Narcissists do no handle rejection well, to put it mildly. When the victim takes back control over his or her life and severs ties with the narcissist, that narcissist may resort to stalking and harassment.
Sometimes, it starts out with constant emails, texts or social media messages that say pretty much, “I miss you! Come back into my life!” Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But when you are constantly inundated with these messages day after day, it really wears you down. I would think this is why so many people resume a relationship with a narcissist. Anything to make the harassment stop!
If a victim ignores the messages and calls, things can get really ugly. Narcissists often step up their harassment. If they started out sending you forty messages a day, they start sending eighty. And, if you block their access to you, chances are they will find another way to reach you such as using a different phone number or a fake social media account. If you change your phone number, they will do their best to find it out if they can, probably by talking to someone you are close to. They may spin a sad tale of how much they miss you, the person takes pity on them and gives out your new number.
Narcissists seem to excel at stalking and harassment. They have a knack for finding out where there victims will be, and “accidentally” run into them. They find ways to contact a victim in completely unexpected ways. I have experienced plenty of outrageous examples, but one in particular was just so far over the top it is almost laughable.
One of my late father’s flying monkeys was one of my cousins. I had blocked her on Facebook probably two years before my father died due to her nasty treatment of me. When my father was on life support, she tried to contact me. She eventually contacted me through her dead mother’s Facebook account. Obviously I never expected that one. I had to block my aunt who had been dead for over three years at the time.
Narcissists also have the tenacity of a bulldog. If they have set their minds on stalking and harassing you, they are going to do so until they want to stop. One narcissist I know that I cut ties with in 2013 harassed me constantly for years. The last time she contacted me was in 2017, as my father was dying in the hospital. She sent me information on Narcissistic Personality Disorder from the Mayo Clinic’s website. (I assume this was to tell me I am a narcissist since I did not rush to my father’s side as she and other relatives thought I should.) I do not know if that was the last of her harassment or not. Some narcissists go on for even longer. And, just because they have stopped for a while does not mean they have stopped permanently.
The best way I know to handle the harassment is to ignore it. Block any access the narcissist has to you. When this person finds a way around your block, block that too.
I refuse to use voicemail on my home and cell phones. That way, if someone I do not want to hear from calls from a number I have not yet blocked, I do not even have to hear their voice. It is amazing how simply removing voicemail has reduced my stress!
Do NOT listen to the flying monkeys. Remove them from your life if need be. They do not care about you. They only care about furthering the agenda of the narcissist.
Document every single episode of harassment or stalking that you can. Save emails, texts and voicemails. Take screen shots. Save as much evidence as possible, and save it on online storage such as cloud storage or email it to yourself and save the emails. Do not store it on your phone or computer since they can crash and your evidence will be lost forever. Stalking laws are changing, and you may need this evidence at some point. Even if not everything the narcissist does is illegal, at the very least, it can show a long pattern of bad behavior which can support your case with law enforcement.