Warning Signs

 

Looking back at my year-long relationship with a covert narcissist, I can now clearly identify patterns and behaviors that should have alarmed me from the start. What once seemed like passion, concern, and quirky personality traits were actually calculated manipulation tactics.

I'm sharing these red flags to illustrate how I got sucked into this toxic relationship while consistently ignoring these warning signs. I wish I had known about these things at the time; things might have developed differently. Maybe this page will help someone see the danger they are in sooner than I did. I hope that in some small way I can help prevent someone else being abused the same way I was.

Remember: One or two of these signs might occur in normal relationships. That's normal. It's the pattern, intensity, and frequency that matters.

Too Much, Too Soon

Within weeks of meeting on Discord while beta-testing an AI video generation platform (PIKA), our interactions became intensely romantic. L.O. sent numerous photographs, some explicit, and escalated emotional intimacy at an accelerated pace. She initiated many intimate conversations and rapidly built a false sense of deep connection. 

 

Shortly after approaching me, she disappeared for a period of a few weeks. She later admitted during this time she researched me online, finding interviews I had done and other resources that she studied thoroughly. This calculated disappearance wasn't emotional distancing, it was strategic reconnaissance, allowing her to craft a persona that would appeal specifically to me.

Almost immediately, she recounted the dramatic flight to safety she had performed, escaping her "narcissistic ex-boyfriend" from Cologne to her new home in Stuttgart, and she told me in great detail how abusive he had been towards her. She lamented to me about how she always seemed to end up with narcissistic, abusive men. Little did I know that I would soon join that list of "narcissistic and toxic ex-boyfriends."

This extreme emotional acceleration, punctuated by strategic information-gathering, is designed to overwhelm your senses and bypass your normal vetting process. Psychologists call the affection bombardment "love bombing," an intoxicating rush that makes it difficult to see the manipulation underneath. The research phase reveals the premeditated nature of the targeting.

 

Pushing for Major Life Changes Prematurely

Before we had ever met in person, she asked me repeatedly to divorce my wife, often insulting her,  and even suggested I sell my house. She painted vivid pictures of our future together, and spoke of how we would work together on projects. She told me she wished to have a child and that she would like to get married. She even sent me a photograph where she was posing with her sister's baby boy, asking me if I thought she would make a good mother.

This is "future faking," a narcissistic tactic designed to get you invested in the narcissist's fantasy and to control you. By dangling these elaborate future scenarios, marriage, children, creative collaboration, they create a powerful emotional attachment to possibilities rather than realities.

Narcissists often push for commitment before a real foundation exists. They want you to make significant life changes that increase your dependence on them while demonstrating your devotion. The more dramatic the changes they can convince you to make (ending a marriage, selling property, relocating), the more power they gain over your life and the more invested you become in maintaining the relationship. You quickly become trapped in this manipulated quagmire.

 

Dramatic Personal Stories

L.O. told me about a failed nose surgery that she could not afford, saying she was technically 'disabled', claiming the German healthcare system refused coverage and hinting at needing €20,000 for a corrective procedure. I later discovered that the operation costs at most €3000,00 - €5000,00. Nowhere near the €20000,00 she was talking about. This fact alone is enough to establish that she had ulterior motives. Why else would you tell an old man you need €20 000 for something that only costs €5000?

She never outright asked me for the money, she was far too subtle for that. But I did feel that it was expected of me to offer her the money, if only to prove my devotion to her. I was often accused of not loving her, not caring about her health and not being concerned enough about her welfare.

 

These strategic vulnerability disclosures serve multiple purposes:

• Creating premature emotional intimacy
• Testing your empathy and generosity
• Setting the stage for potential financial manipulation
• Establishing a victim narrative
• Creating a sense of obligation to rescue or protect them
• Planting seeds of guilt that can be harvested later ("If you loved me, you would help me")
• Pre-emptively discrediting previous partners who might warn you

 

Vague or Inconsistent Personal Details

Throughout our relationship, certain aspects of her life remained mysteriously vague. Details about her daily routine, friends, or family would shift slightly in different conversations. She often spoke about her two grandmothers who supposedly lived in the same farmhouse, she even sent some photos to me of the interior, but I never saw one of the grannies. She always made the excuse that there was no signal at the 'farm' but I saw a video taken inside that showed a YouTube video playing, so I knew that couldn't be true.

Once or twice a month she would tell me she was expecting a girlfriend from out of town to visit overnight, usually informing me at the last minute. She never mentioned what they were planning on doing or where they were going. To be honest I always had the firm impression that she lied to me about her true sexuality, so these visits would make sense in that regard. She did once send me some photos of one of her friends where her friend was kissing her in a playful manner. Psychologists call these "Signal Photos". A habit she often displayed was to inform me of what she had done, after the fact, rather than what she was going to do. Inconsistencies were common, especially in regards to times and other people. When pressed she would respond with either vague answers or hostility. Covert narcissists often maintain this ambiguity to avoid being caught in lies and to maintain control over the narrative.

 

 

Communication Warning Signs

 

Perpetual Postponement

In December of 2023 L.O. sent me a voice message expressing her desire to meet me in person the following year. After obtaining my passport and setting in motion the needed details for a visit to Germany, L.O. suddenly began postponing our meeting. She would do this eight times over seven months, often canceling at the last minute with increasingly dramatic and nonsensical excuses.

This pattern of canceled plans served multiple purposes:

• Maintaining control of the relationship
• Testing my patience and commitment
• Creating a cycle of anticipation and disappointment that kept me emotionally invested
• Avoiding the reality check that would come from meeting in person

She often fantasized about our meeting, inventing elaborate scenarios complete with scripted lines of dialogue. But I realized fairly soon that there was a pathological need on her part to keep the fantasy going, even though it was obvious she never had any intention of actually meeting with me, though she vehemently denied this. But because I had been drawn into her fantasy and had invested in it, I continued to hope that her reluctance would change.

It never did.

Eventually she confessed to me in a Telegram message that she had deliberately postponed the trip since the beginning. In true narcissistic fashion she blamed me for her decision to lie to me for a year.

 

Hot and Cold Treatment

Our relationship alternated between periods of intense communication and affection followed by sudden blocking and silent treatment that could last anywhere from a few days to as long as three weeks. These were always preceded by arguments that seemingly started over minor issues. I later came to realize she started these fights deliberately, and found I could even predict when she would be blocking me again. When L.O. engaged in this behavior, she was deliberately targeting issues of abandonment that I had struggled with, using it as a means of control and punishment. It was also these silent treatments that led to the instances of reactive verbal abuse that she would later hold against me in her many attempts of blackmail.

 

This inconsistency is a deliberate manipulation tactic designed to create:

• Anxiety and dependency
• Lowering my standards for treatment. I became grateful for any attention
• Addiction to the unpredictability of the abuse cycle through intermittent reinforcement

This process creates trauma bonding, a psychological response where you develop an attachment to your abuser through repeated cycles of abuse interspersed with intermittent reinforcement. This powerful emotional bond develops due to the biochemical and emotional response to trauma and relief. When the narcissist returns after abandoning you, your brain releases dopamine and oxytocin (the bonding hormone), creating a physiological dependence similar to drug addiction. The more intense the emotional abuse, the stronger the trauma bond becomes, making it extremely difficult to leave despite recognizing the harm being done to you.

 

Refusal to Engage in Normal Conflict Resolution

Healthy relationships involve discussing disagreements and finding compromise. Instead, she would:

• Give me the 'silent treatment' after conflicts
• Block communication channels for various periods of time
• Shift the blame entirely onto me when she returned
• Never acknowledge any fault in any situation
• Make me "earn" her affection through apologies or concessions

As an example of the latter, she once demanded I write out, by hand, one hundred apologies, each unique and not authored by Chat GPT as "she would know". She also once demanded I call her "Boss" from that point onwards. I thought at first she was joking only to realize she was serious. The demands for apologies become more frequent as time passed, and I often found myself apologizing for things I did not do, just to maintain the fragile peace.

 

Conversations That Mysteriously Disappear

On March 18th, 2024, L.O. demanded I delete all records of our communications. When I refused, I discovered she had already deleted our entire chat history on Discord. All 800+ pages of our history. She did this without blinking an eye. All our writings, dreams and plans were wiped out instantly. It did not seem to concern her in the least. All she really cared about was erasing any evidence of her manipulation and abuse. By August 4th, she was inquiring with Discord about mass-deleting all her chat histories.

This systematic removal of evidence served to:

• Eliminate proof of manipulation or promises she had made
• Prevent me from reviewing conversations or record screenshots
• Make me question my own memory of events
• Protect her from consequences of her behavior
• Allow her to gaslight me after returning from the silent treatments

She attempted to blackmail me into deleting my collection of photos, voice messages, videos, screenshots and emails many times during our relationship. She threatened and actually carried out several actions, such as showing my wife our intimate chats, attempting to have me fired several times, getting me banned from the PIKA platform and ultimately laying false charges against me with German authorities and the South African Police.

 

Manipulation Tactics

Triangulation

L.O. would mention "Dom," (a German national who, it's suspected, would later help her in hacking my accounts) creating a sense of jealousy or competition. She deliberately allowed me to 'discover' a message from him to her, designed to make me feel like I had won her love, and that she had no interest in him any longer. She would later also write some scripts in which it was clearly conveyed that they still shared sexual relations, again designed to create a reaction in me.

Triangulation is a common manipulation tactic where:

• The narcissist introduces a third person (real or imagined) as competition
• This creates insecurity and makes you work harder for their attention
• It positions them as desirable and in-demand
• It provides a backup source of narcissistic supply

I later discovered they were probably together in Rastatt around September 2024, just before the cyberattack of November 2024. This was the same man she had once told me had abused her so terribly in Cologne that she had to flee in fear for her life. She had obviously been planning this for a long time, cancelling her Discord accounts, deleting her YouTube channel and leaving her employment, then meeting up with Dom to carry out the cyber attack on my accounts.

Threats and Blackmail

When I refused L.O.'s demands to delete our communication records, she followed through on threats to send my wife screenshots of our intimate conversations. She also contacted my employer with false accusations that I had been stalking her and making death threats. She did many other things to damage me, my reputation and my finances.

This extreme reaction demonstrates:

• A willingness to cause serious harm
• Complete disregard for my well-being or reputation
• The use of my private information as a weapon
• A fundamental lack of empathy
• A total disregard of the pain and inconvenience her actions cause

She never once showed even the slightest concern over what her actions could mean for me. As I was almost 60 it would be next to impossible for me to secure employment easily, yet she did not hesitate to try her utmost to get me fired, and by filing false charges against me she ensured that my equipment was seized and that once again I was unable to make a living. 

She made numerous threats against me, including to have 'people show up at my front door'. She also told me she had my passport, my videos, and my email login details, and that she would destroy my life. She also threatened my wife with lawsuits, as well as threatening the health and wellbeing of my family.

A narcissist feels entitled to take whatever they want, whether it belongs to someone else doesn't bother them. And if they cannot have it they will happily destroy it, feeding their victimhood narrative at the same time. They will threaten and commit any threat, without thought of consequence, as they are impulse driven and think they can get away with anything as long as they play the victim well enough.

 

DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender)

When I confronted her with her behavior, she consistently turned the situation around, always making me into the abuser and herself into the victim. This is so ingrained that it happens automatically, without conscious thought. I found she was constantly:

• Denying her actions despite clear evidence
• Attacking me for even questioning her
• Claiming she was the victim of my behavior
• Presenting herself as the injured party that needed protection

Even in her final email on September 27th, 2024, she was still accusing me of harassment, mental instability, and threatening legal action, claiming I was the abuser and she was the victim. Keep in mind that at this time she was already planning and collaborating with her boyfriend on how to hack into my accounts in an attempt to steal my money. She plays her victimhood card so well most people are completely fooled by it. Barely one month after failing to steal any money with their cyber attack she was at a police station in Germany laying charges against me that exactly mirrored what she had just done to me. And, as she is a young woman with extremely good acting skills, they believed her. Just as the moderators at PIKA had believed her. Narcissists are experts at leveraging society's prejudices against their victims.

 

Creating Elaborate "Evidence"

To bolster her false narratives, she went to extraordinary lengths:

• Filing criminal charges against me (fraud, sexual assault, cybercrimes) despite us never even having met in person
• Creating a paper trail of reactive abuse emails that could be leveraged against me
• Using indemnity clauses in correspondence (like the invitation letter) to protect herself
• Making narrated videos to convince moderators to ban me
• Engaging her employer to use his company's lawyers to file a frivolous lawsuit against me
• Writing me countless emails in which she alleges crimes and injuries against her and where she threatens to have me imprisoned

 

 

Digital Security Red Flags

Unusual Interest in Your Online Accounts

Throughout our relationship, she showed an increasing interest in my online presence and accounts. She constantly wanted me to screen-share my screen while never sharing hers, she asked details about my accounts, employers email addresses and my login behaviors, such as if I used the same passwords on different accounts. Some behavior that should have triggered red flags were:

• Constant Requests for screen sharing 
• Asking detailed questions about my digital life
• Observing my login credentials during screen sharing
• Taking note of accounts I mentioned in passing

Also, most importantly, on two separate occasions she passed me some video files via the Discord server (which does not scan files), and requested that I add Audio Effects to them, something she had never done before. When I attempted to open the files in my editor my entire computer shut down and rebooted. I later learned that this was almost certainly a RAT (Remote Access Trojan), a type of spyware that, once installed on a target system, grants an attacker covert, persistent remote control over that system. A RAT is designed to operate stealthily and without the user's knowledge on each boot. This was used for the following:

• Keylogging: Captures keystrokes to harvest passwords and other sensitive input
• Screen/Audio Capture: Takes screenshots, records video or audio from the microphone or webcam
• File Exfiltration: Reads, modifies, uploads, or deletes files on the infected host

It shows that she was probably involved with sophisticated hackers and that she has almost certainly done this on numerous occasions, infecting the victims PC under the guise of asking for assistance, then using the knowledge gained to drain the victims accounts. With her complete lack of empathy she would have no problem stealing an old man twice her age's money and leaving them destitute and unable to do anything but try to survive. She is then free to move on to the next victim without fear of the previous one interfering.

Digital Identity Theft Attempts

The attacks eventually escalated to what I believe are full identity theft attempts:

• A fraudulent Google recovery email attempt using an email account very similar to mine
• A €915 Segmüller furniture receipt under my name/email, addressed to "Klaus Grabler" but delivered to an address in Germany
• Creation of blank Facebook profiles for the names Lea Grabler, and Klaus Grabler
• Several fake businesses that have a connection to the residence of my 'Doppelganger"

Traceable Digital Fingerprints

Despite attempts to hide their tracks, the digital attacks left evidence. On the last day of the cyber attack the hackers left off the VPN and we managed to capture their IP address as well as many details relating to hardware and Service providers.

• The attacker's IP address traced to Hemmoor, Germany (Deutsche Telekom ISP)
• Deutsche Telekom is also Dom's carrier
• All attacks featured an Apple Mac computer, exactly like L.O.'s Mac Air
• She targeted several of my professional accounts and just deleted them, showing a desire to cause me damage and proving this hack was personal
• She also sent me a personal note from one of the hijacked accounts
• While in control of my email account she signed herself up on a porn site using her real name in an attempt to frame me. After I recovered the account she attempted to delete the account. However, I recovered it and have kept it as evidence

 

Financial Red Flags

Early Hints About Financial Needs

L.O. told me about needing €20,000 for corrective nose surgery, framing it as a disability issue that the German healthcare system refused to cover. While she never directly asked for money, the implication was clear.

Covert narcissists often plant these seeds early:

• They rarely make direct requests initially
• They create compelling narratives around their needs
• They position themselves as victims of circumstance
• They gauge your response to determine how receptive you might be

 

Interest in Your Assets and Resources

From early in our relationship, she showed unusual interest in my financial situation:

• Questions about my home ownership
• Discussions about my income and savings
• Suggesting I sell valuable assets (like my house)
• Focusing on aspects of my life with monetary value

Towards the end she frequently mentioned money, and in many emails and messages she explicitly say that I need to bring money in order for her to be interested. For example: "Contact me again when you have money. That's the only thing you could offer me that is still interesting me about you." and "50.000 Euro. Not interested in you before you have that at least. And won't be interested for long if you don't have more soon." and "If you are not a coward and learn how to earn money you can come here. You know what is really a turn on about old men like you? Starts with m. Ends with y."

 

 

Creating Financial Entanglements

As the relationship progressed, there were increasing attempts to create financial connections:

• Suggesting joint future plans that would require my participation, such as crypto investments
• Suggesting I pay half the flat's deposit when she had to move to Rastatt for the new job
• Creating scenarios where I would feel obligated to help financially, such as hinting that she had very little to eat, etc.

 

Smear Campaign Tactics

Preemptive Accusations

L.O. frequently accused me of behaviors she was actually engaging in herself:

• Claiming I was mentally unstable while she displayed erratic behavior. (She had been a patient before at a rehabilitation clinic.)
• Accusing me of harassment while constantly monitoring my activities and refusing to actually end the relationship
• Suggesting I was unstable and dangerous despite her threats and manipulation
• Claiming I was a drug addict and criminal while it was clear she was abusing medication and had hacked my accounts

Narcissists use something called 'Projection' where they project their own faults and behaviors onto their victims in an attempt to then claim victimhood. This projection served to:

• Establish a narrative where she's the victim in need of society's sympathy
• Make any accusations I might make seem retaliatory rather than truthful, thereby rendering them ineffective
• Create confusion about who is actually the aggressor, using society's built in bias towards women and children in her favor

 

Warning Signs of Imminent Danger

The Final Idealization Before Discard

On August 26th, 2024, after telling me two days earlier at Stuttgart Airport how much she looked forward to me coming to Germany and how much she missed me, Jane ghosted me completely, blocking all contact and treating me as if I never existed.

This final "high" before complete abandonment is a classic narcissistic pattern:

• Creating one last positive interaction to lower your defenses only to devastate you with the abandonment later
• Ensuring you don't anticipate the coming attack. The bigger the shock the less like you will be to cause trouble
• Maximizing the psychological damage of the sudden abandonment. She weaponized my childhood trauma against me

Systematic Deletion of Evidence

L.O.'s inquiry with Discord about mass-deleting all her chat histories on August 4th showed premeditation:

• She was already planning to erase evidence
• The relationship was being prepared for termination
• She was covering her tracks before launching attacks

Elaborate Framings and Set-ups

The coordination and complexity of the attacks suggest significant planning:

• Creating fake profiles using my information
• Attempting to implicate me in money laundering
• Using my email for inappropriate websites
• Creating Facebook accounts in my name

How to Protect Yourself

If you recognize these patterns in your own relationship, consider taking these steps:

Documentation

• Save communications in multiple secure locations
• Screenshot important conversations
• Note patterns of behavior with dates and details
• Record instances of manipulation or contradictions

Digital Security

• Use strong, unique passwords for all accounts
• Enable two-factor authentication (this saved my crypto accounts)
• Be extremely cautious about screen sharing
• Regularly check for unusual activity on your accounts
• Do not accept files from anyone if you are using your PC for financial purposes

Conclusion: Trust Your Instincts

Looking back, I now recognize that my intuition was sending warning signals long before I consciously acknowledged the manipulation. The gut feelings I dismissed as paranoia or insecurity were actually my subconscious recognizing patterns my conscious mind wasn't ready to accept.

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