Narcissists think about you every single day after you leave, but not because they miss you—they miss owning you. People always ask me if narcissists actually miss you when you’re gone, like really miss you, and the answer is much more complicated than a simple yes or no. Here’s the thing: they absolutely feel your absence, but not in the way you think they do, and definitely not in the way you felt when they discarded you.
Understanding Narcissistic Absence
Let me be brutally honest about what is really happening in their heads when you go no contact or when you finally walk away. First off, they’re not sitting there crying into their pillow, thinking about all the beautiful moments you shared. That’s not how their brain works. Instead, they’re experiencing something that feels like a malfunction in their entire system. You see, you were their emotional regulation device. You were the one who made them feel important, validated, and powerful. You were feeding them something they literally cannot produce internally. So when you disappear, it’s like someone unplugged their life support machine.
They do not miss you as a person with feelings and dreams and your own inner world; they miss what you did for them.
The Narcissist’s Reaction to No Contact
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The proof is in how they react to your absence. Have you ever noticed how quickly they try to replace you? It’s not because they do not care; they do it because they can’t function without that supply. I know you know this—it’s like watching someone frantically searching for a phone charger when their battery hits 1%. They are not thinking about the charger’s feelings, are they? They just need the juice.
But they hit rock bottom when they feel your absence as a personal attack on their reality. In their mind, you exist to serve their emotional needs. You leaving does not compute as “this person has boundaries” or “this person deserves better.” It computes as “this person is deliberately trying to hurt me by withholding what is rightfully mine.” This is why they cannot just let you go quietly. This is why you get the hoovering attempts, the flying monkeys, and the sudden appearances at places they know you will be. They are not trying to win you back because they love you; they are trying to restore their equilibrium. Your walking away created a narcissistic injury so deep that they literally cannot focus on anything else until they feel like they have regained control.
I have watched this pattern play out hundreds of times. The narcissist will tell everyone who will listen that they are so much better without you, that you were crazy or too much work. But their reactions tell a completely different story. They’re checking your social media obsessively; they’re asking mutual friends about you; they are dating someone who looks suspiciously like you or has your exact same career. The absence hits them in waves, but not emotional waves like you and I experience. It’s more like withdrawal symptoms. They’ll have moments where they feel completely empty, purposeless, like they are floating in space with nothing to grab onto. But instead of recognizing this as a sign that they need to develop their own sense of self, they interpret it as evidence that you are the problem for leaving.
The Twisted Idealization
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What is so crazy and particularly cruel is that they remember you most when they need something—when they are facing a crisis, when they need to be saved, when they need validation, or when their current supply is not hitting the same way you did. That’s when your absence becomes most acute to them. Why? Because you made them feel loved. You were really, really good at making them feel like the center of the universe. They will idolize you in retrospect, but it is a twisted kind of idealization. They will remember you as a perfect supply, which I called a customized supply in my earlier episode, rather than as a whole human being. In their mind, you become this mythical figure who understood them completely and gave them exactly what they needed.
Of course, they conveniently forget all the times they devalued you, criticized you, and made you feel small because they have a compartmentalized way of thinking. The really messed-up part is that your absence actually validates their victim narrative. In their retelling of the story, you become the villain who abandoned them in their time of need. They will craft elaborate stories about how they gave you everything and you just walked away. They genuinely believe these stories because believing anything else would require them to look at their own behavior, and you know how these people are—that is not happening ever.
If you’re trauma-bonded, do not mistake their inability to forget you for love or genuine care. They remember you the way a drug addict remembers their favorite dealer—with a mixture of resentment and desperate longing. They hate that they need you, and they hate that you had the power to take yourself away from them. That is the biggest source of pain for them.
The Power of No Contact
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This is why no contact is so effective and so necessary. Every time you respond to their attempts to re-engage, you are essentially telling them that their strategy works. You are confirming that if they just push the right buttons or say the right thing, they can still access you. Your silence, absence, and refusal to engage—that is what drives them absolutely crazy because it is the one thing they cannot manipulate or control.
The daily reality of your absence for them is like having a phantom limb. They keep reaching for something that is not there anymore. They will catch themselves starting to text you, or they will see something that reminds them of how you used to react to their stories. But it’s not nostalgia, even though it looks like that. It is frustration that their favorite toy got taken away.
And yes, they absolutely think about you every single day, especially in the beginning. But their thoughts are not, “I wonder how they are doing” or “I hope they’re happy.” No, their thoughts are, “Why did they think they could just leave me? How dare they act like they are better than this relationship?” The proof that they feel your absence is not in any grand gesture or heartfelt apology; it is in the fact that they can’t seem to stop themselves from trying to get your attention, even when it makes them look desperate or crazy. It is in how they can’t resist making little digs about you to mutual friends. It is in how they keep tabs on your life while pretending they have moved on completely.
Your absence haunts them. Why? Because you proved that they are not as irresistible and powerful as they believed. You showed them that someone could see through their mask and choose to walk away, and that reality check follows them everywhere, every single day, like a shadow they cannot shake.
Conclusion: You Are Their Karma
For these reasons, I say their own doings are their biggest karma. You were their karma because you, without wanting to, made them realize how inadequate they are on their own. I hope you resonated with what I had to share with you today. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you in the next one, and until then, as always, let the healing begin.
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