Psychopath and Narcissist Survivors Support Group

I have had no contact with my NP for three years or so. My NP was not a romantic relationship, rather a mentorship and a "friendship." This person was very close to both my husband and me. (So close that she thought she was me, or I was her...or something!) My husband and I lost everything when I finally extricated myself from this relationship. My husband had to give up his business, we gave up a simple but lovely home because we had to move. An even greater loss was that we lost all friends associated with this person. --Basically all our friends, since the NP pretty much decided with whom we could and could not be friends. We lost our church family, we lost our entire social network. We've re-built for ourselves a pretty good life.

One person from my "past life" (the life I had before the disaster with the NP) has contacted me since I left the situation four years ago. Initially, I was terrified. "Why is she contacting me. Did NP put her up to this? What are her intentions?" I did not return this person's call. She called back about a week later, and said that she should have explained that she's going through what she now realizes I must have gone through, that she understood if I never called her, but she could really use the support. I did call her back at this point, and that worked out fine. So that is one relationship that has been salvaged.

Other than that, I have had no contact with anyone even remotely connected to the NP because I know how skillfully she can extract information from even those most reluctant to share information. I also know that somehow any information she gets about me will be harmful to me--even though I now live about 2500 miles from her. She is poison to my soul.

So my question is this: Am I over-reacting? Might I be able to re-visit some of those relationships and test the waters for safety? Part of my problem is this incomprehensible loyalty I have to the NP. I feel that if I tell others the truth, I will be betraying her. She was a great "loan sharker" (a term I learned from Gavin de Becker's Gift of Fear, which I noticed another member wrote about), and for some reason I still feel indebted to her. How does one ever shake this loyalty? How does one ever stop feeling guilty about leaving the relationship...that the rift was one's own fault? Should I go back to the circle of friends I dumped and tell them the truth? I think I might feel better about it all if I at least could do this.

(This situation does make me wonder how people in a marriage to a NP ever get out! It was so difficult for me with a friendship! I have huge respect for those of you getting out of a marriage!)

Hey, Freedomgirl. It's a hard process. And though it's bad with an N in the best of times, I think often that female Ns are more emotionally cunning than their male counterparts, and that's the kind of ongoing wound that gets entrenched in our souls far more deeply than we might think. An N who is bullying, overtly vicious, crude in their cruelty, hinders their own game in a lot of ways because we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears that something's not right, and thus mentally the hole is easier to crawl out of later. But when it's much more subtle for a longer period of time, man those poisonous roots go deep. So please don't worry that it's incurable or permanent. If you've made it this far, you've already healed a great deal, and the rest is sure to follow in time. I wouldn't discount some sessions with an N-aware therapist either, if you can find one.

I can't address whether or not it's safe to talk to former friends and peers that are known to the N; that's murky water filled with sharks, IMO. But I will say this: if you do decide to test the waters :) get yourself a separate, cheap pay-as-you go cell and when you activate it, select a number local to that city and area code, not your safe one 2500 miles away. (An alternative is Google Voice if you can get in; choose a number local to them, not you.) Get a new email address with the same thought in mind. Same with IM -- don't use your real one. When you reach out, use these new accounts, NOT your real home/business/cell numbers or email addresses. Then when you speak, if you get to this point, act as though you still live locally -- but sadly are out of town at present, or you'd just love to meet up and have coffee. You were bored on a business trip (or vacation, or visit to sick parents, whatever) and decided to look them up. Of course, as soon as you get back (or it's convenient, or business slows, or your mom gets out of the hospital, whatever) you want to meet with them! But for now, it's just phone, because you're out of town.

If they are a keeper, and you don't start getting harassment on your new cell/email/IM, then let them in on your ruse. Or start talking about how much you and hubby want to move to the (opposite) coast, etc., just casually breaking them in. Or tell them you're really in Witness Protection and the U.S. Marshals are about to move you again. :)

Okay, okay, I'm joking (sort of) but you get my point. Only contact one at a time, and I'd give it about a month, not only to see if they leaked my info but just to see if they are someone you really want to know or interact with. If/when your new (false) contact info gets leaked, no damage to you. Make it go bye-bye. Change the fake number, abandon the fake email/IM, and retreat back into your new, SAFE life 2500 miles away. If they leak your fake info, so what? They're already on probation just because they did not have the courage to stand with you back when it counted, so in a very real sense, they are not worth your safety. If they are still proxies, that's far too high a price. If you can live with the pretense long enough to figure out whether someone is safe, a keeper, this strategy works well.

Frankly, I did it this way because I got a very strong instinctive sense of danger when I thought about contacting people from those days, and I am so glad I did. I too moved out of state, and there was no way on God's green earth I was going to let them "follow" me, literally or electronically. So when I reached out I acted like I still live there but am traveling a lot for work. Never once did I get anyone worth keeping. Even the ones that are now going through what I went through are trying to "make the best of things", which includes a very strong serving of denial, topped with a dollop of minimzation and sprinkles of blame. Screw that. It was very difficult for me to lie, but deep down I felt like it was a survival issue, even as I was longing in my heart for someone to side with me and my conscience was saying things like, "You never gave them a chance!" In this case I'm SOOOOOO glad I trusted my gut and went with the pretense: because I did, I didn't lose even more to the N and N proxies, and I'm still safe. I learned the hard way they didn't need more chances; what was needed was for me to accept my bleak new reality and move on.

All of that fakery had a secondary benefit as well: I have thrown out so much bad location info at this point that my real state of residence is now just one of many I have floating around out there!!!

I'm so glad you were able to find a keeper out of all that mess, and wish you joy and safety as you move forward. Good luck!!!

Thanks, MercyMe, for your great advice! As I read it I felt both like crying and cheering. Someone gets it! Someone gets it! I have told very few people about this situation. Those whom I have told have responded along the line of, "You gave up all that because of one person?! It could not have been that bad!" But it was that bad. It was really that bad!

I did see a therapist about all of this. He did not get it until one "aha" moment a year into our counseling relationship. Then I had to decide whether or not to move forward with someone who now finally gets it, or find another counselor. The choice became forced into nothing because both my husband's and my positions were cut and we had no money for extras. Now our financial situation is stablizing again and I'll have to find someone who really does have a grasp of what I'm recovering from.

Thank you for sharing that you, too, moved to a different state. Thanks for all the good advice on the "front." It is priceless!

murky water filled with sharks
Only contact one at a time, and I'd give it about a month.
Never once did I get anyone worth keeping.
They're already on probation just because they did not have the courage to stand with you back when it counted.
[color=#400000]This is enough to make me question even further why I would bother. The likelihood of getting anything worthwhile is practically none. Maybe I'll just assume that when they get clear of the fog, they can go to the trouble of finding me as did the one person.

But when it's much more subtle for a longer period of time, man those poisonous roots go deep. So please don't worry that it's incurable or permanent. If you've made it this far, you've already healed a great deal, and the rest is sure to follow in time.[/color]

It was so subtle initially, as the abuse continued it was ever-more blatant but this all took place over a period of four years.

Freedomgirl, I'm so glad. You're right, NO ONE gets it who hasn't been through it. A few here do, so keep reading even though most posts are in reference to romantic relationships and male Ns -- in the end it's all the same.

If you get a chance, read this post -- a number of us who went through this same thing chimed in on it. There are a few really good resources for what you went through offline as well -- the book Snakes in Suits is excellent, and Without Conscience and The Sociopath Next Door both have sections on the "white-collar" N. I would also highly recommend Gavin deBecker's The Gift of Fear to you, though it is not specific to your situation, and don't forget to check out all the articles at Tim Field's wonderful site about disordered people in the workplace. (Note: I am not affiliated with Amazon in any way.)

I'm in and out on this board -- there's a lot going on in my life offline right now -- but what you went through is a very special sort of hell. If I can help you in any way, I will. In the meantime, post and read, read and post, learn all you can. Even if it's not your specific situation, it goes a LONG WAY toward reinforcing your reality by reminding you that YES, there are people that evil; YES, they can and do congregate, even breed; and NO, you're not the crazy one. If you'd actually done something wrong you would have addressed it and resolved it a long time ago, but if you were like me, you never got the chance. Ns don't want you to resolve or fix ANYTHING, they want you to suffer and feed on the drama. Reading and learning all you can is the very best thing you can do to validate your experience and regain your mental stbility... beyond moving 2500 miles away, that is. :)

Good luck!!! I'm glad you came here. :)

P.S. You also said, "This is enough to make me question even further why I would bother. The likelihood of getting anything worthwhile is practically none. Maybe I'll just assume that when they get clear of the fog, they can go to the trouble of finding me as did the one person." True that. But I have been contacted several times out of the blue by Nproxies, just like you thought this woman was when she first called. While I do agree that someone who calls you automatically gets more brownie points :) it's no guarantee. So keep on being careful. Your new life, your safety, are well worth it.

Again, thanks for the good advice. I've been thinkng about the fact (brought to my attention by you) that these people are already on probation because they did not stand with me when it counted. You're entirely right. Sometimes, when the abuse was really blatant they joined in--they knew, I suppose, that it was sink or swim and they saw that I was going down. Rather than throwing me a lifeline, they threw a few pebbles themselves.

I think the hardest thing for me is that I just want some closure. All these years later, I still want closure. There is one person I think about confiding in. This person is highly regarded by the N, but she does not know the N very well. It would be so gratifying to tell her the truth, but from what I read in others' posts, it would be a bad idea to do this.

I just have to trust that in their own consciences the proxies know that what went on was really, really wrong.