How To Cope With A Narcissistic Smear Campaign?
How to Cope with a Narcissistic Smear Campaign? A smear campaign is a manipulative tactic used by a narcissist to ruin another person’s reputation. Thus here are some ways to Cope With a Narcissistic Smear Campaign.
What is the Narcissist’s Smear Campaign?
The Narcissist’s Smear Campaign is a manipulative tactic to stain someone’s reputation. Narcissists can lie bluntly to save themselves. They may tarnish someone else’s character when they feel humiliated, insecure, or upset like while terminating a relationship, losing a promotion at work to their colleague, or just seeking revenge for some matter.
Narcissists smear their victims’ reputations when they can no longer control them or want to seek revenge just because things did not go as planned for them.
When their partners end the relationship with the narcissist, this is when they undertake the smear campaign to make themselves feel better, satisfy their ego, and maintain their image in society. Narcissists need a spotless image so when their partner ends things with them, this may harm their reputation as they might be looked upon as being unsatisfactory, inconsiderate, and lacking.
To save their drowning repute, a narcissist may take upon the smear campaign where they would exaggerate the situation, twist the plot of the story of how things haywire, prove their targets or victims incorrect, convince people to believe their side of the story, disclose half-truths by concealing the actual matter partly. They would play the victim in the situation and would make up lies about the victim.
A narcissist would not hesitate even once to spread rumors about their victims and would tell all sorts of stories and lies to turn people against them.
During a smear campaign, the narcissist goes around telling everyone about how their ex-partner, friend, colleague or family member, or whoever it is by whom the smear campaign was influenced, how nasty their behavior was, to tell the relationship gossip and tell tales about how their relationship started on a good note but ended on a bad note just because of the other party whom they project as bad.
Narcissists would try to save their own selves by playing the victim and hiding their real toxic selves. They project all the bad deeds onto their victims and tag them as the bad person.
Why would a narcissist do a smear campaign?
Narcissists do smear campaigns to primarily hurt their victims and also to shield their toxic behavior. When a narcissist feels rejected or vulnerable, they may engage in activities that can restore their control and power.
The smear campaign helps them maintain their high-end image and make their victims look like a maniac who is either obsessed with them or planning on taking revenge on the narcissist who seems innocent due to the false facade that they have created to hide their toxicity from people.
Narcissists do smear campaigns to either showcase their heroism or seem innocent who has been a victim of abuse by their partners. If the victims end the relationship the narcissist will make sure to punish them by doing a smear campaign.
Narcissists would gain other people’s empathy and sympathy for them by creating half-truthful scenarios or just complete lies. They would exploit other people’s feelings and make them think you are the villain in this case.
Narcissists would gain attention by using the smear campaign as a way to obtain a narcissistic supply, taking advantage by exploiting other people’s feelings, and turning people against their victims by smearing their reputations.
When the narcissist loses control over you, they spread a smear campaign just to control the situation. They establish control over how other people perceive you. This is an indirect form of punishment that they use just to get back at you whenever they feel they have been wronged and their mask of false goody image might drop off and their real toxic selves might be revealed by you. This is when they spread a smear campaign.
The main motive of such a narcissist smear campaign is to basically make their victims suffer, make them feel embarrassed publically, smear their reputation, and belittle them.
Narcissists use smear campaigns to get back at their victims by using heinous tactics just to get even with you for any matter that might have hurt them.
Signs of a smear campaign
There are a few signs that may indicate the spread of the narcissist’s smear campaign against their victims, including,
- People around you start avoiding you and even ignore encountering you specifically.
- People might curse you for behaving badly towards the narcissist and being the bad guy in the relationship.
- People might give you unlikely and unwantedly bad looks, hint you out as an evil person to others, avoid going wherever you are headed, and talk behind your back whenever you pass by them.
- Poele would ask you to apologize to the narcissist, even without knowing your end of the story.
- People start to drift apart from you, and you might lose the fake friends in the process, but thankfully you might actually find your real friends who would believe in you no matter what, because of the smear campaign.
- A narcissistic partner may tell your friends that you actually don’t like them and thus provoke your friends to turn their backs on you.
- The Flying Monkeys would pull in more support for the narcissist and try to bring down your image even if they have to cross certain limits and assault you verbally.
“Flying Monkeys” is a term used by mental health experts with reference to the characters of the Wizard of Oz, who followed the wicked, scary, and bad witch.
What does the term flying monkeys mean regarding mental health issues?
“Flying Monkeys” is a term used to describe people who bid for narcissists, side with them, or do their dirty work to charge punishments on their targets. Flying Monkeys are the supporters, minions, and helpers who help their cruel agendas of threatening you, showing you what you are missing, forcing you to get back with them, or even being a reason that a narcissist might be upset with you when you share a concern regarding them with one of their flying monkeys.
A narcissist would assist one of their flying monkeys to do all the dirty work including lying, gossiping, and spreading rumors so that nobody questions their reputation.
How to deal with the narcissist’s smear campaign?
Dealing with the narcissist’s smear campaign may seem difficult from afar, but when you expose the truth they may fear you. Start by disclosing the truth or the reality of the matter and you may find ways to save your reputation from being smeared. Here are a few ways to deal with the narcissist’s smear campaign,
Being Persistent
Narcissists can hold grudges that may last a lifetime. They may never forget their victim’s behavior and might never as well let go of the topic. Their grudges have no expiration dates meaning there are slim chances of them using these grudges against their victims anytime.
The key to handling such situations is being persistent in your viewpoints. The narcissist may try to gaslight you into believing what they want you to believe but do not let go of the truth and expose the narcissist for who they are.
Try to uncover the truth of the matter
The narcissist might try to pin blame on you that may include, “You broke their heart”, “You left them”, “You don’t love them anymore”, or “You are cheating on them thus your love is withering away with time” which may be true to some extent, but that may not be the entire reality. They might have also played a major role in creating the disconnect between you and them.
The narcissist has a tendency to magnify a single statement of truth to manifolds of falseness. They may create an entire story of your wrongdoings trying to paint you as the wrongdoer in the relationship.
Saving your personality from getting soiled
When the narcissist is hurt somehow because of you(their victim), they might not hold back from talking excessively about your mistakes, and that too a detailed version. They might point out every small mistake that you might have made.
They make telltale about how they are martyr and you are the culprit in the relationship. They may gain empathy by displaying how victimized they feel due to your abuse whereas the reality is completely mirrored.
So try to disclose your version of the matter and save your reputation from being soiled at the hands of the narcissist.
No Response is the best response
Realize that there is no winning against the narcissist in this matter. They may always look forward to a rebuttal. When you argue against them you may just be making their accusations stronger.
A rebuttal may help them gain attention, which makes their story stronger. The best way to get par with the whole smear campaign is by not responding against the narcissist.
This does not mean being the victim, this means that you start being so unaffected and bold by a showcase that this no longer matters to you, you may actually frustrate the narcissist and they themselves may do something that may bring out the true story.
In certain cases, your silence and ignorance may help you make your case stronger. Do not engage. Do not provide a rebuttal and do not try to prove your point by proving the narcissist wrong.
How To Cope With A Narcissistic Smear Campaign?
You may need ways to cope with a narcissistic smear campaign especially when you have been hurt emotionally by them. You may be feeling attacked by the narcissist, thus you may need ways to cope with the trauma you may have experienced because of them,
Recognize their manipulative tactic
To understand what is happening around you, and why people are ignoring you or are getting away from your company, you may need to dig into the truth of the situation and recognize that the narcissist is using a smear campaign to soil your reputation.
Find out the reason why a narcissist may do that and get to the bottom of the matter. You may either opt to clear out the problem with the narcissist or tell your side of the story to the people involved.
Allow yourself to feel the emotions that come with all the smearing
Being the victim of a narcissist’s smear campaign may seem painful, frightening, and perplexing. You may not know how to handle all these emotions and thus you may shut down all the emotions altogether.
Allow yourself to feel your emotions. seek out help from professionals to gain support and also seek help from family members.
Seeking therapy
It is emotionally and mentally draining when you have a narcissistic someone in your life. You need to vent out and discuss the pent-up emotions, hurt, neglect, rejection, toxicity abandonment issues, and all your suffering caused by the smear campaign with someone. This way you can let go of the agony you have been holding up till now. You can let go of the trauma by seeking help from people who care about you and also find ways to cope with the narcissist by getting some professional help.
Do not hesitate to reach out to friends and family for emotional support and also join some social groups, or join some communities or therapy groups that help in healing and dealing with trauma. You may also join a prayer if you are a believer. You may also seek help from therapists and mental health experts in such cases. You may also seek online therapies, learn more about narcissism, and teach yourself through the internet or some self-help books.
Final Thoughts
The narcissist can do anything to smear your reputation when they feel that you(their victim) have hurt them, humiliated them, or somehow questioned their personality.
Always stand for your truth, try to figure out what you want, and never degrade your worth just because someone said something unpleasing about you to others. Nobody is worthy to judge you but only you. So do not degrade your worth.
Hold your power by knowing your value and worth.
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From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.
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