Narcissistic Abuse Survival

Today we’re going to talk about the narcissist and their flying monkeys. No, that’s not a term that I came up with, but it is a term often referred to as the people that the narcissists persuade and convince that the victim of their abuse is really the problem.

When we think of Flying Monkeys, we usually reflect on the scene in the Wizard of Oz with the witch and her flying monkeys. Well, it is in essence very similar and just as frightening and traumatizing.

I know that I have referenced Flying Monkeys several times in the past blog posts and now is a good time to write about it. I’ve put this post off for a while because I didn’t want to have to experience the memories again, but maybe this will help me release certain feelings about these people. I have had quite a few people walk out on my life since I left Sly. Most of those who I have known my entire life, or at the very least several years, have turned their backs on me and walked out of my life. Lies have been spewed from Sly’s mouth to be believed by all of these people, including my own mother and most of my “family” and friends.

First a little back story on my life… just to give clarity on the closeness I had with my family.

One of my dear friends always referred to my parents as Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver. For those of you older than 40, you’ll get that reference. I grew up in a house with one brother and two parents… in what I thought was a perfectly normal household and a perfectly normal life. My dad worked a full time job, and my mother stayed home and at some point operated a business from home. We went on vacations together, had family get togethers around the holidays, and ate dinner every night at the dinner table together.

As I became an adult, I became closer to my aunt and uncle on my mother’s side. After I married Sly, we’d had “Sunday Fundays” as we called them where we’d have a large family get together at our house and cookout, swim, and just have fun together. There are people that I called friends, that I have known for half of my life.

These people know me. They know my story. Most of them watched me grow up. They are all the people who helped raise me and shape me into the person I am now. We had relationships, we’d spend time together, laugh and cry together, and tell stories and remember things from when we were kids.

I have watched my nephews and niece grow up. We’d go places together, and I treated them like they were my own children. The oldest one was my little buddy, and when he was small he lived with us, and I helped raise him to the point where everyone thought he was my son. He’s now an adult and works for Sly.

When we were still together, Sly would constantly say negative things about my family. He’d say that my mother was nagging and that she talked too much. My nephews’ mother was said to be trailer trash, or white trash, and the same with my uncle because both of them and their families lived in mobile or manufactured homes. My brother’s fiancée was deemed to be a whore. He would say such horrible things about everyone, including my brother who he claimed to be his best friend – at least around everyone else or in public. To Sly, my brother was a lazy bum and would never amount to anything in life. He would talk bad about people behind their backs, and face to face he’d be their best friend. His mother is the same way… so maybe that’s where it comes from, I’m not sure.

In the months after I left Sly, the full on act came about and he changed his tune. He made a plan, I am sure, on how to acquire all of his flying monkeys.

My family all of a sudden started picking fights with me, and not including me in family get togethers. My own mother said she couldn’t live with me, stated she didn’t trust me, blamed me for saying things I never said, and even told me that I shouldn’t have Chloe. My uncle, aunt and cousins were persuaded by Sly to have several “family” get togethers and keep me excluded. I found out on social media when pictures and videos were posted. I was told by some of these people that I left the family, that I spoke ill of all of them, and that I was spreading lies.

Sly was messaging and talking to all of the people, and to this day I am not sure of everything that he said. But, I do know that he’s lied to them and told them that I cheated on him, and that I left him because I was the one who refused to make the marriage work. It has been stated several times by him that I refused counseling, that I was the one to pick fights, that it was me who was talking to and seeing other people, and that I was the one who was lying to my friends and family about him.

Truth be told, there were only a select few people that I ever told anything to… one of them being my own mother. These people knew the truth, and they saw the messages and texts, and heard the arguments between Sly and myself. Yet, somehow they turned and decided to believe his lies.

There were several social media posts about me, and none of them were true. But let me tell you how quick people are to jump on smear campaigns. This is when I truly found out who was “with me”. We’re all on social media, and we all participate in the gossip and nonsense that is out there. The thing about social media is that people are so quick to judge and believe what they read. They don’t think about the truth behind what is written or said, or even about the people that these posts are about. This is also when I blocked over 120 people from my social media accounts, phone and message apps as well.

I stopped speaking to any of them shortly after all of this started and I caught wind of what was happening. I was constantly being told of all of these reasons people were starting to hate me, and of all the things I was doing. In reality, all I did was move and stop speaking to all of them, for good reason. I never posted on social media, I never spoke of these people or to them. My life did not involve them anymore, and yet I was still getting told that I was in the wrong with everything that I did.

I referenced “smear campaign” above. It’s another narcissistic term that is essentially a tactic a narcissist uses to ruin another’s reputation. They use the smear campaign to make their victims look like fools, and to make other people believe their lies. Narcissists are very good at being persuasive. They are fake, and they can make anyone believe them. I mean, hell, I believed him for years!

Once they start the smear campaign, and they get people on their side, they sit back and watch their victims squirm and try and defend themselves. But, I will say the most important thing to do is sit back yourself, and take note.

Narcissists are very careful in who they choose as their flying monkeys. They choose the people who are most easily persuaded. For example, my mother. She lost her son and husband within a 2 year time frame. Her daughter’s family is falling apart. She lives alone, is retired, and only has time on her hands. We all know what too much time on our hands does to us… She was the first person he went after, and that was an easy win. She was the first flying monkey. This also put her through a lot, because she told me I couldn’t live there with her, she was put in a position to believe that me, her only daughter, was lying to her. But, at the same time, I am her daughter and I’d never let her down in the past. She’s just easily persuaded by evil.

On the other hand, there are a select few he chose to not go after. These are the people in “my circle”. The strong ones who know the truth and aren’t persuaded by the evil that spews from a narcissist. These are also the people that saw, first hand, what Sly was capable of, and what he did. Some of the things he did, which are not appropriate to talk about here, were done to their daughters. He made sure to stay away from these people.

This is what happens when you leave a narcissist, or even attempt to expose them. They will enact their smear campaign and spread every single lie about you they can muster up. Usually the lies they tell are synonymous of the things they have done to their victims, like the lying, cheating, and backstabbing to name a few. They use the smear campaign against you, and people believe them… and that’s where the flying monkeys come from.

If you’re a victim on the other side of all of this, like me, then you understand the emotional and mental anguish this causes. You question your very existence, and you keep asking yourself what you did wrong and why these people are doing this to you. You know you didn’t say or do any of these things. You start getting phone calls, text messages and anonymous letters telling you how f***ed up you are, how crazy you are, that you need to be in a mental institution, and how disappointed your father would be in you. But the truth is, none of it was justified. Not one word of it. But, as I have said before, if you are told something enough times, you start to believe it. This was one of the worst times of my life. I literally “lost” almost everyone who I ever knew. You literally question everything you have ever done in your life, and what you did to these people to make them think these things of you. You go back through your social media, and there’s nothing there. You’ve literally done nothing, and yet these people are saying you’ve done such terrible things.

From all of this, I learned a lot about people in general. Be careful who you let into your life, and never trust just anyone.

You will lose people that meant the world to you. The one thing to know about these people is simply if they really knew you and cared for you, they would still stand behind you.

The people that I wrote about in this blog I no longer speak to, and I have come to terms with it. It says more about them as people than it ever will about me. I know in my heart that I never did them wrong. They left me, and it’s their loss. I have my circle, and my family. Most of my family is not blood, they are chosen, and sometimes that’s the best family you can ask for.