Trolls In Your DMs

A troll will immediately hit you up in your DMs after liking less than a handful of your tweets.

This is not always the case, of course, but after a number of troubled experiences with a few narcissistic trolls taking to my DMs to go off on me with their craziness about something I have posted, I am now much more careful. In fact, I have placed within my bio that I do not wish to have DMs because of negative experiences with trolls.

A troll will ignore your requests not to DM you.

This is not always the case either because sometimes a person can be in such a frame of mind wanting answers or needing help that they do not read your bio of information to know that you do not want DMs.

This has happened to me quite a few times … even in the recent past. I have responded to people’s taglines about answering a question or two. I would always let them know that I do not respond to DMs.

If the person apologizes because they did not read the information in my bio, I do not consider it a big deal. We might have a brief discussion about their questions or a topic, but then we will go our separate ways never to DM again.

However, if a person continues to DM me, then that is a problem for me specifically since the person already knows my boundaries. As much as I hate blocking people, if the person refuses to respect my boundaries by continuing to send me DMs that I choose not to respond to, then I simply do not answer them.

More than likely, these people move on and do not bother me again. Sometimes they unfollow me. Sometimes they even block me. That is all okay, but what is not okay is continuing to badger me when I have clearly set boundaries to follow.

If you do accept DMs, the troll might monitor and stalk your account.

I had the experience with a troll that began as an innocent discussion about narcissistic personality disorder on my platform all prior to my “No DMs” rule. Eventually, the person began asking me questions via DMs. In the beginning, I did not see this as a problem; nor did I see the person as a troll. I simply took it as a person not wanting to share so much of their personal information on the public platform.

As time went on, I took note of how this person began to ask me personal questions about my whereabouts, reasons why I did not respond to a DM in a certain frame of time, or why I had time to tweet but not talk to them. I was triggered and confused. This is crazy behavior. When I responded to them that I have a life and daily responsibilities, they immediately told me I was a “gaslighter”.

When I mentioned that I required time to decompress or that I needed to have the mental capacity to correspond with them, they began calling me all sorts of names. There was obviously not enough attention I could give them, and they did not seem to comprehend that I did not want to be drowned with the issues of their life.

Do not get me wrong, I have actually made great connections via social media, and I have even had long discussions with some great people about the experiences of our lives with narcissists, but they were mutual give-and-take connections. I did not feel drained upon ending conversations with them. In fact, I felt rejuvenated with a clear focus because of the information that we mutually exchanged with each other.

This was not the case with this particular person who had accosted me in my DMs wanting to monopolize all of my time. The fact that this person was monitoring the times that I posted as a reason I should have been freely communicating with them as well was a problem for me. Stalk much?

For the record, I owe no one my time, and I do not have to give an account of my whereabouts or reveal any of my personal information. Yet, sometimes a person can mistake the sharing of information as feigned intimacy. Beware of these folks. I am not calling them narcissists because they could simply be people who are hurting and searching for relief and resolutions to their problems.

I recommended that the person seek a therapist. The person berated me and then blocked me. Good riddance. I blocked them too.

Often, DMs are an open door for a troll to inflict narcissistic abuse against you. Beware and be aware.

A troll might DM people they follow to unleash narcissistic attacks against them. The troll does not care who you are just as long as they can abuse you. Instead of appearing like a narcissistic troll on your public space, the troll would rather DM you. Then, in your DMs, they will begin to unleash a barrage of attacks against you.

These attacks will begin slowly at first until you apparently say something the troll does not like. Their main objective is to keep you talking to them for narcissistic supply for as long as possible, but when you fall off because you happen to have a life outside of DMs or social media (for that matter), the troll will unleash a hurl of insults your way hoping you will either appease them or fight back.

If you appease them, their abuse will only continue after a brief phase of love bombing. If you fight back, you are basically in a no-win situation because the troll will then twist your words and use them against you. These are the types of trolls that I block. Before you block them on Twitter, it might be a good idea to screenshot your entire conversation with them because the messages will delete (something I wished I had known after dealing with one nut job, and that’s the nicest thing I can say).

Blocking a troll might unleash their rage against you. There is no telling what type of smear campaign they might unleash against you to tarnish you and your platform. On the flip side, however, there are enough people on social media that the troll will forget about you and simply latch onto someone else.

In the next post … Troll Games On Your Platform.