Ways A Narcissist Monitors Your Every Move
Narcissists love to monitor their targets not only because of their trust issues. Narcissists love to monitor their targets because they want to maintain control over their targets. They want to ensure that their targets know who is in charge.
Narcissists deem themselves to be far above any reproach, and they want to make sure their targets know that they are not going to lose. They control in varying ways. The following short list is not exhaustive. There are always other ways that narcissists monitor their targets. They are crafty individuals.
Social Media
Narcissists love to keep track of their targets through social media. I have not only experienced this tracking myself, but I have also seen other narcissistic-like characters track targets via social media too. It can be an unnerving experience. It can also ruin my desire to even be on social media.
The tracking can be subtle, but most often you will know you are being tracked by someone you know. In my case, it was always a narcissist imitating my posts as soon as I posted something (like they were waiting for me to post, and I do not even post often).
Sometimes a narcissist’s flying monkeys would flood my inbox with ridiculous messages. Yet, any time I would see narcissists or their flying monkeys at work or wherever, they would gaslight me into making me think they never corresponded with me even though I had proof. Strange!
Needless to say, I soon muted these people or blocked them. As time progressed, I decided to deactivate specific accounts where the monitoring by narcissists became a major problem. My quality of life was more important than phony connections with a host of people who did not associate with me anyway.
Telephone Communication
Some narcissists like to monitor their targets by phone. My parents are notorious for this tactic. If they are unable to reach me, then they will flood my voice box with repetitive messages. Each message will be the same, but the tone of their voices will become more panicked after leaving messages in five minute intervals.
Of course, they are my parents, and they might have been simply worried, but I always intuitively knew this was not the case. I know my parents and their tactics well. At certain times, I know their phone calls are meant to monitor my movements. They were not even able to accept my texts in response to their messages as a clear sign that I might have been busy at the time of their call. All they wanted was my presence over the phone. To me, that has always been about control.
This has been the same with other people who have called me as well except many narcissists will use text messaging to monitor me. They will send a text, and if I do not respond right away, then I receive more texts in different intervals. When I do respond, they most often would choose not to respond. That is a great pet peeve of mine. I hate responding to messages and getting no response in return. With narcissists, it is like a game of cat and mouse or even worse – tug-of-war.
To alleviate phone problems, I now just screen my calls, and they are all silenced and sent to voicemail. I choose to either return the calls or I do not. I choose to either respond to text messages or I do not. I do not live by anyone’s demands upon my time or whereabouts. I also do not cave into their demands for a response either. Usually, their contact is all about control and never about my care as an individual. That is really sad to say, but it is my reality.
I also mute texts. I learned this when I was made a part of group texts from work. I was constantly inundated with ridiculous texts after the work day was over. These texts were ongoing and tiresome. They were always led by a narcissistic controller who could not let work just be work. Long after I left my former workplace, I was still receiving these group texts even after requesting not to receive these texts. I finally had to block all parties from contacting me in the group and individually.
The Ways Of Narcissists
The above examples dealing with social media and telephone communication are just two ways that narcissists attempt to monitor their targets. Stay tuned for additional ways in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 