Neighbours. Unless you operate a sheep farm in Australia or man a lighthouse, chances are you will have some neighbours. For the most part, people may not know who their neighbours are, particularly in busy multi-occupancy properties in cities or they recognise them, but the interaction is a little more than a “Hello” and “Turned out nice again” as they pass in the street, lobby or lift. For others a neighbour has become a long-standing friend, a person who is spoken to every day, who is always welcome to pop in or who a conversation is engaged with over the garden fence. There is never a problem borrowing a cup of sugar, watching the cat whilst on holiday or taking in a parcel.

From the unknown, to the amiable to the hearty friendship, neighbours proliferate across the planet and largely there is no issue. However, there then comes the individual (although sometimes it is a couple or family) who earns the epitaph of neighbour from hell. This individual makes life for their neighbours or perhaps one in particular, irritating, annoying or complete misery. I daresay you have your own experiences of this, either something that has happened to you or you have witnessed or heard about having happened to a friend or family member. The variety of behaviours engaged in by this inconsiderate and unpleasant individual is endless but here are some examples:-

1. The neighbour who plays loud music every night until the early hours of the morning.
2. The neighbour who complains if one of your visitors parks their car outside his house even if it is not blocking the driveway.
3. A neighbour whose garden and house is an eyesore and nothing is done to keep it tidy or well-maintained.
4. A neighbour who commences a boundary dispute because the new ornament atop the pillar at the end of your drive appears to encroach one inch onto his land.
5. The neighbour who kicks over your wheelie bins because they say you are leaving them on their property.
6. The neighbour who erects a huge fence blocking out your natural light.
7. The neighbour who leaves mountains of rubbish lying around, attracting rodents and causing a stench.
8. The neighbour who has an animal which causes a problem through noise, droppings, biting or damaging property.
9. The neighbour who will not return footballs and the like which go over the fence.
10. The neighbour who repeatedly complains about you and your family over non-existent or trivial complaints.
11. Sending anonymous notes to other neighbours suggesting that the targeted neighbour is a paedophile or serial womaniser.
12. The neighbour who always borrows possessions and never returns them

It may be the case that a particular neighbour engages in one or several of these anti-social behaviours. It may be the case that a neighbour engages in a vendetta whereby the behaviour goes beyond that of being anti-social and amounts to a concerted campaign of harassment, criminal damage and even criminal assault. This unpleasant neighbour may embark on a series of behaviours such as poisoning animals, pouring weed killer on flowers or ripping up the garden turf, posting faeces through the letterbox, smashing windows, erecting barriers to prevent access and physically attacking the long-suffering neighbour.

Many people are either unwilling or unable to move away from this particularly problematic person. Naturally, the innocent party will try to reason with the difficult neighbour, trying to reach a compromise over parking arrangements, or asking the neighbour to show more consideration with regards to making noise at night. The innocent neighbour recognises that the behaviour is anti-social but is unable to understand :-

1. Why the neighbour behaves like this in the first place;
2. Fails to recognise he or she is doing anything wrong;
3. Refuses to change their behaviours;
4. Get so worked-up over trivial matters; and
5. Increases the aggravation when reasonably approached.

The innocent person is completely at a loss as to what they could have done to invite such treatment. They are unable to grasp why it cannot be sorted out. They may escalate matters by making a complaint to the relevant authority about noise, refuse and behaviour, involve the police or commence their own legal proceedings to resolve a boundary dispute where significant money is spent arguing about a strip of land three inches in width and makes no real difference to anybody. Even such escalation fails to cause the nasty neighbour to correct their ways, often resulting in the unpleasant behaviour continuing or if the neighbour complies with a court order or notice, they engage in an alternative form of nuisance and harassment, leaving the innocent party exasperated. They cannot understand why this person behaves this way.

The reason they behave like this is that in all likelihood this is a nasty neighbour narcissist.

Now, many of our kind have pleasant interactions with our neighbours. The neighbour, either a tertiary or secondary (sometimes intimate) source is treated well enough because

a. Positive fuel is provided on an intermittent basis so there is no risk of that fuel going stale or the narcissist shifting stance owing to a reduction in quantity or frequency;

b. Façade management is key. It is often important to the narcissist that they are regarded as a pleasant person, well-regarded in the community etc by their neighbours and therefore it pays to remain courteous and pleasant to them as part of the façade;

c. Neighbours may form part of the narcissist’s coterie;

d. The neighbours form the contrast (through façade and coterie) compared to the treatment of the IPPS.

Accordingly, it usually suits the narcissist to have convivial relations with neighbours.

Yet, when problems arise in the manner described above, it will invariably be a narcissist who is generating the nasty behaviour and prolonging the campaign of harassment. Why is this?

1. The sense of entitlement. The narcissist is entitled to sleep without your noisy kids making a racket even though it is a family neighbourhood, the middle of the afternoon and the school holidays. The narcissist can park his car blocking your drive if he wishes. He does not have to remove the refuse just because you ask. If he wants to park a large van so it blocks your light, he can do that. Those footballs which keep landing in his garden belong to him now and in fact, how dare your offspring invade his territory.
2. No boundary recognition. In some instances this actually becomes literal when the narcissist builds an extension to the property encroaching on a boundary line. Having no recognition and respect for boundaries, the narcissist neighbour will remove anything of yours if he thinks it is in the way, tell you to change the colour of your front door is she does not approve with the shade you have painted it, walk across your front lawn rather than around it because it is easier to do that and a hundred other examples.
3. No concept of accountability. This links in with the sense of entitlement. The narcissist does not have to do something just because you ask nor do they have to act just because the local authority has said as such.
4. Victim mentality. Utilising the narcissistic perspective and the Toxic Logic that prevails, each situation will be twisted around so that the innocent person is the one who will be regarded as the one who has caused the problem, the narcissist is the individual who has been put upon and badly treated.
5. Split thinking. The neighbour may well have been painted ‘white’ to begin with and then inadvertently does something which results in them being seen as ‘black’. No matter what this person does, they are always viewed as being in the wrong. For instance, the narcissist may have been hosting a party and the neighbour politely asks them to turn the music down as it is after midnight and they have young children. This offends the narcissist’s sense of entitlement and they are wounded by this request. The narcissist sees it as a demand, an order and plays the victim “all I was doing was celebrating my birthday but they had to spoil it”, fury is ignited so the music is turned up and thereafter the neighbour remains painted black and becomes a scapegoat in the neighbourhood.
6. Inability to resolve the dispute. This arises out of the differing perspectives and because the innocent person does not know what they are dealing with. They think it is enough to ask their neighbour not to keep moving their rubbish bins when they have been left out for collection and that is a reasonable request. They do not realise how this request wounds the narcissist, that their fury ignites and they lash out in order to seek fuel. They do not realise that the narcissist has different aims to them which means that resolving any issue (trivial as it seems to the innocent party) becomes impossible as the potential outcomes desired by each party are completely different (to understand more about this mentality which extends to all manner of disputes with a narcissist see Why Are The Arguments Never Resolved?
7. Why does the nasty neighbour narcissist keep on going, seemingly hell-bent on revenge over something minor such as the innocent neighbour accidentally knocking over a garden gnome? This incessant attack by the narcissist neighbour leaves the innocent party bewildered and flabbergasted. Who on earth keeps on going over such a minor matter? The answer; a narcissist. Why? One huge problem for a neighbour who has found themselves painted black by a narcissist neighbour is that they are always going to be hoovered and they will be malign. Why is this? Firstly, the Hoover Trigger ( see The Spheres of Influence ). You, as the innocent neighbour will activate a hoover trigger every single day because you enter the narcissist neighbour’s sphere of influence either because they see you or they see your house. Next, what about the Hoover Execution Criteria? Are they met ? (see It’s Hoover Time). It is usually the case that the Hoover Bar on these criteria will be low because

a. The narcissist knows fuel will be readily obtained from you, because you will be angry, upset, pleading etc;

b. The hoover will be easy to execute – the narcissist knows where you are, does not have to travel far at all to effect the hoover, has a vast array of ways of hoovering you to draw fuel, there is no romantic Formal Relationship to try to resurrect, it is a straight forward grab for fuel and the criteria are nearly always going to be met.

Accordingly, whilst the innocent party cannot fathom out why the narcissist keeps engaging in the harassment and dirty tricks, the simple fact that that person has been painted black in the eyes of the narcissist and then the Hoover Triggers are repeatedly activated and the hoovers effected means that an ongoing, sustained and repeated campaign of harassment and nastiness is waged against the individual. Reasoning with the neighbour does not work, upping the ante will not work (it is just fuel and/or allows the narcissist to smear the innocent victim) and even in some instances repeated court orders will be flouted by the narcissist who rejects the attempt to shackle their entitlement and continues their stance of being unaccountable.

8. No empathy. Lacking empathy, the narcissist neighbour feels no need to stop with their behaviour, does not appreciate the plight of the innocent neighbour or consider how it would feel if it were acted out against them in a similar way. Instead, the narcissist will turn the matter around to explain how they are the one who is hard done to and engage in all of the familiar manipulations in order to maintain the upper hand and control with their neighbour.

9. The scapegoated neighbour is used for the purposes of triangulation with other neighbours or more often the brainwashed members of the narcissist’s family so that more lines of fuel are opened up.

10. There may well have been no warning signs either because the narcissist, at first, will have presented a façade to the new neighbours and in effect been subjected to a form of ‘seduction’ by the narcissist neighbour. Those other neighbours who tried to warn you were ignored since “oh he has been ever so friendly since we moved in” – sound familiar to the romantic dynamic?

Accordingly, if you have a repeatedly anti-social, unreasonable and harassing neighbour it is highly likely you are dealing with a narcissist.

What to do?

1. Do not react so little or no fuel is provided. This may well result in an increase in malign hoovers for a while but if there is no response, eventually the lack of fuel will mean the narcissist looks elsewhere or at least reduces the frequency of the behaviour.
2. Log all incidences of anti-social behaviour with relevant authorities, install CCTV as a must so you have evidence, write down in a journal incidences of anti-social behaviour so you build a solid evidential foundation which can be used by

a The police if criminal charges are to be pursued;

b. Environmental agencies where they have jurisdiction – noise, nuisance, refuse.

c. Relevant local authority if the individual is a social tenant who could be evicted.

d. You, if you bring private court proceedings for an injunction to stop trespass, harassment, or to seek an appropriate order relating to a boundary dispute

3. Recognise that asking the neighbour narcissist is not going to succeed. Ask once, politely, in writing (so you have a record) and then recognise that you have to escalate the matter through the appropriate channel with a solid evidential basis.

4. Understand that even formal escalation will take time and with certain neighbour narcissists they will ignore court orders, flout notices and so on until enforcement action is taken by the relevant body and/or  the neighbour narcissist is sent to prison for failure to obey the court order or notice.

5. Go no contact and find a damn good estate agent to sell your home.

 

In order to manipulate you and control you, we rely on certain behaviours which cause you to act out of fear. Fear of injury, isolation, financial ruin, loss of your home or loss of your children. We also rely on your deeply embedded sense of obligation. Owing to your honesty and decency, you feel need to do certain things. Your sense of obligation is greater than normal and we exploit this in the following ways:

1. You feel responsible for us

So much of what we do is of our own doing. In fact, next to nothing is caused by you when looked at through your worldview. From our perspective you are responsible for everything. It is always your fault and we repeatedly project and blame-shift in order to condition you to feel responsible for us. You already have a sense of responsibility towards us. You feel a sense of responsibly to nearly everybody because of the fact you are caring and compassionate. This increases when it comes to us because we are your intimate partner and you believe that it is the intimate partner who ranks amongst the highest who deserve such responsibility. This increases again when you realise that we have certain flaws and you feel a need to take on responsibility for them. Indeed, combine this natural state with the conditioning that we cause and you become someone who is over-responsible for us.

2. You feel that you owe us

Once again this is a combination of the natural and the condition. You have been given such a wonderful time during the seduction period, given so much both material and emotional that you feel you do owe us. You are also a person who is polite and well-mannered and you feel a natural desire to return favours, thank people for what they do for you and a sense of paying the debt that has arisen. We also believe you owe us for everything we gave you during the seduction and accordingly you are obliged to repay us for the rest of the relationship and beyond. Combine these two elements and a powerful obligation of owing us is created which we are then able to exploit to our advantage.

3. You feel sorry for us

That natural sympathy people possess is available in spades with someone as empathic as you. You never regard someone as weak or pathetic but rather feel sorry for them. You would not regard a homeless person as a stain on society but rather feel sorry that they find themselves in such a situation and you consider how they ended up where they are what might be done about it. You realise our behaviours are abhorrent but rather than always feel angry about it, you feel sorry for us that we behave this way. You feel sorry that we cannot explain ourselves, that we lash out and behave in such a destructive fashion. Your exuding sympathy not only fuels us but it creates an obligation on your part towards us.

4. You feel guilty

Even if you know that a certain course of action is for the best, you are assailed by the guilt that you might be hurting someone, stopping them what they want to do or upsetting them in some way. Tough love is not a concept you want to embrace as the guilt at seeing someone else hurting, as a consequence of something that you have done, is too great. This sense of guilt forces you down different routes, often doing things which are not the best for you but nevertheless you feel obligated to do out of this considerable sense of guilt which looms large which someone empathic like you.

5. You feel a need to fix us

You are a problem solver. You enjoyed the Sound of Music when you were younger and you always felt that if you had been given the chance you would have solved a problem like Maria. You regard it as your role to heal and to fix. You are of the unshakeable mind-set that everybody can be fixed. Everyone can be made better and when you experience the broken elements of our machinations and manipulations you do not shirk from them. Instead, you remain in situ and work out how you can resolve them. This obligation to make things better and to heal is a central part of who you are and is readily exploited by us since we know you are unlikely to go anywhere despite how bad things are.

6. You feel it is your duty

You have a strong sense of duty. Duty to be an excellent parent, supportive friend, caring son or daughter, hard-working colleague and all round decent human being. Most of all you regard your duty to your intimate partner as one where no matter how difficult things might be you are not going to walk away. This duty is often compelled from the vows that you have taken and a strong religious undertone to your personality.

Duty is paramount and from that rises the obligation.

7. You feel a need to abide by your standards

So often the world appears to have lost its moral compass and therefore it falls to a diminishing group of people to right the wrongs, stand up for the vulnerable and defend the weak. You often see that people are ruled by those twin gods of sex and money and this causes people to forget who they are and the standards they once adhered to. This is not for you. You do not do this to be lauded by others but do so because you cannot lie straight in your bed at night if you do not uphold these standards for yourself and in your daily dealings. This translates into treating people with patience, understanding, compassion and empathy, no matter how difficult it becomes. Some might suggest that you are making a rod for your own back.

8. You feel a need to maintain appearances

This is not done for your own benefit. You are not like us creating an image to show the world. No, you do this to maintain appearances for the sake of others. It is keeping the family together for the sake of your children so they are not upset. It is appearing to get along with your difficult brother for the sake of your fragile elderly parents. It is taking one for the team in order to maintain an appearance so that you deal with the pain and aggravation so others do not. This need creates an obligation in you which we are content to exploit as we know it will keep you around and stop you from speaking out about what we do.

9. You feel a need to never give up.

You are not a quitter. You do not give up at the first bump in the road or black cloud. You keep going, you are tenacious. You are indefatigable and you persevere. You plough forwards and feel that it is only right to do this because you know that the just reward will come at the end of it. Anything worth doing is worth doing properly. Anything worth having takes effort. We applaud this desire to stick at things.

10. You feel a need to have done your best

When everything is added up and evaluated, at the end of the day, you want that satisfaction, just for yourself, to know that you did your best and you could have done no more. You always consider whether you could have done something a different way and more effectively. You are self-critical and behave like this in order to fulfil your chosen role as a good person. This obliges you to try and try again.

These empathic obligations result in your remaining with us longer, enduring more of our abusive behaviours and forgiving more of what we do than an ordinary person. We know these obligations exist and we exploit them.

I have a see saw. It is very special and I only allow special people to climb on to it. You have to be special to get on my see saw, someone like you is allowed on because you are special. In the beginning you do not even realise that you are sat on it, but you are. Of course when I meet you, you will have some kind of burden that is weighing you down. You may be lonely, you may be recovering from a different lost relationship, you may be grieving over a bereavement. You might have money concerns, perhaps started a new job which is causing you apprehension or your children may be proving difficult. There will be something that is preying on your mind and weighing you down. Even when to the outside world you may appear happy and delighted, there will be something. Everyday things, deeper and more meaningful concerns or even something dark from your past, childhood traumas, a dark deed done some time ago or a difficult relationship with dearest daddy.Perhaps it is the burden of expectancy or the crushing weight of dejection, but ultimately there will be something which weighs heavy on your soul. I can tell because you are sat on my see saw and you are weighing it down leaving you sat at a low point.

Of course when I appear all that changes. As soon as I clamber on the raised part of the see saw I ensure that the weight of my integrity, my immense gravitas, my substantial presence and my massive love all lower my side. I cannot help but do this as I am a man of substance and importance. I carry great responsibility on my shoulders as I lead men, pioneer into new territories, task risks and shoulder so much on behalf of others. At least this is what I tell myself.

My arrival delights you because you now sail up into the air, carried high by the weight that has appeared on the other end. This see saw is fantastic because up and up you go, racing through the air up into the firmament.It is exciting and dizzying as you soar towards the rarefied atmosphere. You feel light, your feel elevated and those burdens have somehow vanished such is the effect of my presence. You recall from your childhood that eventually you reached the apex of the see saw and you readied yourself to come down again but this is different, there seems to be no end to your upwards movement. You can still see me below you, looking up in awe and delight at you and that only adds to your sense of delight. You wonder if you can do the same for me, whether you can send me soaring upwards and you try to push down but it is to no avail, you cannot muster any force and you continue heading up on high.

I watch you soar and your smiles, laughter and praise for my wonderful see saw pleases me, so I allow you to continue with your ascent. Your exhortations of thanks for this wonderful ride shower down on me and I accept it all with gratitude. Still, what goes up must invariably come down and with a violent application of force I begin to shoot upwards towards my rightful place above you. You are suddenly falling. Your descent is rapid and sudden and it is unpleasant. You can see the earth racing up to meet you and your screams come long and loud. I laugh at your distress and cause the see saw to move even more violently as I soar upwards and you plummet. You see me ahead of you, smiling and laughing as if nothing is wrong and confusion grips you. Why are you going down now? Why is it happening so fast? I pass you and wave as you grip onto the see saw, bracing yourself for the impact, terror and dread wrapping around you. You see me now above you as you close your eyes and wait for that sudden thud as you hit the ground once more but it never comes. You are just above the ground, way below me as you hear me pouring scorn on you from my elevated position. It seems so odd. I am no further away from you than when we got on this see saw yet I seem so distant, so far away that you struggle to even recognise whether it is me. You don’t like being down here. It feels horrible. You want to climb once again and so you push hard with your legs in order to gain some purchase that will send you up and me down but nothing happens. You shove again but there is no response. I am calling to you, my cat calls drifting down to you as you repeatedly try and force the see saw upwards but it is to no avail. Tears of frustration gather in your eyes as you push and pull at the see saw but nothing happens and then, without warning you feel a lurch and you start to climb again. The relief washes over you and you blink away the tears as that sensation of joy and delight begins again.

Up and down you go, climbing one moment without knowing how high you will go before then  you start to plummet. Sometimes the descent halts part way through and you are lifted up again, if only for a second before down you go once more. It is a tumultuous situation and you feel dizzy and disorientated. It is becoming harder and harder to know what is going to happen next or whether you are going up or down. You cling on, knuckles whitening, desperate to remain on the see saw because you have no idea what might happen if you try and get off. Will you be catapulted into the air and to freedom? Or will you plunge to the hard earth below and shatter into a thousand pieces? If only the see saw would stop for a moment so you can get your bearings. You need some respite from this up and down movement over which you have no control. All the time you see me across from you, seemingly delighted at this ride. How come I do not feel sick or anxious? How is it that I am enjoying this random ride so much? One minute it is all highs and then you sink to the lows before a sudden jerk halts the descent. You need to get off but you daren’t do so, so instead you decide to hold tight but this only seems to encourage me.

You call for help at the group of people you can see gathered below. You know they can see you but as you are lowered towards them, their hands outstretched ready to lift you from this nightmarish ride, you are suddenly wrenched upwards and away again. You are so confused. It feels better to be climbing, that wonderful lifting sensation sweeping across you, but this takes you away from those people who are trying to help you. You tell them to wait that you will be back soon but you can see them walking away as you keep on climbing again until they have vanished. You shout for them to stay but it is to no avail. You are isolated, alone and soaring once more.

Another lurch and you are falling but this time alarm seizes your heart. You cannot breathe and terror causes the scream to stall in your throat. You are falling way too fast, faster than ever before, hurtling downwards at such speed. You look across to where I should be but there is nobody there. I have gone. I have vanished without warning and announcement. There is nobody left to control this see saw and you are dropping, dropping, dropping. The hard and stony earth is rushing up to meet you. You are in free fall and there is only going to be one outcome.

 

You may be familiar with fairy tales but prepare yourself for Narc Tales, a collection of dark, entertaining but most of all instructive and educational tales written by the creative and insightful HG Tudor.

What better way to equip yourself with unique information about narcissists, empaths and the dynamic between them than to do so through the medium of story telling. Yet, these are no ordinary tales, no fluffy yarns with a happy ever after. No, these are Narc Tales and you will find fantastic knowledge wrapped up in amusement, intrigue, beguilement and shock. Where Jack climbs the pedestal and you hear the chilling slice, slice, slice as a victim goes deaf, where The Three Little Empaths prevail and where you are given a glimpse inside Narc High Command in The Corridors of Power. Be entertained, be empowered!

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The Three Little Pigs? They’re bacon now.

Rapunzel? Had a nightmare and all her hair fell out.

Sleeping Beauty? Overslept and missed her appointment with her plastic surgeon.

You may be familiar with fairy tales but prepare yourself for Narc Tales, a collection of dark, entertaining but most of all instructive and educational tales written by the creative and insightful HG Tudor.

What better way to equip yourself with unique information about narcissists, empaths and the dynamic between them than to do so through the medium of story telling. Yet, these are no ordinary tales, no fluffy yarns with a happy ever after. No, these are Narc Tales and you will find fantastic knowledge wrapped up in amusement, intrigue, beguilement and shock. Where Prince Ultra Charming roams, The Very Wicked MatriNarc schemes and The Super Empath Strikes Back – a delicious read from the most delicious of dark minds.

Available on Amazon

Make sure you download and digest

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UK Kindle Version

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