I Spy A Private Eye
I have often mentioned the empath’s need to know. Initially this is borne out of your desire to know and to understand for the purpose of enabling you to discharge your caring and nurturing abilities. Only by understanding and knowing what is wrong, what is going through someone’s mind or understanding their situation are you able to assist and help. Some people like to know because they are inquisitive. Some people like to know because they are downright nosey. We like to know so we can use it against you or to further our own schemes. You like to know so you can help. This is a core trait of the empathic individual and it is not something that you are ever able to let go. Even when we are subjecting you to the devaluation you are unable to accept that it is happening without being able to understand why. You need to know. We know you need to know and we exploit this. This is why we engage in denial, deflection and circular arguments because we are entirely aware this inability to allow you to know and to understand draws fuel from you but also keeps you doing this. Even when we discard you, you still want to make sense of what has happened. You need and want to know why did we treat in the way we did, why did we do all those awful things to you and why were you not enough? By tapping into this trait of yours we also ensure that you have to know what we are doing once we have flung you to one side.
You will ask our friends what we are doing and pose similar questions to our family in a bid to ascertain what we are now doing without you. You ask your friends to spy on your behalf, gathering information about the places that we have been to and the people we have fraternised with. You see, if you try to escape from us then you cannot get rid of us as we appear with Hoover in hand ready to suck you back. However, if we have decided that we have extracted as much fuel as we possibly can from you (at least for now) we will do our utmost to remain invisible and keep you guessing. We want you wondering what we are doing? We want you to be sat contemplating where we are and who we are with? Are we happy? Are we thinking of you?
This need to know becomes overwhelming and you then embark on your role as private eye. You will stalk our Facebook page in order to gather information. We will block you in order to increase the work for you but you will use a friend’s profile to look or create a false one. You will drive past the places you know we might be, home, work and recreational and social places hoping to catch a glimpse of what we are doing so you can satiate that need to know. You will create a new profile and follow us on Twitter, checking each day to see what we have written. Is there a new girlfriend? What is she like? Are we taking her to the places we took you? Who are these people in the photographs and where are they taken? We know you will be spying and the more you try and learn the more questions will arise. We use obsessing as a method of manipulation and this continues in this mould.
Our everpresence will keep reminding you and you do not help yourself as you repeatedly reinforce our presence in your mind by searching, checking and spying. You will search our name on Google, examine our work website for any changes, check on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Like a detective hunting for clues you will keep at it each day. You create a habit in order to feed the addiction which is the need to know. We know you will do this, we engineer and we encourage this behaviour in you. The knowledge that you are engaged in these practices gives us fuel. We cannot see you or hear you yet we know you are spying on us. We know what you are like and we can picture you earnestly hunched over your keyboard as you stare at your monitor. Don’t deny it because when we do Hoover you it is one of the first things we tease from you. How many times a day did you check our Facebook profile? You will admit you did it at least three times a day and tell us how much you missed us. You will ask about the new person we were with and who you saw posts referring to and all the photographs that we displayed. Did we miss you too? You always ask this as well. Why? Because you always need to know.
21 thoughts on “I Spy A Private Eye”
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Dear Mr Tudor,
I found your blog …that was pretty good detective work 🕵🏻
🤣
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Hilarious, Bubbles 🙂
Now we know
Do you ever know when an individual you’ve targeted has ceased to spy on your social media, or do you not feel it on your end? With all this business of fuel, I would imagine so, but I’m not sure. I’ve been NC for some time in part due to my reading your blog from time to time as a reality check, thank you, but it would feel sweeter if someone noticed. It bothers me that he thinks that potentially I’m still paying attention. I know it eats away at him when no one pays him any mind.
Initially, through Thought Fuel the narcissist will believe you are looking at his social media (even though there is no evidence other than this usual response of a victim, to show that you are doing so). However, over time, your imposition of no contact means there is not fuel provided and thus no evidence or validation that you are looking at the narcissists social media. This means that the Thought Fuel cannot remain and the narcissist will no longer believe that you are paying attention.
I can only speak for myself… I do none of those
things !! Now that I know, what a disturbed “thing” he is , I couldn’t care less !! I took my power back, he is only a loser with a huge problem !!!
I like to know just to know.
I still like to know things- but I’ve chosen and choose anytime it comes up – to NOT know re: my narcs.
It’s an easy choice now. Wasn’t always.
Luckily I didn’t do those things and I contribute that to you – I was so lost and hurt – didn’t know which way was up and I sure didn’t know a thing about narcissists! I clearly remember I did Google “blocked” and was shocked! Never heard of such shit! My intense need to understand what had happened to me was overwhelming! A friend of mine mentioned YouTube videos to help me and I promise you were the first one I clicked on!!! God does work in mysterious ways!! You scared me at first yet you caught my full attention too. I listened to every word you said, made notes, cried and listened again (still do) – you gave me precious knowledge and guided me back to my inner strength – thank you very much! I’m going on 6 months of NC and while I still have hard days I am free!!! Thank you!
This is true! But I find it is true of both parties. This how you know you are or were engaged in something completely ficked up. Both pastries are stalking each other’s online profiles but the narcissist won’t speak to you. Does that sound normal ? Uh no ! No it doesn’t.
I have however made improvement I this area. I’m not 100 percent yet but improving. I realize he was putting things on Instagram for me to see though I rarely go there but I knew they were for me. So I just deleted my account. Poof gone just like that. I often told him him outta sight outta mind so once he realized I deleted IG he changed his fb settings so that photos he’s tagged in are public abd that even though I’m blocked I’ll still see them. They know all the tricks of privacy settings to make sure you see what they want you to see. He might as well have screamed Lori I will not alliw you to forget me. It’s fine as times has gone in and such little visibility and contact Ira gotten much easier to not contact.
It dies get easier with time. I wouldn’t say it goes away entirely but the grip and control they once has lessens once all communication and much of the visibility has ended
I am inquisitive person. My mother used to tell me that i will get old fast if i try to know everything.
Oh geez this made me go check FB just now
I’ve looked for his lady friends record (I knew from looking at her she had DUI’s and was correct) but none of the other stuff. I look up the parents of my children’s friends on truthfinder all the time though. Anyone should do this!
Guilty as charged lol
Yes, exactly. HG, you know us empaths better than we know ourselves. It’s creepy.
I make it my business Kaydiva3
I went from wanting to know everything, to knowing, to wanting to un-know; to trying really hard not to see or know anything else; but still having more things come up. Then escaping and still the “knowing”would not stop. I remember thinking to myself, ‘It’s a bad sign when you go to your man’s home trying not to see or sense anything.’
Sometimes it is worth it to learn about him, so you can get it through your occasionally thick or just stubborn skull what he really is. I saw on his site that he was crowdfunding for a Great and Worthy project. Not too long afterwards, he announced that he had moved halfway across the country. Sure, he probably could have covered the Great and Worthy project himself, but he wouldn’t be able to get many people to contribute to his moving. Learning what a petty little con artist he was helped me stop asking myself “what I did wrong.”
I recently learned he is worse then the scum of the earth so definitely no compassion left. Much beneath a narcissist. He’s lucky he can’t contact me at this point. So yes I guess the knowing is good.
Yep sometimes it is good to see when it reinforces to you who they really are. Sometimes even when we understand we need to be reminded
With that said, I think it largely depends where you are in recovery. If you are in the throes of beginning stages, try your best not to look. It is true that it reinforces ever presence but if you have complete understanding and acceptance of what a narcissist really is then sometimes to look and get a reminder is helpful
Yes, checking his online behavior helped me a lot to escape from his manipulative web. He was so secretive and so clever in hiding his ‘real’ self. And when I started to find out, he deleted everything, changed and shouted at me Why I was checking on him, didn’t I trust him??? I felt like going insane. I knew I had read with my own eyes these very intimate conversations with employees, but he denied and erased all traces. Saying to me, in a very innocent way that I was mistaken, could I show him where I had read this..? And then shouting when I tried to keep to my own observations. I know now why he did this, thanks to HG.
But everything gone, deleted by him. Since then I keep a diary, made screenshots of everything I found out. To keep my sanity when he started lying again. It really helped me to realize how deceptive he was. At first, I wanted to collect evidence to confront him. Later, when finding sites like this, being well informed by HG, I knew it was useless to confront him. I got out.
Eventually, when I had escaped, I followed him online for a while and find out how he cheated in exactly the same way on his new wife. It was almost hilarious to see her asking what he was doing online on the same dating site they had met. (I still wonder why she was also online…) After her asking, he deleted the conversations with the other women immediately. I still keep the screenshots, just for myself, to proof I’m not insane.
Finally, I knew for sure, It wasn’t me, who was oversensitive, jealous. It was him, dating behind her back, she was in the golden period (she thought..) and he was supplying himself with new fresh fuel.
I now stopped following him, I know enough. He won’t change. I’ve kept my sanity and have been NC for almost a year. But it was useful to really confront myself with his secretive behavior. To know that I had been right all these years. And that he got away with it, because I didn’t trust my own instincts, but relied on his ridiculous lies and intimidating behaviors. I forgive myself also, because the way he manipulates, after all these years together, living in his fog, it was very hard see right from wrong.