No Contact Suicide – Part Two
I have explained previously that there are two guaranteed ways by which you will cause your no contact regime to be breached. The first method is as a consequence of you contacting us first, where we anticipate that you will make that contact with us, be it in person, by telephone call, text message or social media contact. The second method by which you commit no contact suicide arises where we contact you, but you, in effect left the door wide open. In a way, to describe it as no contact suicide is slightly misleading because for suicide to be committed, this presupposes that no contact was actually in place to begin with. Many people may well think that they have imposed no contact, but they have not done so and this second form of ‘suicide’ is very common indeed.
The second method of committing no contact suicide is where you leave open a route by which we may contact you of an electronic nature. Accordingly, this mistake includes :-
- Not blocking our telephone number
- Not blocking our e-mail address
- Not blocking us on every social media platform
- Not changing your telephone number(s)
- Not changing your e-mail address(es)
- Not removing yourself from every social media platform
You will notice that there are two parts to ensuring a robust no contact regime when it concerns electronic communications. The first is to prevent us from contacting you using our existing platform – we can call or text you from our existing number and it gets through, we can continue to e-mail you from our existing e-mail address, we are able to post messages to your social media and send direct messages from our relevant account or accounts.
You may be surprised to learn that many people do not block us when they are supposedly implementing no contact. For a smaller percentage this is because those individuals have misunderstood the concept of no contact. They think it is all about ensuring that the victim does not contact the narcissist and therefore believes, mistakenly, that numbers ought not to be blocked because the victim believes they will resist the urge to contact the narcissist (thus avoiding No Contact Suicide Part One). A further percentage do so either naively or arrogantly because they believe that the narcissist has gone. The victim believes that since the narcissist raged at them and told them it was over and that they never wanted to see the victim again, that must mean this was the ‘final discard’.
As I have stated many, many times, there is no such thing as a Final Discard
You may think that you have caused massive wounding to the narcissist, that you exposed the narcissist in such a way that there is no way on earth that the narcissist is going to hoover you. So many times I have read comments and questions from my readers where they state
‘There is no chance of him hoovering me, not after the way I made him go beserk.”
“She would not dare to hoover me, not since she knows that I know what she is really like and that I will tell everyone.”
“He has someone else and after the way he left me, he is not going to come back and hoover me.”
Such thinking is complacent and dangerous.
There is always a risk of a hoover.
Furthermore, if you think you have put in place a no contact regime but have left the door open by not blocking our access to you through any and all electronic means of contacting you, then you WILL be hoovered. It may not be straight away (especially if the narcissist has selected a new prospect who we are infatuated with) but it will happen. I see comments from people stating that they have not heard from the narcissist in three weeks. Three weeks? That is nothing. Others may say it has been silent for six months and therefore they know they are safe. Rubbish. I hoovered somebody after a gap of twelve years.
If you do not block us from ‘phone, e-mail and/or social media you are inviting a hoover. Why is this?
- We are creatures of economy. If there is a simple, straight-forward and low energy method of contacting you, we will take it. Consider this, if we could not contact you through electronic communication, what are some of our alternative options? Write a pen and paper letter to you? Organise a lieutenant to hoover you in person or by telephone? Send you a gift? Attend on you in person? Those are all options but they require more effort (and sometimes considerably more) than the simple action of sending a text stating ‘Hi’.
- It invites a swift response from you. As your emotional thinking surges on receipt of the message, it is so easy for you to type a reply and answer before you even grasp what you are doing and what you are inviting. You can pause before opening a dgift, you may work out a Lieutenant is hoovering you on our behalf and therefore keep your emotional thinking under better control and therefore provide no information to this Lieutenant. You may recognise the hand-writing on an envelope and pause before opening it, your logic attempting to keep you from falling prey to the emotional thinking. Once that text has landed, showing our name and message, sometimes even on your locked screen, then you are much more likely to respond to it.
- The electronic medium allows us to dip a toe in the water. This is especially important for Mid Range Narcissists. If we were to attend on you in person and you ignore us, this causes substantial wounding. In order to avoid this, our kind prefer to be in a position to test the water first. If you ignore a social media message, yes it will wound, but it will not be substantial and we will try at least one more time. If you respond, be it pleasantly or unpleasantly, you have still responded and this signals to us that you will do so again. If your response is pleasant, we instinctively know that we are pushing an open door so we shall text/message again. The messages become an exchange, become a conversation and then emboldened and encourage and also fuelled, we speak with you on the telephone, knowing that you will not reject us and then we meet and before you realise you are in our bed and in our grasp once again. The electronic medium enables us to create a landing point without too much risk and once established it becomes a bridge head for further messages as we hoover you hard.
- Even if you do not respond (and we anticipate that you will) we know you will see the message and this will provide us with Thought Fuel. This may give way to feeling wounded when time passes and there is no response, but we still gathered some Thought Fuel beforehand.
- Our need to exert control is so great that if you present us with an easy way of getting in touch with you, we will take it. You may as well send us the keys to your house and leave the front door open. Even if you have wounded us in the past, the impact of that fades over time (and indeed is often outweighed by our expectation of high quality hoover fuel, the need to assert our superiority, to get control over you again and in certain instances to punish you). We will not pass up the opportunity to hoover you if you have left an electronic gate open.
Accordingly, if you do not block us from all methods of electronic communication then you are committing no contact suicide. You will be hoovered and your attempt at no contact has failed. It is highly likely that our hoovering will prove successful and we will garner fuel from you as well as resurrecting the Formal Relationship (as and when we choose).
I know there are many of you who want to be hoovered because you want that contact from us once again. You have not got your emotional thinking under control at all. If you leave that electronic gateway open you will be hoovered but do understand this will happen when we decide, not when you want it to happen. Accordingly, if you are the disengaged former IPPS it is highly likely we will have someone else and therefore (unless it is malign) you will not be hoovered until your replacement is in devaluation which could be months or even years later. If you are a shelved IPSS you will face a hoover, but not necessarily when you want it. You will receive comfort crumbs instead and the hoover to take you off the shelf is decided by us, not you. If you are a disengaged IPSS then we have no interest in you because we are engaging with other more reliable appliances and yes with the electronic gateway open, you will be hoovered, but at a future point of our choosing, not at your dictating.
However, blocking of our electronic method of reaching you is not sufficient. You need to go further otherwise you are still committing no contact suicide.
You must change the telephone number.
You must change the e-mail address.
You must come off social media.
This is because although blocking will have some effect, it is still not enough.
We will ring you/text you from an alternative number, use a Lieutenant’s number (maybe someone you thought you could trust and thus you take the call or read the text) so we circumvent your blocking of us.
We will create a new e-mail address and do so repeatedly to get around your blocking of us.
We will create false profiles or message through someone else’s profile, or just stalk you using these profiles even if we do not contact you.
Of course changing the profiles/numbers/e-mail addresses will not guarantee that you will not be hoovered because of course some (not all) of our kind will expend effort in getting hold of these new numbers and e-mail addresses, but if you block and change you are putting in place a hurdle which will go some considerable way to raising the Hoover Bar and thus diminishing the risk of a hoover.
You will either force us to expend time and effort to ascertain the new numbers etc and/or you will force us to use alternative methods to hoover you and breach your no contact. We may not know where you live or where you work, or these venues may be some distance away and thus by closing (as far as possible) the electronic gateway by blocking and changing there is more chance we will focus on an easy target rather than waste time trying to gain fuel from a source which has become more difficult to extract from.
A total no contact is very hard to achieve. Moving continents, fleeing to the mountains and changing everything about your prior life, cutting off all routes of reaching you through friends and family etc is doable but is difficult. However, if you do not block and change the electronic method of reaching you, you are committing no contact suicide and you will be hoovered at a future point.
If you have to have come channel of communication with the narcissist (for instance co-parenting) then choose e-mail. Make it clear that this is the only means by which the narcissist can communicate with you, that you will only check the e-mail address say twice a week at a set time for e-mails and no other time. This way you will reduce your exposure to the hoovers which have to get through (by reason of the need for some communication) and with them being in writing you can regulate yourself in terms of your response and endeavour to get your emotional thinking under control.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that keeping open electronic channels is a pressure valve or a safe way of ensuring we do not turn up in person. This is incorrect and is an outcome of emotional thinking. If you think it is a wise move to keep open a text communication so this will prevent us from coming to see you in person, this is bad thinking, because
- Doing this WILL mean you are hoovered with the consequences of you feeling anxious, being subjected to more and repeated hoovers through text and more
- These repeated hooverswhich have been allowed to happen because of the easy electronic route will invariably result in your emotional thinking surging and then we have managed to start seeing you in person again. Do not think you can resist this happening because it is very hard for you to do because your tipping point is reached through the repeated surging of your emotional thinking.
- If we cannot reach you through electronic means it is NOT a given that we will turn up in person for the reasons explained above. Even if we do, you can still avoid the hoover, escape it and cause wounding.
It is very simple ; keep any form of electronic communication in place with us and you are committing no contact suicide and you will be hoovered at an appropriate point.
41 thoughts on “No Contact Suicide – Part Two”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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Thank you HG. I find your site extremely helpful. There is no other resource that has such an accurate description of secondary source dynamic explained. ‘Shelve Life’ and ‘fuel’ have been really eye opening. I have established that I am a SIPSS(not sure if there may be others in the wings), which I thought I would be ok with, but after reading the ‘Fuel’ I understand why it’s not going to work. So currently he’s giving me the ST so I finally decided to escape. I have blocked him on all social media and phone/whatsapp etc. Am I safe to assume he won’t hoover? I don’t want to change my number or deactivate all social media as I figured he wouldn’t really pursue secondary source with the same intensity especially if there is an IPPS and potentially one or more IPSSs.
You are welcome DE. You are correct, nobody covers the secondary source dynamic as I do.
With regard to your own situation, you are more likely on the shelf than having an extended silent treatment. I am pleased to note that you are moving to escape.
It is not safe to assume that he will not hoover, there remains a risk, it may not be as high as if you are an escaped IPPS, however, the risk remains and it may be higher than you realise. I need more information from you in order to help you implement your NCR to the maximum effectiveness and I would encourage you to arrange an audio consultation with me.
Thank you HG
I’m feeling exhausted today and my head hurts , it’s like my emotions have drained me over the last couple of days
I normally practice my ballet technique, now at home every day , I can’t bring myself to do it today ,my mind and body won’t obey I just want to hide under the duvet .
This can’t be normal AGAIN , I don’t want to become depressed
😞😞😞
Kiki:
Do you have floor barre recordings? I have found that floor barre both relaxes and re-energizes me.
Hi Violetta
Yes , do you like barre too.?
I’m going to force myself through one session , even half of one now .
I won’t mention barre again Mr HG may get cross , I remember once there was a discussion here about shoes or handbags or something, HG was not impressed 😉.
I feel like I’ve got concrete boots on today , it’s funny the way our emotions can manifest into physically making us feel awful.
Big hugs xx
Kiki:
Actually, HG has often endorsed exercise both generally and specifically as a way of distracting ourselves from the pains of narc withdrawal. He has done a number of athletic activities himself, including skiing and fencing.
I don’t know if his lack of enthusiasm for retail therapy stems from being a non-gay male or possibly the efficient nature of his narcissism. He isn’t going to waste time and energy considering this pair of socks or that cologne when he can just buy the pale blue cashmeres and the Creed Viking, and garner immediate fuel from others noting
a) his ability to afford them; and
b) his impeccable taste.
Accurate.
HG, you like skiing? I thought you didnt (skiing anecdote about one of those that got away).
Depends on who I am talking to.
Ha ha! Of course. Love skiing.
Thank you
I wasn’t sure but yes exercising is great to help
I m getting very intense rollercoasters of emotion again , one moment angry the next agitated , the next sad and I feel a bit out of it .Like I cannot focus .
This was all a distant memory, I need to tap into the logic again .
Most likely a new lady providing fuel now.
At least I didn’t freak out like the first time , I at least held my dignity and respect this time .
No messages, wailing WHY etc .
Kiki
He didn’t dislike skiing; just wanted to annoy his IPPS.
Dearest Kiki,
Ballet is about applying discipline
Treat your narc the same
Apply to both and your head will no longer hurt
🤣
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Ps …..that conversation I’m sure was involving our lovely fashionista Lorelei …. Mr Tudor, have you heard from Lorelei and is she ok ( I thought I posted a comment asking about Lorelei last week, knowing me I didn’t press send haha )
I could feel his boiling fury beneath the surface even before I read the book “Fury”. But after reading it it felt it even more: this hostility, this restlessness, the smug, the malicious joy, the envy, the wrath. I know he can become very aggressive, he already physically hurt people in the past. I´m scared 🙁
I´m scared of the hoovers, the aggression, the fury. 🙁
1. Fear and the Empathic Victim https://gum.co/quCkX – it will help you a lot and will help you now.
2. A solid no contact regime means no hoover will get through and therefore you will not experience the aggression and the fury. Consult and I will ensure you build that solid NCR.
<3 Thank you very much, H.G.! Get this in a sec! <3
Sensible step
Oh my goodness, I´m scared! 🙁 Went No Contact yesterday and I´m really scared! 🙁
Leela
It’s hard I know , it’s scary , I’m sitting here now feeling wretched.I cannot even cry.
I know I have to go full NO CONTACT again after a year long hoover .
How can I face this again , I feel your fear and pain.
I feel like I cannot do it but I know I have no choice .
I actually went for one year only using my phone for necessary calls ,I couldn’t even look at it for long , now I’m glued to it and need it .
I honestly thought I was in control and got arrogant.I just felt lonely and let the narc seduce me again.
At this stage I’m entering ridiculous, all this after 18 months no contact 😞😞😢
He pulled the friend card yesterday out of the blue I promised myself if it ever came to that crap again I would not fall into the friendship trap , that would be it .
So now I’m here feeling
Kiki
How was he able to “pull the friend card” if you were in no contact?
We were back in contact HG since last summer , I was in 18 months no contact before that a long slow hoover , I got the we can just be friends line yesterday .
How did you come to be in contact again after the 18 months “no contact”? How did it first occur? Did he ring you, email you, text message you or speak to you in person.
You have been in contact since last summer, so in effect you have been in contact with him for a year until now?
Yes HG it started with email , so no I wasn’t in proper no contact .
There was just no contact either way for a long time which was a miracle for me to do .I was proud of it at the r time
I’m feeling really low right now HG please don’t berate me I know it was not absolute cut off no contact .
I do not berate. I need to understand the circumstances as they were not clear in order to then provide accurate responses for you and other readers. It serves as yet another example of how no contact must be implemented properly and maintained. You know what to do so address this as opposed to allowing it to govern you.
Yes HG , I was back in contact .😔
Why I’m even bringing up the fact I had no contact for months at one stage is pointless , I failed .End of .
I thought I could be smart about it because I was cold and didn’t feel emotionally close to him for a long while , it was a long slow process to get me hooked in again, and I’m ashamed I let myself be sucked in again.
Loneliness and needing a shoulder to lean on is the cause.
Kiki
Kiki
Dont beat yourself up. Just go back to square one, learn from your mistakes, stay here, ask questions, read. I went back numerous times and the best thing I got out of every time I did is the ore I went back the less effect he had on me. I was more trying the “play the game’ the last couple of times. Where I used to feel elated after talking to him, I felt sad.
It is hard, yes, but you can do it.
HG would never berate you. Using only logic allows him that luxury.
Take care.
Correct and thank you Kim E.
Kiki- I think the amount of time you went no contact is pretty impressive. So you know you can do it. It’s a horrible feeling, falling off the wagon, only to have it be the same old story once again.
I fell off the wagon in March when the virus started too, after being no contact for a couple of months (the most I had gone up until that point, during my 2 year emotional roller coaster ride from hell with my person). But when the same old crap started (doesn’t it always- it’s one of those truths, like gravity), I had to get back on the wagon, and just reminded myself of all of the things I’ve accomplished in the past that I thought I couldn’t do, but was able to follow through on. And that the horrible despair feelings of being off the wagon won’t last forever.
Lock down those avenues of communication and take good care of yourself, and month from now you’ll be looking back on today, and realizing you feel much better.
Shame and guilt can be difficult emotions to carry with us. They weigh us down causing ourselves to constantly blame ourselves. You likely interpreted HGs comments as berating (or assumed they would be) because In essence… that is what you are doing to yourself.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be a narc and have zero guilt for our actions?
The guilt is uneccassry. You did not commit any unforgivable offence here. You’re a human being. Human beings can at times make bad judgment calls for themselves. It happens to the best of us. Forgive yourself and focus on what’s going to be best for you today. Today you are no contact. That’s whats important.
The pandemic is a stressful time. I too breached no contact. The interesting thing though was everything I began writing to the narc this little voice in my head would say “ Anything I say is fuel” knowing how the narc would interpret my messages made every interaction feel pointless.
Next time you feel hoovered. Come read here… and then read the message again. You will see no response is the winning response.
Hang in there !
Don´t beat yourself up about it, Kiki! Narcs are just mentally ill people who cause enormous damage to our souls, but you know what? We don´t need them! We deserve better! WAY better! Kiki, we can do it!! And soon we gonna be very happy that we have done this! 🙂
Thank you Leela and Empath007
Your words are very kind and meaningful.
I really appreciate it and it feels good to know I’m not alone in this type of situation.
Big hugs x
I’m preparing to go a step further on this one, but obviously still haven’t gone far enough.
What is unfair is that the narcissist not only isolates the victim during the relationship, but the victim is further isolated after ending the relationship for fear/danger of being hoovered back in. So, the factor of isolation continues and is exponentially increased as the victim tries to avoid the narcissist and any possible hoovering.
Trust has been destroyed and second guessing everyone’s motive/intentions becomes second nature.
It sucks. And let’s not forget the smear campaign which has likely generated a further sense of isolation.
No contact means new world in some respects. And that’s basically what has to be built. Like it or not.
HG, if you remove the narc from a social media site after not speaking with them for over 6 months (I know I should have gone completely no contact right from the beginning luckily I haven’t reached out to him and he hasn’t hoovered me within those 6 months) would that be thought fuel for him? I want to start full no contact through electronic means but on a certain social media site I have to click on his profile to remove him and he will get a notification that I viewed his profile. The last thing I want to do is give him thought fuel, but I want to rid him of my life completely.
No, it would amount to wounding. See The 3 Interactions With the Narcissist.
Narcsurvivor030414
Welcome. The only way to rid him of your life is completely going NC. I and others have tried the pieces way…first social media, then maybe block ….it doesn’t work I am sorry to tell you. Your ET never goes away with those methods
I am on 4 months NC for the 4th go around but now that I closed all avenues of communication I am starting to feel better. There are hell days but withdrawal from addiction is hard
And 6 months in the N’s world is nothing. If you are on the shelf he hasn’t even thought of you
As HG says and I will attest to total NC is the hardest thing you will ever do but it is the only way.
Keep reading and purchase some logic bulletins
Hugs and well wishes
Wise words from a seasoned pro.
You could report him to the site for abuse.* Some sites completely remove the offending profile from yours without notification (bonus, you won’t be tempted to unblock).
*If you do not believe you were abused on the site, some sites permit blocking for offline abuse.
12 years HG? Seriously, even after 12 years?! Were you successful? You say hoovered but not whether it worked or not.
Why should we (the victim) remove or delete ourselves from social media and cut ourselves off from the rest of the world because of a narc? It’s a lot of hassle to create new email, change numbers etc. How irksome.
They take too much from us!
I now understand why a friend of mine ‘disappeared’ from social media for a while.
The only hoovering I’ll accept is the electric one that sucks up dirt from the floors.
Yes it worked.
Your second paragraph is emotional thinking. You do not have to, however, you will not move forward. If you want to achieve freedom, you have to make changes and sacrifices. Want to lose weight? Ditch the pizza and donuts for a time until you get to your target weight, that weight will not go away without effort and sacrifice. Want to climb Everest, forget lazing around and watching Netflix, you need to train and learn. Is it fair you have to make changes? No, but fairness is irrelevant.
Thank you for clarifying it’s ET.
I’m quite confident there’ll be no hoovering.
It’s only recently when I started reading your website. The emotional healing takes a lot longer than the mental.
Still find it incredulous the hoover still works after 12 years!
Your confidence is misplaced. There is always a risk you will be hoovered, what you do is implement a solid no contact regime to reduce the risk to the lowest level possible.