Abuse by proxy (using other people to abuse us) is a such a common tactic of narcissists that most people in our community will know the term ‘Flying Monkeys’ – a phrase from the Wizard of Oz used to describe the narcissist’s minions.
I know first-hand the horror of not only having to deal with the heartbreak and terror of a narcissist and the things they are capable of doing, but also having to face other people hounding you and trying to bring you down. It’s devastating, unfair and terrifying, and life feels very precarious when you don’t know who will attack you next.
I wanted to curl up under a rock forever. Yet when I found the answer and freed myself from this, I was able to walk down the street, conduct my life and BE myself – with my head held high!
So in this week’s classic Thriver TV I explain how to completely eradicate Flying Monkeys from your life – just as myself and thousands of other Thrivers have done.
Video Transcript
Welcome to Thriver TV, where you learn not just how to survive narcissistic abuse but how to Thrive from it. If you have not yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do so, and I’d love for you to share my work with others who need it.
‘Flying monkeys’ is an expression that most people in narcissistic abuse communities know about. The expression comes from The Wizard of Oz, and we all know about those revolting little characters in that story, unleashed by the Wicked Witch of the West to carry out her orders.
As if it’s not bad enough that narcissists are malicious and nasty, we also find that they have an incredible ability to turn people against us to do their bidding. This can include people we know and people we don’t know, and it’s horrible beyond measure when the narcissist is able to rope in people whom we once upon a time believed we could trust.
In this episode, I’m going to explain to you how to completely eradicate the flying monkeys from your life, just as myself and thousands of other thrivers have done easily and powerfully.
How Flying Monkeys Affect Us
Understandably, the trauma created by people the narcissist has enlisted against us may be really extreme. We can feel devastated and paranoid – not knowing what has been said, or what people may do next to try to bring us down. It may be shocking to see how toxic and vehement people who have been turned against us can be towards us.
And from a human level, it’s totally understandable if you have an intense focus on these people and how horrible they are – but it is also WrongTown. In Quantum terms, it doesn’t work because the more it gets to you, the more they’re going to keep getting to you, truly.
There is an evolution necessity in this and that is the graduation into your True Self where you are no longer trying to combat other people, prove yourself, stop them, fight them, or make them think differently.
The people who have taken the side of the narcissist are no different from the narcissist. Meaning that when you come into your power and come inside of yourself to release and heal the trauma of what is happening to you, then the outer condition – which is the narcissist and their minions – can no longer exist.
You will ying and they will yang. You’ll be on a different vibrational frequency.
So let me share with you my story about the people that the narcissist set up against me.
My Experience With Flying Monkeys
I’m going to share in relation to an ex best friend. I originally introduced them to the narcissist – who then nabbed this person and turned them against me. I was mortified. This destroyed a relationship that had spanned decades before I’d even met the narcissist.
Of course, there were all sorts of other people in the narcissist camp dedicated to bringing down myself and my reputation. Many of them were brand new people who were the narcissist’s flavour of the month and naturally they were bedazzled by his charisma, his charm and his lies.
The thing that most people were told about me was that I was adulterous and I had affairs behind his back. That I destroyed our marriage and this poor man had hung in there through thick and thin trying to save it. There were people so angry with my terrible behavior that I was being attacked on social media by them, smeared to all and sundry.
I was mortified. I was devastated. I was incensed and felt intensely, unfairly victimised. I tried to lash back with the truth about him and what I believed had torn our marriage apart – namely his insane and violent jealous paranoia as well as, of course, the other general narcissistic craziness.
And the more I tried to fight back, the worse the attacks got. I was totally outnumbered. He’d also turned numerous colleagues, other friends and even family members against me, and the madder and more bent out of shape I got, the crazier and more guilty I seemed. Because of course, he stayed narcissistically cool, calm and collected within all of it.
I detested these people who were out to discredit me. I was so dirty on them. I was hurt and devastated as well as feeling lined up, cornered, attacked, and annihilated. Little did I know at the time how it was this fully activated and terrorised trauma inside me that was the magnet holding all of this in place.
Healing space and relief hadn’t entered me yet. I was still living in the illusion that life was happening to me and that my state and being was always in reaction to that. I still hadn’t graduated to the Quantum Knowing that life operates through me. I’m the generative force of my own experience and have the ability to take back my power over what is happening – including the flying monkeys.
What is happening to me can be transformed if I transform how I am being on the inside in relation to this topic.
When I finally woke up out of the trance and realized the truth of ‘so within, so without’, I got to work, using the Quanta Freedom Healings in my Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP). I started shifting out all my traumas: the injustice, the trauma, and the terror of what the narcissist had done to me. I also started working on the trauma generating the pain in relation to the people he’d enlisted into smearing me and attacking me.
When I did, as always happens when we release trauma, a greater knowing, wisdom and profound humility replaced my previous resentment.
The Truth About Flying Monkeys
I realised that narcissists have the ability to straight-faced lie and relay the most terrible things to individuals. The average person would never think that a grown adult could make up something like that and so they believe it must be true.
Narcissists also have the ability to act so graciously in their lies. They make out that they really care about the person they are denigrating. They wanted to support them and do the right thing by them, even though what that person did to them was so horrible.
Narcissists are experts in securing support and getting other people to believe that they are so nice, kind and giving that they totally don’t deserve to be treated like that. People are inspired to support them, back them and defend their causes for them.
Generally, these people are not bad people. We’ve seen them and judged them as flying monkeys – as being ugly, hideous, evil creatures with gnarling teeth and black hearts. Yet they aren’t. They’re actually people like you and me – people who’ve been hoodwinked, abused, manipulated and used as pawns.
If these people are close enough to the narcissist, they will often end up being the next on the narcissist’s snack list – pulled in, secured as narcissistic supply, then devalued and discarded like the rest of us. They too will then find minion lined up against them.
Truly, there are only two types of people: unconscious and conscious. Those who are awakening to know the truth of life from the inside out and are efforting to live life as their True Self; and those living a life driven by their still-existing internal traumas and trying to control life and others outside of them to get relief.
The narcissist game is a playground for unconsciousness because everybody involved hasn’t woken up yet. When we become conscious, we let go and pull away. We detach and then we come inside our own bodies to make it about releasing our own trauma. Then the narcissistic abuse trauma and all the narcissistic attacks dissolve.
If something in our life is still attached and hurting us, then we haven’t graduated yet. We haven’t learned what it is teaching us yet.
The people who do the narcissist’s bidding are the same: unconscious to the fact that they’re being manipulated and used.
We may even think these people are narcissists, but really, what would a narcissist have to gain by fighting somebody else’s battle? Why would he or she be bothered? A narcissist is much more interested in securing their own agendas rather than someone else’s.
And a narcissist has to be economical because their life is a vital balancing act between the energy they have to expend in getting narcissistic supply, and the amount of supply they get as pay-off. They simply do not waste time and energy if there is not a personal payoff because they can’t afford to.
Once I had shifted out the trauma from my being regarding the people enlisted against me, another wisdom entered to fill the space where that trauma had previously been. I profoundly realised I used to be a flying monkey myself. I’d believed the narcissist’s lies and I’d gone to bat against people to defend him, thinking that this poor, giving, loving, incredible man had been so hard done by and terribly treated.
I had defended him and attacked people on his behalf. And I realised that I was so passionate about this because of my still-existing wounds of injustice that used to cause me to try to sort out everybody else’s life. But at that point, I hadn’t had the courage to turn inwards and deal with my own inner traumas. I’d thought he was the perfect man for me, and my need to have him love me meant that I would’ve moved heaven and earth to try to prove my loyalty to him.
Did this make me evil? No. Did this mean I was broken, unconscious and needed to heal my inner being? Yes.
If there is one person here who believes that they are exempt from any of this, that you weren’t involved with a narcissist in order to wake up and heal your broken stuff, then by all means point fingers outwards and call people flying monkeys. But I can assure you that – just like calling the narcissist derogatory names – those sorts of names and expressions are a way to NOT wake up and to not take personal powerful responsibility and evolve.
We are all here to heal our wounds and return to Who We Really Are. Narcissists don’t choose to do that at this point of evolution – but the people they use and play with as flying monkeys may.
In Conclusion
I also want to share with you one of the biggest shifts I worked with, using NARP, regarding the flying monkeys.
I stopped hating them, labeling them, and feeling terrible about them. Instead, I released that trauma and I brought in seeing them as awakening into their truth of Who They Really Are – namely their inner beings bringing them back home to their freedom and their authenticity.
Not long after that profound shift within me, all attacks stopped. And today, some of these previous flying monkeys are now my most loving and loyal supporters. Via the Quantum Law of ‘so within, so without’, the narcissist was exposed to them, they saw the truth and they came to me and apologised profusely.
So this I urge you. Drop the expression, ‘flying monkeys’. It’s not serving you or anyone. Come inside and heal with the Narcissistic abuse Recovery Program instead.
I hope that’s helped and you can see the truth of what’s really going on here. I’d love you to comment below and let’s have a very honest and open conversation about this.
Until the next video, keep smiling, keep healing, and keep thriving because there’s nothing else to do. Lots of love.
The first time the grouping together of flying monkeys was against me was at around age 10 or 11. It was so horrifying I was panicking on the inside, I felt I couldn’t breathe. It all started when I was speaking to a girl, and she started obsessively speaking extremely badly of another girl. I tried in the most calm and peaceful way to explain it’s probably best to not act out in this way. As kind as I was didn’t matter, she all of a sudden started accusing me of attacking her character. No matter what I tried beyond that point made things worse. She then started finding others to take her side while playing the victim, I couldn’t believe when a group of guys where taking her side and putting down everything I said. She would also take pop shots at me while I was focused on aka the flying monkeys. Though things didn’t turn to violence, I can see where it could have ended very badly for me, even though I was only trying to speak the truth. 🙂
I’m convinced that Ns not only use flying monkeys to spread their negativity, but they also use others who are not in a good place as “spies” to check up on us!
I left the N over 3.5 years ago and last month my friend mentioned, out of the blue, that she saw the N at a conference and was talking about him! My stepmom also randomly asks about him periodically. All that tells me is that the N is short on supply and is still trying to steal energy … from thousands of miles away! It really is laughable, when you think about it.
The “flying monkeys” were, simultaneously, his parents/brother and my mom/brother and sister. Then came my “best friends”. I have stayed strong in being ready to prove the truth when it’s ready to actually be received. He knows this and cannot look me in the eyes now. 2.5 years since I almost convinced myself I was “insane”. What I’ve learned is that I SHOULD NOT and will no longer try to care if those “monkeys” believe me. And since I’ve shown that I will not care, they’ve been really struggling to stay in the air. So much so that they are now trying to blame me for not being able to.
Thank you yet again, Mel. Your wisdom and perspective, here shared with us in a frank and honest way truly gives me pause. Both during the confusing earlier stages of my discard (which I truly didn’t understand while it was happening, until the finality of it “being over” became real) and in the aftermath where I realized how many of those “enablers” (the so-called winged simians), weren’t really on my side (many of them my family, people who say they love me!). I have struggled for years to remain “on the high road” (of not being vindictive…) while calling these “enablers” that so-called name (after the characters from the Wizard of Oz).
NOW I realize, “they are not” (flying monkeys). Yes, they might remain “under the spell” of a narc, but that makes them as much a tortured soul deeply affected by this malady as I was, and slams the door shut that they might become enlightened and shed the dark cloak the narc offers to wear with them together. Some of the people I have called “flying monkeys” the last several years are my own siblings, nephews, cousins.
After reading this article, I keep my heart open that they, also, are not my enemies (despite their atrocious, enabling behavior towards the narc). They, too, can “enter the light” after seeing “how dark is the narc” and build upon truth and reality instead of lies, slander, speculation, delusion and fantasy. Their transformation out of the dark might not happen “this week” or “this year” or even EVER, but if I keep the door slammed shut to that possibility (especially as I consider them “only flying monkeys”), they truly shall remain lost to me forever. So, others, those who I USED TO call “flying monkeys,” I hold the door open for you…here, where the light of truth (and sanity and honesty…) is shining ever brighter. Come on in, come on over. I’m not calling you any names….
Hi Man from California,
its my pleasure.
I love your persepctive on this – that is so freeing!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I remember being on the wrong side of a flying monkey attack a couple of times. In a time that I call my “Previous Life”, I was married to a narcissistic woman who had a very large family and shared they all shared many patterns of behavior, stemming from their abusive father and their mother who did nothing to prevent this abuse. “Tina” (note: All names changed here for anonymity) was the wife of “Dante'” (brother of my ex) and Dante’ abused her quite regularly with regular humiliations and bullying behind the scenes. But one thing that Dante’ couldn’t go without was having sex with his wife every night so he could fall asleep easier. And when I say “sex”, I don’t mean “devoted lovemaking” but rather “in vaginal masturbation”, aka “get his rocks off” so he feel better and go to sleep in a mellow mood. Frankly, I would call this “rape”.
One day, it was found out that Tina had turned to a male co-worker at work for “love attention” in which they would sneak away for a time (you get the idea) and it made feel Tina better about herself because she was being “loved” by this other man and not just “used” as like with Dante’. All of Dante’s siblings took turns on her “putting her in her place” and shaming her for what she did to their brother. Tina just sat there on the couch, curled up, silently sullen, taking the brunt of all the verbal assault she was given. However, I went up to her and I said, “Tina, I have just three words to say to you about all this… ‘ Good for you…’ and smiled, knowing how much of a piece of garbage her husband was. Tina smiled and I saw the old spark of what she once was and it brought her a little joy for that brief moment. Normally, I do not condone cheating on a spouse or partner, but in this case, it was her action to get some kind of spark of “normalcy” back in her world again.
Sadly enough, somehow my words got back to her husband and through his sister (my now ex), I had formally kow-tow to them both and take back what I said. I had to give in and speak the words, else face similar wrath but in my heart I spoke my truth against the cruelty and kept that fire burning deep inside. Later on in years, Tina was turned into a flying monkey herself and served the whims of her husband to whatever he wanted…
The second time was when I too sought “normalcy” and because of it, was literally put on an isolation lock=down in my own home. No communication to the outside world, no use of any device that COULD get me unmonitored connection to the outside world (cell phone, tablet, personal computer, etc.) and all my time was overwatched not only by my wife, but also my own children. It was much like the “Thought Police” of an Orwellian nightmare where children would turn in their own parents if they were against “the Party”. Or in this case, their mother who ruled the house with an iron first over everything. Finances (I worked, she was a stay home mom. If any money was left over, I could ‘have some’, but that was rare and she always had beer money for herself, etc.), the bedroom (I would please her and I get nothing in return. Once she even tried to get information about me about what would I say if I talked to a lawyer if I thought about getting a divorce JUST RIGHT sex? Catch me with my inhibitions down and in a mentally relaxed state, get me to tell her what I do would do in that situation? That was not lovemaking, that was rape and ‘suggestion methods to get a confession’) and more. When I finally had the opportunity to flee that house after I exploded from pent up frustration and looked like I was the mad-man, my daughter under her mother’s orders and influence tried to restrain me and keep me from leaving. My own daughter slapped me, telling me “Get back where you belong!” I shoved my way through her and I grabbed my secret cellphone (that my family got for me after my other was confiscated by my ex) from my backpack and fled the house. My daughter searched the neighborhood for me while I was on the run like a freshly escaped inmate from prison. The police were called out for me as well apparently to search for me too on a count of ‘child abuse and potentially a 51-50 case’. I called my family to come get me and met them some distance away where they called the police and requested a “battered spouse evacuation” assist. When the police arrived, my ex was shocked to see them when they knocked on the door and it wasn’t me. I heard she went from “I knew you would come crawling back to me” look on her face to “Oh my God! Thank goodness you arrived!” victim eyes in an instant. They saw it too. So I able to grab a few things and get out of the house that night. Over the next several days, I got all my things out and began my road to recovery…
But the feeling of my daughter, my OWN DAUGHTER, hunting me down for her mother, that felt like the ultimate betrayal.
Thankfully, my daughter was able to get out as well because when she didn’t want to play her mother’s Life game, mom turned on her as well. And that has been almost 2 years now. Mom tried to flex her authority on our daughter, but my daughter and I were victorious in our battles. My daughter is doing better than what she would have had she still been with her mother. Her own car, a better school, part-time job, none of this could have happened had she stayed in her mother’s home.
Pardon my ranting folks, lots of things to get out. The point is, like your ex, get as far and clear as you can from the influence of the narcissist and their flying monkeys. Let them have their empire of mud and vice. Just walk away and never look back.
Great and spot on for me, thank you very much Melanie x
It’s my pleasure Sarah!
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I am writing to thank you, Melanie, for educating me about narcissistic abuse. I was married for over 20 years to a narcissist, and like so many others, didn’t understand all the ugliness I encountered from him and his band of legions until after I left him. I am 2 1/2 years into my recovery, and I am feeling strong and powerful. Your program and your articles have literally saved the rest of my life! Without all your insight into a world so different from anything I could have ever imagined, I would not have been able to move forward. Nor would I have gained the wisdom and knowledge to overcome the debilitating effects of the abuse. You make a difference in people’s lives. Thank you!!!
Hi Tracy,
I am so happy for you that NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp and my material has helped you so much.
You deserve a beautiful life!
Love and blessings to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Yes, a parent that uses evil predator groomers (psychopath-narcasistic) for proxy-flying monkeys knowing she is going to die soon, had already filed her last will and testament, to be certain to torture her first viable newborn after her death (not wanted boy child) after 6👉8 miscarriages (shows how much she didn’t want her own life much less any newborns at all) and all this torture , after 23 years of her unseen by me, intentionally harming me not only with those flying monkeys some of which as is said were only sucked into her level of hate mongering but were by default used to do me harm demise me limbless and then tossed me to the human garbage heap (falsely imprisoned by her ) ( asylum) leaving me infantiled the entire time of my life until i came upon experts in child and adult relationship abusers like you Melanie Tania Evans would i now be able to put to paper all the scope of narcissistic abuse in regards to me myself and I of my life. And i did start screaming it to the RUNG DOWN CURTAIN AND THE QUIRE INVISIBLE only to realize it was part of making me look like a ‘crazy’ in this subsistence model all this after she had been dead for decades and had murdered away my lifetime do I get to see how devoid of anything human or humain she was and how she infected my whole family of origin with her dark agenda ego destroying what was only a facade the entire time. Well as is said hind site is always twenty twenty this comment looks like an excellent intro to another NARP module release and relief . 👋🏻 Goodbye even now I still “KNOW” evil needs to be stopped even if it is myself that ‘was’ a victim to this insanity that should never have been alowed to have babies. All babies deserve parents. Fractured and broken never to know the vital vigorous life that was my birthright as a result. Zest for life in aftermath doesn’t replace all my decades of submersion. This comment is a form of grieving and I am okay with that.
Dearest Melanie,
Thank you so much!!!! I am always impressed by how well you continue to guide, support and heal this community.
I was so healed in NARP that the whole NARC experience has become a distant memory. It is critical to remember however what the Narc mechanisms for hurting people are and how they operate in order to keep applying the principle of Self-Care, and Self- Love, and Self- Affirmation, etc that is NARP practice when the attacks are felt.
There was a point in my life, post NARP, about mid-Covid 2020, that it seemed EVERYONE in my inner circle had gotten the same memo to turn against me. I can not explain it because these people do not all even know one another. But EVERYONE was suddenly cold towards me. All kinds of avenues seemed to close at once. I could not understand what had happened. Much of this shunning is still going on – and I have felt bewildered and sad about lost connections.
I always know, however, that my times are in God’s hands and all my experiences will first be cleared by Him.
Whether these events were due to the Narc’s meddling or not, the cure was still in my power. It is to LOVE my Self. My higher Self has never changed and can not be touched by these or any human events. It remains perfect. It is always available for me. It will always be present to feed my life with LIFE. God is my Source of all answers always.
So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this reminder that has set me back on course. The cure and the healing are one and the same and it is unchanging Divine Love received and then made manifest in my life. There is no other satisfaction. Changing ‘them’ is not even a desire. Honoring Source is. From that vantage point of ONE with Source, we can see ourselves and everyone else correctly too and with compassion that does not efface our own Be-ing.
This reminder was all it took for me to RETURN to the arms of Divine LOVE for all my strength and for all my Life.
Immense oceans of Love to you, dearest Melanie. Our Angel in these unstable times.
Be well, my friend.
Iris sweetheart,
It’s my pleasure. Please know so many people right now are going through significant breaks in connections with others. It can seem cruel, senseless and totally disingenous.
But yes, home to Source we turn, and keep letting go of what hurts to keep fillig with Light.
There is nothing else to do, and I too am in a process of this right now with you!
Thank you honey for being an Angel in my life.
So Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Such a Good Article, especially the links within that take you to other resources.
I have experienced a different level of this flying monkey business that seems more energetic. People who are not that close to narc seem to align with the narc anyway and serve the narc’s objective. It seemed like my narc was the center of a maelstrom of energy-sucking destruction that was powerful enough to reach across space and make others do horrible, unconscionable and dishonest things. I felt powerless against that magic-seeming power but it also affirmed to me that this is an energetic battle. Knowing that helped me focus on the right tools despite feeling so helpless.
I am so grateful for you and the NARP tools you have given.
It seems this alignment happens on the global scale. It seems many people align in force because they share an affinity for that entitlement to deceive and punish those who dare question that authority to overwrite reality. It is as if the pain and powerlessness they feel must have a culprit on the outside and that makes them vulnerable to those more skilled manipulators that can sense and zero in on that, to point that unhealed anger where they want. Now we get to live our own life, aligned with source and our inner standing.
Thank You, Melanie!