Should I Get In Touch With The Narcissist
The creation of anxiety and uncertainty are twin concerns which we engender in much of what we do. Both have the effect of stopping you from doing things, preventing you from analysing matters in an effective way and ultimately from helping yourself to escape our hold. One way of doing this is through the Prior Warning Silent Treatment. Now, it is our usual fashion, when applying a silent treatment not to tell you what we are doing. If it is a Present Silent Treatment, we remain in close proximity to you but we do not speak or respond to you. You soon realise that it is a silent treatment but you were not fore-warned. The Absent Silent Treatment is where we absent ourselves from your presence. We may just walk off, we may leave as expected but then stay away or we may just not turn up when expected and it often is a short while before you realise that you are being subjected to a silent treatment, you just think initially that you cannot contact us or we must be busy and it is only later that you realise we are giving you an Absent Silent Treatment,
The Prior Warning Silent Treatment relies on telling you that we do not want you to contact us but it is still not immediately obvious that it is a silent treatment that is being meted out towards you. Consider these phrases, for instance: –
“I will be in meetings all day so don’t contact me.”
“I will be sleeping so don’t call me. I will call you when I am ready.”
“There is a poor signal in the area so I will be incommunicado for most of the trip.”
“I need some space for myself, so please don’t get in touch. I will ring you.”
“I have a lot to do today so don’t call or message me.”
They all seem like legitimate reasons for not being in touch for a period of time but when uttered by us what we are really telling you is,
“Time for a silent treatment and I wonder how long you can cope with it?”
The timing of this Prior Warning Silent Treatment is the key to recognising it. First of all, it is less likely that we will say the things above during the seduction unless they are actually true, but there will be a Comforting Caveat attached to the statement. Accordingly,
“I will be in meetings all day so don’t contact me, but I will pop out and give you a call when I get a chance, because you know how much I miss you.”
“I will be sleeping so don’t call me. I will call you about 8 o’clock. If you haven’t heard from me by then, do ring me.”
“There is a poor signal in the area so I will be incommunicado for most of the trip, so I will find a landline on which you can reach me and will let you know what it is as soon as I can. I wish you were coming with me. I hate being apart from you.”
“I have a lot to do today so don’t call or message me, until 1pm please unless of course it is an emergency, but I will message you when I can because I miss you.”
Notice how there is no talk of needing space. This is because we do not want space from you during the seduction, far from it. Indeed, we will reluctantly accept an enforced absence from you during seduction and if possible try to re-arrange appointments and the like to ensure we spend time with you.
The Prior Warning Silent Treatment is doled out during devaluation and when there are specific circumstances. We do this when we know that you have concerns that we are interested romantically in someone else, that we are spending time with someone else and our motives (and theirs) are unclear. In essence, when we are triangulating you (although you probably will not realise this is what is happening) we will issue the PWST. We do this because it enables us to wield power over you by telling you and controlling you in terms of whether are permitted to engage with us. It also means that you are told there will be a silence (although you won’t necessarily know that it is a silent treatment) from the beginning. We know this will cause you to wonder whether the silence is real and thus your anxiety will begin. You will feel uncertain about whether we really are non-contactable and whether we are doing something else. The problem is, we know you only have a suspicion and nothing concrete.
Accordingly, when you know we are apparently uncontactable you wonder who we are with and what we are doing. This makes you anxious. This provides us with fuel even though we do not witness it because we know how you will be feeling. We know that: –
You will be toying with messaging us to see if it is received
You will be toying with messaging us to see if it is read
You want to ring our mobile to see if it actually rings
You want to ring from a withheld number to see if we answer and if you can discern any background noises
You check our social media profile to see if there have been any updates there when we are supposedly unable to contact anyone.
You are torn between wanting to get rid of the anxiety and find out what is really going on and the risk of getting it wrong and upsetting us. You fear that we have an interest in someone else and we are actually spending time with them. If you do not do something, this time is unchallenged. This other person may not know about you but if you get in touch with us and make yourself known, then you are laying down a marker to the other person and possibly warning them away from us. You will also find evidence of us having lied which you will want to use against us. At this stage you have no desire to be rid of us. On the contrary the devaluation is such that you want things to work out and return to the golden period again, but you cannot stand this uncertainty. You wish you could make a decision but what if we have told the truth and you interrupt us in a meeting? Not only will we furious with you, we may well hold it against you in the future (you are damn right we will). But then again, if we are with someone else and perhaps we know that you suspect and you do nothing about it, we might think you do not care and do not want to fight to keep us? It is quite remarkable the effect uncertainty and anxiety can have on someone who is being made to feel steadily more and more insecure.
All the while we are drawing fuel from this. If we have told the truth, we gain fuel knowing you will be anxious. More likely it is a lie and we are either with someone else or just wanting to be away from you. In either instance more fuel is gathered and we exert our control over you by this Prior Warning Silent Treatment. You have the dilemma of whether you should contact us. What would you do?
26 thoughts on “Should I Get In Touch With The Narcissist”
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My sister did this all the time. She felt entitled enough to just not answer my apps for hours or even not at all and it always made me fell so angry and disregarded. I always forgave her though, because I was taught that’s what sisters do. “Best Sisters Forever“ I used to call us.
I recently realized that the reason I was so obedient with my ex-narcs was that I just was conditioned that way by her.
Now it’s up to me to condition myself not to react that way anymore. It’s hard, but I’m slowly getting there.
Iris
It’s very hard to break free from how we were raised, but you will get there! Just keep moving forward. ⚡️⚡️⚡️
I’m the eternal coward;) I’d go through all those thoughts and worries listed, but I wouldn’t actually call or message. I’d try instead in my mind to justify his need for space or whatever he says he wants; hurting myself even more in the process. I would be too scared of being punished because his punishments were real traumas to me.
But for me? I’ve never felt the kind of emotions with another man that I did when with him. It was absolute heaven and total hell. And never anything between. He swept me off my feet, brought me to the highest points of my life and then he thrust me mercilessly to the lowest place I’ve ever been. Over and over again. It was all intense passion, dramatic exhilaration, anxious desperation and utter despair. I thought that to be true love. I really did.
^ THAT THAT THAT ALL THAT
Tappan Zee…Read HG’s book about Sex. It will help you (it tough love), to understand a lot of what you described. It’s eye opening, but the book provides more pieces to be in the Know. Is hard as it is, once you are able to digest what he describes, the easier it is to come to terms with the whole fucked up experience.
Ha, ha! This reminds me of my Moron in Munich. About 6 weeks in to our reconnect (when he’d been texting me literally over a hundred times a day, all day long), he told me he needed time to rest and rejuvenate and that he would no longer be able to text/talk to me between 5 pm and midnight or on the weekends. When I told my oldest son this, he immediately said,
“Oh, his wife or girlfriend must be back from taking care of her sick mother.”
I really think he was too disfunctional to be able to live with a woman, but maybe he found a new one there in Munich to target. I do know that it was the beginning of the end for me, though.
how about “my phone went dead and didn’t have my charger”….or “I was trying to get in touch with you but I thought YOU blocked me” (when in fact he just wasn’t answering..)
Thankfully I have been reading this blog for about 2 months, and I put it all together. I call it grooming his “others”.
All the weird stuff and disappearing started to make sense.
The film that had taken hold of my brain began to clear….
And then I knew….I had to go. Thank goodness he couldn’t finish me off.
We may think about the narcissist all the time and do everything to please him and when he isn’t around we obsess about him and miss him like crazy, but the truth behind it all is that we don’t love him and don’t miss him. We just think we do.
We just don’t realize that we’ve become addicted to the dopamine rush we get from the highs and lows in our relationship.
It’s sad, but what we call “love” are in fact just two junkies trying to get their next fix.
In a way we are just as selfish as they are, we have a need to be needed and they have a need to be worshipped. That’s what makes the dynamic between us work so well, be it in a totally dysfunctional way.
Now that the cravings have left my brain (because I chose to stop feeding them), I see it so much clearer than before. No more rationalizing that I need to contact him. No more silly excuses to stalk his social media.
It’s now quiet in my head and other things that used to make me happy make me happy again: a beautiful movie, the fact that it’s snowing, my cat, the love of a nice man etc.
It feels good to be myself again.
Iris,
So true and well stated. I find myself to still be in the throes of this passionate addiction to some degree, still overly obsessing and feeling anxious even though time has passed and we’re not together anymore, but I’m making progress each and every day and I long for that wonderful day in the future when I’m free of all the cravings and can look even more objectively upon the whole relationship from the vantage point of your description.
Your statement of it not being true love from either perspective resonates with me. I think it’s a very important insight and immensely helpful to me right now.
I do know it wasn’t love from his side, even though I guess in his deluded world he really thought it was, being the only kind of love he knows how to do, going through those endless motions of power plays, control and manipulation.
But for me? I’ve never felt the kind of emotions with another man that I did when with him. It was absolute heaven and total hell. And never anything between. He swept me off my feet, brought me to the highest points of my life and then he thrust me mercilessly to the lowest place I’ve ever been. Over and over again. It was all intense passion, dramatic exhilaration, anxious desperation and utter despair. I thought that to be true love. I really did. I went about it the only way I knew how to do it. I was taught as a child from my narcissistic environment that’s love, and I finally found someone to repeat that pattern with. I never questioned it until lately. And you’re right, that’s not love at all. It’s a selfish need to be needed, it’s a dopamine rush and nothing else.
I’m not at all sure any longer of what love actually is, but it wasn’t what I experienced. Love is not being controlled, demeaned, humiliated and abused in a one dimensional relationship. And love certainly isn’t clinging to someone from fear of abandonment with an all consuming need to be needed and validated to exist. Love is not an addiction to power or to pain.
Thank you for your wise words!
Nicely worded.
We we are opposites to the Narc, but very similar in the need to fill our own voids.
Very accurate sentiments, Iris. I am happy for you that you have escaped unharmed and are happy again!
Hi H…this really triggered memories. My narc early on played a lot of games with my mind. Hed do things with texts claiming hed sent me some but i didnt get them. Hed take screen shots but i realise now theres apps where you can insert text afterwards to make it look like they had replied and it didnt show up on your end. Tons of gaslighting early on in the relationship.
Even when there was no purpose to the games. Alas, it was all about the chaos…
“my phone went dead and didn’t have my charger”….or “I was trying to get in touch with you but I thought YOU blocked me” (when in fact he just wasn’t answering..)
^ PLAYBOOK YES 📌
All the weird stuff and disappearing started to make sense.
^ MADDENING YES 📌
The film that had taken hold of my brain began to clear….
^ THANKFULLY YES 📌
And then I knew….I had to go. Thank goodness he couldn’t finish me off.
^ ABSOLUTELY YES📌
today is 7 days….of No-Contact. He hoovered once on my cell, called from a restricted number. I blocked restricted somehow it still got through. I was not close to be tempted to respond. Progress.
I was with my guy for almost 4 years, An a week into our relationship he asks me if I’m living a double life, An I never understood what he ment until I hacked into his gmail account an read some very disturbing messages from An to prostitute sites ! OMG, then I realized what he ment, An like a dumbass, I told him …. BIG MUSTACHE ! I got my ass kicked for the first time, An never have I been hit like this guy did to me ! n I loved him .. but now that I have read what y’all have been talking about, I have realized a bunch of things … Like the games played, O’ my gosh, it’s just like all of you have said ! I tried to kill my self because I thought of myself as a worthless peace of shit for a long time, he made me feel the lowest I have ever felt in my life .. all the names he called me , An the broken ribs, to the choking an beating me to where I had to be taken to the hospital .. he would tell me how much he loves me, An the turn around in the same day to him hating me, An you can seethe change in his eyes, I’m mean you can literally see nuts hanging there ! I have been away from him now going on three months, but as some of you have said,, i find myself longing for Narc, An I feel so bad , because he’s in jail for beating up his new girlfriend, An he keeps calling me, trying to get me to pick up ! I want to but I’m scared to … I’m nowhere out of the woods with my feelings with this man, can someone please shed some light on what I should do ? I’m really getting a lot out of reading what everyone is saying, An I do thank you all for having this site .. I didn’t know how many people actually went through what I’m goin through …
There must be a lot of narcissistic people in the world ! I never neat one until the boyfriend I had, An it’s been a major roller coaster ride for 4 years.. but how do I break myself from his hold on me ???
Nothing but silly immature ego stroking games!!!It’s pathetic really. It’s just as pathetic that I used to play along. That his silent treatment used to crush me. Im so happy to be in a healthy place and surrounded by people that I can rely on and count on. People whose words match their actions. But I remember a time where this treatment somehow became acceptable to me. I also had to re learn and accept that this is not the norm. I actually had to retrain my brain to believe that there are actually good and decent people out there that love and care for me and would never think of pulling this crap. It’s been enlightening:) thank u for this helpful article HG.
Hi star…this is so true they are silly mind games to enforce superiority. Its not normal behaviour but with conditioning becomes normal to the victim.
Ughhhh…another one i deal with regularly particularily on the weekends. During the week we see each other a lot but the weekends not as much except via phone or online. Hes really good at messaging but theres been times we will be chatting and he has to go abruptly or he will not msg back for a few hours and im left wondering what hes doing. Hes left me messages in the morning saying he will be doing x y and z and will check for my msgs and i take this as a hint saying ill be too busy to chat. Hes always there for me at night but during the day on the wknds its usually msging back and forth unless i catch him and we can chat. Its left me feeling insecure. I realise this is my problem as well and need to let go and live my own life. I get so used to the constant contact during the week that the weekends are a huge contrast.
I do know in the past hed go quite a few hrs in between msgs and it was meant to make me feel unimportant to him. I never went chasing him bc i know this is a huge turnoff and my pride prevented me from doing so. Id wait until he msged me. He always says i missed you today and it bothers me bc if you miss someone you have time for them and get back to them.
Its been difficult on the wknds but i realised i had to let go and do my own thing and let him do his. Insecurity can eat you up alive and i dont want to feel that way. Narcissists love the power to inflict insecurity. If a narc plays these games then let them contact you and for gods sakes dont chase after them bc theyll just dole out more devaluement and insecurities.
I totally understand what your talking about ! My guy does the same thing; An I would tell him to stop playing games with me …An would tell him how he would make me feel, An he would let me know quickly with his actions that he could careless how I felt … Believe it or not, he would turn it around as if I was doing this to him ! I would be the one cheating on him, An call me all kinds of names that I have never been called in my life .. Just always putting me down … he would tell me how much he loves me, An in the same day tell me that he hates me … The worst thing about it, is he’s an alcoholic An has to do Meath all the time .. when I asked him to slow down, it just made him do more ! It’s really hard to be happy with him because he makes things so hard on me, An I love him so so much.. what should I do ???
It just came to my attention that my ex narc is actually dressing up his new prop to look like me – wig and all, even a cap from my city . . any idea what this means? Should I be wary/on guard for anything . . ? Thank you in advance.
It is part of the fact that you are just seen as objects, mannequins to be controlled by us. There may also be triangulation involved as he expects the information about what he is doing to reach you and cause a reaction from you.
What about ex supply do they still try to triangulate? With ex supply
Yes.
The fact that the tables have turned and now he is desperately trying to get my attention (I also noticed him stalking my house a few weeks ago) fills me with glee. Well, he can sit and spin because he’ll never get it ever again! Cue Destiny’s Child’s “Never Gonna Get It” here. *Mwahahahahahah!!* >:D
NO!