The Wrong No Contact
No Contact.
This is what anybody who has been a victim of our kind must achieve. Whether that status of victim stems from being a friend to a narcissist where you are taken for granted, used when the narcissist needs a lift or someone to moan to or whether it is the beaten down and trampled Intimate Partner Primary Source who was wife, boyfriend or partner has endured and suffered extensive abuse, no contact is the antidote.
Building that robust and effective wall of no contact can be difficult. It is time consuming, requires rigour and perseverance and not only are you trying to repel the advances of the narcissist who is trying to breach your no contact regime, you also have to fight against yourself and your emotional thinking which is trying to make you breach no contact as well. Indeed, it is often your emotional thinking which proves to be the harder enemy to conquer and it is not a one-off battle. Your emotional thinking, because of who you are and the emotional infection your engagement with the narcissist has caused, means that this is an ongoing battle which requires your repeated vigilance. Through the application of understanding and building your Logic Defences, the task does become easier, but it is not one which goes away. Like any wall, it must be checked, maintained and patrolled, otherwise holes and breaches occur and the narcissist will impact on you once again.
Time and time again I see people who think they have put in place no contact and they have not. Sometimes it almost beggars belief that the victim thinks they have established no contact – it is obvious they have not. In other instances you could be forgiven (if forgiveness was something I gave) for thinking you have implemented no contact but in actual fact you have not. There are many instances where people think they have instigated no contact and all they have done is embark on The Wrong No Contact. Here are just a few of the many ways in which you might be getting no contact wrong and the risks that come with this.
- Looking At Social Media
Just because the narcissist does not explicitly know you have looked at his or her social media does not mean this is no contact. Indeed, we rely on you doing so and expect you to look at our social media, that is why in certain instances you are not blocked from looking at our Facebook account, Twitter feed, Instagram and so forth. We want you to look at it. Just because you are not interacting directly with us, just because you are not commenting and we are not replying, just because you are not adding likes – this is not no contact. If you are looking at our social media you are likely to see indirect jibes made about you, Relationship Bulletins about your replacement, reminders of the golden period and even direct attacks against you. This will result in :-
- a risk you will be upset, hurt, angry
- the maintenance of the emotional infection because you are thinking about us
- a surge of emotional thinking which may cause you to contact us to attack us for our barbed comments towards you, to seek answers when you are upset about the reminder of an anniversary or similar
- stopping you from moving forward
2. Not Blocking Our Number
You may think that it will be the first thing you will do when you commence no contact. You block our number from your telephone and mobile phone so that we cannot call or text you from the relevant number. Of course we may get around this by using a different device therefore that is why you are better served by changing your telephone numbers, but if you do not change the numbers then you ought to block the new number of ours which appears and keep doing so, like a matador dodging the on rushing bull each time to avoid harm.
Nevertheless, the number of occasions I see people who claim they are no contact but they have not blocked our number is higher than you might think. These people think that if they, as victim, do not contact us, then that is no contact. No, it is not. Of course, those people who do not block the number are giving in to their emotional thinking because they WANT the narcissist to contact them.
If you do not block our number, this is not no contact. One of the easiest hoovers for us to perform is to text you. It uses no effort, it brings with it a reduced consequence of wounding (say compared to ringing you on the telephone or seeing you in person) and allows the drawing of fuel. If you do not block our number, you are lowering the hoover bar to such a low level that hoovers are more or less inevitable.
The emotional thinking of victims tells them things such as :-
- It is over, there was a ‘final discard’ he will never contact me anyway;
- If she does text me, I won’t reply and that will wound her, so actually I am ‘winning’;
- There might be an emergency and therefore I cannot block him
Utter rubbish.
There is no such thing as a final discard. We will contact you, subject to the Hoover Trigger being activated and the Hoover Execution Criteria being met. If you do not block us, this is going to happen. You will be hoovered.
If you allow a text through, you are maintaining the emotional infection and you will suffer a surge in emotional thinking which may very well result in you responding and before you know it, you are not only providing fuel but you are being drawn back into the Formal Relationship. Months later you will ask ‘how the hell did that happen?’ Every text which arrives adds more and more to your emotional thinking until such time that you can no longer resist. Oh, I hear your protestations that you can resist but i have witnessed such resolve melt away. If you are playing Russian roulette and pull the trigger once and do not blow your brains out, you have survived. Pick the gun up again and again and again and eventually you will kill yourself. This is the similar effect of repeatedly engaging with us by allowing those texts through – you WILL succumb.
So what if there is an emergency? I know you are kind, decent and honest but we are no longer your concern in that respect. You need to remind yourself that you have no obligation towards us (of course our perspective will make us tell you differently) and therefore that False Suicide Power Play Hoover is not something you have to deal with. If you co-parent establish a mechanism whereby the narcissist e-mails routine communication to you. You tell the narcissist in advance that you will check the e-mails once a week at a set time and never deviate from this. This way you cater for communication regarding the children but only expose yourself once a week to potential hoovers. When the narcissist realises this is being done, see how the hoover attempts diminish. If you need a mechanism for emergency communication, tell the narcissist to contact a third party who will then contact you. Use this gate keeper.
3. Keeping our telephone number
You may say that you will not use it and therefore think that this is no contact, but once again, this is not no contact. With our number sat in your phone, even if you have changed the description to ‘Arsehole Number One’ , ‘Shit 4 Brains’ or ‘Narcopath’ you are creating problems :-
- You see the name and number and you are then reminding yourself of us and thus this is a form of Ever Presence ;
- You are leaving open a gateway. There will be an occasion when your emotional thinking surges and causes you to try to contact us. If our number if there you will use it and message us or ring us. If there is no number, you cannot call us.
Do not come up with the nonsense of ‘I have memorised the number so I will remember it anyway so what difference does it make if I keep the number in my phone?’ Bollocks. Your memory is fallible and over time if you have not used our number, you will eventually forget it altogether or at least get some numbers mixed up. If it is still in your directory, you will ring it.
Delete that number. Do it and do it immediately.
4. Talking to friends and family about us
You may think that because you are not engaging with us directly then this must mean no contact is in place. It is not in place if you continue to talk about us to your friends and your family. This is causing you to engage with us, albeit indirectly. All this does is result in :-
- You continuing to think about us with the consequential impact on your emotions;
- The continued feeding of the emotional infection which you should be purging, not feeding ;
- Allowing your emotional thinking to surge with the risk this may control you once again and you end up contacting us or succumbing to a direct hoover with all that follows from that
It is of course inevitable that you will discuss the situation with your family and friends especially when you do not understand what you are dealing with. However, once you realise you are dealing with a narcissist then there does not need to be any more discussion. If you are not sure whether the person is, do not discuss it with your family and friends, they invariably have no idea whether the person is or not, they have no expertise. Indeed, they may well be revelling in joining in the ‘narc hating’ sessions which are actually not helping you at all. Alternatively, they may well be sick of hearing you going on about him or her and want you to shut up, but tolerate it out of a sense of loyalty. If you are unsure, ask me and I will give it to you straight, one way or the other.
Once you know, you go.
No more debating it with your best friend. No more mulling it over with your football mates after the game in the pub. No more ‘ifs and buts’ discussions with your parents. This person is a narcissist and you are not to dedicate any time to discussing this person. If you have to discuss an arrangement concerning the narcissist because they are collecting the children from your parents, then that is allowable but keep it to that. You do not need to tell people what the narcissist did or said. All you are doing is repeating this person is a narcissist, you already know this, they already know this, so why keep going on about it?
You do it because your emotional thinking wants you to do so. It wants you poring over the latest misbehaviour because it craves the horrified gasps from your friends or looks of disapproval from your mother. You do not need these responses.
Do not talk about us. Explain to your friends you do not want the narcissist spoken about to you. If they try to do so, politely explain again that this person means nothing to you anymore and therefore there is no need to talk about them.
5. Watching what we are doing
You may make the intelligence agencies proud of your covert observation of us as you watch where we go, who we are with and what we are doing. You do not need to do this. Again, once you know what we are, get out and stay out. Yes, I understand it is so tempting to know what we are up to, are we seeing someone else, what does he or she look like, why are we going to these places but all you are doing is succumbing to your emotional thinking which is conning you into maintaining a link with us.
Your emotional thinking will tell you that it is permissible to engage in this behaviour because you are not contacting us directly, you are merely observing. These are examples of your emotional thinking conning you into thinking this stalking and observation is a good idea
- You are gathering evidence to tell other people what we are doing to confirm what you have told them previously (you do not need to – you know what we are, that is all you need, you do not have to persuade other people)
- You are gathering evidence for a court case (you do not have to do it – hire somebody to do this or if you cannot afford to do that, have a friend or family member do it – also question whether you really need to this evidence)
- You want to know who the narcissist is seeing so you can warn this person about us (part of your decent nature but unnecessary – you owe the new person no such obligation to warn then and in any event it is unlikely you will be believed because of the smearing we will have done against you)
- You just need to know for your own piece of mind (utter nonsense, you do not need to know at all)
Recognise these sleights of mind by your emotional thinking and act on them.
If you keep watching us, all you are doing is
- Creating harmful emotions that impact on you
- Keeping the emotional infection alive and growing
- Causing your emotional thinking to surge so you contact us directly
- Being spotted by us and suffering a hoover (benign or malign)
- Being spotted by us and being on the end of a restraining order or similar for harassment etc
These are just five examples of The Wrong No Contact. There are many more. Be alert for them, recognise them and understand why you are not implementing no contact. Stop letting your emotional thinking con you.
Once you know, you go.
Get out, stay out.
50 thoughts on “The Wrong No Contact”
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This explained a lot about my misperception about no contact. There was a time during a malign campaign against me that I was stalking social media and doing my own investigation. I was obsessed with this. Going into the lions den of acquaintances that I believed to be part of the coterie/lieutenants of the narcissist that I was involved with looking for clues. These people were dangerous…in and out of prison. I thought for sure they were the ones capable of shooting a horse in my pasture, trying to run me off the bypass, and breaking into my home. In the end I decided it was too risky to pursue and left it up to law enforcement to watch these people. The malign campaign eventually came to an end once I made sure they knew that law enforcement was involved, along with my neighbors and our neighborhood belief in 2nd amendment rights!
They shot a horse?!!
Scum.
Yes… it was horrible! Lets just say after I tipped law enforcement off to the activity they are involved in otherwise the FBI came rolling into our little town the next day. It was quite a convoy! (One of the guys that finally showed up to take my statement wasnt local dressed in head to toe gear!) I hope it was because of them….they deserve everything they get. I hope they catch their illegal “business ” activity! The low lifes!!!!!
There should be rehab centres for emotional thinking. A mixture between therapy, narcsite education and lengthy walks on the coast with no phone or internet whatsoever. Nobody’s allowed to bitch, whine or briefly mention the narcissists in their lives, everything takes place in a beautiful but impenetrable empath fortress and sundays, there’s open fire BBQ.
What a wonderful idea, Desirée! I’m definitely in 🙂
Can HG be invisibly present there like the Wizard of Oz for the narc education sessions?
Dolores
Certainly! We’ll have HG on a Skype Conference Call on Speaker. People will also be permitted only after they completed the Empath Detector and the test comes back EmpC-C to avoid mid-range infiltrators. After that, they will take the Emotional Thinking Assessor to determine the empaths current state and another one at the end of the therapy to track the progress. I have this all planned out.
Desiree
I am with you utterly on this.
Pay no attention to the Narc behind the curtain.
Desireé, where can I sign up?
MB
I’ll make an announcement as soon as the location is set. I’d like a stormy scottish coast to lift the spirits, but that might not be for everyone…beaches, then? France?
I’ve never been to either Desireé. Both sound wonderful. I am a beach girl, but salt water is healing in either instance.
Oooh, I like the stormy Scottish coast idea!!!
Scottish coast the best .. I’m there right now
Stormy Scottish coast, but only if there’s a warm fire inside and something alcoholic to drink afterwards.
Violetta
There should definitely be a cosy fire place and a bar as well. But no drunk girls crying in the bathroom! And no phones or internet.
Desirée, what about Sylt island? Good enough for our rehab?
Drunk girls crying in the loo mostly happens when people chug hard liquor in silly cocktails. We are to sip our drinks slowly before the crackling fire. They will be suited to the weather: hot buttered rum, mulled wine, etc. When we have had enough, each will have a cozy room to retire to. (My cozy room will feature a Great Pyrenees or Newfie to cuddle. I don’t care if they have nothing to do with Scotland.)
Definately, no drunk girls crying in the loo. The only crying allowed involves rolling around on the ground snorting with laughter. I like the idea of having our dogs with us. I couldn’t go anywhere for long without my dog. She is a mastiff mix that cuddles with me every night. If I ever invite a guy back to my bed I’m afraid I might have to tell him after sex “OK you can go now, that’s where my dog sleeps.
Also, no boys allowed!!! They can have their retreat somewhere else!!!
HG
In your opinion, is it ever possible for an Empath to completely remove it? Lessen it, for sure but eradicate totally?
No, as previously stated.
Well that’s what I thought!
Terrific! All of the pitfalls so clearly presented.
For me, even seeing the email address pop up from this person is a powerful trigger even if I don’t open the message and read it. With my email company, blocking an email address is not possible. Spent a few few hours tonight getting instructions from them about how to set up a filter so it goes to spam and I can erase the file without ever even seeing it. This will help until he creates another email address.
Well done.
I had an IT guru explain to the how to do it in your settings. However you must do it from a computer bc it won’t work if you do it from your phone
I have a question/statement. I am on my third restraining order this year for my husband of 7 1/2 years. At the end of this week we have to go to court to see if the Judge will grant a permanent or 18 month restraining order. The two previous orders I ended up dropping .. due to emotional thinking I am quite sure and believing the lies bc the outcome was still the same.. more emotional and verbal abuse as well as broken promises and lies. So this time I actually went 8 days… MM YEAH I KNOW.. Whooptie Do!! My kids were missing their step-dad so I told them they could communicate with him if they chose but to not tell me anything. My youngest son who is 13 years old decided out of the blue to show me the pics that my husband was posting on social media and of course YOU KNOW he would use pics from our wedding day and write the caption underneath that he misses his wife so much and would do ANYTHING to get another chance. So FINALLY on last Friday I caved and text him. Needless to say by Saturday he pulled the Narcissistic Flip and created drama/argument and then changed his version of the reality of what actually happened so of course it was all my fault. I happened to pick him up at his house earlier that afternoon so I had to bring him to his house and then less than two hours later by midnight he texts me asking to for me to come back and get him… LIKE a GOOBER I did it… and then by 5am he starts yet something new… same ending and I brought him back to his house that he now has. Sunday was awful and by 11pm I decided FOR SURE I thought THIS TIME that I had FINALLY had enough and I told him I wanted a divorce ASAP. SOOOO what did he do yesterday?? He texts saying he misses me and just wants to come over. I told him finally that he could come and watch movies with me. He came over… and of course he tried EVERYTHING he could to get what he wanted….As I sat and watched movies last night OF COURSE my brain was in overdrive knowing the court date was at the end of this week and I knew that I was taking the chance knowing he very well will probably fill me with whatever he is thinking/believing it will take to get me to drop the restraining order again… I am TORN literally over this and it is stressing me out so bad.
ANY SUGGESTIONS??
Hello Lesley,
You are being manipulated by the narcissist and your emotional thinking. You need to use this as a priority
https://narcsite.com/private-audio-consultation/
By the way, I removed your surname from your Blog handle for the sake of your privacy.
Wow. I didn’t realise a WordPress blog owner could do that on an avatar handle!
Cheers!
Excellent- saving and sharing on my social media page. Also..’peace’ of mind rather than piece. I know i know..I’ll show myself out now…
What? Why did i get a notification then?
Erroneous posting which I then deleted.
Ok.
You also posted the same article twice with different names. Dirty little secret and shoot you down.
Corrected.
i don’t do any of the above, but i always have friends telling me about him, i made it verry clear that they should not give me informations about him, but they always end up saying he is asking this or that, or they saw him in a particular place.
and i couldn’t block him, i unfriended him but it felt too violent to block him since he wasn’t harassing me or something, i promise it is not emotional thinking, i really don’t want to talk to him.
“i promise it is not emotional thinking”
Now he’s got you breaking promises, just like he probably did.
Been there, done that. Finally stopped asking former co-worker about him. Former co-worker probably higher-functionng sociopath himself, manipulating both of us. Haven’t yet cut him off, on the distant possibility I might need freelance work with him (he knows a lot of people in several industries including media, and has given me freelance work in the past). Last visit, he mentioned in front of his tween daughter, “Vi used to like Wanna-Be Playuh Narc.” His daughter tried to hide her incredulity out of politeness, but her tone when she asked, “Really…?” was oddly satisfying. Obviously, she didn’t consider WBPN crush-worthy.
It’s progress. But it’s not really no-contact.
i don’t ask about him and don’t visit his facebook page, after he said farwell, i let a week passe, i thought it was more polite to let him unfriend me since he was the one who decided to disengage, he didn’t do it so i unfriended him, at the moment i founde it too violent to block him since he was not harassing me and our break up was rather calme he just run away, i did it solely as a way to make it clear that it is a definitive farwell, i admite that i was still in love, but i had no intension on taking him back after what he did, (and i tiny bit of me was relieved it ended).
since we have many comon friends and classmates, whenever i see one of them there is always a moment when they mension him, i tolde them all that i’d like to stop having his news, and i’d prefer that they don’t give him any about me. now i really don’t care, i see him as week and i don’t fall fore weaklings, i juste don’t want to bee full of myself and end up falling back in a trap, it’s more a garanty than a necissity.
is Wanna-Be playuh narc you ex violette?
Former co-worker. Flirted back and forth, nothing happened, every time I backed off thinking “he’s not really interested, must have misread it,” he’d start up again. I’d catch him staring at me, several workers saw enough signs they would chant, “he liiiikes you,” one told me almost a year after we’d mostly dispersed to other jobs he’d heard him admit he thought I was cute. (This was around the time I had played Cinderella in “Into the Woods” and Emily in “Our Town,” so my type was “pretty girl next door,” if not irresistible sex goddess.) I had weird hang-up calls for months afterwards, the police said they were definitely coming from out of state (although it’s possible to use a router), and the times would change when he would visit NYC. They couldn’t trace them for free unless I got death threats. I let everything go to message unless I knew who it was and got a male friend to do my outgoing message. He’d ask former co-workers, “So how’s crazy Vi?” whenever he saw them. When one asked him about the hang-up calls, he just grinned.
I would’ve understood (though not been very happy) if he’d pretended to like me to get sex, but why would he pretend to want sex to get attention? I even suspected he might prefer making stupid calls to actually banging me, but I couldn’t understand that. I also would’ve understood (though not been happy) if he just wasn’t interested. But if he wasn’t attracted at all, wouldn’t he use his time and energy to find someone else? Wouldn’t he have been polite but unemotional, they way you do when you want an unrequited crush to back off? There was an office FemiFascist, and NOBODY ever kidded around with her. They were scrupulously polite to her face, and filleted her behind her back.
Of course I asked myself, “Why me?” What had I done or said that made me a target for someone who’d rather wank than shank? Every adolescent insecurity came back, even though I’d played ingenues and even done some stock footage modeling (again, not glamour types: office worker next door, usually demonstrating phones or other equipment), so I wouldn’t crack a camera. I did not know what he was, and I did not know what I was. If I was pretty enough, was I just too nerdy? That hadn’t worried guys since Jr. high school. Grown men usually don’t care what anybody thinks about your coolness quotient, when it comes to sex. They may be more picky when it comes to marriage.
Having your emotions pour out of you even when you don’t say a word or make a gesture is a good thing for an actress, but a bad thing when a Narc is looking for a source. I must have been a fucking fuel hydrant.
It’s been some comfort to see that he aged badly and surprisingly quickly in just a few years, but I need to stop lurking on his sites altogether. I know what he is now, and I know what I am. I can’t change what I am, but I can change what I DO.
Since I started reading here, it has hurt a lot less. I really think a lot of sites make you feel worse–like, “maybe if you didn’t bleed so much, that shark would stop attacking you.” It’s a shark/i>–it can smell blood for miles. Learning to avoid the sharks (and spot them when they’re still at a distance) is essential.
I don’t know if that means never going swimming again. How the hell ARE we supposed to meet people? Bars and dating sites are hunting grounds for creeps, we’re not supposed to flirt at work anymore (not that this allowed me to vet this guy any better). PUA sites have guys boasting how they pick up girls at church, and Burt Pugach met Linda Riss at a synogogue.
You reduce your ET and learn to avoid the narcissists before the window of evasion closes. There are plenty of normal and empathic men out there, but you fail to meet them owing to the fact you draw narcissists and then get ensnared because you have not marshalled your ET beforehand. Do this and you will suddenly start seeing the non-narcissists.
HG…totally unrelated. Are you aware of WordPress being down? I log on and the page is not loading
It is not down. The page loads.
Violetta,
now that you know what to look for and you know what it means, don’t be afraid to walk away when you are not sure about the individual, don’t stick around delluding yourself with may bes, and tying to explain his behaviours.
i’m not sure if i can give dating advices since i have no real clue about the subject, but i would advise that you avoid bars, parties and clubs for this kinde of things, you will most likely be if not drunk at least not totaly clear minded and thus more prone to make bade decisions.
as for dating site NO!!!!!!
Violetta,
Wow, that was some story about your co-worker! I hope through the knowledge from HGs work that your no contact regime goes well and he stops stalking you.
I have thought the same thing, how are you supposed to meet the right guys, especially when you always attract the wrong guys? HG just answered that. Of course I always fall for that guy who seems to have an air of way too much confidence, seems to have control of every aspect in his life and a certain arrogance about him….yes the bad boy is so exciting. I have a long way to go before I even consider dating again. Besides I still need to get that divorce! Still so much of HGs work to digest before even contemplating dating.
I can relate to you feeling comfort in the fact that he has aged badly. I have to admit when I was implementing my no contact regime by blocking and eliminating everything him over the weekend I fudged and looked at his last vacation pictures “just one more time” before I deleted and blocked everything. I know HG, emotional thinking got the better of me. He was completely gray haired and gained a beer belly. Pretty sure that complete shock of gray hair that showed up in this last year had something to do with me. Felt sorry for him for a minute. His fuel sources have been drying up as he becomes the aging narcissist.
Good luck Violetta with no contact and meeting a good guy!
Gypsy: the phone calls stopped when I moved out of state. I don’t know if he still asks the former co-worker about me, but since the former co-worker was nicknamed “Loki” by someone who knew the situation, he was possibly manipulating BOTH of us, so I just don’t ask. Full no contact would probably mean cutting off Loki too, but I don’t want to because of his industry connections.
Violetta,
I am glad to hear that the phone calls have stopped and you are well aware that Loki may be manipulating you.
Liza
Gently; it should be a block. Has to be. It’s not NC otherwise.
Just listened to it on YouTube yesterday. Essential knowledge, indeed. There’s so much more to No Contact than it seems at the first glance, “not getting in touch” is just the tip of the iceberg.
Thank you for this, HG.
Correct and you are most welcome.
What is title of the YouTube video?
“Forever wrong upon the throne”. You posted this article today, didn’t you?
But when i click to the link it says: 404 error
I checked the website and this article is not among the ones you posted during the day.
It appears in six hours.