whoa, whoa. And to this day, she still talks about that interaction as abuse. And she'll even say things like, You told me never to see your son. You told me I couldn't come over and see him. And I've showed her text messages where I said, Please come over and see him here. And I will watch her literally like look away and say, Well, well, you were abusive anyway. Like, she will just not even see the evidence of the other side of my reality. Have you ever experienced something like that? It's maddening. It's maddening. Like, that is the thing that I I I wanna I want to take the all of the way she sees me and what I was accused of and just be like, look, look at this. Am I really that? Am I really this horrible thing? It and especially with a parent, it like affected me over the years, and I'm like, am I that way? And I'm wrestling with this version of me that I'm like, you know. And luckily, after having a a lot of relationships, I have a different identity where I'm like, yeah, maybe I'm a jerk a lot of the time, but I'm overall a good person. You know, people outside of my relationship with my mom think I'm a good person. So it doesn't fully engulf me in the gaslight, but there are times where I'm like, oh, I guess I'm a terrible person who's just abusing my mom. So this is a really extreme example, but it can happen with someone who just has such intense emotion dysregulation and also takes no accountability, has no self-awareness. They just take all their insecurities and all their feelings and project it onto the other person. And the tricky part is that when they project, it's not completely insane, right? Because then you would just be like, oh, you're just completely not in reality. It's the most insidious and the most gaslighty and dangerous when it is linked to a kernel of truth. So for my mom to say, you were being abusive, you were blaming, you know, a situation on me, and you're saying that I'm bad, and you're saying that I, you know, oh gosh, I can't remember. You say you don't want me here, and you I never can see my son, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, whoa, that's all crazy pants. But it was linked to a kernel of truth where I was saying, yeah, something you're doing might contribute to the tantrums. And to this day, like, you know, if I'm really being honest, yeah. I think that when they play really hard and it's really exciting, and there's all these toys and stuff like that, I see them tantrum more. So I, in my mind, I was kind of blaming her. I didn't want to say it, like, I didn't, like, it, but yeah, there's a kernel of truth. I was like a little judgy in that moment. I don't think I was fully abusive. I wasn't a monster. I wasn't telling her she can't see her grandson ever again. But there was that kernel of truth. And so when sh when someone projects so deeply and it hits on some truth inside you, that's the moments where you're like, Am I a monster? Are they right? I'm not here, I'm also not here to say that projection or gaslighting is all like an evil plot that has no basis in anything. Like, there's definitely a back and forth here, right? But it can really fuck you up. It can really get you confused. So when you feel like someone is pushing a version of themselves onto you, that's when you have to step back and look at it and be like, oh, this is a projection. Right? This is common also in narcissistic personality disorder because uh NPD, there it's really it's really all about self-image. Um, I had a colleague really nicely describe it as um a dysregulation of your self-image. So with BPD is a dysregulation of emotion, up and down. You're happy, you're sad, you're good, about blah blah blah. With narcissistic personality disorder, it's I'm special, I'm beautiful, I'm successful, I'm on top, or I'm the worst, I'm worthless, I'm ugly, I'm nothing, right? So it's this identity that goes up and down. And that is such a that's such an immature way of seeing the seeing yourself, because it's like who is one, who is one thing? Who is always perfect? No one, right? It's like we got some good stuff and then we have some bad stuff. That's like the healthy um personality development. I'm successful sometimes when I do these things, and I'm not successful other times. But people with NPD can't handle that nuance. So they are they have such a fragile ego that they're like, hmm, any drop of criticism or any drop of bad or part of me that is like naughty, I don't want. I can't I can't hold it. I can't hold the nuance. You have it. So for many narcissists, the default mechanism is projection because they they can take all the shortcomings that would be otherwise super threatening and put it on to someone else, right? Whatever that is. If it's like, um, I'm not the I'm not the abusive one here. You're the you're the narcissist, you're the you're the narcissist, you're the abuser. I'm a helpless victim. You know, I'm not the angry one, you're the angry one. Or even like weakness. I'm not weak, you're weak. You're sensitive. Right? Have you ever heard a narcissist say that, you know, get get upset that you're too sensitive, but really they're quite sensitive about, you know, if anyone says anything bad about them, suddenly they fly into like they kind of collapse, and you're like, wait a minute, you're accusing me of sensitive. What's going on? That's projection. They wanna, they don't want to admit that they're sensitive to criticism. So it's on you. Blaming a common thing they do is blaming other people for mistakes, or they they kind of like wash it away with justification instead of like, yeah, fucked up there. I'm so sorry. I I tend to be like that. It's like, well, I did it because you made me. You know, I I made that, I might have made that mistake, but it's pretty much your fault, right? Um, sometimes it could be so extreme that they accuse you of what they did, um, or accuse you of having thoughts or intentions that they have, right? Like, um, you you mean to do this bad thing. You mean to to cheat on the relationship. And it's like, really? Is that me, or was that you? So really with narcissistic personality disorder, anything that contradicts this idealized, um fanciful, special self-image is pushed onto other people because otherwise it would trigger deep, deep shame and a whole existential crisis. Projection is a quick escape hatch. They see their own bad traits in you, they get to maintain that they're perfect. They see themselves as perfect, which is the only way they could feel like they could survive. So they can't tolerate shame. Um, and often this is really unconscious. I think when we, you know, the internet talks about narcissist and gaslighting as like this evil plot, a conspiracy to make you crazy, but a lot of the time people do it without realizing it. Like they're just unaware. Doesn't make it less harmful, but they're just unaware of what they were doing. A really cool example of projection. That's a projection, and these primitive defenses of splitting yourself into all these pieces, good or bad, and just not owning a part. A really good example is Fight Club. I could be dating myself at this point, but because at this point it's such an old movie, but it was like a movie of my generation. But Fight Club with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. I hope I'm not giving too much away, but it's so if you haven't seen it and want to see it, skip the next few minutes and just watch it. It's so good. But it's interesting, the main character doesn't even have a name. So it's Edward Norton, who's this like trapped, numb, everyday man who literally isn't named in the movie, right? He's nothing. He can't accept anything about himself, is trying to find some feeling of being alive. And he tries to do all the best things, tries to like do all the right stuff, get a job, blah, blah, blah, but he just doesn't feel like a whole person. He goes to all these weird emotional like support groups to try to create this feeling of alive and vulnerable, but it's just almost like a weird compartmentalizing like humanity, right? He's just like is going into places where he could feel whole. What he does is he creates a part of himself and projects it onto another person. So he creates this image of Tyler Durden, who's this handsome, aggressive, this pure id, right? It's a spoiler alert, please don't listen to this if you haven't seen it, but it's actually a part of the main character, but he literally sees it as another person. You don't see it until the end, but it's actually the same character. But he is just like, he identifies as this downtrodden, like helpless, everyday man that he doesn't even see that this really aggressive form of him is inside him. So that you know, it it projects onto like literally a hallucination of another person. But it's like if he saw Tyler Dern in other people. And you could see that when he has a this character has a relationship with a woman, she doesn't know who she's dating. She's like, one minute you want me, and you're like, you, you know, you're sexual and you're you're you're aggressive, whatever. And the other one, you don't want anything to do with me, and you're this other person. It's because that guy just can't deal with the fact that he is both himself and Tyler Durden in one person. And that's that's what happens with people with BPD and MPD. So what what do we even do as therapists with someone who constantly projects, who who won't take accountability for a part of themselves? Well, I really learned how to deal with this in my internship at um New York Presbyterian Hospital when I learned transference-focused psychotherapy. That's a treatment for um personality disorders like MPD and BPD. The theory underneath it is what's called object relations theory, saying that we internalized all these different relationships into our personality. We find out who we are by combining all the relationships we have over our lives, and that's who we are, right? So in TFP, this therapy, the therapist, kind of like this is why Freud is so these psychoanalysts are pictured like sitting behind a patient and the patient just like lying there. The therapist is trying to create a relationship that is just like a container for the patient's inner world. Right? They're they're trying to kind of disappear, like be really neutral and almost like disappear so that the patient can fill up this the space with their own stuff, you know, bring in their own baggage, if you will. Because what you want is for the patient to project the parts of themselves that they hate onto the therapist, which is called transference. So, for example, when I was doing this, I had a couple thoughts, but people who had personality disorders that I worked with, um there was one in particular who was like a lovely patient in so many ways, but he was, you know, he would do things that were quite mean. He would be put me down a lot, he would laugh at me, um he would often like question the way I looked, you know, like he would make like little jabs at me all the time. And when he started to attach and start to get deeper in our relationship, he started to accuse me of judging him, of thinking badly of him, of making fun of him. And that's why in those kind of psychodynamic therapy, it's like the the therapist is almost blank, so it's just not even putting anything out there to detach to. It's just like I'm neutral, and then the patient goes, You're judging me. You're not talking because you're judging. And that is an entryway for the clinician and the therapist and the patient to explore that part of them to be like, Oh, look at this part that you are so scared of and hate so much that you're pushing it onto the therapist. Where is it coming from? And eventually maybe creating safety so that they can take it in and learn to deal with it and learn to own the parts in themselves that I'm trying to project. Really, really difficult. This is really hard work. It's really hard because it's, you know, there always is a kernel of truth. Sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm tired and I'm like, oh God, you know, this patient is just so mean to me all the time. And then he goes, You're being judgmental. You know, he was reading like a little kernel of truth. He was maybe like putting more on top of it, but he was latching onto the real thing and being like, Yep, this is you. So, what do you do when that happens? Well, in that moment, as a clinician, I'm not saying this is what you should do, but as a clinician, that's when we go, okay, great. This is a meat to work with, right? This is a part of you that you don't want to own. But let's explore it and see if we could hold it together peacefully with acceptance. Takes a long time. So over time in TFP, you wouldn't kind of like point it out gently and explore it. Like, huh? Interesting. You think that I'm being judgmental in that moment. Can you tell me, can you tell me more about that? What feelings are coming up when you think of judgment? When have you felt that before? You know, did what what thoughts went through your mind as you saw judgment in me? Right? You're just kind of giving them a chance to explore that projection, that, that, that perception of you. And then you might say that over and over again. Huh. Again, you see that I'm being judgmental. Tell me more about that. Right? What does that feel like? Have you felt judgmental? Were you judgmental towards me at all? What did that feel like? Right. So you try to hold, take the projection and look at it together. Like, this is all with therapy, isn't it? Taking the painful parts and looking at it together. And not blaming anyone and saying, oh, this is a hot potato, you have it, or I have it. But it's like, um, let's look, let's examine it and hold it peacefully together. Until the patient can slowly be like, yeah, I can be judgmental sometimes. And I judged you in that moment. And, you know, I thought that you were being judgmental, but you know, I was, I was, I was thinking that too. Then you're like, okay, he's able to take in that piece. Um, and you want to like, in that, in that moment, what you're trying to do is helping the patients own their projections. It might take so long because it might be so threatening. It might be the worst, it might be their greatest fear, right? They might have been judged or abused or been hurt by someone, like their parents or whatever, all their life, and they were like, I never want to be like my mom. I never want to be like my dad. They're so judgmental. And admitting that they can be judgmental, that they've learned it and it lives inside them, and they can be like their mom or their dad or the abuser is so is a horrible thought. So they're like, nope, I'm not an angry one. I'm not judgmental, you are. But it eventually it could be like, yeah, I could be angry and I could be mean. And I hate that because that's what my mom did to me. But yeah, so now that I could own it, I could work on it, I could soften around it, I could forgive myself, I could see where it comes from, and I can say, you know what? I can be mean a lot, but I'm learning to work with it. I'm learning to hold it. So in TFP, you're working with that transference, that projection, and give it back to the patient. Really, really hard. I don't recommend doing this for your loved one, but just to show you like how a clinician, like a specialist, will work with it. And it's really tough. The a lot of our training was to like really be firm and sometimes like admit the truth. Like, yeah, I was judgmental in that moment, but keep gently giving it back to them. That's the hardest part. When you've when I've had patients who just like, you know, especially with BPD or narcissism, who just come in swinging, right? They're like, you're abusive to me, you're a monster, you never help me, you think I'm this. And I'm like, I'm thinking, what? What are you talking about? Like, we've you were telling me that I'm amazing and that I that I'm helping you and that you trust me, and now I'm the monster? Like, how could you accuse me of of of being this bad person? But that human reaction of def defending your reality is something that we have to train ourselves out of as clinicians, and we have to be like, okay, this is not me. This is for them. I'm not gonna take this personally, I'm gonna use this as part of their healing. Really, really difficult. But here's what you do if you have a loved one who's projecting all their shit onto you. Of course, same with any kind of gaslighting, reality check and ground yourself. Um, that feeling of confusion, of like, what the fuck are they talking about? I didn't do that. That's like that doesn't seem like me. Um, I I'm really at I have a really hard time with that because I have such a bad memory. But I find it really helpful, first of all, that a lot of my communications with people are on, you know, text or or email, so I could kind of see. But also sometimes I get to reality check with someone who knows me well. Um, so I you know, turn to someone else, like, is did I say that? Am I that kind of person? Like, what's going on? Like, look at this text message with me, right? Of course that's bias because you know, those people are going to take your side, and but at least it could reality check that, like, hmm, this is not this is out of character, or I don't have a memory of it. And that's my reality. Maybe I did do that horrible thing, but I don't remember it, and that's not how I saw the like my actions. I definitely didn't intend it. So it's just just having that sense of reality in your mind of who you are, it's really helpful. This part's really tricky. I think the gaslighting comes in when if like two people, you're in a you're in this kind of conflict with someone with who are, you know, who tend to project onto you. And everyone is like you're treating this projection like a hot potato. Like, you're the monster. No, you're the monster, no, you're the like no one wants to own it, no one wants to be the problem. So you just keep blaming each other and citing evidence for why you are actually the one at fault. No, you are the actual one at fault. You are the one who doesn't care, blah, blah, blah, right? Get out of that. Get out of like, who is the sole owner of this terribleness, this part that no one wants to accept. And you could say, okay, let's just all own a piece of it. Right? Even if there's grounding in truth, in a kernel of truth, own that part. Take accountability for what's true. Right? I I did try this with my mom. I could have, I could have done this stronger. And I, you know, but yeah, in those moments, I was so tapped out and so like frustrated. I was just like, yeah, maybe, maybe it is your stimulating energy or effect on people that is doing this to Jackson and making this all complicated. Like, yeah. I don't think I'm abusive, but own that part, right? And check in with yourself and check in with other people who know you, right? And eventually you might get better at doing this. Not internalizing that projection. Don't internalize the blame. Remember that projection is about them, not you. You might have given a little like seed of something, and they just like let it bloom, but projection is really something that they're struggling with. There's a part of them that they don't want, and they're just trying to give it to you. They're trying to do the re-gifting where they got a wedding gift, like, you know, the bread maker that they don't want, so they're trying to shove it onto you, be like, you know, that's yours now. What you shouldn't do in that moment is play the game of blame there. Right? Don't be like, oh, I am the monster, I am the worst. Maybe they're right, or it's all their fault, right? Don't go, it's all you or it's all me. Think to yourself, this is a projection. These accusations, insecurities, are more about what they're struggling with inside. And maybe there's part of it that's true about me, but it's not my whole character. It's not who I am. Um and then please don't do this. I I'm so at fall to doing this. It's horrible. But I quickly go into trying to defend myself, right? Trying to be like, wait, no, I'm I'm not, I didn't mean anything bad by it. I I I was talking about, I over-explain. Don't over-explain. When someone is projecting all their insecurities onto you, and you're like, whoa, that's not what happened, don't go into the over-explanation like I do. Don't give all the evidence for why you would never be that kind of person, or the insecurities are not true, or I know it's so tempting, and I, as I say this, and I'm able to do this so well as a clinician, but in my personal life, when my mom says, like, you hate me, you're the monster, and you're the yeah, you told me you can never, I can never see my grandson again. I'm like, wait, no, let me show you all of the evidence, and maybe if I show you my reality, then it will solve the problem and you'll be happy because this horrible monster that you're accusing me of isn't real. You're welcome, right? Don't do that. And it's so hard to do when someone is accusing you of being a like someone who's a villain that's out of your character, right? When you feel like that character attack, of course you want to defend yourself. Of course you get angry. But don't do what I do and go into all the defenses and the counter evidence against what they're saying. Because it's not an it's not a rational conversation, right? They are feeling, they're feeling such deep levels of shame that they can't even feel the shame, right? They they're like, oh, I hate this part of myself so much. I'm gonna push it onto you, and I'm I can't even tolerate what it what it would mean if I owned part of it. That's such an emotional response. They're in a primitive defense mode. Your logic is not gonna work. Okay. So don't get into the back and forth. You could validate the emotion behind it. You could say, I totally get that you feel judged, that you feel hurt. Um I'll admit I did, I did judge in that moment. However, I get that you're feeling really hurt and it's not my intention. That's not how I remember it. I just I'm I'm here and I love you. Or you could choose to walk away, be like, you know what? It doesn't seem like this is my struggle. I'm here if you want to talk about, you know, struggling with these kind of feelings, but I I really, I really am not gonna sit here and be blamed for being a monster, right? As I'm saying this, I'm already like, but what if they are a monster? You know, so it it it is really tough, but how about this? You're not gonna get anywhere in a conversation by trying to figure out who's the monster, who's the problem. A lot of people get into these fights by being like, there is a there's someone who is at fault and they're the all bad, and we're gonna figure out who which one it is. You're not gonna win. You might have done something that you regret, the other person does something that regret. So try not to do a hot potato of trying to figure out who to blame and be like, all right, let's own our parts, and then let's figure out a way forward. But when you're seeing the projection, think to yourself, this is a projection. I'm not gonna take this as a sign of who I am as a person. I'm gonna validate the emotion, and I'm gonna tell them I care, love, or whatever, and I'm gonna walk away because it's not gonna be healthy to allow them to project all over you. It's not gonna, it's not gonna make them feel better. I mean, it does in the short term, but in the long term, uh, it doesn't really help because they keep doing it, right? And I'll also say don't do the mistake I I I still do, which is holding out hope that they'll accept that part of them that they won't accept when someone is committed to projecting their insecurities or the parts of themselves they hate onto you, it's so painful and it it just like throws you into a state of uh existential and identity crisis. Like, am I this monster? And you might crave this healing fantasy, you might crave their accountability for them to finally say, Yeah, actually, I accuse you of being an abuser, but I can be abusive sometimes too. I can be really hurtful. Oh, even if I say that out loud, it just like imagining someone like taking accountability for that is so relieving and would just allow two people just to be individuals and not like all good or all bad, like the the villain and the protagonist, right? So don't do what I do and don't hold on to the dream that they'll finally change and accept that part of themselves. There's nothing you can do to push that to happen. They gotta slowly learn to tolerate the shame, tolerate the parts of themselves that they don't like, and become a whole person. Grow up. And you can't force that. You can't force that in them. All you can do is neutrally be like, okay, this is a projection. I love you, I care about you, but I'm not taking this on. I'm not let a therapist do that. Let the therapist try to usher the projection back into their into their identity and sense of self. And most importantly, be self-compassionate. If you are the type of person who, like me, works with or is close to a lot of people who tend to project, it can really shake everything you think about yourself and it can really wear down your self-esteem. And you know, there's even this thing called projective identification where if they see that you're a monster, they'll sometimes act in ways that will bring that out of you. Right? I'm my worst self around people who tend to project that onto me. Eventually I do snap back and I do say mean things, and I can be aggressive in ways that I I feel bad about. But then I think, you know what? I'm not that's not all of me. I have many relationships where we respect each other, we're kind, we communicate, they see me as a good person, I see them as a good person. Of course, we all have flaws. And I'm not going to let this person's insecurities projected onto me become my whole being. So easier said than done. But don't let it gaslight you. So if you are noticing you're in this kind of relationship, check out resources, educate yourself, learn about projection, um, learn about splitting, and read books like Loving Someone with BPD by Sherry Manning. Um, and this is also all the skills that we teach in Cool A Mind, our program and community for loved ones of people with mental illness or addiction. These are the kind of skills that we teach: how to recognize when someone's projecting at you, how to strengthen your sense of self, and how to stay grounded in your reality when you love someone who is just breaking themselves into little pieces and throwing the bad parts at you. So thank you so much for listening tonight. If you have any questions or requests, or just want to tell me your story, click send me a text at the top of the show notes. And please leave a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this with a friend who really needs to hear that they are not the bad guy. 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