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

[Anonymous]

I just received a crazy email from my narcissistic aunt. She makes my kids very uncomfortable so when she pulled my teenage daughter aside I interrupted her. She was enraged. At one point she started yelling at me and I just walked away. She started chasing me yelling how this was her family not mine. I was not going to make a scene at the event and start yelling back so I just kept evading her. DH and another aunt intervened telling her to stop it. She just glared at me the rest of the night.

She just sent me a long crazy email. She has recast every incident when we have politely declined her demands to get access to our kids as some sort of evil attack on her. It flows between delusion, grandiose statements about herself and attacks on me and how mentally ill I must be to not allow her to have the kids. Its filled with demands for immediate apologies to her and to recognize her importance, how she will not tolerate being denied, all caps and lots of exclamation points. It is a scary look into how her mind work.

She is a full blown narcissist.

My first reaction was to simply send a short email telling her that neither I nor my husband owe her an apology and that she is to leave us and our kids alone. I am tempted to tell her that she is a narcissist but I have read that for narcissists they don't care. They feed off negative and positive attention. By responding in any way, I am simply feeding her. If I don't respond will she simply escalate to another level because she isn't getting attention from us? I'm not sure what I need to do to get her to stop being obsessed with us. The rest of the family knows full well that she is crazy and its an extended joke with all the in laws. I don't think she has ever gone this far before but she has a deep obsession, particularly with my daughter. What do I do?

[Anonymous]

Gray rock.

[Anonymous]

I've read many of your other posts.

Yes, she probably feeds off the interactions. Google gray rock. That should be your strategy: pleasant (when forced in person), bland, non-reactive.

She may escalate initially, but if you're not feeding her delusional, you will be less fun for her. And it's likely she will fade away.

[Anonymous]

Yes I've read gray rock and that is what I had been using with her. Just be boring, politely decline, ghost, avoid and don't feed the need. I assumed that she would tire of us and move on to another target but she is escalating instead of moving on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes I've read gray rock and that is what I had been using with her. Just be boring, politely decline, ghost, avoid and don't feed the need. I assumed that she would tire of us and move on to another target but she is escalating instead of moving on.

Avoid contact.

Are you the OP with the aunt/uncle that treat your kids like theirs?

[Anonymous]

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?

How you proceed would depend a little on family dynamics to me. Either disengage and ignore, or give a “one final warning” statement before you do, making it clear what your boundaries are, before you cut off contact.

I’d also document, save any written communications, and NEVER communicate with her without a second person present.

And basically, drop the rope and walk away.

[Anonymous]

Do not respond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gray rock.

Yep, less is more. Protect your dd from her craziness.

[Anonymous]

Don't respond to the email.

I'm not sure what to do about future family gatherings. It's pretty common for other family members to have different ways to cope with the crazy one. They may have made concessions to avoid triggering the crazy that you can't/won't make; or they may just not bear the brunt of it, like you are.

At this point, I think you would be justified in skipping gatherings where she is going to be. I would NOT make a big announcement about it, or maybe even tell anyone at all, because that will get back to her an cause another scene. Just don't go, and don't discuss it. If there are other relatives you want to see, then make plans with them separately.

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gray rock.

Yep, less is more. Protect your dd from her craziness.

+1

Gray rock works if you stick with it. It fails when people keep trying to defend/explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes I've read gray rock and that is what I had been using with her. Just be boring, politely decline, ghost, avoid and don't feed the need. I assumed that she would tire of us and move on to another target but she is escalating instead of moving on.

Behavior escalates before habits change. It's called an "extinction burst." If you give in and do more than gray rock (or non-contact, if that is where you are), then the clock resets.

[Anonymous]

Do not respond and gray rock some more.
Don't make any announcements, don't do anything.
Stay away from any family gathering if she is going to be present for a while.

[Anonymous]

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.