Hello, hello, hello, Dr. O here today, I want to talk to you about hovering.
Hovering is something that is done by narcissist. And we all know who was narcissist is what a narcissist is. I do believe that the terminology is kind of getting exploited a little bit right now. Like, it’s not, it’s being overrated. But nonetheless, it’s a very real issues basically, what a person is, has an inflated sense of self, they are thinking that they are, you know, exceptional, like the superheroes and everybody else is beneath them.
And they have are very hard to be a relationship with because as you can imagine, if a person perceives you as less valuable than them, that’s not going to be something fun, that’s not going to be something that people want to be around. Okay, so that is what a narcissist is.
So hovering is a strategy, right? And a skill that a narcissist uses more or less to reinforce this grandiose perception of self. So they hover over you just like I don’t know, just anything like that just stands over you that kind of looks. Or if you’ve ever been sitting down, it had somebody just you fill in their eyes on you just like you know, watching your every move or whatever.
My husband is from Ghana. And he in his culture, they say like if you’re sitting down and somebody standing up, they’ll say you’re draining their blood, right and so even whether you’re from Guyana and you believe those attitudes or not, it’s it does kind of feel that way like why someone like this standing over you watching their every move well, for the narcissist is a way for them to maintain control. So the narcissist requires the ability to be able to kind of monitor your every move, right, by hovering over you. But unlike, you know, physically the way I’m describing it, they’ll do it from a different perspective from a perspective of their behaviors and their actions.
So let’s kind of talk about what some of those actions will be, one of them is contacting you out of the blue. So let’s say this relationship has ended, y’all decided, You know what, I’m not doing the whole narcissistic personality situation any more, y’all are broken up, y’all are not talking. And this narcissist is going to try to call you out of the blue and catch you off guard. Right.
And, you know, they’ve had all the time in the world to think about whatever it is they’re going to say to you or what they’re going to do with or what their intentions are with you. But you have no idea that they’re calling you, they might even go so far as to call you from like a block number, or a number that they don’t expect you to recognize, you know, because you think or even they might call from their known number, someone just bold enough to say, look, I’m gonna let her know, you know, it’s me calling, right but it is very, very uncomfortable, right to be contacted out of the blue by somebody who is a narcissist and you try to create space with.
Sometimes they’ll act like they have repented. And that’s really scary. Because when we’re wrong, it’s instinctive to want people to validate us and for people to say, you know, I apologize, but a lot of times, it’s a trap, it’s a way to get you stuck right back into whatever it is that you’re getting out of. Right? Because if you get back into their good graces, and they have the power and authority to do everything they need they were doing to you to begin with all over again. Right.
So you know, it’s, it’s their strategy for getting back in so that they can continue to control and manipulate you in ways that they were doing earlier. Another one is reaching out on important dates. And, you know, I mean, let’s say you’ve been with a narcissist for a year, right? So you’ve had an opportunity. So a lot of times we’ve been with narcissists, even longer than that, but you’ve had tons of opportunities to just develop different, you know, milestones in the course of the year, the first day that she dated the first day, you got to kiss you know, your birthday, Christmas, New Year.
You know, whatever else is support St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, whatever it is, but they’ll find a way to just reach back out to you, you know, and it’s like, why are you calling me? Like, why are you You know, even entertaining? Why am I on your radar, you know, but that is their way of getting control because once again, this is a sentimental time. They’re hoping that they’ll catch you at a time where you know your birthday, you’re going to be you know, hopefully in a good mood right or maybe a Christmas or maybe even the first time you you can Esther made love is a sentimental time. And so you’re gonna your guard might be down.
And again, that’s another opening this is the strategy that they use to try to get right back in to kind of do the things that they’ve been doing the whole time. I’m declaring their undying love. It is so old, it is so lame, but yet narcissists used it all the time.
Okay, because listen, we women and men to let’s just be real, we are social creatures, we are designed to want to be in connection with one another and loved by one another. And so when we hear these words, especially when it sounds familiar, and, and if you want to believe it, because sometimes, you know, you can love a person and not need to be with that person. Right? And so, you know, you can find yourself in situations where you really do so if somebody says, I love you, and they’re not good for you. Like, who wouldn’t want to embrace that? You know, who wouldn’t want to take that? Right? That doesn’t mean that that person is going to stop cheating on you that that person is gonna stop, you know, disrespecting you stop being abusive to you. And they can let you do all those things at the same time. You know, they really can’t trust me. They can. I’ve seen it done, it has happened to me. And a lot of the clients that we serve, it happens too.
So just be mindful that just because they’re saying they love you, doesn’t mean that any of the things that drew you together, it through drew you apart, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to stop, okay? Because they probably loved you at the same time that they were doing those things. All right, showering you with gifts. Now, I don’t want to give this too much attention because I like to think that we are in place we need our own stuff. Okay, but people are still are materialistic.
I mean, I shoot I like a good dinner. I like flowers. You know, I like jewelry. You know, I wouldn’t like to think I’d sell my soul to be able to get it. But you know, it’s just a strategy that people use a lot of times the gifts because the narcissist is so absorbed with their own cells as the gifts probably won’t even be that enticing. So it’s more about the narcissist. You know, the narcissist probably give me something that they want or something of high value. It might be diamond earrings, right? But what if you don’t like diamonds.
So it’s more about the narcissist is need to be able to show you that I have so great I can afford diamonds, even if that’s not your style. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The point is, that’s not what you need. Okay, that’s something that you should be looking out for. Okay.
Another thing that they’ll do is they’ll promise you the moon or baby, I’ll change, I’m not going to do that anymore. I love you. All those things that they know that we want to hear, right? We want to hear these things. And so we will be it’s easier for us to just ignore the not so good things. Because if we can ignore these things, then again, they get right back in and they can continue to do whatever it is that drove them away that separated you to begin with. Um this is so lame, and I’m only giving you the state face because this has happened to be like with one of my exes.
He would use other people to get to me because I listen, I was able to get through all these other things in terms of you. I answered your phone call. I answered no black numbers because I’ve noticed you okay, I’m not doing no gifts. I’m not doing nothing. But I’m not the type of person who thinks that okay, because we broke up I think I’ll talk to you or your friends or your homeboy or whatever.
So you know, it conveniently these people that were I really only knew through him, just started showing up in my life. And one of them actually tried to holler at me, I wish I would have let him know that okay, but it ended the day it just became this, you know, like, what, what are you doing here? You know, men or women who are narcissist and I’m not I’m not trying to be sexist but men are typically much more diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder that women but nonetheless whoever is narcissistic has the ability to to engage in these behaviors and one of them is trying to get other people to kind of see you know, what’s going on with you and that’s not cool okay? So be be mindful of that.
Now this one I really don’t like I’m sorry, I’m like looking down at my list isn’t talking to you all but pretending like nothing happened? I had a late uncle, bless his heart. Before he died. He would say don’t piss on me and tell years remaining. Okay, let’s not go through the world. Let’s not go through life pretending like, excuse my language, but as shit don’t stay, you know, like, don’t come up and you know that we got an issue or things aren’t working out or whatever it is, and pretend as if you don’t have anything to do or like nothing’s happening but you don’t know what’s going on like that is insulting it’s rude is disrespectful and it’s unnecessary, but it is a hovering hovering strategy that narcissists will typically try to use. Okay, and last but certainly not least, bless their little souls. Okay, people will, narcissist will threaten to try to hurt themselves. Okay.
Now, I don’t take that lightly. Because as a therapist and someone who’s been working in the mental health field for over 15 years, suicide is suicidal ideation is no joke. That being said, even me as a therapist for my practice, and this is just something for you know, if you’re interested in coming in, we won’t even take you, okay? Unless you’d bid suicide free or suicidal ideation free or self harm any of that free for 30 days, or unless you have a release from the hospital stating that you’re no longer at risk for suicidal ideation.
So in other words, okay, if if a narcissist or anybody for that better, okay really wants to kill kill themselves, they don’t need you. They need a therapist who is a Crisis Therapist, like a hospital that says who have what they need. Okay, so I tell people that all the time because they find themselves getting right back in these situations because they feel guilty, but and a lot of times, it’s because you want to, and they know exactly what to exactly what to say, to kind of get your goose. But it’s not appropriate, okay? Like they you can’t, you can’t listen, you cannot stop a person who committed suicide who wants to commit suicide, okay, and most narcissists, to be honest with you, they love themselves too much. They don’t want to really want to kill nacelles. What? Get in this, all that added baggage. That’s how they view themselves, you know, so it’s all a strategy.
All right. Now, again, I’m not knocking suicide where you wouldn’t make that very, very clear. As a therapist, I cannot knock the end, okay. And I wouldn’t do that anyway, because it is real. It is very, very real. I actually had an aunt who committed suicide. So trust me, I know that is real. But again, you’re not trained to deal with suicidal ideation. I’m not trained to deal with suicidal ideation. I have worked in a hospital briefly, but I didn’t even work on the floor with the with the clients that were suicidal. Okay, so somebody had cancer, are you going to just take them back because they have cancer, you know, you make sure they get some give them some help, make sure they have treatment. Okay, Miss the same thing for suicidal ideation. Okay, so hovering is a strategy that narcissists do to kind of maintain control over andthey try to maintain control over you. So to eliminate that control, you make sure that you know the signs you know what to look for, and you know that listen is only temporary.
All right, thank you so much for your time today. I hope this has been helpful. If you or someone that you love is dealing with a hovering, overbearing narcissistic partner, and they need help, please reach out to us. Well, that concludes our episode for today.
Thank you so much for listening, peace and blessings, Doctor O.