After no contact that’s when we get them out of our bones. We deliberatly create our recovery with new info, practical action and time.
After no contact we might think things are going to be amazing! Things are amazing all right. But maybe not in the way we hope or expect or might have assumed. The truth is after bravely going no contact, all of us feel relief and…like poop. At first. And at the same time.
Right along with feeling better…we feel… worse? Or a different kind of “bad”. It’s different than before going no contact, but it isn’t magically all better. So what’s it like after no contact? Let’s talk about it.
Why go no contact? After a narcissistic user, no contact is the way to take our life back. Why does it matter so much?
To make things super-de-duper clear in this horrendously unclear time here’s a handy-dandy list describing what constitutes “contact” and what we want to achieve: “no contact.”
Keeping contact – exchanging raging emails and text messages – even “lovey-dovey” ones – not only keeps us in the mess and the lies – it creates new trauma.
Not talking to each other is advised in normal relationship breakups. Not talking gives us a chance to see how we truly feel. How much more critical is it in a true love scam…?!
Each bit of any contact prolongs harm. The sociopath…that creature you might be calling a “narcissist” won’t offer up closure, an apology, or a sincere exchange of any kind.
What Is No Contact?
What is no contact…? It’s more than watching their messages come in and not answering. It’s the one thing that changes everything and that’s going no contact. We end what they started because they won’t.
Though that’s a good start, this isn’t what we call “no contact”… Each message is a zap of new trauma of interaction with them. Every voicemail, email, DM, text, SMS, PM, is a tug at our gut that makes us foggy and keeps us “in it”.
Contact Means We’re Offering Ourselves Up as Lunch
Further contact after a “break up”, or after there’s an “end”, more often inspires the sociopath to be violent or terrorizing. Without a doubt, the second time you come back together, things are worse whether there is violence or not. This escalates each time you “break up” and goes back.
Did you know that contact could lead to our losing legal battles for custody, divorce, annulment, or restraining orders? Staying in contact can make us look as crazy as they say we are.
To the sociopath, or that person you might have decided is a covert, overt or malignant narcissist: any contact is good contact. Any contact, of any kind at all such as responding to a message they drop into your DM, means to the pathological user that they still pull the strings and so can still access you to take what they want, or to use you as they like.
“Time went on quicker, tighter, everything tightened and escalated after I’d lost just about everything and he became overtly disgusted with everything around him. Finally, a combination of numbness and knowledge that my children and I were in very real danger took hold of me and eclipsed the fear of what he’d do if I left or any other fear or worry. As much as I still hated to accept it, I knew that it had to end, and it had to end by me before one of those horrible fears did happen. I had to accept that leaving or staying was life or death.” ~ Chapter 4, Shannon O. Entry No. 08 This Has to End
This is a situation that demands our heads winning over what might linger in our hearts. The sociopath who hijacked us intended no good for us no matter how charming they were – or are. They will never, ever be anything good they promised.
Strictly establishing no contact and keeping no contact will influence our chance of beginning to recover; our safety, and our well-being, and can decide whether or not we win in court.
Staying no contact is to protect our kids. The sooner we go no contact the sooner we can expect a return to happiness in the days to come and long-term.
The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
Staying In Contact Makes Us Appear Untrustworthy and Questionable in Court
Attorneys and Judges frown on those standing before them seeking divorce and child custody from a predator spouse and at the same time has kept contact with the user-abuser.
If we maintain contact our credibility shrinks. If there are children the only contact is best as emails and only related to logistics of pick-ups and drop-offs.
Our silence is the loudest, most meaningful thing we can say to them.
Unless specific communication with them is requested by an attorney, staying in contact makes us look unreliable, untrustworthy, unstable, and indecisive to Judges, child services, counselors, police, and attorneys.
Staying in contact makes our claims of abuse, defrauding, theft, and all the rest straight questionable. We lose big-time if we stay in contact. Go no contact. Only stay in contact via email or a court app if told to by the court to do so for the logistics of child visits.
This is Staying In Contact:
These are the things you want to not do in order to get your life back and to be heard in the most meaningful way by the pathological user, and then have the space to begin your recovery odyssey:
Let their calls ring through to our phones, even if we don’t answer – their number is best blocked so we don’t see any calls or texts
Call their number and hang up
Dial their number to their voicemail
Take their phone calls
Call them
Leave them messages
Listen to their voicemail messages
Let emails from them land in our inbox
Read the emails they send to us
Respond to their emails
Sort through their emails because we have their password
Read the text, SMS, private Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or any messages from them
Respond to any messages from them
Initiate any messages to them
Close Every Portal from Us to Them
Deeper no contact: close every portal open from our life to theirs. More things we don’t do in no contact.
Look at their Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or any of their online images, or media
Look at their “friends” social media pages
Sort through their posts looking at their new target or for other prey
Look at old photos of them on our phone or on our FB page or anywhere else
Sort through our wedding photos or other pictures of him or us
Keep things that remind us of him or her
Make an alias FB account so we can look at their page that we blocked
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast
For Court: Save What They’ve Already Sent: Every Message Counts
There’s one exception to keeping contact: we can keep contact when or if an attorney tells us to send a particular message to the sociopath from our email for a legal step in any legal process. These emails are then forwarded as-is to the attorney for the legal process.
Strictly establishing no contact and keeping no contact will influence our chance of beginning to recover; our safety, our well-being, and can be a deciding factor in whether or not we win in court.
Keep old messages: archive old emails and texts that may be needed to show violence, intended violence, marriage fraud, name-calling or harassment, or refusal to follow the procedure in divorce, annulment, or other legal matters. Text messages are best also saved in a chronological series of screenshots showing time/date stamping.
If you print out text messages they lose formatting and are simply line after line of the conversation with no way to tell who said what or when.
We do want to make sure all saved messaging has time date stamps and clearly indicates whose device it’s from (theirs) and to whom (you or other targets.) Keep these as screenshots, printouts, and files on a thumb drive. Save copies for yourself. Forward them to your attorney.
Resist Keeping Tabs Unless It’s to Gather Court Evidence
This is for your safety: Maybe you’ve landed here and are uncertain if the person you’re leaving is a sociopath or a narcissist. I get it that this is unbelievably hard. Please, as soon as you can realize that even though You’re not sure what’s going on, the most important thing to do is to protect yourself and your own well-being. It’s best not to talk about them anywhere to anyone other than privately to a few select people. Leave off any social media posts about our misery in breaking up. And here’s there real-deal and the really tough part: we aren’t breaking up as much as we’re making an escape. – Please don’t tap and type away in Reddit threads about this user we’re breaking away from, please stop yourself from listing them on www.badboyfriend.com. It’s best if you don’t make a FB page dedicated to talking trash about them no matter how true the trash is – and I’m here to tell you, whatever trash you have on them it isn’t even a thimble full of their over-flowing-garbage-can-of-a-life. – This is not to let them get away with it! This is to make you, us, you, and I a “non-threat” to the sociopath. Then go report through the proper channels if there’s something to stand up for your life about. And even I use the word “game” sometimes to talk about this, but in real life: this is not a game.
Doing the same with all mutual “Friends” or connections on Facebook
Not looking at their Facebook page
Staying away from their friends’ Facebook pages
Avoiding FB pages of our (now former) friends who are “Friends” on his or her’s Facebook page
Never private message him or her
Not messaging any of his or her “friends”; they don’t have actual genuine friends, and all people are prey to them
Regarding Email
In order to let their email scoop in case you need them for evidence and court or legal matters, we can. However, at the same time these nasty and lying and so freaking crazy emails don’t need to come into our real-life email. We can send them to a special inbox just for the lunatic.
Make a new email address
Don’t give them this new one
Do not email them
Do not read any emails they send you to any email address whatsoever
In addition, consider changing the “channel”, the IP address that your internet is routed through. Simply call your internet provider and ask them to switch the IP address you receive your internet connection through.
This will knock off any device from access to your internet that may have at one time or another signed in to your internet service on a device of their own.
Think Zero Contact and Non-Threat: We Need to Seem Invisible and Nonexistent
Cell Phones
There’s a block function on smartphones per each phone number; use it with his or her’s
Alternatively, call your service provider and have them block this number for you from being able to call into your phone
No calls or texts from that number can come in after that; alternately, login to our online account with our service provider and block the numbers
Do not ever answer any calls in the future coming in as blocked or unavailable or restricted
Don’t answer calls from an unknown number or unidentified caller
Block the unknown numbers that call you and don’t leave a voicemail that shows they’re a legitimate caller
Consider getting a new or used-new phone and a new number. A used-new phone can be just the ticket right now. Do not load old contacts.
Enter the old-school one by one… Only the good ones. – In cases where this seems appropriate, consider a prepaid burner phone for six months or so.
Believe this: we might want the sociopath to hurt as we did – sure, me too, we might even we might even wish them dead, that’s normal. Some of us stay in contact thinking if we call them names and fight with them it will hurt them, or they’ll finally apologize.
We want them to “understand” that they’re hurting us. This is not going to happen in the way we’re looking for. For one, they know they hurt us; this doesn’t bother them.
News Flash: sociopaths (narcissists) do not “hurt” in the way we do; they “hurt” when things are taken from them or there’s a threat of being exposed. When we leave we become a threat to them as far as their concern about who we’ll tell all about them.
They experience trauma when highly valuable prey takes off. As strange as this is, the pathologically narcissistic (sociopaths aka psychopaths aka narcissists) have no feelings that are relatable to our emotional range of concern and experience as fully limbic-brained – normal – humans.
It’s only us who’s hurt by contact. Us going no contact is what hurts them. Please, go and stay no contact.
From their point of view: if we’re texting, calling, emailing or responding, arguing, crying, talking… no matter how we feel, no matter what the words flying out of our mouths are: to them, it means they still own us if we say anything at all. It’s only us who’s hurt by contact. Us going no contact is what hurts them. Please, go and stay in no contact.
No Contact On Other Platforms
Instagram, Pinterest: Nothing. Nope. Don’t look at theirs. Block theirs and all associated with them. Period. Instagram has a new feature called “Restrict”
Twitter: No
LinkedIn:Ditto as above
Snap Chat:Nope. We “blocked” their number on our phone; see Cell Phones above
FaceTime:See Cell Phones above – their number is blocked!
Skype: No; no Skype, zero, zip, nadda, zilch
Zoom: No Zoom
TikTok: No TikTok
WhatsApp: No
Signal or Telegraph: No
Land Lines:Change our voice greeting to the default anonymous greeting and screen calls
Cell and Landline: change your number either over the phone or online with your provider, you can select a new number.
FAX Number: Again if we have a landline for faxing – change the number.
Understand: No Contact is For Us: It’s How We Win
Hopefully, it’s becoming meaningful on a real-deal-critical level, that we can’t meet them for coffee, to trade back our belongings, or to have sex. We don’t go out to dinner, meet them at a club, meet them with friends. Follow the best practices for our well-being when leaving a sociopath aka narcissist.
Be sure to re-key your doors. This involves changing out the locking mechanism. This works perfectly well rather than getting the whole new doorknob which means their old key doesn’t fit your lock anymore.
And neither does the one they might have copied on the sly. If there’s a knock at your door the way to get them gone is to not answer. Additionally, make no reply, not even talking to them from behind the door.
We Bring This to an End
Let’s never see their smirky, ugly face again. I know we all know this, but I’m just sayin’. Go no contact… zero contact, hardcore. Our silence is the loudest, most meaningful thing we can say to them. And let’s be real. You might reach out or wish they would. That’s normal until we fully know what a sociopath is and what that means.
For our own well-being, our safety, and our future; for finding ourselves again, we go zero contact, radio silent. And… You drop off their radar. And goodbye to the nut-job.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.
Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.
A True Love Scam Reader’s Guest Post, written by E.R. Breaking no contact can bring us freedom too. That peek back into where we were is not all bad. – Depends on why and then what we do next.
A True Love Scam Reader’s Guest Post
Written by: E.R.
E.R. was a young college student and this entanglement was her very first relationship. Her parents couldn’t understand her trauma. She yearned for closure, for a natural and mutual ending, for explanations, as do we all when the end arrives.
Through a willingness to take in more, and through sessions with me to begin to shed the assumptions we make about them from the point of view of how we look at the world, E. was able to piece her life back together.
That healing and recovery process is an odyssey of disbelief after disbelief giving way to discovery and relief and resolution if we can step into seeing things we never thought possible.
Going Contact for Peace of Mind
I fell in love with a cute, charming, tender, sensual, simple, strong man. We met on a beach holiday that I took abroad. We emailed and talked and sent texts when I was back home. I went back to that beach every six months to visit him, to get to know him better. I was in love.
Instead of the happiness I expected or first felt, after a lot of pain, I ended our relationship. I went no contact, but then I broke no contact.
In defense of breaking no contact: I learned a lot. I learned who he really was by spying on his life on social media. – By breaking no contact I learned that his Facebook is a sort of display of his love-conquests.
He has friends – other guys – who live at that tourist beach too for the same reason: to live as parasites off tourists; women traveling for vacations and a little fun.
I learned that if he was offline for a few days and I couldn’t reach him… it meant he was having an affair with some new tourist. He was busy love-bombing and paying them attention, fake affection in exchange for whatever he could get.
I learned from his Facebook that he randomly ‘friends’ people he does not know, among which I saw: one Brazilian gay man and a too-young girl from Indonesia.
I learned that when he checked into a city on Facebook, it meant that was the city a prey was living in. his full active prey was never pictured on his Facebook. But he did check-in to the cities they were from giving away their existence as part of his catch..
I learned that liking the page of a club or group or a business, or a soccer team was the sign he was engaging in cheating with a woman related to that activity or in that group.
His email taught me a lot too; I learned his email was full of online dating emails.
And that he subscribed to a website to win a U.S. green card from.
I discovered from his email and SMS that he was still missing and loving his ex-girlfriend for the first 8 months I was in his life.
The Sociopath’s Email Account Tells a Story
His email revealed to me that he had another ‘official girlfriend’ for 6 months when he was already ‘official’ with me. And he sent her exactly the same loving messages he used with me. He even re-used a little poem I sent to him, sending it to her.
Now that I broke up and went no contact, and then behind his back spied on his Facebook, I am learning that he is still the same. Despite the (fake) apologies and pathetic attempts to keep me in his crazy life, he never even stopped for a second to enjoy pornographic images, ‘friend’ new lovers, and say what he said to me to anyone else who would listen.
This is teaching me that all that happened had nothing to do with me; He cheated and lied when I was sweet as much as when I broke up with him.
When I was questioning him as much as when I blindly trusted him; when I was The One and when I am no longer in his life.
Benefits of Looking: When We Turn Pain to Our Advantage
Although I am not fully respecting no contactby spying on his social media, although the first reaction to seeing him with other girls is still painful, I learned something for me. I learned to rationalize for my benefit. I had rationalized giving him the benefit of the doubt for a very long time, in order to put some logic in his nonsense; now I am using what he ‘taught’ me to rationalize in my favor!
Looking at him now helped me look beyond my emotions and repeat to myself like a mantra that he is still the same, will always be the same. A good-looking heartless-cheater.
Thank you, E.R. for sharing the sweet inside the bitter.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.
Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.
