•   Another thing that will be done if it's toxic love-bombing is mirroring the person. They will mirror everything that you say, and so when you're getting to know someone and you're talking about your commonalities and your interest, it'll seem like you have every single thing in common. And a lot of times, you will have things in common, but if every single thing is the same, it may seem like, Wait a minute, how is this even possible? Your favorite food is their favorite food, your favorite music, is their favorite music, and that kind of thing. In the beginning, it's kind of important not to just divulge every that you know about yourself to the person, you need to know them a little bit before you tell them everything, because then they can just mirror everything back to you, and that's another tactic. (04:15)

•   And then Claims of being a soulmate after a very short amount of time and neediness, not respecting boundaries. If you say you're going to go out with your friends, you're going to do something different, they're going to have to maybe entertain themselves or find something else to do, and they're not okay with that, it's just not going over... Well, that's another sign. And then kind of an uneasy feeling within yourself, just not feeling like this is right, you need to trust that sort intuition. They also might have an issue with gifts over the top, over the top gestures. Dozens of bouquets of flowers instead of one, or expensive plane tickets for a vacation. Or not taking no for an answer when you're like, No, no, no, I don't think that's appropriate. Or maybe an expensive piece of jewelry or a watch or something like that, they like to gain control and kind of create a sense of obligation on your part. (05:33)

•   So individually, those phrases on their own, they're not necessarily harmful, but all together, all of these things together could be a big sign that you're being love-bombed. So it's something to pay attention to because it could be a sign of toxicity. This doesn't last forever. This phase of the relationship, if you stay less until they begin to value you, which is another stage of it, it actually ends up in abusive situation, which is at least emotional abuse. You can tell if they're love bombing you, if they're just doing a lot of these things all together, and it's really about control and creating dependency. (6:54)

•   If you're feeling like you might be being love-bombed, you can try to set clear and healthy boundaries, maybe refuse the gifts, limit the time you spend together, and just respond to the texts at your own pace, and then kind of communicate that you don't want to rush into things and then see how they respond. If they respond in a healthy way, then that's a really good sign because sometimes it's not necessarily that, but you just want to make sure that you are doing your due diligence, because it could go south really quickly if that indeed is what's happening. So I know that it doesn't always happen like it does in the movies, in fact, very, very rarely, and if it does or if it is, it could be a sign of toxicity. (08:37)

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