Maintaining healthy boundaries is crucial to ensuring your overall well-being.

With so many things demanding our attention – responsibilities, work, people; being firm in establishing boundaries is key to protecting your peace. 

Life can get quite overwhelming, therefore, it’s important to identify the people in your life that you need to set strong boundaries with, according to psychology.

And today, we’ll delve into 6 types of such people you should watch out for.

1) Emotional manipulators

First up on the list are emotional manipulators.

These people thrive on control and will do anything to get what they want, regardless of whether you like it or not.

They see ‘no’ as a suggestion, and will try all sorts of ways to manipulate you into giving in to their requests. According to psychology, these people will resort to:

• Undermining your confidence and self-esteem
• Lying
• Criticizing 
• Guilt-tripping 
• Embarrassing or bullying you

Essentially, their goal is to show that their preferences, thoughts, and beliefs are far superior to yours.

The thing about emotional manipulators is that they won’t be overt in manipulating you – their tactics are subtle, and they’re patient. If you do not maintain strong boundaries, they will eventually wear you down.

2) Overly dependent/clingy people

I’m pretty sure all of us want to be nice people, but sometimes being too nice can backfire on us – especially when we’re interacting with an overly dependent or clingy friend.

They constantly need attention and validation. They will bombard you with questions, asking for your opinions on whatever insecurities they have – whether it is their looks, their thought processes, their performance at work, or even simple, everyday decisions.

Somehow, they’re unable to function independently and will be overly anxious if they find themselves without a pillar of support. Does this sound familiar?

If it does, it’s high time to avoid this friend of yours and maintain strong boundaries.

You may have already felt the effects of this, but overly dependent people can cause you to fatigue and feel overwhelmed, especially with the constant need to shower them with attention. 

According to psychology, try not to ‘fix’ these people because it’s a waste of time and energy. They’re not interested in changing the way they are, and are in fact, using you to their advantage to serve their need for validation.

These people are also known to drain your energy, which brings me to my next point.

3) People who drain your energy

Life is already tough enough with us having to spend time and effort on our jobs and responsibilities.

The last thing we’d want is to hang out with people who further deplete our already limited store of energy.

Imagine having a demanding job but also having to endure interactions with colleagues who are so incredibly negative it drains your energy just by listening to their conversations.

Or, going home to a partner who doesn’t do anything but complain and criticize. 

You’d try to avoid these people because you’ll find yourself emotionally exhausted at the end of the day, with no energy left to spend time on yourself.

Therefore, try to steer clear of these people. 

4) Narcissists

This group of people is potentially the most tiring to interact with. 

Not only are they extremely manipulative, they believe that whatever they do is right, and everyone else is wrong.

Even when they’ve clearly made a mistake, they will blame everyone else apart from themselves and will not take responsibility for their actions.

If you’ve had the misfortune of being friends with a narcissist, you’d know that while they’re not the most pleasant people to be around, they have the skill of enticing you to maintain this friendship with them.

Perhaps they’ve offended you and you decide to distance yourself away from them. Somehow, they’ll find their way back into your life through their charisma and ability to manipulate.

When it comes to narcissists, sometimes communicating your boundaries isn’t enough because they may not see or hear reason. According to psychology, you may experience pushback as they try to defend themselves. 

In this scenario, it’s good to ignore them for a certain period of time for you to take a break from them. 

Moreover, if you’ve been emotionally attached to them for some time, this break will allow you to separate your thoughts and beliefs from theirs, enabling you to develop thought processes that are inherently yours – without their influence. 

You’ll just have to be a lot stronger in establishing boundaries for this group of people because they’re skilled manipulators and will try to return to your life to take advantage of you.

5) Chronic complainers

Have you ever met people who simply have nothing good to say about anything?

When they open their mouths, you can be sure they’re going to complain about their work, boss, colleague, spouse, family member – and everything under the sun.

Sure, there will be times when things get overwhelming and there’s a need for us to vent our frustrations.

But there’s a difference between that and finding every opportunity to find something negative to talk about.

The thing is, the more you listen to them complain, the more your worldview will be influenced into viewing the world in a negative light.

Therefore to avoid this, establish strong boundaries by choosing to remove yourself from such conversations. 

6) Gossipers

Then there are those who love drama – especially other people’s drama.

So much so that they feel the need to share every juicy detail with the people around them. Regardless of whether the stories are true or not.

Sure, this may be entertaining at the start, but if they do this to others, what’s stopping them from doing this to you as well?

They thrive on exchanging bits of rumors and drama – sometimes, to the point of creating drama for the fun of it, ignoring the fact that whatever they’re sharing can potentially ruin the reputation of the person in question.

This creates a toxic atmosphere especially in the workplace, because there’s no trust between colleagues. 

Staying away from gossipers may likely distance yourself from drama, but also protect your integrity.

When a piece of information finds its way to you, exercise restraint and let it die with you.

Concluding thoughts

You may find it difficult to set boundaries at the start but remember that you’re doing this for yourself. After a while, it’ll get much easier. 

Not only will you protect your peace, but you’ll also help create a respectful and harmonious environment for the community you’re placed in – whether it’s among your friends or at the workplace.