Isolation Through Occupation
I have detailed how we will apply ourselves to isolating you from your support networks in order to prevent them interfering in our grand design for you and as a consequence ensuring the success of seduction, devaluation and control. Whilst we may deploy an insidious campaign, the well-known salami-slicing methodology which causes you to lose those connections without actually noticing it is happening, we also apply ourselves to isolating you through occupation.
We always want to dominate your time. This is because you have been chosen as the primary source of fuel. It is therefore our entitlement and your obligation to provide us with fuel and to do so to an excellent standard and frequently. It is also because we want to ensure we retain knowledge of everything that you are doing so we can continue to manipulate you and head off any threats we identify. It also allows us to isolate you by spending as much time as we can with you. How does this manifest?
- We organise your social life for you. We plan days out, evenings out and weekends away without recourse to you. We make the holiday plans, we invite people to our house and ensure that our invitations are organised with those who are under our spell, those who form the façade and our coterie. You will find your available time at weekends and holidays already filled. Of course, all of this is done under the pretence of doing something pleasant for you, to surprise you and to reward you because you work so hard. Who is going to object to such thoughtfulness?
- If you arrange for friends, your friends, to come to our house and you understandably tell us about this we will not accept that you want to spend time with them alone. Why would you want to do this? We see no boundary here and will always assume that we are invited to attend as well. It does not matter that it is your friends and we might be the only man amongst several women, that does not concern us at all. All we care about is keeping an eye on you and seeing such an opportunity to draw fuel from the others guests. As time progresses and this takes place during the devaluation we see it as an excellent chance to cause a scene and sabotage your evening in some way. The muted enthusiasm for our attendance from your guests and the comments of,
“I’m surprised to find you here still.”
“I thought you were going out?”
Will not prove of any concern to us. To you and your guests we appear to have the hide of rhino and a complete short-sightedness, being unable to pick up on the signals that we are not welcome at this gathering. We know we are not welcome but that is irrelevant. We go where we want and when we want. Besides, all those reactions just add up to fuel and we want to remain a presence so that eventually your friends tire of us being in the house at the same time and interacting, so that they decide against visiting.
- We may opt against direct interaction but instead spend our time hovering nearby. We will be listening in as we apparently pass through to get a drink or collect a book from the room you are all in.
“Don’t mind me, pretend I am not here,”
we will say with a gleeful smile as we settle down nearby and start jabbing our tablet or we open a book. We know that we are making you and your guests uncomfortable with our presence but you know it is my home too and you are too polite to move me. This invariably will result in the evening being cut short after a while because of our looming presence. Any accusations of us deliberately spoiling the evening will just amount to fuel for us and be met with denial, deflection, blame-shifting and provocation in order to gain more fuel and assert our control.
- If you make arrangements to visit family, we will always accompany you. It will be done under the auspices of appearing to care and being pleasant. You will hear comments such as: –
“It’s a long way, we can share the driving.”
“It will cost you a packet for a taxi. I will come with you; I don’t mind driving.”
“Paula will be there? I haven’t seen her in ages it will be great to catch up with her, she is such a lovely person.”
“I would rather come with you with it being at night.”
“I need to speak to your dad about something so I will come along too.”
“I like that poet as well you know, I will join you, it will be an interesting evening.”
“I just want to be there to look after you, it can get a little hairy round there after dark.”
We have no qualms about inviting ourselves so we can continue to be with you.
- If you do manage to get away from us and attend somewhere you can expect us to appear shortly after the evening, afternoon or event begins.
As ever the plausible explanation will be rolled out in order to suggest that there is nothing untoward going on and also to make you appear unreasonable and unpleasant if you actually do try and object to our presence.
“I was just passing and saw you in here, so I thought I would pop in for a quick drink” (And then I stay all evening)
“I thought I saw you with John and wanted to say hello.”
“I needed to speak to you about something and it couldn’t wait, I may as well order something now I am here.”
“Hey, I couldn’t let you have all this fun to yourself could I?”
“I’ve always wanted to try this place and I was in the area anyway.”
“I am meeting somebody later nearby so I thought I would show my face (said person apparently cancels and we end up staying)”
- If you somehow prise us out of the house, we will find reasons and excuses to come back and remain with you and your guests.
“The trains aren’t running so I can’t get there.”
“I forgot my wallet, oh hello Sandra, not seen you in a while, how are you? I will just have the one then, thanks.”
“Tom has fallen ill, he couldn’t make it (more likely we cancelled and came home)”
“I need to change my shoes.”
“I forgot my keys.”
“I need to speak to Mary about something and I thought this was the only chance I would get to do so.”
Lots of different excuses will be used in order to return and remain.
- If for some reason we are not able to physically remain with you then we will rely on technology to do so on our behalf with repeated telephone calls and text messages, interrupting your evening and of course you will know better than to not respond to them. We will in such circumstances invent an emergency which causes you to leave what you are doing so that you have to return to us.
The repeated application of our occupation of your time through our presence will result in you rarely having any time to yourself. It will feel like you have an umbilical cord between you and us all of the time because we are always with you. Your friends and family will soon tire of our presence (especially when we escalate matters so we cause a scene, prove difficult, create an atmosphere and so on) and therefore the invitations will dwindle. We will play the victim card to stop you going out without us and engage in the battle of going out so ultimately you decide it is just easier just to stay in with us rather than try and do something without us. All manner of emotional manipulations will be deployed in order to keep you next to us. From making you feel happy and wanted through to feeling guilty for failing to take us into account, include us and spend time with us. We regard the occupation of your time as our entitlement. We fail to respect the boundary and we will keep on doing it as we get our own way.
You will eventually become isolated through declining to keep certain connections open as it becomes too much like hard work. Those that you do keep open are never without us so we know what you do and what is said so we can gather this intelligence and use it to our advantage in our continuing campaign against you. By being with you as much as possible we squeeze other people out of the picture and thus isolate you.
So, where are we going tonight together?
12 thoughts on “Isolation Through Occupation”
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“We will be listening in as we apparently pass through to get a drink or collect a book from the room you are all in.”
Omg. This just made me nauseous. This entire post is so fucking dead on it is disturbing beyond belief. Holy shit.
I enjoy doing things together and spending time together, I would allow you to arrange our time, it would make me happy. I wouldn’t feel smothered or intruded upon, I would only take issue if you were rude to guests and didn’t curb that behaviour.
This stood out to me as if in flashing neon…when I asked him once why he loved me he said, because you are a lovely person. It sounded so impersonal to me. I know it is compliment, but when he said it seemed so diminished. He would continue on with because you are wonderful mum, a devoted daughter and a kind and good person. I often wondered, if he was hiring me or dating me. Closer to hiring, I think as the relationship definitely was work.
This article says it all HG, tanks for the insight.
You are welcome.
Was also my situation in every single relationship. Even when speaking on the phone…
Good description HG. You describe the situation as it was.. Amazing
I dont see any problem to meet friends (mine or his) WITH ur partner. Coz u love him. So u feel happy if he is nearby.
Where are we going? We’re going to Malibu and have some pinot. Who’s calling your cell? It’s my sister (ugh, too emotional). It’s Ralph (his old friend I couldn’t stand). It’s Mom (Ugh, another overbearing needy woman). C’mon honey bunz, let’s go and spend a beautiful day together then we will have a lovely evening in the marina (in the meantime, my head says it will be my way). Maybe a movie? Nah. Whatever you want. Money is no object. I know I come as a complete package. You love me. Lets have a hearty breakfast tomorrow morning. Do we have to visit your dying grandmother tomorrow? Oh well. I will be there and you can lean on me. Let me put on my 6 inch red stilettos shoes and best be on our way. Let’s go. You’re the best! (What a story).
When I realized I was addicted to the DRUG and not the DEALER, was when things began to change. I’m an addict, I’m not in love. Who the dealer is, is irrelevant. My narc is irrelevant. 😎
“I need to change my shoes.” So transparent, now. The one that hits home is the father one. Exn2 would always have a question or something and have to accompany me. The thing is that my dad saw ex for what he was/is. He told me. As one adult to another also told me that he wouldn’t stand in the way of our relationship.
Let’s take a walk or drive through the seedy part of town. We don’t know each other well, though I think you would fend off any potential problems. There is no one with whom I’d rather be.
Tell me, HG, when you have a primary, even though you’re still grooming others on the side, what makes you decide to keep the primary as a primary – even throughout the usual deval/silent treatments – and not replace with a new primary? Does it all come down to a contest as to who provides the most fuel? I am aware enough thanks to you that I am not G’s only supply. I get that. But I am fairly certain that I am the “public” one and have been so for a while now. I also know that the female fb “friends” he’s been “liking” most recently are high-powered career women with impressive degrees who can’t possibly have the same amount of time or ability to be available to him at the last minute the way I am. (Still unemployed, or underemployed if you count unpredictable contract work.)
It’s ironic (to me, probably not to you)- I would think he would much rather be seen in public with someone who appears to be his “equal”. All of his male “friends” (lieutenants?) have wives like that and it is kind of the norm in his professional circle. But sometimes I wonder if these men who in some cases make less than their wives aren’t just a little jealous of G with his clearly subservient doormat (that would be me).
The primary is kept in place because they are still providing the negative fuel to the potency and amount that maintains my interest in them. It will also be affected by how ready the replacement(s) is/are. If I do not feel that they are sufficiently embedded then the primary will remain in situ until such time as the primary dips in the fuel provision which forces my hand to switch to the replacement, or more usually the replacement is sufficiently embedded so that I am able to discard the primary and install the replacement.
You also touch on something of a dilemma which exists for us with regard to the primary source. We want someone who provides us with fuel but we also like the fact that they contribute to our construct through their beauty, their intelligence, their social competence, their career progress and other such trophy indicators. They must not outshine us of course but we want to be seen with someone befitting our perceived status and we want to use their traits for our own to make us look even better. If those primary sources are also subservient so much the better, but there is always the risk (although it cannot be said to be an absolute rule) that the more intelligent, beautiful, independent etc the primary source is the greater the need to control the primary source becomes. So yes, we want the high powered individuals for their traits (and of course fuel) but we must balance that with the need to be able to maintain control.
You also need to factor in as well that in some instances if the discarded primary source was a high-powered individual we may, purely for the purposes of potential triangulation and hovering then select a “less-powered” victim but who is very easy to control and obtain fuel from so that the discarded primary source thinks,
“He got rid of me and he is now with that skank?”
We wont get the traits from the replacement, but we get the fuel and the marvellous opportunity for triangulation with the discarded primary source. These are the most obvious factors we have regard to and try to strike a balance between them in order to further our needs.
Thanks for clarifying, HG.
You are welcome Cody.