Help! What do you do when a crazy narcissist escalates?

[Anonymous]

Completely disengage, and avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP,

At this point you must be a troll. You've posted multiple times before. If you're not a troll, your aunt is simply harassing you and your family and it's time to be direct and forceful. Tell her that you will file a restraining order if she comes near you or attempts to contact you, period. Never see her again. Make it known that you will not go to events if she's there, and that you will leave if you come and see her at an event. No more niceties.

She's not a troll. She's dealing with a borderline or narcissist. She's posted here so many times because one symptom of dealing with these kinds of people is utter confusion, so that's why OP keeps posting here. When people behave in ways that go so far outside what seems to be normal, you start to question yourself. Especially if other relatives have developed their own coping techniques that involve minimization, concessions, or denials.

OK. However, we've been repeating this for ages. Ignore. Avoid. Why is OP still wondering what to do? Block aunt on every device for every family member. Why would OP even want to read or listen to any communication from her aunt at this point? If she dies, one of her family members will tell her. OP and her family must tell everyone they cannot attend events where her aunt will be present, because she has stalked and harassed them. Hopefully family members will find a way to gather the family without the aunt. Perhaps not. In that case, OP can invite people to her own gatherings, and stop aunt from trespassing on her property. There are ways to deal with this, but the first thing is to accept that relations with the aunt are permanently over.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can never control what she does, other than press charges if she breaks the law. You can't make her be not crazy, you can't make her acknowledge rational points of criticism of her behavior, and you can't keep rants from spewing out of her mouth and through the internet.

You can control how you act and react, including whether you respond to comments and behaviors, as well as whether you enter situations where you might encounter her.
To some extent, you can control how your kids act and react, at least while they are minors and under your roof.
You can control where your boundaries are and how they are enforced (but she can rant and froth all she wants outside of them).
You can control whether or not you pursue legal recourse if she steps over specific lines.

That's about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gray rock.

Yup.

[Anonymous]

OP, are you expecting an inheritance from this crazy relative? That to me is the only reasonable thing that would make it tolerable to maintain some semblance of a hi-bye relationship.

[Anonymous]

OP, walking away is the right thing to do.

Where you are failing is that you continue to get emotionally wrapped up in the drama. Grey rock means you see her behavior and think, “Huh, there she goes again” and then don’t think anything more about it.

You need to quit being phased by it, quit posting here about it, quit enjoying the attention of being the victim of her craziness. Just accept that aunt is there, that she is truly crazy, that you should ignore and evade her as much as possible, and that her antics need not take up one bit of your brain space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP,

At this point you must be a troll. You've posted multiple times before. If you're not a troll, your aunt is simply harassing you and your family and it's time to be direct and forceful. Tell her that you will file a restraining order if she comes near you or attempts to contact you, period. Never see her again. Make it known that you will not go to events if she's there, and that you will leave if you come and see her at an event. No more niceties.

There are at least 2-3 different posters with crazy aunts. The stories are similar so they seem repetitive, but there are a few different families with crazy aunts. OP may be a repeat poster, but it seems like anyone who posts a crazy aunt story is automatically assumed to be one poster who refuses to distance herself from the crazy aunt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So, if you ignore her, what is she going to do to “escalate”? Email you again? Glare at you some more? Text you? What’s the worst case scenario if you stop feeding her?

OP I'm not the poster with the aunt/uncle who want to be grandparents or the general pushy people. I have posted her several times about her over the past year, I don't want to repeat all of it but she wants access to our kids, especially my daughter. She doesn't hear no when either DH, myself or the kids say no to her. She will go behind our backs to try to pressure the kids when we say no. We've had to block her from the kids devices. It was just going on and on with her so we started using the gray rock techniques. I don't think they are working because she really doesn't care about access to DH or I, she wants my kids and to feed her fantasy about being whatever with my daughter. This is not going to happen.

I think that either my MIL or SIL has said something to her to get to back off from us. They are awesome but since she is a narc this may have set her off again. There were several weird paragraphs on her crazy email about me trying to break up her family unit and smearing her. My SIL who has had similar problems with her but lives farther away is the only person I have talked to her about her craziness. She may also just be imagining things in her head which is even scarier.

If her only escalation is more crazy emails, glaring at me, bad mouthing me to other relatives then I am fine. I don't care and we'll just continue to ignore it. What is freaking me out is her level of rage and not knowing what else she will do. She has been vindictive with some of her neighbors and damaged their property before but I don't see her doing that here. I certainly didn't expect her to chase me around at an elderly relative's party.

So, OP.. To your first paragraph, all I have to say is “okay”. She won’t take no for an answer. The answer is to Continue saying no. Block her from ALL devices, including your kids. Be as committed to keeping her from her kids as she is about getting them.

The emails, etc. Won’t bother you once you have blocked her and delete any emails from her without reading them. STOP READING HER STUFF. Stop allowing her real estate in your head. If people are intervening on your behalf, and she is already a running joke, what power do you honestly think her “smear campaign” will have?

If you think, which it seems you might, that she will escalate to the point it puts your family in danger, then it’s time to get the police involved. Set up a timeline with old documentation or evidence if you have it. Ask her in writing to leave you and your family alone. Ensure to stay out her way, even declining invitations if you have to. If she does anything else, you have grounds to legally keep her away from you.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We have been avoiding her and going no contact. We started off just declining every request politely and then started blocking her on the kid devices and not responding to emails. We did not block her from DH or my phone but we do not call her back or respond to her texts. She and another relative play the main point of assistance for DH's grandmother so we did not want to completely block her number from our devices in case something happened to grandma.

We lived several states away until a year ago. One of the reasons that we wanted to move out here was to be closer to DH's extended family. We wanted to be able to go to all the events. She has really ruined this for my entire family which sucks. There were other reasons why we moved here so we can focus on those. We enjoy spending time with MIL and SIL so its not as if we have to isolate from everyone. Its just a bummer that we now have such apprehension about any of the large family gatherings solely because of her. I wanted to find a way to civilly co-exist and enjoy the rest of the family without giving into her unreasonable demands and craziness.

DH's grandmother is very old, late 90s. I really do not want to avoid events where grandma will be because of the crazy aunt. I am worried that in the future she will show up at grandma's house during one of our one on one visits to engage in some crazy tirade. I want my kids to spend as much time with grandma before she passes. If grandma wasn't in the picture then we would just avoid any situation where we she would be.

It is freaking me out how obsessed she is with my kids. If she wasn't so hyper focused on getting access to them and freaking them out I really would not care whether she ranted and raved or whatever. I am very tough at work. I have never had any problem dealing with difficult people or pushing off bullies in my personal or professional life. I'm usually pretty fearless. When my kids are a target, its an entirely different situation.

The next possible times when we would have to see her is if she crashes one our visits to grandma or Thanksgiving. We will avoid everything else. Grandma asked us to host it again this year but I think we will have to decline and just go on vacation somewhere instead because of crazy aunt.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Sorry for posting so much on this thread. I don't know if this matters or not but she seems to be focusing all her rage on me and ignoring DH. DH was the one who told her to stop and has declined as many times as I have and used the exact same language as I do each time. She sent the email just to me not both of us. She wrote out in all caps that he is her nephew and she has known him longer than me. Its just bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for posting so much on this thread. I don't know if this matters or not but she seems to be focusing all her rage on me and ignoring DH. DH was the one who told her to stop and has declined as many times as I have and used the exact same language as I do each time. She sent the email just to me not both of us. She wrote out in all caps that he is her nephew and she has known him longer than me. Its just bizarre.

It is bizarre. It's best if you and your dh don't engage any further for a while. Gray rock. Gray rock. Stop attending family events if she will be there for a little while, have a plausible excuse or other activity. Let things calm down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for posting so much on this thread. I don't know if this matters or not but she seems to be focusing all her rage on me and ignoring DH. DH was the one who told her to stop and has declined as many times as I have and used the exact same language as I do each time. She sent the email just to me not both of us. She wrote out in all caps that he is her nephew and she has known him longer than me. Its just bizarre.

And yet there you are OP, reading her emails.

If you see an email, delete it. You engage every time you open her correspondence, allow her into your head, and react. You already know if she’s emailing you only personally, it’s not about grandma, so why open it? Stop feeding the drama. You are not declining as much as you’re counting to a toddler looking to get their way and never following though.

She is not the only point of contact for grandmother. Make it clear via your husband you will only go through the other relative, or find a way to contact grandmother on your own.

Who cares if she’s mad /enraged at jut you? Again... disengage. Grey rock. What will she escalate to? If it will hurt your family DOCUMENT AND CONTACT THE POLICE. Yes, it’s bizarre, but you either have to take action, or choose that you are not taking action. “no contact” means you delete her. You don’t read her correspondence. You see it and ignore or delete.

[Anonymous]

Don't delete the emails. Keep them for future reference when she denies ever sending them.

[Anonymous]

Have a special folder in your email with her name on it. Just slide them into that folder without reading.

[Anonymous]

Ignore, avoid, gray rock, save correspondence