Flying Monkeys

You expected the relationship to end when it ended. You did not expect it to keep arriving, in different forms, through different people. A friend calls to tell you what they've heard. A family member brings up the other person's version of events. Mutual friends have already decided whose story they believe.

These people are called flying monkeys, a term borrowed from The Wizard of Oz for the people a manipulative person recruits to extend their reach after a relationship ends. They carry messages. They gather information. They enforce the narrative. And they let the person you left keep doing, through others, what they can no longer do directly.

In this book, you'll learn:

The six distinct types of flying monkey, from true believers to unwitting participants to willing enforcers
How recruitment actually works, and why otherwise good, reasonable people end up playing this role
What flying monkeys do once recruited, and why their involvement feels so disorienting
Why it works even on people who know the manipulator's history
How to respond to flying monkeys without escalating the smear campaign or exhausting yourself defending your character
How to rebuild your standing and your peace after the campaign has run its course

Written in the same clear, no-jargon style as her other books on manipulation and psychological abuse, this is for anyone whose breakup, divorce, or estrangement didn't end when the relationship did, because the people around them kept the story alive.

The relationship was over. The reach of it wasn't. This book will help you take that reach back.