Stop allowing your narcissist to hang you out to dry and go no contact like a boss.
Dear Narcissist Problems,
Hi there, came across your page, and wondering if I can ask for advice? Thanks in advance it’s a really long story, short version I think my ex is a narcissist and he's still in my life. I've done the usual google to check but wanted to ask someone.
A few of the things he's done - I met him at work in 2010, he told me he was divorced/ separated, he lied. He got me sacked from my job and made me have an abortion. I would end it, and he'd contact me, he accused me then after 3 years of harassment and then took me to court, he even put me on a two year restraining order. My dog died in January 2016, he then messages me, knew about the dog dying and also knew about personal things in my life, as I'd gone back to college. He flirted, saying it's good to see me, how he's missed me and that he wants his friend back. He also said if he wasn't married I should know he'd be with me.
He manages to twist things, if it's his fault somehow it's mine, like with court I asked why did he take it that far? His answer “you were being a dick, so I was". Sorry probably too much information but I'd appreciate any advice I don't know if you can help at all? Or if it applies to what this page is about.
Some examples: I'd ask to meet up, email or phone to talk. Because in the past he'd message me out of blue, after he'd ended the relationship, he created other accounts online to contact me, so I shouldn't of but I did the same to try to talk to him as I loved him. I was a bit of a pain. And I'd message I'd been told not to but didn't think that would happen. So much happened it's hard to explain but I'll try my best. The police weren't interested in my side. He came across as the victim to them. When I'm sure I am. Even officials at court said to be careful because it sounds like he's got it in for you. Also during the order, he would follow me online, create an account and show up.
Sincerely,
Dear “Hot Mess”,
Oh you definitely made it to the right place! There is no doubting that any longer. This is your official validation that you are now amongst others who know exactly what you are going through and I can’t think of a better place for you to be at the moment. Please join our support group and you will quickly realize exactly how not alone you are right now (and in the right place)!
The first thing I need to say is get this person out of your life like yesterday! He is an abuser! He might not be hitting you but he is emotionally, psychologically, coercively, and reproductively abusing you. A person doesn’t need to hit you in order for them to be an abuser. There is a cycle to all this madness when dating a narcissist and it goes like this: idealize (love bomb or reel you back in), devalue (tear you down), then discard (throw you away again). This guy has this cycle down to a T.
Think of all the pain and heartache and grief this person has caused you. Do you really want to deal with this for another five years? This is what you need to do immediately which is to go NO CONTACT. Every time he ignores you for months (silent treatment/discard) and then finally sends a message and you reply is a HUGE power surge for him.
He doesn’t miss you or care about you, it is ALL ABOUT HIM and the way it makes him feel knowing that he has torn your life apart and still you have left a space for him. “Friends” don’t get restraining orders against each other. “Friends” don’t force each other to have abortions. Our “Friends” are not married and secretly having affairs with us. He likes the feeling of knowing that he OWNS YOU and nothing more.
I don’t want to sound harsh but I really need to get this point across to you. I talk to men and women every single day who have wasted YEARS and DECADES of their lives with partners just like the one you described above. Please don’t do this to yourself. You are going to need therapy! A normal friendship does not result in the need for intensive therapy focused on treating trauma.
First thing is first: Document the Crazy
I don’t know how long the restraining order was for but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This man is saving EVERY single interaction you have with him and he now has the power to have you arrested because you are in violation of a court order. So what you need to be doing is documenting each time he contacts you.
Let him know that you are not ok with him contacting you. Report to the police each time he contacts you. And take his ass back to court and get your own restraining order. You know what…. I’m going to throw in a link so you can ask a lawyer any questions you have regarding this case free and anonymously and you can go from there.
This narcissistic jacka&& (excuse my language, so sorry, I could change that word but honestly there is no other word to describe him at the moment) is ALSO going to use the documentation of your interactions to further coerce and blackmail you. If you ever threaten or he thinks you might try to contact the police or his wife he will use this “evidence” to make you shut up with the threat of jail time. YOU DON’T NEED THIS OR DESERVE THIS. As I stated above you need to go full blown NO CONTACT with this narcissistic loser and I’ll explain exactly what that means.
GOING NO CONTACT WITH A NARCISSIST IS A PROCESS
Some people decide upon going low contact which is to have minimal interactions with a narcissist as needed. These situations usually involve close family members or when you share children. Usually when one starts the process of low contact they quickly realize that no contact is required because narcissists do not respect and never will respect your boundaries. Low contact is usually maintained as the result of a court order that forces parents to interact in regards to their children.
In this situation, you need to go full blown no contact. What this means is that this is it. Keeping this person in your life will only result in more harm and destruction and you need to sever all ties completely. Once you go No Contact there is no going back. There will not be one last phone call or one last chance for them to explain things. They have proven themselves to be a toxic abuser. You have tried to fix the relationship numerous times and nothing has ever changed. You have officially reached the end of your rope. You have no option but to cut them out of your life because the abuse will never end.
Some people, typically abusers, love to point out that their victim has been giving them the “silent treatment” when they go No Contact. So let’s take a moment to clarify that No Contact is NOT the silent treatment. These are two completely different things and a distinction should be made at this point to clear up any confusion.
The silent treatment is a tactic that abusers use to manipulate their victims into compliance. An abuser will give their victim the silent treatment in order to control the behavior of the victim. In your situation the silent treatment may have been utilized in order to get you to agree with having an abortion.
If you wanted to keep the baby and he did not he might have ignored you until you changed your mind. This is also known as coercion and reproductive abuse…. Which are two different types of abuse you should look up because I’m trying to get to a point but there is so much crazy to a narcissist that it gets a little difficult! (So note to self: look up Coercive control and reproductive abuse after I read this). Ignoring a person until they agree with you is not No Contact, it is the silent treatment.
GO NO CONTACT WITH A NARCISSIST LIKE A BOSS IN TEN STEPS
1. ACCEPT THAT THIS IS THE END
You have accepted that your abuser will not change and have exhausted all avenues to maintain and repair the relationship. They have consistently shown you that they have no desire to change and they also probably see nothing wrong with their behavior which only reinforces your need to protect yourself.
There is ZERO manipulation of another person involved with going No Contact. We do not go no contact hoping for them to change. We go no contact with the acceptance that they will never change and we need to protect ourselves from further abuse. With that said we can now get into what it will take to go no contact.
2. ASSESS THE LEVEL OF CRAZY YOU ARE DEALING WITH
Only you can gage how manipulative your narcissist can be. Close your eyes and picture what lengths they will go to in order to contact you and manipulate you back into the relationship. Think of the most outrageous stunt you think they would pull. Think of who they might contact trying to find you.
Think of all the crazy that will take place when they are in a rage at your decision to never speak to them again. Has your narcissist been known to get violent while in a narcissistic rage? How vindictive are they or have you seen them be? Have you ever seen them or have they ever told you that they destroyed someone’s property before? Do they break things when angry like throwing dishes against walls when in an argument? Vandalize property as payback when wronged in the past? Do they stalk? Have you ever seen them entice others into violence on their behalf? If you know or your gut is telling you that these things are possible then follow that natural instinct because whatever you think they are capable of doing they will.
Now multiply your expectations of manipulation, rage, revenge, stalking, and destruction of property by 1000. You can NEVER truly gage the level of crazy that will take place but I can guarantee you that it will reach a level that not even you could have imagined.
3. MAKE A LIST OF WAYS THEY MIGHT CONTACT YOU
This really is like going to war and what you are fighting for is your freedom and sanity. List all of your social media accounts, emails, phone numbers, mutual friends, co-workers, neighbors, and on and on and on.
Really spend some time thinking about people that should be on this list. This could include your best friend little Kimmie from first grade you told him about one time or your Aunt Florence 3 states away.
Also make a list of “safe” people. These would be people that you know you can trust. They don’t know your narcissist and your narcissist has no way of knowing who they are. These are people that the narcissist will not be able to manipulate in any way, shape, or form into betraying you or telling the narcissist where you are. These people will also not be able to bring back little pieces of information that the narcissist wants them to tell you. Inform a few of your “safe” people, or even just one, of what you are dealing with. Don’t be embarrassed.
This is not the same as recruiting flying monkeys either where others are used to punish and harass on the behalf of a narcissist. This is so you have people who will check on you to make sure you are still with us on planet earth. These are also people who you can trust with your email and social media account information because you might need them to log into accounts later on in case you are harassed so they can print the documentation of the harassment so you don’t read everything and then start replying. If you can’t trust yourself to not respond to online contact then you need someone to do this for you.
No contact is the end. There is no need to continue defending yourself against their verbal attacks. There is also no need to continuously get hurt by all the awful things they are telling you in email or the mind games they are playing with their fake profiles.
4. BE PREPARED FOR THE LONG HAUL
Go buy a flash drive to save anything from online like pictures or videos and documents. A blank notebook to document anything that might happen as well as a quick summary of what you did everyday, and a nice plastic storage folder/binder.
You can also find some really inexpensive security cameras on Amazon, I’ll link a couple in. Well... I found one that was kind of expensive but its a freakin water bottle........ I'm not saying to buy spy cam's to stalk anyone but you do need to protect yourself. When you go no contact expect this person to rise to an entirely new level of crazy and this might involve the destruction of your property or breaking into your property. If its possible have a camera pointed at the front and back of your home.
Some of the cameras below have night vision.... epic. Oh and one allows you to view remotely. Spy glasses? Seriously, I wish I had glasses that recorded every conversation with my narcissist! "Oh really, that never happened??? Well lets see what the footage from our conversation on April 2nd 2010 at approximately 5:47 p.m. was really all about shall we??"...... Let me just say if nobody has noticed I'm pretty serious about my legal documentation only because if I had been documenting all along I wouldn't have been blindsided in the first place so DOCUMENT THE CRAZY!!!
You can also find some really inexpensive security cameras on Amazon, I’ll link a couple in. Well... I found one that was kind of expensive but its a freakin water bottle........ I'm not saying to buy spy cam's to stalk anyone but you do need to protect yourself. When you go no contact expect this person to rise to an entirely new level of crazy and this might involve the destruction of your property or breaking into your property. If its possible have a camera pointed at the front and back of your home.
Some of the cameras below have night vision.... epic. Oh and one allows you to view remotely. Spy glasses? Seriously, I wish I had glasses that recorded every conversation with my narcissist! "Oh really, that never happened??? Well lets see what the footage from our conversation on April 2nd 2010 at approximately 5:47 p.m. was really all about shall we??"...... Let me just say if nobody has noticed I'm pretty serious about my legal documentation only because if I had been documenting all along I wouldn't have been blindsided in the first place so DOCUMENT THE CRAZY!!!
5. TELL THEM YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO CONTACT YOU
Make it known that you want no further contact with them and make sure its in writing. This doesn’t mean take an ad out in the local paper. What this means is that they are aware (in the eyes of the law) that they should not be contacting you after this point. Any future contact is unwanted. This point of no contact will usually happen when they show up to your home or job after you have ignored some calls and emails. They will begin to push your boundaries at this point to see what you will let them get away with. Do Not Budge.
The only and final reaction they should get from you at this point is a written cease and desist statement. Most people would say “oh god honey just ignore them and be done with it”. I don’t suggest taking this route for one reason, documentation for court. You want to have it in writing either through an email that sends an alert when it’s been opened or through certified mail STAMPED WITH A DATE AND TIME and possible signature upon certified delivery from the post office.
Why? Because you’re probably going to need a restraining order. If you don’t have documentation that you didn’t want to be contacted then how would the narcissist know? They will just lie and say they had no idea. Further, in most states now if there is a restraining order both parties are in violation of that order if contact is initiated. Document those violations!
Keep in mind, he isn’t used to you saying “no” and he has already taken you to court once. Do WHATEVER you need to do but get it documented that you don’t want any contact and make it clear that you WILL follow through with legal action if he does not desist from any future contact. You should be calling the police every time that order is violated by him because I promise you he will try to turn that around as if you were contacting him if he can, I’ll talk about how in step 7. This is useful information for men and women because narcissists are well known to come in both genders.
6. BLOCK THE NARCISSIST ONLINE
You are going to have some things to take care of. Take out the list you made in step 2 and go through all of your online accounts and block all of his accounts so that it is impossible for him to contact you online. If need be make new accounts for everything and DO NOT SHARE THESE ACCOUNTS WITH ANYONE THE NARCISSIST KNOWS.
Further, manage your privacy settings on ALL social media so that they can’t spy on you. Make sure if you join a support group online that you are either able to use an alias or that the settings are “secret”. I honestly suggest making alias profiles in any situation where you are talking about your life online.
If a social media platform prohibits the use of an alias then don’t talk about your life at all on that account. Don’t share your location, pictures, people you hang out with, where you work, or anything else you’re your abuser will be able to use to locate you with. Facebook says they care about harassment but they are light years behind narcissistic stalkers and their policies do zilch to protect victims of stalking.
Make sure to delete anyone on your friend’s lists that you don’t know because they just might be one of his fake accounts. I personally did not use my name on social media for 4 years after going no contact. I made an account about six months ago with my name to test the waters. I have had to verify my identity to Facebook over 10 times already. Every time I log into my account and have any activity I get reported. Every. Single. Time.
Make new email accounts and give a trusted friend access to your email that he contacts you through so your friend can check for messages. When he creates fake accounts to contact you have your friend print the emails, comments, and other online attempts to contact you. Take out your nice plastic binder and add each new encounter and keep these records in a safe place.
7. CHANGE YOUR PHONE NUMBER
This might seem a bit excessive but trust me on this one. You don’t want them to have your phone number and probably not for the reason you are thinking. Anyone with a smartphone can officially send text messages to cell phones and home phones these days. I will only cite one good reason to change your number as soon as you read this.
There is this nifty new app called a caller ID Spoofer. You need to protect yourself from the very real possibility that your narcissist will use this app to send themselves text messages from your phone number and then use those text messages to further harass you with court and police action. Please don’t end up in jail because you didn’t change your number.
All they have to do is set the app up to send a text from your phone number to theirs with a statement like “When I see you I’m gonna beat the ever living crap out of you and torture you for weeks before finally finishing you off with my bare hands” and BAM! Just like that you might go to prison for not only violating your restraining order but threatening their life! Trust me, this just happened to someone in our support group and thank god they changed their phone number beforehand and the narcissist got caught!
8. MOVE
Get as far away from them as possible and don’t look back. If and when you move DO NOT tell ANYONE your new address. Get a P.O. Box and use that for utilities, driver’s license, and anything else. You don’t want to have to deal with this all over again in 2 years after these vulture companies start selling your contact information and you end up on one of those sites where you can look up anyone’s address on public record. Move as far away as humanly possible. If it’s possible to leave the planet and live on Mars at this point do it! Narcissists will NEVER stop hunting you down.
9. CUT OUT ANYONE NOT 110% SUPPORTIVE OF YOUR CHOICE TO GO NO CONTACT
You really need to treat this as you would a cancerous tumor. You wouldn't cut half a tumor out and if you remove cancer you can't leave pieces of it behind or it will only grow back. This is alot like removing narcissists and flying monkeys from our lives. You gotta get it all or the disease will remain and slowly fester into your demise.
This is an especially difficult decision for those who need to go No Contact with abusive family members. If you need to go No Contact with a parent then you also need to accept and grieve the loss of many other family members who perpetuate, instigate, or condone the abuse. Many survivors of abuse find themselves utterly alone. Narcissistic abuse destroys generations of family members. Here is the thing though, if the abuse doesn’t stop with you, then where will it? With your children and you? With you and your grandchildren?
Narcissistic personality disordered children grow into parents and then grow into grandparents. I know I’m going to hear from the one “recovering” narcissist out there of how I should have compassion because narcissists are people too and they are capable of change but here is the thing; they aren’t. There is no known cure for this personality disorder. Many of those who suffer from it will never even be diagnosed because they will never see themselves as a problem. Do I feel bad for telling thousands of abuse victims that their narcissist will never change? Hell No. Go find another website for your cause if you’re here to convince people that anyone with a cluster B will change so I should have compassion. I’ve had 33 years of compassion….. I’m all compassioned out when it comes to narcissistic abusers. Sorry not Sorry.
Moving along, you will find that people might try to shame you, guilt you, and manipulate you back into contact with the narcissist. They will pretend to care about you. Ask you questions about your life. They want all the details. Here is another thing, they don’t give a shit about you they just want something juicy to tell your narcissistic abuser right after they hang up with you. They are also probably recording the conversation. Cut anyone who is not 100% for you out of your life. You’ve got a lot of work to do with yourself and you don’t need any more anchors holding you under water. You’re damaged enough and now it’s time to heal.
10. DO NOT BREAK NO CONTACT! STAY THE COURSE!
A narcissist will try every trick in the book to get you back into the cycle of abuse. They will say someone died when they haven’t. Hell…. One lady had a narcissist fake his own death and then he made up family members to call and harass her to “release” the body. She didn’t find out it was a lie until going to the coroner’s office. Anyway, they will try to get your pity, they will try to intimidate you, they will try to send others to sway you, and then when everything fails they will get downright destructive. If you do disappear, mark my words, they are sitting there waiting for some sign of you. Relentlessly googling your name for the hopes some new information will pop on Google. They will even hire private investigators to find you. Whatever they attempt DO NOT BREAK NO CONTACT!
I won’t promise this will be an easy journey but I promise that it will be worth it if you do maintain No Contact. You need to do you. You need to heal you. You need to get into therapy specialized for those who have experienced trauma. Most importantly you need to maintain no contact. Take a moment to realize that the narcissist will never stop. By going no contact with your abuser you have become a lifelong enemy. They will stop at nothing to seek and destroy. They will use numerous methods to get you to engage with them again.
They will even pretend to forgive you so that they can reel you back in. Once you feel confident that they might have possibly changed. They finally realized the abuse they had caused. When you finally feel at peace, loved, an appreciated. When you finally feel like this is a real relationship, a real bond, and all hurdles were overcome they will strike down with a vengeance like the wrath of Satan. Narcissists do not forgive. Narcissists do not forget. Narcissists do not change.
I really did not mean to write a book here but this is serious and there is so much more that I wanted to get into especially regarding the abortion. It doesn’t matter if he is a narcissist or not because one thing is clear to me. This person is an abuser and has no sense of boundaries even when it comes to your body. What’s his is his and what is yours is his and that really takes a pair of brass ones if you get my drift. I really hope that this helped you somewhat. Please start looking for a therapist that specializes in trauma and take these steps to protect yourself mentally and legally. I really wish you luck because it is a really long road to heal after narcissistic abuse.
Regards,
Narcissist Problems