Why Haven’t I Heard From the Narcissist?
The infamous hoover is widely-used and once people learn to recognise the various hoovers that we deploy they can often be seen coming thick and fast following your escape from us or if you have been discarded. Every so often however some people point out that they have not have been hoovered. The narcissist in their life just vanished and the victim only realised after the event that they had been callously discarded. The victim has heard nothing from the narcissist ever since and cannot even locate him or her. It is rarer, but it might even happen when you escape our clutches, instigate no contact as best you can but you expect a hoover to happen because he knows where you live or she works near to where you work. Surely that hoover will be coming? Usually it does. Usually there is the initial grand hoover which is a forceful and frenetic attempt to win you back, in effect, when you have sought to escape us. If we discarded you, when we decide we want some hoover fuel perhaps as part of a triangulation with the new primary source, we come looking for you pledging a new start and issuing promises to change as part of a benign hoover. Resist that and the malign hoover may make an appearance as you are berated and denigrated in order to punish you and draw negative fuel from you. However, what does it mean if there has been nothing but silence? Is that it? Are you free? Have you beat your narcissist?
When the expected hoover fails to manifest in the days and weeks after escape or discard there are differing reasons as to why this is the case. Those reasons are as follows: –
- If you have been discarded and not heard from us, then there is a high chance that we are revelling in the positive fuel from the new target that we selected. This person was courted by us during your devaluation as we tired of your increasingly stale fuel. They were lined-up, seduced and drawn into our web. Their seduction was effected without you being aware and once we were content that this person had been plugged in to us and was pumping out the required fuel we discarded you as we no longer had any use for you. We regarded you as never having existed. You have not heard from us because we have a new toy and we have no need of you. Consider how long your own golden period was with the relevant narcissist. Was it a year, perhaps it was longer? If so, although there is no guarantee that we will afford the same golden period to each person we ensnare, there will be a similarity. This is because we tend to choose similar types of individuals as our victims and therefore the golden period whilst not identical is likely to be of a similar length. Thus, if your golden period was a year, the golden period for your replacement will be of a similar length of time. We are delighted with this person, they are wonderful, our soulmate, you know the drill by now. Since this person is the centre of our universe we have no need to trouble you for, say, at least a year, hence you have not heard from us.
- If you discarded us by in effect escaping us and put yourself not beyond total reach but it would be difficult for us to establish contact with you for the purposes of commencing the initial grand hoover against you, then you may not hear from us. This scenario is one whereby you have reduced our spheres of influence and cut off most of the channels of communication. You could be found but the effort required in doing so is beyond the capability of desire of the particular narcissist you were embroiled with. If this person is a lesser or mid-range type of our kind, they are less likely to have the capability to track you down nor the energy to want to do so. The sudden loss of their primary source, because you escaped us,will have them thrown into a panicked state. Your escape is a criticism of us. A massive criticism. This creates a huge wound. This will ignite our fury and we need fuel double quick to cope with this. You cannot be found or reached. We have not had time to put in place a new primary source. In this instance we face a choice. Do we waste energy trying to hoover you when the prospects are slim or do we turn elsewhere for fuel? When dealing with the lesser and mid-range of our kind, the answer will always be that we will turn elsewhere for fuel. This will mean :-
- Targeting a new primary source and seducing that person as quickly as possible;
- Targeting a new primary source whilst relying on supplementary sources for fuel to keep us “topped up” until such time as the new primary source is attached and providing fuel;
- Relying on supplementary sources and withdrawing and stabilising before seeking a new primary source. This scenario causes us to adopt a low profile.
Any of the above permutations means that our focus will be elsewhere and therefore we will appear to have no interest in you.
- If you discarded us by escaping and also, as a consequence of your preparedness not only managed to escape effectively but exposed what we are to people who have believed you before we could smear you then you will have caused us massive damage. In such an instance the following would apply:-
- We have suffered an immediate cessation of our primary source of fuel and do not have a replacement;
- We may well have suffered damage to our supplementary sources who have been shown the truth of what we are;
- The wound caused by the criticism caused by your escape AND the exposure to our façade will be huge.
In such circumstances withdrawal would be the only likely option in order to conserve energy (and avoid the risk of continued criticism by engaging with people who now know what we are) to then enable us to find new source of fuel away from what has now become an infected area for us. In a large urban environment this is not such a problem for us, but in a small town or rural community it would necessitate us moving to pastures new.
Accordingly, in this scenario you would not hear from us for some time as we relocate and lick our wounds.
In the second and third scenarios not only is there the fact that we have to spend time finding a new primary source (and thus will not bother with you) but once we have them then we are focused on that person in the golden period and thus the period of time when you do not hear from us may well be extended.
There are three points to bear in mind.
The first is that where you have escaped us the initial grand hoover is more likely to happen than not but if it does not happen, it will be for the reasons detailed above.
The second is that where we have discarded you we often will still hoover you on a malign basis in order to triangulate you with our new primary source. If there is no hoover however then this is because we are engrossed in your replacement and have in effect forgotten about you.
The third point is that you may not have been hoovered for some time but if you appear in our sphere of influence then that hoover will come. It may be months away, maybe even years, but it will come.
Accordingly, when you ask the question, “why haven’t I heard from him?” You really ought to be asking the question,
“Why haven’t I heard from him, yet?”
19 thoughts on “Why Haven’t I Heard From the Narcissist?”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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Hg,
What if the midrange narcissist applies a corrective devaluation in the form of a silent treatment to the shelf IPSS and then when he removes the silent treatment and contacts her, he can’t because she blocked him and he realizes that. What does he do next? Blocks her/disengages? Or something else first before disengaging?
What if you’ve been discarded, yet you have a child? I’ve tried to co-parent w/my ex-Narc, and it was starting to go well, until he got into a new relationship. Our child began to not want to go to their house after a year of going over there. It’s been over 2 years since he’s seen our child. When I’ve attempted to make contact, he will not respond, even when I’ve had our child call.
Our child isn’t that old is is beginning to finally forget about him, and I feel I should be grateful for this, but I want our child to have a father. I’m still healing from this relationship and have not chosen to engage in any new relationships (for my own sanity), but since our child no longer has a father, should I even keep trying to make him be a father? Especially when he’s playing “daddy” to his new supply’s children? Or should I be glad that he don’t only discarded me and our child and just move on and hope that I get married and our child will have a new father–one who is healthy minded and worth being in my child’s life?
You would not want a narcissist to be involved with your child, even though the narcissist may largely treat the child well because of the consequential impact on your own no contact regime. You should only abide by court orders which prescribe co-parenting and in such circumstances abide by the tips set out in How To Reduce Giving Fuel To A Narcissist. I can assist you in detail with the issue of co-parenting with a narcissist and how you can maximise your position, through audio consultation.
HG, why does my ex narc constantly like to brag or warn that he is going to malign hoover me? Example, he keeps taking me to court. But instead of making it a swoop of victory, he keeps talking about what he is going to file next and why. I ignored him, so he even had his attorney contact mine and they claimed they were going to file a motion within a week. It has been more like 2 months now. What’s with stalling? And why give a heads up, when it only prepares me to better prepare to squash his allegations? Strange.
Foreshadowing what he intends to do (although me may not do so) is a form of threat – see Manipulated for more.
Repeatedly stalling within the context of court proceedings is a standard manipulation designed to exert control.
Control over What?
The environment around the narcissist, which of course includes you.
“2.If you discarded us by in effect escaping us and put yourself not beyond total reach but it would be difficult for us to establish contact with you for the purposes of commencing the initial grand hoover against you, then you may not hear from us.”
– Yes, this happened.
“3. Relying on supplementary sources and withdrawing and stabilising before seeking a new primary source. This scenario causes us to adopt a low profile.”
– I think this happened.
“If you discarded us by escaping and also, as a consequence of your preparedness not only managed to escape effectively but exposed what we are to people who have believed you before we could smear you then you will have caused us massive damage.”
– Yes, I definitely caused this.
“3. The wound caused by the criticism caused by your escape AND the exposure to our façade will be huge.
…in a small town or rural community it would necessitate us moving to pastures new.”
Yes! But then he came back.
And now I am in too many spheres…and (because he is blocked virtually everywhere else) he is attempting benign and malign hoovers through an innocent third party…and it’s killing me.
Will he give up eventually if he keeps finding that I don’t engage him and he gets no reaction from me?
I’m made of sterner stuff than him…but it’s getting to me.
Thank you for the daily Hoover’s, HG. I keep coming back for more.
I feel like my golden/bronze period was atypical, in that, it was push/ pull from the outset. I still have yet to make sense of it. I will say that, as part of her pattern, she has brought all of us to Disney World in the beginning. What say you HG?
I say I would need more information to comment in a meaningful fashion. Your status in the fuel matrix is a material factor, alongwith the actual behaviour that manifested towards you since what happened may have been tests (for the candidate IPSS) or possible shelving and corrective devaluations if you were an IPSS Shelf.
What information would you need. I would be happy to provide it
The level of detail is such that it would need to be undertaken through a consultation.
Sent. Looking forward to speaking with you once again.
Excellent. Likewise.
“If there is no hoover however then this is because we are engrossed in your replacement and have in effect forgotten about you.”
This is a hard one to accept. It seems so impossible that someone who was so very important to us could have just forgotten about us. But they do and it is essential to accept this if we are to heal.
Windstorm and Pale Horse, yes, this is, for me, the hardest thing to understand. Despite months of reading and reasoning and learning and discussion, I still cannot get past the discard, that last conversation, the callousness towards friendship and trust, the myriad questions that will never, ever be answered. I understand less as an IPSS, and that dynamic mystifies me, and is no less soul-crushing and devastating. Understanding and wisdom do not quell the torment and pain.
Stephanie
Wisdom and understanding have to come first if you want to truly have closure. Then once you understand, I’ve found that time is the only thing that conquers the pain. It’s like any big loss, like when a family member dies. The closer you were to them, the more important they were to you, the longer it takes you to internally process the pain.
I think this is just a standard human reaction to loss of anything that was precious to us. For me, it always takes at least two years to mourn a loss. It took more like 4-5 years to get over most of the pain of losing my marriage. Probably because it was such an important part of my life. For me there is always a sense of sadness whenever I think about important people and things I’ve lost. That will probably never go away. But the horrible pain does pass with time.
Thank you, Windstorm