Too often when people talk about abuse victims, the first question out of their mouth is: “why didn’t they leave?” We see this extremely often with victims of domestic violence and with victims of child abuse who still stay in contact with their families. What many who have never been in abusive relationships don’t realize is how hard, and often dangerous, it is to attempt to leave the abusive relationship. With 50% to 75% of domestic violence related homicides happening after the victim has left their abuser, leaving is estimated to be 500 times more dangerous than staying. Yet even for those who do manage to leave without things turning violent, the abuser rarely let’s them walk away scotch free. This is especially true with narcissistic abuse, where the victim is seen as a supplier, someone who exists to give them the validation and attention they crave. The last thing that a narcissist wants is to lose that supply, especially when it’s not on their terms or they don’t have a replacement waiting in the wings. Due to this, a narcissist will employ various different techniques to reel the victim back in, either to continue the abuse or to, at the very least, end things on the narcissist’s terms. One of these techniques, hoovering, can happen years after the relationship has ended. It can even be anything a simple text or Facebook message used to draw the victim back into the cycle of abuse.
The name hoovering comes from the Hoover vacuum, and as this name suggests, it’s a technique that narcissists use to suck their victim back into a relationship. Unlike love bombing, which I’ll discuss in a separate article, this technique is used when the narcissist is worried that they’re losing control over a victim. As the victim starts to distance themself from the abuser, the narcissist realizes that there’s a very real chance they may lose their supplier. This is where the narcissist’s skill in manipulation comes into play. They may start by turning up the charm, hiding their abusive nature behind a false mask of a kind, loving partner, parent, or friend. If a victim is already having questions about whether or not they should leave the relationship, this can easily become the tipping point that drives them right back into the cycle of abuse. The narcissist might also use others, friends or families, to help draw the victim back into the relationship. These “flying monkeys”, named for The Wizard of Oz, will often repeat the narcissist’s message about how sorry they are or downplay the abuse so the victim starts thinking they misunderstood or overreacted to the situation. With the goal of hoovering being nothing more than getting the victim back into the abusive relationship, the narcissist will use whatever tools they have to do just that.
There’s no set time period that needs to pass before a narcissist starts hoovering. Whether it’s forgetting to text the narcissist for their birthday or posting pictures online about a new relationship, the moment the victim appears to be drawing away from the narcissist is when the hoovering begins. It can start simple enough, an “I miss you text” or a call out the blue to talk about a movie both of you liked. But simply saying how much they miss the victim isn’t the only technique that a narcissist will employ in order to hoover the victim back in. They may use the old staple in the abuse toolbox, gaslighting in order to make the victim question their own memory of the events, to make them question if the abuse was really that bad and therefore draw them back in. Or they may try to convince the victim that they’ve changed, that this time will be different than before. They could simply use a random event like a vacation or a birth in the family to reach out and reestablish contact after years of radio silence. If all this fails, some narcissists may turn to a more extreme level and have a health scare to garner sympathy or even threaten to hurt themselves if the victim does try to leave. They can use whatever technique they think will get the desired results from the victim and draw them back in for the narcissist to use as a supplier.
Leaving an abusive relationship, whether romantic, family, or friendship, can be extremely daunting to downright terrifying. It takes a lot of courage to be able to say “enough is enough” and even more when the victim knows that leaving may be potentially life threatening. Yet even when a victim does get out of the situation, that might not be the end of it. Victims of narcissistic abuse learn all too soon that the narcissist is willing to go to great lengths to keep their supplier close to them. Hoovering is just one of the techniques that an abusive narcissist will employ to suck the victim back into the abusive relationship and it can be extremely hard to get away from. If you believe that you may be a victim of abuse, whether in the hoovering phase or not, don’t be afraid to reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help. If you do get drawn back in, don’t feel guilty. Abusers wouldn’t use hoovering if it wasn’t affective and they’re skilled enough at manipulation to know how to draw the victim back in. Just know that your health, mental or physical, and safety are more important than your relationship with the abuser. If it’s safe to do so, it’s okay to walk away from them and cut contact, no matter what your relationship is.
