No contact mistake you might make.
Stalking the narcissists’ social media, they might have left you, and you’ve stumbled across the word narcissist, so you set out on no contact listening to all the advice given. Or you’ve worked out they are highly narcissistic, so you have chosen to leave them. You are now starting to make the no-contact rule to escape them forever, and move forward onto a better life. Or if you’ve children together, move onto the limited, non-emotional contact. The grey rock method.
You want to succeed, stand firm, and remain effective. Yet, you sabotage yourself by social media stalking. Now some of you may or might not have done it. But plenty will, especially at the beginning when you’re still ruminating about them. The narcissist has a good idea that you are doing this. You might believe it doesn’t count if you’re watching them and they don’t know. However, it’s keeping your mind on them and not you. Many narcissists will be posting things in the hope you’re looking, to provoke you.
Many people hit social media the moment they wake up, first thing in the morning on the commute to work, or on the toilet. We’ve conditioned ourselves to check social media, which is ok. You still connect to people and gain new information. It’s just like reading a newspaper used to be on the commute to work. But communicate with friends instead, only when you wake, and the narcissist is running around your head, and curiosity gets the better of you. Then you might begin.
- Repeatedly checking on their social media profiles.
- Repeatedly checking their friends and family’s social media profiles.
- Repeatedly checking their new partner or partner’s friends’ media profiles.
- Asking mutual friends to have a look at their profiles, if they’ve blocked you.
- Creating a fake profile to look.
- Checking to see if the ex is still following you on Instagram or Twitter.
Stop now, delete and block them and all mutual friends. Also, any of their family. As the narcissist is also gaining information about you.
The hard part isn’t blocking them all. The hard part is feeling guilty. Lose the guilt. They are not your friends or family, even if they were. The narcissist has manipulated them, you’ve enough healing to do, they can and will fend for themselves, and helps great, but the only way anyone can heal is by healing themselves.
It’s so easy to click on your social media and have a look, but this is only keeping you connected to them. It may satisfy the curious urge for a moment, but it’ll not help in the long run.
Why do we do this?
- You might be looking for signs they miss you. They only miss your attention. They do not actually care about you.
- Your curiosity comes into play to know what they are now doing.
- You want to know if they’ve removed pictures of you both or kept them up.
- You want to know if they’ve announced they’ve met someone new yet.
- If there is a new person, you want to sit and compare yourself to them. You also want to know if the narcissist is treating them the same way they did you, is it better, or is it worse? You want to see signs that the narcissist is starting to show their true selves to them. Unfortunately for the new in time they will, they always do. Just hope the new person cottons on quickly before the narcissist destroys them.
- You want to know if karma has hit them yet. Karma is in them with their own negative, miserable minds, so don’t worry about revenge or karma.
- You want to get answers as they don’t give them to you if they left you. You have an instinct and desire to know why. Just help rebuild yourself. Instead of stalking them, learn about the narcissist, and then you’ll have all the answers you’ll ever need.
- You want closure. Stalking their social media will not give you closure. It’ll just keep old wounds open for longer.
- You want to know why they are with someone new so soon. Just learn about them, and you’ll understand why their sorry selves can not stand to be alone like regular people can.
- You may think it helps you, and it doesn’t. You’re just allowing yourself to think about them. Yes, it’s okay if you need to do it and get it out of your system. As I’ve said, you’re not alone. Plenty do but get it out of your system, then stop.
When you look every week, every day, a few times a day, you are then thinking about them, and this doesn’t help your recovery. It only serves to keep you locked in the past. You need to make the decision to stop, no matter how hard, so you can live in your present and work on your future.
You are provoking your own emotions when you see pictures. You are allowed to have these emotions and grieve, and you do need to process your own grief. That’s fine. Let it out and move on.
When stalking the narcissist on social media, You may see a negative reference about you, and you risk contacting them out of anger. You may feel jealous.
You are weakening your no contact and going around in circles.
You’re denying yourself other distractions which will help you recover and grow, instead, try doing something new and develop yourself.
Some narcissists count on you stalking them, and they are also stalking yours to see if they can breach the no contact and creep in for the hoover.
Not all of us will do this, but a lot will. Those who do, you’re not alone. It’s normal human curiosity. So it’s ok but to move on, it’s time to stop. When you think about looking, go do something else or change your thoughts onto you, growing to learn and developing for yourself. Something the narcissist will never be able to do.
No contact rules.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach. She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
