Almost everything you read about, with moving on from a narcissist, includes the advice of blocking them. And, in most cases, I would agree with that advice.
When I eventually blocked my narcissistic ex on social media, my mental health improved exponentially!
No longer was I tempted to check out his page, allowing myself to be triggered. But more than anything, no longer did he have any inside access to my life, which felt amazing.
It was a huge step in taking my power back.
But, how does a narcissist react to being blocked? It’s important to arm yourself with the knowledge of what could happen, so that their actions don’t totally shock and surprise you… as if anything they do is a surprise by this point, right?
My biggest advice for before, during and after blocking a narcissist, is to focus wholeheartedly on your deep inner healing.
The narcissist may pull all sorts of things to try and bring you down, but when you are immersed in the process of releasing your inner wounds, they will have less and less to be able to trigger you with.
That is the real power behind reclaiming your sovereignty.
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How Does a Narcissist React to Being Blocked?
Narcissists need a steady stream of narcissistic supply in order to temporarily alleviate their deep inner wounds of unworthiness, shame and self-loathing. The narcissist receives supply through attention of any description, whether it be adoration, chaos or pity.
What the narcissist is really pillaging from others is their life force energy. The narcissist cut off their own direct access to life force as a trauma response when they severed the connection with their inner being.
In order for the narcissist to be able to extract this energy, their ego has created a False Self, which is a complete inversion of who they truly are. For the False Self to protect the narcissist from the truth, that they are a flawed and wounded human being, it’s created an entirely false reality depicting the exact opposite.
What we’re left with is a person who truly believes that they are more superior, special and perfect than everybody else. They live in a completely fictitious reality where they are a God-like being at the centre of the universe. All other people are below them and are merely tools for them to get what they want and need, which always leads to the extraction of narcissistic supply.
| READ: What is Supply? → |
Narcissists are energy vampires (addicts) who will go into withdrawal whenever they are running low on their drug.
Like any addict, they will rage, beg, plead, coerce, lie, manipulate and steal in order to get their hands on another hit. Or even better, to secure a steady stream of the drug as a form of psychological security.
Unfortunately, we don’t realise that we are the suppliers of the narcissist’s drug until it’s too late and they’ve already hooked into our life force energy.
The narcissist is suffering from a personality disorder based around a deep, unhealed wound, which they absolutely refuse to acknowledge. To be truly free of being plugged into and used as a self-medication device for someone who will never change, blocking them is often the only way to go.
But, it’s important to understand the result of how a narcissist reacts to being blocked. Remember, your job is to protect and heal yourself so as not to be triggered so heavily (if at all) by the narcissist’s temper tantrums at not getting their way.
They’ll Be Highly Insulted
When you block the narcissist, they take it as a huge rejection, just as most people would. However, rather than the narcissist feeling normal things like sadness, hurt and anger, they’ll take it on as a personal insult.
On a deeper level, it will trigger a narcissistic injury (inner wound) of rejection and abandonment. But the narcissist’s ego works to shield the narcissist from the existence of such faults.
Being rejected or abandoned goes directly against the narcissist’s false reality that they are special, perfect and superior. Because, if they were really that grand, why would anyone possibly want to block them?
So, their ego needs to eradicate this information, which threatens to reveal the truth that they’re not perfect after all. The ego will target you as the threat and work to annihilate you in order to protect its very existence.
How does a narcissist react to being blocked by a mere mortal who’s nowhere near as remarkable as they are? They’ll be highly insulted and do anything in their power to make you feel inferior because that’s the only way to reinforce to themselves that they are superior to you.
They’ll Fly into a Rage
One of the first things you can expect when looking at how a narcissist reacts to being blocked, is white-hot rage.
Narcissists are all about control. They need to push people around like pawns on a chessboard. Being in control makes them feel extremely important and confirms for them that they can extract certain responses at the click of a finger.
When you block a narcissist, you completely strip them of all control over you, which they cannot stand.
Now, they have zero control over your moves and without whispering manipulations into your ear, they can’t influence what you’re telling other people.
But above all else, the narcissist is angry that you’ve taken their supply from them in one clean swoop.
“How DARE you withhold from me!”
Since the narcissist believes that they are superior, they also think that they can have whatever they want, whenever they want it. They don’t think that you have any right to block them or withhold their precious supply from them.
If anything, they think they should be the ones blocking you.
But what’s really floating under the narcissist’s rage is fear. They’re deeply afraid that they have lost you. Not because they care about you as a person, but because of all the things that you provided for them.
A narcissistic rage is very much an adult temper tantrum because they’re not getting their own way. So, their first port of call is to throw you into a state of fear in the hope of making you cower and crawl back into their sphere.
It’s actually a projection of their own fear.
They’ll Hoover You
The next result when looking at how a narcissist reacts to being blocked is that they’ll try and hoover you back into their web with some love bombing.
They will switch on the charm that they used to hook you with in the first place and play on your insecurities since they know you so well.
Examples of how a narcissist will attempt to hoover you after being blocked:
- Send flowers to your work
- Show up at your house unexpectedly
- ‘Randomly’ bump into you at a place where they know you regularly go
- Use friends or family to get messages of (fake) remorse to you
- Email you (if you’ve blocked their number)
- Contact you via a fake account on social media
- Use the kids to get to you (if you share children)
- Need your urgent help due to an emergency (whether real or fictitious)
The idea of hoovering you after you’ve blocked the narcissist is to make you feel loved and validated. If you do fall for their false charm, they’ll revert to their old ways of abuse as soon as you’re securely back in their web.
After all, they don’t see a problem with their behaviour. This minor hiccup of you standing up to them is just a small issue to be ironed out so that things can get back to ‘normal.’ Which is where you give them everything and they devalue and abuse you.
| READ: 12 Ways a Narc Will Hoover → |
They’ll Future Fake
If the narcissist can get any form of communication to you, they’ll come up with all sorts of promises to try and reel you back into their toxic world.
They’ll declare that they’ve changed or that they can finally offer you the things that you’ve been asking for throughout the whole relationship.
The fact is narcissists’ future fake all the time. They are all about getting what they want right now and doing whatever it takes to achieve that. Lies and manipulations are just a part of the job.
“I’m ready to commit now. Let’s get married!”
“I know what I’ve done wrong, I’ll go see a therapist.”
“I’m a changed man/ woman, I promise.”
They don’t have any intention of keeping said promises, they just tell you whatever they think you want to hear.
Remember, actions always speak louder than words and a narcissist’s words never line up with their actions.
They’ll Expect You to Chase Them
How does a narcissist react to being blocked when they are the God who deserves to be worshipped and you’re a lowly peasant?
They will kick back with an air of self-righteousness and expect you to come grovelling back to them. I’m not even kidding!
I can’t help but be reminded of the time my narc ex said to me, “Just remember, if you want to come back to me, you’ll have some serious work to do.” It was all I could do to stifle my fits of laughter.
The narcissist lives in such a delusional reality that they truly believe you should be so lucky to have them in your presence. They completely disregard the horrendous ways they treat you and instead, think that you should be worshipping their every move.
Quite often, when you block a narcissist, you can expect them to sit back and do nothing. They think that chasing someone is beneath them, so if you want to have them in your world, you will need to chase them and apologise.
Unfortunately, this tactic can often work really well due to the trauma bond. This is where the narcissist gets their victim addicted to them through intermittent punishments (withholding) and rewards during the relationship.
The trauma bond can cause an intense feeling of loss and guilt by blocking the narcissist because it triggers your inner fear of being punished as well as being alone.
| READ: 7 Trauma Bond Stages → |
They’ll Get Supply
Aside from the narcissist flipping out and trying to manipulate you back into their toxic realm, they may actually get supply from being blocked.
You see, in their mind, they’ll be thinking…
“Man, I must be incredibly significant for them to be taking the time out of their day to block me. They must be thinking about me all the time.”
Knowing that they’ve gotten under your skin that much, actually inflates the narcissist’s ego even more. It validates for them that they do really exist and that they are extremely important and powerful to be able to get such a reaction out of you.
But please don’t use this as a reason to not block the narcissist! I still highly recommend blocking them, but just be aware that if you’re constantly ruminating about them, you will be sending them narcissistic supply on a psychic level.
Block the narcissist then turn to your own healing. Over time, as you release your wounds, the narcissist will naturally become insignificant, which means they won’t be getting any remote supply from you.
They’ll Create Threats
How does a narcissist react to being blocked when they’ve completely lost control and nothing else is working? They’ll trigger your fears and create threats to terrorise you into submission.
If you’ve got kids together they’ll either threaten to take the kids or not show up for them at all (whichever tactic will hit you the hardest). If they’ve got something they can legally threaten you with, don’t put it past them to go ahead and try.
By this point, if you did unblock the narcissist and allow them back into your life out of fear, it’s certainly not going to be a fulfilling relationship. The narcissist is purely functioning from control and power.
They don’t care about you, they just want to win the game (even though they’re the only ones playing)!
They’ll Want to Block You
As we know, narcissists have an extreme superiority complex, to the point where it rules their every move.
The narcissist just cannot fathom how you could possibly block them!
Firstly, they’ve crushed your self-confidence so much throughout the relationship that they never thought you’d have the guts to actually go ahead and make a stand against them.
Secondly, they truly think they’re the best and can’t understand why you wouldn’t want their amazingness in your life.
Thirdly, you’re nothing. How dare you block them!
So, the narcissist will often want to coax you into unblocking them just so that they can turn around and block you. It’s all about control and they need the power to shift back into their hands.
To them, life is one big competition, where they want to always come out as the greatest of them all. For them to be able to manipulate you into unblocking them, so that they can block you themselves, will have them thinking that they’ve won.
They’ll Blame-shift
How does a narcissist react to being blocked when they know they’ve been manipulative towards you? You can expect them to publicly accuse you of the very things that they were actually doing.
If they were controlling with the finances, they will say that you stopped them from being able to spend money. If they withheld love and affection as a form of control, they’ll say you have intimacy issues and were cold towards them.
The possible false storylines here are endless.
Shifting all of the relationship blame onto you is a tactical ploy to cover themselves. They want to avoid being detected for their abusive behaviours. That way, if you talk to any mutual acquaintances about anything that the narcissist has done, they’ve already gotten in first with their version of events.
They’ll lay the foundation in just the right way so that anything you say is going to make it sound like you’re the one trying to cover your tracks, not the other way around.
| READ: 9 Blaming Tactics → |
They’ll Replace You
If the narcissist knows that you’re onto them and that they can no longer manipulate you, they’ll replace you as quickly as they can with a new source of supply.
In fact, there’s a chance that the narcissist already had someone else in the wings that you never even knew about.
They’ll treat your existence as though it was nothing to them, simply because they’re superior to you. Replacing you at the click of a finger not only secures a fresh source of attention for them, but it reiterates to the narcissist that you’re worthless and replaceable.
For the narcissist, filling their own head with illusions of grandiosity and superiority is far easier than admitting the truth – they were blocked because you do not want them in your life. That’s a reality, which the narcissist simply cannot compute.
They’ll Deny Your Significance
If all else fails and the narcissist has no control over you blocking them, they’ll deny that you ever played a significant role in their lives.
Rather than facing a public rejection or the humiliation of being blocked, they’ll rewrite the storyline. If anyone asks about you, they’ll devalue your relationship together and pretend like it never mattered or that it was never that big of a deal.
They might even tell people that they only ever pitied you, which is why they allowed you into their life at all. Once the narcissist repeats the new storyline enough times, they’ll actually convince themselves of the false version, making it ‘real’ in their false reality.
They’ll Destroy Your Reputation
How does a narcissist react to being blocked on a public level? They will set out to destroy you as a punishment.
Since you’re withholding communication from the narcissist and they’re unable to punish you behind closed doors, they’ll have to do it on a public scale.
The narcissist cannot accept any public humiliation, which includes being rejected by someone else. Therefore, they will go into seek-and-destroy mode as collateral damage for the perceived slight against their ego.
When a narcissist conducts a smear campaign, they will play the angle of the poor victim at your vindictive hands. Although we all know that the complete opposite is true.
This is why the narcissist maintaining a good image at all times is so imperative to their False Self. They need to always appear squeaky clean so that when they decide to drag someone else through the mud, their whole charade doesn’t crumble.
The narcissist will spread lies about you, which serves to make you look like the abusive, crazy one, meaning they will be able to gain attention (supply) as the victim.
They will bring you down in order to prop themselves up.
Memory Journal
Release the painful memories of the narcissist once and for all!
- Journal recurring thoughts
- Sort through what’s yours vs. theirs
- Identify your inner wounds to heal
- Pass the narcissist’s disowned wounding back to them
- Step-by-step guidance
They May Stalk You
How does a narcissist react to being blocked if they don’t have access to you or your world? They may resort to stalking.
On a more benign, yet still intrusive level, the narcissist may stalk you via social media or check up on what you’re doing through mutual friends.
In the case of blocking the narcissist on social media, they may create a fake account to see your profile (if it’s not private) or use their friends or family members’ accounts.
If you’re dealing with a malignant narcissist, stalking could cause concern for your safety. Malignant narcs take their position of power and control to another level. Please do not hesitate to gather a support crew around you and contact authorities if you’re worried about your safety.
If a narcissist is really obsessed about knowing your whereabouts, they may drive past your house to see if you’re there or if anyone else is with you. They could even keep an eye on you at your workplace.
Narcissists are of the mentality that once you’ve had some sort of relationship or friendship with them, you are now one of their belongings. They don’t view humans as living, breathing souls with their own lives.
Since they have created an entire false universe, of which they are the centre, they think everyone else has merely been placed there as a tool for them to use.
If the narcissist has ‘owned’ you once, they think they own you forever.
Therefore, you are their item to be used, controlled or set aside for future use. They do not want anyone else ‘playing’ with their toy and they certainly don’t want you to go off and lead a life of your own, without them controlling it.
▶️ VIDEO: 13 Ways a Narcissist Reacts to Being Blocked
Narcissists and Blocking
Why Do Narcissists Block You?
There are a multitude of reasons why narcissists block you and it always comes down to power and narcissistic supply.
Why do narcissists block you?
- NEW SUPPLY – They’ve replaced you for someone else and don’t see any value in keeping you around… at the moment. They could very well reel you back in at a later date.
- PUNISHMENT – To punish you for a perceived slight or for going against their agenda. Blocking is a form of silent treatment, which gets you into a state of anxiety, while the narcissist gets to monopolising your headspace.
- CONTROL – The narcissist needs to remain in the position of power at all times. By blocking you, they hold the keys to any communication.
- CAT & MOUSE – They want you to chase them, grovel and apologise (even if you’ve done nothing wrong). It all makes them feel rather important.
- REJECTION – They want to inflict a hurtful rejection and flex their superiority.
- VICTIM CARD – Now they can tell everyone that they had to block you to protect themselves against your abusive behaviour.
- SILENCING – If you’ve seen too much, the narc will need to delete you from their world so that you don’t ruin their future sources of supply.
Reasons Behind the Narcissist Blocking and Unblocking
Ahh the narcissist’s blocking and unblocking game. Let’s explore the reasoning behind their hot and cold actions.
TO PUNISH
One reason for the narcissist blocking and unblocking is initially to punish you for something. Then they’ll unblock you to see if you’ll reach out to them.
They may ignore your attempts at contact, but it still grants them significant amounts of supply because they know that you’re thinking about them and wanting them to respond.
TO STRENGTHEN THE TRAUMA BOND
If you’re still in any kind of relationship with them, then the narcissist blocking and unblocking is another way to strengthen the trauma bond. They are withholding from you (punishment), then will allow you back in (reward) when it suits them.
During the withholding, you’re left in such a state of anxiety that when they finally throw you a breadcrumb, you feel alleviated from the anxiety. Then you’ll just go about things as though nothing happened because you’re so relieved to not be getting the silent treatment.
Subconsciously, this tightens your loyalty to the narcissist and grants them more control.
TO REMAIN RELEVANT
If you’re not together with the narcissist any more, they will want to try and keep you obsessed with them.
To do that, they’ll block you for a bit on social media because in their mind, you’re dying to see what they’re up to. Then they’ll unblock you with the idea that you’ll be scrolling right through their page and feeling extremely jealous of them #livingtheirbestlife
When a Narcissist Blocks You on Social Media
When a narcissist blocks you on social media my advice is to block them right back and be done with it! This is the perfect opportunity to go No Contact and stick with it.
By doing this you take the power back into your own hands and out of the narcissist’s. Now you never have to deal with their games or be directly triggered by them ever again.
With Facebook, if someone has already blocked you, you can’t block them back. However, if you go into your contacts list, their name may still be there without a profile picture attached. You can ‘unfriend’ them so that when they decide to unblock you again, they would have to send you a friend request (which they may or may not do). If you notice somewhere along the line that the narcissist has unblocked you, go in and block them from your end.
Now you can move on and focus on your healing.
The Narcissist Blocked Me After Discard
The narcissist often blocks you straight after a discard as a power play. Now the ability to communicate is held firmly in their hands. It’s almost like them exiting the stage with a big grandiose mic drop, just to pump up the dramatic effect.
They’ll be hoping that they’ve left you pining after them, as they completely forget about you and jump into the next person’s bed.
Besides that, they don’t want to be receiving messages and phone calls from their ex, who’s wondering why they’ve treated them so horrendously when they’re busy love-bombing the new supply. That might make them look bad!
Chances are, unless it was a final discard, they’ll unblock you at some future point when it suits them. Then they’ll sit back and expect you to reach out to them.
My hope is that you don’t fall for it and you block them right back.
The Narcissist Blocked My Number
Again, if the narcissist blocked your number in their phone, it’s for all of the same reasons of control and minimisation that we’ve discussed.
They really just want to drive home that because you mean so little to them, they’ve blocked you from having any access to their sheer brilliance.
If a narcissistic ex blocks your number when you share children, it’s more than just infuriating, it’s abuse. I highly recommend recording everything and getting an official child custody order in place if the narcissist refuses to keep communication open with the other parent of their child/ren.
| READ: 12 Stages of Leaving a Narc → |
If a Narcissist Blocks You, Will They Come Back?
Narcissists quite often do come back after blocking you and going No Contact. Once a narcissist knows how to manipulate you, coming back to get supply from you is often easier than having to find new supply.
Here are some reasons why narcissists will and won’t come back after blocking you.
Reasons a narcissist WILL come back after blocking you:
- No regard for your boundaries
- To win
- To regain control
- To have the opportunity to discard you
- Fear of losing supply
- There’s no other supply available
- They need or want something that you can offer
- To stop a shame spiral
- They think they can get more supply out of you
Reasons a narcissist WON’T come back after blocking you:
- They’ve found ‘better’ supply
- To punish you
- They want you to chase them
To really delve into what to expect with narcissist’s coming back after No Contact, check out the article below.
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