What Does No Contact Mean?

Whether your narc is your mom, brother, sister, spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, you decided it is time to go no contact.  This is the hardest thing you will ever do.  It requires commitment and a plan. 

What exactly is no contact?

1) No contact means never speaking the person's name to anyone who knows them.
     This one can be pretty tough.  Your sister calls and wants to talk about the narc.  What will you say?  I planned my response out prior to going no contact.  I have more than one narc in my life because I attract them.  If I am on the phone with the person and a narc is brought up, I say, "Hey, something has come up and I will need to call you back later".  I then get off the phone as quickly as possible.  They quickly learn that to talk to me over the phone they need to not bring up the narc. 

In person, I try not responding at all to the comment and changing the subject myself.  If the person says, "narc asked about you", I say, "Did you tell me your daughter just got a new job, said her first word, rode a bike for the first time?".  If that does not work, it's time to bring out the more direct comments.  If someone brings up my narc mother in person, I reply, "I don't talk about the woman who birthed me, we need to change the subject".   If someone brings up the narc who called herself my best friend, I respond, "I haven't spoken to or about that person in a really long time, and I am not about to start now."  I then offer a new subject.

Yes this is hard.  I meet with some of my family members a few times a year (we live far apart) and they always try to bring up the narc.  If they continue bringing up the narc in conversation when we meet, I stop meeting with them.  They bring no joy into my life if they talk about the narc.

If you feel like you need to talk about the narc to someone there are groups online for that where no one knows the narc.  You can hash out your feelings without talking badly about the narc to people you both know.  I would suggest finding a group and talking about your situation.


2)  No contact means not reading correspondence 
The narc will try to get you to break this one because once you read an email, you are forced to make a decision.  The narc sends a letter or an email in an attempt to get a response from you.  It is bait.  If you open it, you took the bait and must now make a decision.  The narc knows you, the contents will be good.  They will try to force you to act.  Will you take the bait?

3) No contact means not opening gifts
Send them back unopened. No excuses here, you cant accept gifts from someone you don't talk to.

4) No contact means not stalking them on facebook or other venues
They can and probably will stalk you, but each and every time you open their facebook looking for info, they win.  They WANT you to long for them.  They WANT you to look at what they are doing without you.  Moving on is the best thing you can do and that does not involve curiosity about the narcs life without you.