Is It Ever Okay To Break No Contact with A Narcissist?
No.
A few months ago, I decided to break No Contact. I was feeling particularly vulnerable that day. Someone had attempted to steal my cellphone while I was hiking on Lion’s Head in Cape Town. I managed to get away, but in the process, I fell down a steep slope and injured myself. This experience shook me up and made everything seem so superfluous. With eyes wide open, I reached out to someone I had gone no contact with.
I was surprised when they responded to my text within a few hours. I was gearing up for the usual ghosting or silent treatment. More surprisingly, they were open to my suggestion of possibly seeing one another again. But this is where it gets interesting.
Mentally, I had prepped myself to have no attachment to the outcome. I could remain neutral either way. I have got to the point on my healing journey where my emotional state is no longer influenced by the actions of others. Whether they replied to my text or not, I was not going to take their rejection, silent treatment or invalidation personally. Rather, my attempt at reaching out was a mixture of vulnerability and curiosity.
I sat on the couch reading their response, visualizing what a visit would look like. Suddenly, I got stabbing pains in my gut. As a celiac, it felt like I had just eaten a wholewheat sandwich. The pain shot up towards my neck and a throbbing headache developed. I lay on the carpet cradling my stomach.
Suddenly, I had a realization. I remembered, in the past, when I’d been in their company, exactly the same thing had happened. I’d suddenly develop stabbing pains in my gut and have to lie down. Once again, here I was, lying curled up in agony. Wow! My body was responding in exactly the same way all these years later.
I did not know then what I know now.
My gut was saying,“NO!” This person was not safe then and they’re not safe now. I was under psychic attack. I immediately cleared my energy through prayer and meditation. I released the idea of ever seeing them again. I let them go completely. If that is the pain they could inflict energetically, there was no way I was placing myself in their physical proximity, ever again. As I cleared my energy and let go, my headache eased and the stabbing pains in my gut receded.
I am always amazed at how powerfully our bodies talk to us. Your body is wise and knows what is safe and what is not. My body did not feel good when I broke No Contact. It communicated to me that that particular connection was steeped in pain. I am now fully at peace with my choice to remain No Contact.
“Wanting and expecting a narcissist to be different is like expecting a crocodile to roll over while you scratch its tummy.” ~ Melanie Tonia Evans
What is the No Contact Rule?
Let’s start with what it is not. It is not the same thing as the strategy used in dating to make your partner miss you. Here, pulling back and going no contact is done with the intention to increase connection and intimacy.
When dealing with a narcissist, No Contact is a strategy to help you cut ties with the narcissist. It is a hard boundary that you set to keep yourself safe and it gives you the space you need to heal.
How to Go No Contact
You start by closing all the open doors in your life. You commit to not calling, texting, emailing, or visiting the narcissist. You block all their numbers and block them on all your social media platforms. You don’t answer calls from numbers you don’t know. You ignore any attempts they make to contact you. Be especially careful of flying monkeys.
Return any gifts they attempt to send you. Avoid going to places where you may bump into them. Accept that you can no longer trust those who are in the narcissist’s camp. This means your social group may shrink and you need to be okay with that.
If you share children, you will have to master the art of parallel parenting as well as the grey rock technique.
Remember, cutting ties with a narcissist is comparable to going cold turkey from a heroin addiction. Your nervous system has become addicted to the peptides and chemicals released during the highs and lows of the abuse cycles. A trauma bond creates a physical and an emotional addiction to your abuser.
Every time you feel rejected, hurt or neglected by the narcissist, the devaluing cycle is followed by a cycle of love bombing. Your low is interrupted by a high. You never learn to sit with your pain and metabolize it. Rather, the person who is causing your pain becomes the very person who relieves it.
When you go No Contact, you miss them and mourn the relationship. Because of the emotional abuse, the break from the narcissist feels extremely painful. In these low moments your body will crave contact with the narcissist. It needs an “emotional hit” to get the feel good endorphins it has been programmed to receive. You have been trained that after pain comes “love”.
Pain equals love.
To fully heal and let go, you will have two learn how to hold and feel your pain. Understand that you are trauma bonded to the narcissist. The source of your pain is also your source of love. The hardest part of going No Contact is the first three months. The intense craving and desire to go back and “fix things” will be unbelievably strong. Just like coming off heroin, cold turkey is the only cure. Your body needs to reset itself and your nervous system needs to rest. You need calm.
However, if you grew up with drama and trauma, then intense highs and lows are your normal. It will be harder for you to pull away from the narcissist. Instead of focusing on the narcissist, focus on healing your nervous system. Use tools like deep breathing, meditation, stretching, walking, journaling, and other soothing therapies.
Have you wanted to break No Contact because you felt vulnerable or lonely? Perhaps like me, you had wishful thinking that maybe the narcissist had changed? One year goes by, two years, five years, ten years or more and you think to yourself, “Maybe they have changed. I am sure we could talk about the past with a sense of understanding and maturity. I can own my stuff and they can own theirs.”
Unfortunately, when it comes to narcissism, the passage of time makes no difference. Unless they have actively sought out therapy, and are consciously working on healing themselves, they will repeat the old cycle. They will use the opportunity to demean, devalue, hurt, manipulate and gaslight you.
Let’s say you haven’t talked to your narcissistic mother, father, brother, sister, lover, ex-partner or best friend, and out of the blue you get a call or a text from them. Ideally, you will remain neutral, ignore them and go on with your life. But if you still have healing to do, that text or call will activate you. Your heart starts beating and you think, what a wonderful opportunity this is for reconnection. Deep down, you want to make amends and rebuild the relationship. What makes you vulnerable at moments like this is your negative programming. This infiltrates into your psyche and manifests as negative core beliefs.
- I‘m not good enough
- I’m not lovable
- I’m not wanted
- I don’t belong
- I’m ugly
- I’m not intelligent etcetera.
These take root in childhood, particularly where there has been narcissistic abuse and neglect. When a parent lacks empathy for their child, that child is deeply wounded. The child becomes encoded to act and respond in ways that serve the parent’s emotional needs while neglecting and negating their own.
If a parent was overly critical, they may have blamed and shamed you instead of owning their stuff. The narcissist has a very fragile core, so they project what they don’t like about themselves onto you. This is why they can’t and won’t change. They lack the ability to self-reflect and self-correct. Acknowledging any flaws is taken as narcissistic injury — they will lash out to protect their ego.
This is where you have to consciously take care of the amygdala so that you don’t get triggered. This is the part of your brain that processes and detects fearful or threatening stimuli in your environment. It activates your fight-flight-freeze and fawn responses. To respond instead of react, practice deep breathing, take a pause, stretch, yawn, place your hands onto your thighs and use them to ground into your body. These tools help to calm your nervous system so that you don’t go into a dissociated or reactive state.
When dealing with a manipulative person, calm is your superpower. Your ability to stay neutral whilst they start the crazy dance will keep you safe. The moment you get caught in the narcissist’s web you get activated. You then go in one of two states — you implode and swallow their poison or you get triggered and explode. Neither option is good.
Swallowing, numbing or suppressing makes you somatically sick and leads to depression and autoimmune disorders. Exploding makes you lose control and you end up projecting your toxic anger onto those around you. Or you might swallow it down for months or years and then suddenly explode. The narcissist then leans back and shames you for your lack of control. They cleverly hide the fact that they baited you.
Don’t take the bait!
You want to be able to process your feelings in a way that you’re neither imploding or exploding. Rather, you dissolve and metabolize the poison (trigger) in a way that doesn’t harm you or others. (Deep breaths are very helpful in the moment). This is possible when you no longer let in what the narcissist is putting out. Your inner core and inner self is strong. There is nothing they can say or do that will unground you. You know exactly who and what you are.
More importantly, you know exactly who and what THEY are.
I feel one of the biggest challenges to maintaining No Contact is wishful thinking (also known as toxic optimism). If you have gone No Contact with someone very close like your mother, father, brother, sister or romantic partner, you will still have deep feelings for them. During a weak moment, you may decide to break No Contact and reach out to them. You’re hoping, wishing and praying you can repair the damage. The thing is, ties to lovers and family members are particularly strong, even if they are toxic. Pain feels like love because the people who were supposed to love and protect you, also hurt, abused or neglected you.
Often, it’s the mother and/or father who didn’t fulfill the task of creating a healthy attachment with you. So, when your lover or the person you’re currently bonded to replicates the original, toxic bonding pattern, it feels excruciatingly painful when they pull away. When the now, more recent person in your life starts withholding, it’s so deeply painful that you feel like the only way to get rid of the pain, is to reach out to them and reconnect. The trouble is, you are reaching out to the source of your pain. This person mirrors the caregiver who wounded you, and just like that caregiver, they are unwilling or unable to love you in a healthy way.
It is the illusion that “this time it will be different” that tempts you to break No Contact. You imagine them saying,
“I missed you too and I’m so sorry this happened. I’ve been thinking about you but I didn’t know how to reach out to you. I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I’ve done a lot of healing and I’m ready to rebuild our relationship.”
As wonderful as that sounds, unfortunately it is not rooted in reality. The person who did the damage is not going to come in and do the necessary repair work with you. What your inner child is craving is a corrective emotional experience. But the person who hurt you, cannot heal you. Instead of looking for that validation and love externally in another person, healing involves going inward and giving that love to yourself.
In your wounded state, you are outsourcing to others what you should be doing for yourself. Unfortunately, that development cycle was not completed in childhood. Therefore, you are seeking love and validation in everyone you meet. If your needs were adequately met in childhood, you would have the tools of self love and self worth. This means you will recognize manipulative and abusive behavior for what it is — dangerous. Instead of kowtowing to it, you will have healthy boundaries and zero tolerance.
Initially, when you get the call or text message from the narcissist you feel good. You imagine a happy ending is possible. But in reality, their narcissistic supply is simply within reach. The narcissist feels smug knowing that you’re still thinking about them. This sets you up to fall back into the abuse cycle — Adoration, denigration, discard.
Once again, you are getting small hits of “heroin” (also known as Love-bombing) from them which feels SO GOOD. It’s very easy to get sucked back in. Once again you are addicted to the highs and lows of the narcissistic merry-go-round. Just as suddenly, they withdraw and withhold those shots of “heroin” and if you allow it, they take you for another ride.
If you are codependent, you are especially vulnerable to the emotional high created by the love bombing stage. When I meet someone who triggers all the right synapses in my brain, I instantly get caught up in their energy field. The room I am in fades away and all I see in front of me, is them. I feel drawn in, excited, turned on, spellbound. I start talking fast, my breathing becomes shallow and they have my full, undivided attention. What is REALLY going on is I am leaving my body. I am becoming ungrounded and entering La La Land. I am not rooted in reality. I am now entering a delusional fantasy. In my trance-like state, I am no longer present in my body.
In truth, I have abandoned myself and become dissociated. In this dysregulated state, I am not thinking clearly and rationally. I cannot see the person for who they truly are. I don’t see the red flags through the chemistry high. All I see is a source of love, fun and connection (and if it’s romantic, a source of intense sexual chemistry.) Losing your sense of self and being consumed by the other person is a hallmark codependency.
Whether it’s a new friend, an acquaintance or someone I am physically attracted to, I have come to learn that intense, instant chemistry is a big STOP SIGN. I consciously extricate myself and take a step back. Space away from the person who is ungrounding me, enables me to center myself. I come back into my body and mindfully become present in the NOW. Nine times out of 10, these intensely activating people turn out to be completely narcissistic or borderline. It takes self-awareness and mindfulness to stay centered during and after an intense interaction with a manipulator.
I can still get activated around a certain disordered personality types. My nervous system is literally reacting to familiar chemistry from my past. Even though it’s not good for me, it feels like home. The pull is really strong. This person at some level feels just like the narcissists I was attached to in the past. The difference now is that I am aware of what is going on. My self-awareness enables me to root back into reality. I can see behind the mask. I don’t want crazy chemistry. I want safe and normal.
Understanding and decoding your past empowers you to respond to your present. Instead of unconsciously reacting to chemistry, you learn what feels safe and what does not. As you learn to calm your nervous system, you can mindfully take a step back and get grounded. You come back home to yourself over and over again. Instead of losing yourself in another person, you stay present with yourself.
What really happens when you break no contact with a narcissist?
When you break No Contact to confront the narcissist, you imagine you may be able to finally get your point across. You hope to be seen and heard and empathized with. You believe you can somehow get through to them and get closure. At the very least, you anticipate acknowledgment of what you have been through.
SPOILER ALERT. THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
All they are thinking is, “YES! I HAVE WON the waiting game!”
Narcissists don’t feel regret or remorse like normal people. They can not and will not give you closure. By breaking No Contact, you have simply opened the door to more abuse. In my experience, they ghost you soon after breaking No Contact. This applies to lovers, family members and friends — Narcissists all have the same behavioral blueprint — it is as predictable as the cycles of the moon.
If you feel the need to go No Contact, trust yourself enough to let go. Do not doubt yourself or your decision. Look ahead and don’t look back. Work on healing the defense mechanisms you adopted to accommodate and acclimate to the narcissist. Focus on healing your patterns of codependency, people pleasing, fawning, numbing out and dissociating. Release the unhealthy habits and addictions that stop you feeling. Learn how to feel again so you can reparent yourself and self-soothe in healthy ways.
Instead of making the narcissist your source of love and validation, become your own source of love and validation. Fill up the empty spaces within yourself so that you no longer feel the desire to drink from a poisonous well.
As you learn to love and validate yourself, the craving and desire to break No Contact disappears. You can finally let go with love and compassion. You realize that we’re all just at different points on the journey. It’s okay to walk alone or in a different direction. Sometimes, breaking No Contact is so damaging and injurious to the soul it’s simply not worth it. Narcissists have no empathy, and they take no responsibility for the emotional damage they inflict. As an adult, it is now your job to protect yourself.
Stay connected to your body. Notice when you are becoming dysregulated. Reach out to someone safe when you feel vulnerable. If you can’t afford therapy or coaching, join a CODA meeting in your area.
When the urge to break No Contact arises, distract yourself. Go for a walk, sleep on it. Take the time to work through your intense feelings of loneliness or discomfort. Above all, keep choosing yourself.
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.
References and Further Reading
Molecules of Emotion by Candace B. Pert, Ph.D.
When the body says no: The cost of hidden stress by Gabor Maté
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving. Lafayette, CA: Azure Coyote
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D. Freeing yourself from the narcissist in your life.
Healing the Adult Children of Narcissists: Essays on The Invisible War Zone and Exercises for Recovery Shahida Arabi
It’s My Turn by Tina Fuller
Power: Surviving and Thriving after Narcissistic Abuse by Shahida Arabi
