Being Ignored

When you are dealing with the personality disordered, the biggest and best advice that is given to you-is the "No Contact" advice. Meaning, if they call-don't answer. If they text-don't respond. If they email-you didn't get it.

Naturally, this works out much better for those of us who were lucky enough to either not marry nor have children with a person like this. In this respect, following the above advice is easy.

There are tips and tricks that you can utilize to still have minimal contact with the person if you are divorcing or have kids.

Yet, there's a couple things about this advice that is not telling the whole story.

The majority of the time-the psycho's cut US off. THEY end the relationship. We have come to notice, that the times where we TRIED to, or we began to back away-that is when we were "love bombed" and when not answering calls, texts and emails became incredibly difficult, as their manipulations stronger and harder to resist. And in the event we DID resist it-we saw how quickly this enraged them and then the phone calls became persistent, angry (why aren't you answering me?) and the texting blowing up your cell phone. Your inbox greeted with 10 emails a day.

At this point-if in fact you ARE truly done, and want nothing more to do with him-would be when you may have to get a restraining order, as my psycho's ex did. But when we are still teetering with the wonderment of if he is as bad as we are beginning to think he may be, this court press they apply can break thru to us like the big kid picking on the little kids in a game of Red Rover. Just break on through to the other side, and back into our lives.

No, typically what happens, is if we confront the psycho, and he sees that there is no more manipulation to be done, if we have caught him in something-and ALWAYS if he found someone else-he's done. That's it. Adios. Rarely even a goodbye. Actually, if you are lucky, you'd only get a goodbye. Usually, he'll leave on some high and mighty diatribe of how badly you suck as a person, he'll shock you and pull the rug right out from you by claiming everything WAS false-his feelings, the things he said, his love for you-and spontaneously combust leaving you to choke on the smoke when he's gone.

There is no chance for you to rebuttal. There is no chance for you to defend yourself, get angry, or try and understand why. It's a shock tactic they use. We are so blindsided by this-with the mantra of "How can someone who loves me or even loved me at all, be so cold and DO this?" We are stunned. Nice people don't do this. We are amazed at his level of upset, anger and rage and seeming hatred-coming out of nowhere like a comet about to approach the Earth. We usually didn't see it coming. We thought maybe we were about to spar and have yet another argument.

So we try to contact him, to see if he's "cooled off." Nope. He won't answer. You beg him to explain how he could just throw away all of it, disregard you like you are a newspaper from last week, without remorse, without regret, without kindness, without closure.

So you may chase. YOU now text, call, email, etc. And it's like they have died. They don't answer. EVER. No matter what tactic you use, no matter how much you try-stoic is an understatement and they GET OFF on you trying. Any attention-even if negative-is the power they desire, to make you mad, to make you squirm-things someone that truly loved you, wouldn't want to put you through for more than a day.

They will put you through it for the rest of your life. No matter how many years you invested, no matter how good the "good" times were when they were there, no matter how much feigned intimacy they gave, no matter how much you thought deep down you KNOW this man-you didn't know THIS. And this is devastating and the worst abuse of all. To discard and to devalue. They are masters of the silent treatment, which is a true sign of personality disordered people. People who love and have compassion, eventually communicate, to set boundries, to clear up confusion, etc.

You wonder how'd they feel if it was done to them. You just can't accept that they are so incredibly self-willed and controlled and could be so cruel, that you often don't stop trying. So now YOU look like the psycho, the stalker, the irrational imbalanced one.

So you MUST ignore them. Sometimes-this makes a psycho come back, once they see they don't have your attention but typically they won't come back until they are alone again and will test the waters, hoping you have "forgotten" their shitty ways. Most of the time though-they won't really care if you are ignoring them, if they are with someone else (and most probably-they are.) What's called "new narcissistic supply."

Supply equals demand. Yet with them-don't supply it, they will STILL demand it. If not-it is a blessing. After all, when logic kicks in....even if they did turn around to give "closure"-could you believe a damn word they are saying?

I remember one psycho who did the devalue and discard who has twisted it so brillantly it leaves my head spinning. He kept insisting that it was troublling him that I kept contacting him and that surely that made me the crazy one. He repeatedly asked me to stop contacting him. He made it seem like I was the one who was stalking him-when he was the one that had hugely fucked me over. I don't know if it was rebellion, rage at being controlled, rage at how he messed with me-but when I finally woke up to all of this stuff...I called HIM out on it.

I thought about him again intensely in a way that made me wonder if he was okay, and I caved to see how he was. Not to re-establish contact, not to engage, but to know if he was alright. I don't even know why I was asking, because if he isn't-nothing I could do. In any event-all I asked was a simple "yes" if he was okay. I realized-he's STILL controlling me. I didn't do anything to warrant this, I never understood why he treated any contact with me like some emotional herpes-I don't want anything from him and yet I can't even inquire to his well being without it being "drama".

So-I suppose from now on-I just can never do it. If he landed in a hospital now paralyzed from the neck on down....well, I wouldn't even send a card. Hey-he wants to be left alone.

I think that his wish will ultimately come true in more ways than one.

Mostly, we just want to hear "I'm sorry." Or "I don't want to hurt you." We want to hear a closing speech of "You are a great person, thank you for this, etc." Even in the worst "normal" break-ups, there is that time of recognizing the love and fun that you had together, and honoring it.

That won't happen with a psycho.

It takes a lot to stop trying to attempt communication as we are coming out of it. We sometimes keep testing the waters. Sometimes, we want to know if they are still alive. It's complex and strange, as we are well rid of it-but when we have those weak moments of doubting ourselves and they give NO feedback at all, we can enter a fantasy world again that buffers the pain by thinking they aren't that bad. So we attempt the contact again. And every time they ignore it, we get hurt all over again. I think though, its a necessary part of the healing process-because the more this happens, the more is simply cements the truth: The person you are dealing with has bad wiring in their head. Period.