Katia Beeden · Follow
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A narcissist has to stay in control at all times. When they are not in your physical presence, they need to continue getting emotional energy from you. This need for control and narcissistic supply makes them behave in very odd ways. At best, it’s confusing. At worst, it’s abusive.
They have to keep you focused on THEM at all times. One of the easiest ways to do this is via texting. When they can’t control you directly, they control you through your phone. You are like a robot to them. They influence your behavior and command that you obey.
The defining traits of narcissism are a lack of emotional empathy and manipulative and controlling behavior. At first, a narcissist will try to please you and impress you, but eventually, their own needs will always come first.
They will text you whenever they want to, even if they know you are in an important meeting or exam. They don’t care about the time or who you are with. None of that matters to them. They don’t care about your boundaries. What is important to a narcissist, is to get your attention and have it focused on them and only them.
Why?
A narcissist thinks that they are entitled to your time and energy. They believe they own you and that you are theirs and theirs alone. So, your attention has to be on them at all times. They feel threatened if you focus on your life, your job or your other relationships. They see this as a form of betrayal and disloyalty.
To keep you focused on them, they condition you to become hooked to your phone. You end up constantly looking at your phone. You eventually become anxious and hyper-vigilant around their texting behavior. You don’t know when you are going to get your next text from them, and when you will be required to respond.
In the early stages of a new friendship or romantic relationship, it is very intense. It’s a constant back and forth, back and forth, day and night. You’re constantly on your phone. You are being sucked into the narcissist’s vortex. You think that they are very into you but they are not. They are trying to get to know you so that they can successfully mirror you.
They demand this attention from you because they are testing your boundaries. They want to see how easy you are to control. They are luring you into their web. As soon as they have you trapped, the devaluation starts.
Any narcissist’s main goal with texting (no matter how hard they try to hide their true intentions), is to get the constant confirmation:
“Yes, I am in control.”
In the beginning, when they are love-bombing you, they get you addicted to this intense texting pattern. Suddenly, they withdraw. This messes with your nervous system and creates anxiety and stress. You worry that something has happened to them or that they have lost interest in you. If you have an anxious attachment style, this hot and cold texting pattern is particularly cruel. They literally control your biochemistry through their texting behavior.
Instead of focusing on yourself and your life, you are now focused on your phone. Your happiness is now dependent on whether or not another person contacts you, or not. It’s an incredibly disempowering position to be in.
Take back your power and see through the illusion!
1. Always wanting to know where you are and what you are doing. They insist you check in with them daily or several times a day, to let them know you are “safe.” Now, if you are a child or an adult that is traveling or going to a dangerous area, then that is a fair request. It’s respectful to let your loved ones know you are OK. But with the narcissist, it’s not really about your safety. It’s only about control.
When you are away from them physically, they need to know that they can still pull your strings. This insistence that you check in at certain times can appear “romantic” or “caring”. Your lover may insist that you send them a selfie everyday. They want you to think that they are “into you” but it is really all about them controlling you.
I mean, who has time for this nonsense?!
If you are out without them, some narcissists go so far as to ask you to send a picture of yourself with your friend. Or, ask you to show them an object to prove you are in the location you say you are in. There is so much distrust because in reality, they are up to no good themselves!
Narcissistic mothers, in particular, love using the “I care about you, I’m so worried about you” card.” They maintain parental control through texting… Even if their “child” is an adult! Your age does not matter to them. They infantilize you and feed off your emotional energy by making you feel guilty. They constantly want you to let them know where you are and what you are doing.
You are expected to respond IMMEDIATELY. You think this is love but it is not. It is control.
2. They abandon you mid-conversation. They text you, “how are you?” You immediately reply that you are okay and ask them how they are doing. They then wait three days to reply… They get a thrill out of the idea that you are left hanging. This is what HG Tudor refers to as “thought fuel”. The thought of you in distress gives the narcissist a rush of energy.
3. They demand your immediate attention… and then go silent. A narcissist will send a dramatic text that evokes an immediate response from you. For example, you get a text, “I’ve been in an accident.” They don’t share any details or let you know if they’re okay. You frantically try and get hold of them and… crickets. Your texts are left unanswered and your calls go to voice mail.
Hours or days later they casually let you know it wasn’t anything major. They may even chastise you for “over reacting.” In the meantime, your life has been invaded, hijacked and disrupted by feelings of anxiety, stress and fear. More fuel for the narcissist to feed off.
My ex was a covert narcissist and I insisted that he start therapy. He did and was formally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I put my needs and my life on hold and waited two years for him to be stable enough, with a support system, so that I could finally process my much desired divorce.
By this stage, I had moved back to my home country. But to maintain control, he kept me attached to my phone and focused solely on him. He would send terrifying texts and then go quiet. His modus operandi was to target me late at night just before my bed time. My phone would light up and I’d glance at the screen and read something like, “I’m killing myself now. Don’t bother trying to stop me.” Or, “I’m driving into the woods to hang myself. Don’t bother trying to find me.” Then he would switch off his phone and disappear for days. He would eventually resurface and act like everything was normal.
Meanwhile, I had been online frantically trying to get hold of people to try and track him down. He kept me in a traumatized state to feed his need for attention and control. He had no intention of taking his own life. It was during my divorce proceedings that the term “emotional terrorism” was explained to me.
4. They get others to do their dirty work. If you have gone no contact, or established some other form of boundary, they send in a flying monkey. They get a mutual friend or a family member to text you to see if you respond. If you do, they then start to text you as well.
They also use others to get information about you. I have learned that whenever anybody pops up from my past, it is never because they genuinely want to reconnect with me. It’s always to find out what I am up to so the information can be fed back to the narcissist. Once they have extracted the information, I never hear from them again. It’s amazing how a narcissist can make you behave in such a deceitful way.
5. They send you a text that sounds like it was meant for someone else. They do this to create doubt and mistrust. Or just to play mind games.
6. They deliberately ignore you. You can see that they are online. But unlike the golden era of the love-bombing stage, they don’t respond. They devalue you and purposefully make you feel ignored. This kills your self-worth.
Or they might send a text early in the morning saying “good morning”, but when you respond, they once again leave you hanging. It’s as if they press a button, elicit a reaction, see that you are still there and then run away. They take some kind of sad*stic pleasure in making you suffer.
This mind game of back and forth, push and pull drives a person crazy. You have no idea how to respond to this kind of behavior. You do not know what your status is, you don’t know where you stand in the relationship. It’s so confusing. When you ignore them back, they drop another little text.
Hi.
Hey.
Good morning.
Whatever.
You respond back thinking, maybe now they are back to “normal”. But they drop you like a hot potato and repeat the pattern over and over again. This goes on until you lose all self-respect or block them once and for all.
It’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of it all. Even though you know you are being treated badly, you still fall into their trap. You want to see the good in them and let their narcissistic lies get the better of you. This is when you become vulnerable to gaslighting. You begin to question yourself. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that never stops and all you want is for the ride to be over.
7. They blow hot and cold which creates a trauma bond. The anxiety is real. They text you regularly, then suddenly ignore you. They say they love you, then don’t call for days. When they want something, like sex or money, they get all lovey-dovey and hook you back in, only to repeat the cycle.
Now that you are theirs, they feel they don’t have to care about you or the relationship. They know they have you exactly where they want you. Blowing hot and cold is how they devalue you. They want you to keep begging and asking for attention. They get A-grade narcissistic supply when you keep questioning yourself.
What did I say wrong?
What did I do wrong that made them do this? That made them ignore me?
Do I need to change something in my behavior for them to stay? For them to become the person that they were in the early stages of the relationship?
This is the kind of obsessive thinking, justification and rationalization that swirls around in your head when you are victimized by this abusive, push pull behavior.
In truth, you have done nothing wrong. It’s a game to them. They purposely withdraw, then grab their popcorn, and watch as you frantically try and win them back. Oh, and they feel so powerful.
8. They weaponize music. Narcissists use music to create a false sense of connection and intimacy. They text you song after song. They know the kind of music you like and use the lyrics to draw you in.
Music waves can sync with your brain waves, so this is a powerful tool the narcissist can use to hypnotize you into the shared fantasy. Beware of manipulation by music!
9. They do a temperature check. If you haven’t blocked them, a narcissist will send a random text out of the blue, usually one word.
“Hey”
They do this to see if they can elicit a response. When you respond to their text, they disappear. This is another way to hurt and devalue you. They get a rush knowing they still have you under their control.
10. They deliberately cross your boundaries. When they know you are busy doing something important, they deliberately interrupt you by texting. Instead of giving you space to prepare for your exam, or be fully present with your children, they want you glued to your phone. They may even go so far as to text with some ‘emergency,’ especially if you are with your family or attending an important event without them.
I’ve heard so many stories of narcissistic mothers calling and texting during family dinner time. You ask them to please not text or call at that particular time and… that’s EXACTLY when they will text or call. They deliberately invade your personal space, life, mind and relationships.
I was on a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. I told the narcissistic in my life that I’d be offline. As it was a silent retreat, we were not allowed cellphones. I assured them that I would call as soon as I was back online, giving them the exact day, date and estimated time.
Luckily, they took my phone away from me, otherwise, my quiet retreat would have been ruined. When I switched my phone back on after ten days, it was flooded with text messages from this person. They had deliberately ignored my boundary and bombarded my inbox every single day of the 10! They didn’t know that I’d chosen to have my phone locked away in a safe. Therefore, their ploy to tempt me to break my silence on the retreat had not worked.
They could not handle the fact that I was focusing on myself and not them. As those messages pinged into my inbox one after another for a solid two minutes, it dawned on me how little respect they had for me and my time. Those messages did not make me feel cherished and loved. They made me feel angry and disrespected.
11. Narcissists are darn rude. They will constantly text other people when they are with you. While they are online with other sources of supply, they enjoy treating you as if you do not exist. Your looks of disappointment and frustration makes them feel so powerful. It’s a game and they are winning.
Years ago, I had a narcissistic friend who lived in another country. Whenever we were finally able to get together, they would be on their phone the entire time. We would meet in these exotic locations around the world to spend quality time together. Like clockwork, he always had some major drama going on with a new lover. The entire holiday would be hijacked by his phone and love life. *Yawn*
They devalue you by letting you know you are not important enough. They want you to know they don’t actually have time for you. They do not consider you as an important part of their life as you consider them. They do not care about you. They do not care for your presence. They don’t see you as a valuable person that they are attached to.
12. Sexting is another texting behavior narcissists use to control you. They ask for nudes and provocative pictures and all of that sexy stuff. It’s a huge red flag when this starts quite early in the relationship. They send unsolicited, provocative images first, and expect you to send the same without caring about how you feel, or asking if you want to do this or not.
It is one of the many ways they degrade you because you may participate in sexting. You may share stuff, but later, when they start devaluing you and they start putting you down, you start feeling scared. You worry that they will show your pictures to others. You feel embarrassed and start berating yourself for sending them. They usually have a string of people that they sext with, you are not the only one. When that supply dries up, they will circle back to you temporarily, until a better option shows up.
As soon as you recognize weird texting behavior, block, delete or ignore. They’re not valuing you or your time. Let them go and keep it moving. That is where your healing starts. The minute you decide to stop participating.
If you’re ready to stop living in the story of your trauma, book your Breakthrough Session today or contact me to see if we’re a fit. Together, we’ll release the patterns and beliefs that are keeping you stuck.
