No Contact - Dan Cassenti, Novelist

Concept: Following the end of narcissistic relationships, survivors often opt to “go no contact,” shorthand for cutting off all communications with their respective narcissists. No contact means ignoring phone calls, text messages, doorbell rings, and social media posts. If the narcissist attempts to “run into” the survivor, the narcissist may receive a polite dismissal, but otherwise, no contact means not allowing the narcissist back in.

How this helps and the opposite hurts: Narcissistic communications create abuse. Cutting all communication off blocks attempts at Hoovering survivors back into the relationship. Allowing contact permits the narcissist to deploy the same tricks that worked in the past and thus opens the possibility of future abuse.

Examples:

A survivor changes her ex’s ringtone to silent, so she’ll hear the ringtone for everyone but him.
Wayne unfriends his ex-girlfriend on Facebook after she posts several times about what a jerk he is and her plans to move on with a former lover.
When he turns 18, Sam moves out of his father’s house, leaving his cell phone behind so he can move in with his mother, who loves him and is no longer barred from custody now that he’s an adult.

Advice: Once you’ve successfully abandoned the narcissist, if there are no ties that you still need to maintain, stick to a no-contact rule no matter what the messages say or how sincere the narcissist seems. Remember, they don’t have the capacity for honesty, or following moral reasoning, so you can safely assume they’re lying. If you can’t go no contact (e.g., you share a child or children), then go as close to no contact as possible (e.g., only responding about co-parenting logistics).

Narcissism Encyclopedia

Defenses Against