How to deal with an intrusive narcissist?

[Asayake]

A year ago I worked on the audio for an indie film project directed by a friend of one of my childhood friends. We met through a party and he was very socially skilled irl and managed to convince me to work on his project for free(they had a very low budget and didn't make any money, the project was pretty much just for experience). At the end of the work period he became very intrusive and stressed me out big time. He was calling me 10-20 times and wanting to meet up irl all the time while I was trying to isolate myself to get into creative mode and do my job which was to do the audio for the film. In the middle of me pouring my soul out to do the job well he threatened to end our collaberation, after me having put down 100+ hours into the movie and saving the movie from being absolute trash, as the audio was poorly recorded and I had to do a lot of audio recovery and tiresome editing to save its face. I also made a lot of creative impact on the movie which practically pieced the movie together from being an absolute mess. 

A month after the project was finally over I swore to myself I will not work with this guy again but one day I had to meet with him again because I was going to meet up with my childhood friend and eat dinner and he brought the director guy along. The guy got me into a situation where I was 1 on 1 with him and he tried to pursue me to work for him again and make a soundtrack for his movie for free because he had music that was copyrighted in his movie and now he wanted to release his movie which he could not do and he did not have the budget to pay for copyrights to the music he had used. I refused because I recalled that I had sworn to myself not to work with him again, he had caused me a lot of anxiety, stress, and even made me self concious is a bad way and a bit paranoid. For example one time he and his friends turned up to my place at 3 Am in the middle of the night without messaging me or calling me or anything and they basically invited themselves over to my place. I was lying half asleep when my door bell was ringing and not only once, but literally spam ringing. I almost panicked because I thought it was the police or something because I was a heavy weed user at the time and it's not legal in my country. But no, it was the director guy and his friends wanting to hang out. Spontaneous things like this stressed me out when working with him and made me feel like I didn't have a safe space or privacy to be with myself. He constantly wanted to hangout and we hung out almost everyday of the week while I was doing the hard labour and carrying him on my back. Anyways, I refused to do the soundtrack for hte movie and he insulted me and called me lazy. I told him that's bullshit and reminded him I did a lot of work for him for free and I also have other obligations to meet in my life. We didn't talk since then, until this week.

Now he has contacted me again. Calling me 10-15 times and typing "hahaha have u blocked me?". I got a bit paranoid because I don't feel comfortable with this guy. He uses others for his own gain and he has little to contribute with himself. In my mind he is downright abusive. I called him back once so far and told him I didn't block him. He wanted my feedback on a job application he had made for a game studio. I gave him some quick feedback and now he wants to meet for dinner. Frankly I really don't want to meet him for dinner but at the same time I'm stuck in an annoying position because he's friends with my childhood friend and his other friends and I like those people and want to remain in contact with them.

Do you have any tips on how I can deal with this situation properly? It is giving me a lot of anxiety and stressing me out for no reason, while I'm otherwise in a good place in my life and loving almost every day.

Edited October 4, 2022 by Asayake

[Tyler Robinson]

You're allowing yourself to be a pushover. You are literally letting someone walk all over you. You need a ton of work on how to manage people. It doesn't matter that he is your friend's friend. If your friend cares about you, you should be comfortable telling them that you aren't pleased to have this director dude around and set a firm boundary where you meet your friend without him being there. They can meet him separately without you and do the same with you.. 

It's case of placing firm boundaries. A no is a no. 

What you need is being strong in your conviction and boundaries. 

It's your emotional well being and you are entitled to it. 

Put your foot down and don't meet the director person again. Don't work for him and meet your friends separately without him.. 

There is simply no good reason to tolerate this nonsense. 

 

[The Mystical Man]

Go through this situation with more dignity. Communicate your needs, and if your needs aren't respected, end all communication. Don't call him back. Ignore him. 

 

[UpperMaster]

@Asayake I've been victim to a narcissist like this too. Sucks ass. Emotionally draining as fuck. I personally haven't dealt with it, just sort of got away with it in the sense that he found someone else to target.

Edited October 4, 2022 by UpperMaster

[Asayake]

@Tyler Robinson @The Mystical Man @UpperMaster

Thank you all for your responses it was just the perspectives I needed. For now I'm going to avoid meeting up with him and I'm going to cut any online conversations with him as short as I can. I'm going to ignore his calls. He has already wronged me too many times for me to tolerate him if he doesn't straight up apologize. I don't want to block him just yet, because I believe people can change.

However, I recently found out he's been getting on the bad side of my childhood friend as of lately as well. So it seems the universe might be taking care of my childhood friend situation since it seems like they're not hanging out so much anymore. It seems it's not only me having trouble with this guy.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Asayake

[RoyalFool]

On 10/4/2022 at 10:50 AM, UpperMaster said:

@Asayake I've been victim to a narcissist like this too. Sucks ass. Emotionally draining as fuck. I personally haven't dealt with it, just sort of got away with it in the sense that he found someone else to target.

Mirror, mirror, show my soul, 

Opposition makes us whole.

Shadow aspects not accepted,

in the world they are reflected.

[integral]

Say no to his requests and when he spam calls you eventually answer the phone and say no to all his requests over and over until he stops asking you. there should be no downside to the friend group. you could also make an excuse and say you’re working full-time and you have no time for anything else.

[UpperMaster]

@Asayake  Yea no prob. I can't possibly know the entirety of the situation however... I do want to say that although people can change, most people don't, most psychos and narcissists especially don't. I'm telling you this with all seriousness because I don't want you to fall back into his influence, I have made this mistake, once your out, keep yourself out. I made this mistake, and just got exploited more.

I don't know if this guy is actually smart or not. Generally the more intelligent the person the more dangerous he is. It is very easy to get manipulated, its is not your job to be forgiving. Forgive him in your mind, but avoid him because you know that he can exploit you.

Hope you can take my two cents here.

[UpperMaster]

@RoyalFool Elaborate, I don't understand.

[at_anchor]

But how do you know when a narcissist has bad intent towards you and wants to exploit you and when he just has no bad intent and does not want to exploit you except maybe your time? What if a narcissist wants you all the best? How can I know?

[Ulax]

@Asayake I'd recommend Grayrocking in your situation. Here's a vid. I think Dr Ramani is a useful source in general.

If you're feeling up for going non-contact, I'd recommend that.

Also, I think there may be a chance that he will try to persuade other people to persuade you to still be friends with him or revert your behaviour back from grayrocking. Its a phenomena known as 'Flying Monkeys', Ramani has videos on that too.

In my experience, once you understand how folks with narcissistic personal disorders behave they are rather predictable. However, I have found that it can still be emotionally stressful and confusing even if you know why they are acting in the way they are. I think it will be important for you to be in somewhat consistent contact with a trustworthy person who gets the situation you are in and the behaviour of NPD folks. I think that could help you maintain your sense of reality and perspective.

[UpperMaster]

@at_anchor narcissists generally have low empathy, and high self absorption. The behavior described in the post is clearly exploitative.

[RoyalFool]

5 hours ago, UpperMaster said:

@RoyalFool Elaborate, I don't understand.

That which is left unconscious, wants to be seen, until you fully look at yourself, you will encounter it within the world as “other”. 

There are demons, dragons, narcissisms and unpleasant shadow attributes behind/beneath awareness, under the mask you claim as “me, I, self”

These attributes appear externally, but can only be solved within. It is a complex issue, and im sorry if I explained it poorly. 

The seed of narcissism was planted inside, and it grows into an experience. People continue to let these seeds grow, and wonder why their life is how it is. Even when one experience is removed, the roots may remain and grow again. The pattern continues again.

[at_anchor]

@UpperMaster yea, but that kind of a person is so rare. Are there more subtle examples that can be described?

I had a grandpa who broke hip and before he lost his walking ability completely, he was stealing my money and buying stupid stuff like flowers and gifts for people he went to have coffee with. I caught him once.

He was smoking and we all worried about his health. I would take cigarettes out of his mouth when I found him smoking and hide them. When he git worse, he would stay up all night, not allowing me and my family to sleep, some of whom were always drunk. The house would smell like shit or piss often times, especially when the wind starts blowing. Life was terrible with him, not to mention that I was just a boy growing uo with his stuff. TV, music and porn was my education because of him and others. I had to change his diapers and stuff.

But he had empathy. He would cry and he would talk to me sometimes in a very nice way. He was just sick and I was disturbed and stupid to come and hit his leg to make him stop being a nuisance a couple of times. But nonetheless, I had empathy. I did it on purpose because he was making noise on purpose. Nothing was needed, he just felt like I don't know.

Edited October 7, 2022 by at_anchor

[Asayake]

22 hours ago, Ulax said:

@Asayake I'd recommend Grayrocking in your situation. Here's a vid. I think Dr Ramani is a useful source in general.

If you're feeling up for going non-contact, I'd recommend that.

Also, I think there may be a chance that he will try to persuade other people to persuade you to still be friends with him or revert your behaviour back from grayrocking. Its a phenomena known as 'Flying Monkeys', Ramani has videos on that too.

In my experience, once you understand how folks with narcissistic personal disorders behave they are rather predictable. However, I have found that it can still be emotionally stressful and confusing even if you know why they are acting in the way they are. I think it will be important for you to be in somewhat consistent contact with a trustworthy person who gets the situation you are in and the behaviour of NPD folks. I think that could help you maintain your sense of reality and perspective.

Really appreciated this video, helpful stuff!

[UpperMaster]

@at_anchor

Yea I sort of get the picture that you have very conflicting experience, since although your grandpa was hard to deal with, he did feel bad for his actions. I'm in no position to question your experience. However I feel that, whether or not someone changes or not should not be your concern after a certain point. You shouldn't put yourself in a place of danger unnecessarily. Also, Narcissists are not rare, they are found everywhere. Some are less harmful than others, and everyone has some level of narcissism.

 

Ultimately it is your decision.

[at_anchor]

1 hour ago, UpperMaster said:

although your grandpa was hard to deal with, he did feel bad for his actions.

Oh no, he did not feel bad and he had no remorse. He just blamed me when I did what I did and I had remorse. He would swear on my mom at night, and she would I guess do something to him that hurt him as well

But I was getting angry at him for swearing at her. She allowed it. But later criticized me for it and I got demonized as well. He was a real burden. But as I said, sometimes I'd sit next to his bed and have a laugh talking with him. He was great, but a burden I could not carry, although he is not really the biggest one necessarily. There were bigger in my family. Just not so obvious.

Edited October 7, 2022 by at_anchor

[meta_male]

On 5.10.2022 at 4:28 PM, Asayake said:

I don't want to block him just yet, because I believe people can change.

A narcissists doesn't change, he will be off to his next victim and suck out their energy. Blocking him would be the least you could do for his development.

[Breakingthewall]

It is a great opportunity to learn to set limits. You have nothing to lose, just set yourself free by telling him exactly what you think every time. forget any correction. it's like a game. if you give even a millimeter, you lose. your barriers have to be made of steel. the goal is to never, under any circumstances, do anything you really don't want to do. If you have the slightest doubt between yes and no, say no. This is free therapy, take advantage of it. this guy will make you stronger