Narcissism-How a Smear campaign Works
The SMEAR CAMPAIGN – a silent and preemptive attack to destroy
There was such a huge response to the post yesterday on Narcissists and their ‘smear campaign,’ so I wanted to add a little bit more as far as understanding what is behind this. To start off you have to first ask yourself WHY any person would smear your integrity to OTHER people, especially if you were in some sort of reciprocal relationship with them. The why is easy to understand once you are out of the abuse cycle and looking from the outside in or when you start to gain clarity over the situation. So some fundamental facts:
1. The Narcissist needs to protect themselves from being exposed as the abuser they are.
2. No normal person would enlist other people into a campaign to attack another person that they supposedly loved, cared for, or had any relationship with.
3. Normal people work through things without enlisting friends, family, and coworkers – a relationship is personal between two people – not two people and the whole world. If there were actually the horrendous problems the Narcissist ALWAYS projects then the two people would come to a mutual understanding and either seek help or move on (again in a normal relationship).
4. The Narcissist enlists their soldiers or minions to carry out their agenda or dirty work to get the word out there that they were the victim with the support now.
5. The smear campaign is more devaluation through triangulation or backstabbing – it is perfectly crafted to inflict personal damage BEHIND THE BACK of the victim. They will use everything they know about you against you – they are very familiar with your whole life so they can mix bits of truth into their hideous lies!
6. The Narcissist has been doing this all along because they inevitably end up in a situation with every person where the Narcissist’s accountability comes into question so they start a decisive and preemptive attack because they know that the victim is becoming wise to their agenda or abuse and it is time to run!
7. It is meant to disable the victim in a manner to make them more vulnerable. The Narcissist continues to control them with fear and isolation and leaving their destructive message long after the Narcissist has moved on – again to protect the Narcissist from exposure and to keep you stuck in this mind frame.
8. The smear campaign is designed to make listeners shocked in such a manner that they have to stand up and take notice to the allegations and perhaps get involved. In other words they will accuse someone of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or any number of things that could potentially destroy the victim’s reputation and integrity in a horrendous manner.
9. For the victim it is the element of the surprise with a smear campaign. They walk into a situation that they have no knowledge of and unprepared for the allegations. Usually the smear campaign involves people from the victim’s immediate circle of family, friends, loved ones, coworkers, etc.
10. We ALL have an expiration date and this is just the final cycle of the abuse the Narcissist utilizes to really silence and disable the victim with extreme fear of more negative retribution.
To sum it up it is just more of the same abusive pattern that the Narcissist creates to further manage down the victim or basically destroy them. The devaluation was leading up to the smear campaign as the final step so the Narcissist could walk away unscathed with the same message to the victim that they were disordered, crazy, the abuser, liar or any number of scenarios. The smear campaign brings this to fruition because the victim is now hearing these same messages coming from the outside world and feeling totally isolated. BAM - that is where the Narcissist drives the abuse straight into the head of their victim. The victim is damned if they do, or damned if they don’t respond. But that Narcissist has driven more of their abuse into the victim and disabled them even more through enlisting other people to fight their delusional battle or divide and conquer. The negative messages that the Narcissist has been manipulating the victim with throughout the entire relationship start replaying in the victim’s head once more, the victim is worn down and vulnerable, their emotions also come into play, now they are faced with this smear campaign, and more than likely the discard as well, and they become isolated, traumatized and silenced. Psychological rape and terrorism from a very shrewd, destructive and disordered creature or a Malignant Narcissist! The normal evolution of this abuse is described in three cycles – idealize, devalue and discard. I am adding a fourth cycle which is the final blow to destroy the victim and that is traumatization through the smear campaign! This traumatization doesn’t go away with simple words that basically describe the hideous actions – it requires strong healing to achieve clarity and time to heal first and then see it from a healthy perspective. But at least understanding the process plants the seed into a victim’s head to start moving forward. That starts with no-.minimal contact.
