Being with a narcissist and going through the end of the relationship very often we find ourselves in the middle of a smear campaign.
So, how are you supposed to handle a smear campaign?
This one's about the smear campaign how to manage or deal with social damage after smear campaign. This is a question
I hear nearly every single day from survivors and that's exactly what we're talking about today at QueenBeeing.com.
So let's get started. (Closed captioning provided by
Athena Moberg and CPTSDfoundation.org)
My name's Angie Atkinson and on this channel, I offer free daily video coaching to help you discover, understand and overcome
narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships. I like to call it toxic relationship rehab.
So if that sounds good to you, hit that Subscribe button and we'll get going. if you were to look up smear campaign in the
dictionary, the political term matches right up with the actual meaning and that is; it's what a narcissist does when they feel threatened or otherwise
concerned that they might lose their narcissistic supply but the actual
definition of it is a deliberate attack on somebody by spreading an untrue, unpleasant rumor about them or by making an accusation
or damage to their reputation. If you've ever been the victim of a smear campaign by a narcissist,
especially after a relationship or at the end of one is incredibly painful.
The narcissist will use partial facts or complete lies against you,
they'll start planting seeds early in the minds of other people around you,your family members or friends, their family members and friends,
depending on the situation and before you know what you are in the middle of a big old mess.
Everybody thinks you're the one who's done something wrong,
everybody thinks you're the problem and you don't even know what to do, because if you say anything at all,
it just makes the situation worse.
So
how are you supposed to deal with that? One tip that I learned from angie was,
one time and only one time to state if you know me,
you know the truth.
If you do it more than that,
you just look like you're defending yourself and you just you play right into the dynamic of a smear campaign.
Which is; they want you to look crazy, they want you to look hysterical, they want you to look
everything that they're trying to prove about you.
They want to prove it true by
accusing you of something and then having you react to it in a way that makes you look exactly like the thing
they're trying to accuse you of and
it's only because we get defensive and we get really emotional about being accused of something we didn't do or being smeared and rightly
so, but calming down and
approaching it very
coolly and very calmly is a I think a much better tactic and then afterwards dealing with the social damage.
Sometimes you just have to move on you have to create a new life through finding new passions, new interests,
taking classes, meeting people outside of that small circle and
realizing that the world is a bigger place and you can find new people, new things to do, new
interests, holding your head up high and not talking about it with people. If someone wants to talk about it with you,
what is said to begin with which was a but Angie says and that is you know, if you know me
you know the truth. It only needs to be said once and when people keep wanting to push and talk about it,
you can say I'm sorry can we change the topic? This is an upsetting topic or I've already spoken to you about this,
let's move on,
let's talk about something else. You know
it's like
diffusing it and moving on, because if you go right into the drama of what's being said about you,
like I said before, it'll make you appear to be
defending yourself because you're in the wrong or it'll make it so that people don't know who to believe,
even though it feels like you're trying to explain yourself. Basically being scape-goated is awful and being smeared is awful.
I think the best approach is clean, clear, cut and dry and moving on.
Look, when someone starts talking about us in a bad way to other people,
our first instinct is to want to defend ourselves and in a lot of situations
defending ourselves would be the right thing to do,
but when the person talking about us is our narcissistic ex,
the best thing you can do is just keep quiet and say nothing, because the only way to beat them at their game is to
say nothing. Our silence during a smear campaign will expose the narcissist for the asshole they really are.
Our silence helps to create plausible
deniability on our part, ultimately
it causes the truth to come out, because
eventually, you know someone will go well, why isn't she acting crazy?
The fact is that we don't need to defend ourselves against these people,
because they will talk about us anyway to their family, to their friends, to our family, to our friends.
There's a whole bunch of bullshit that comes with that and there's just not a whole lot we can do about it.
So the best thing you can do is understand that it's a trick,
it's one of the oldest tricks in the book for them and
understand that if we want to run around and do damage control, we totally can. So why do people play these games?
Why do they spread lies and rumors and well,
let's just gossip. What it all comes down to is they want to shame you, they want to isolate you further.
We know that narcissists are the ultimate social and emotional predators
We understand that they're vicious and that they will do whatever they can to win at all cost. They have no limit.
It's normal for someone who has a cluster B personality to
pathologically lie, to gaslight to smear campaign. It's all part of their, you know makeup, how they roll.
It is absolutely dysfunctional.
It does cause trouble in their lives and in the lives of the people they claim to love. Unfortunately
you can't avoid dealing with it,
but what you can do is you can stop focusing on it you can stop allowing people to make you feel
like you're less than you are. See the thing is, a narcissists understand that what they're doing is wrong,
but they don't care, they are intentionally trying to socially harm damage or invalidate you on a fundamental level.
Yeah,
they understand on a logical level that like lying and cheating and stealing and
manipulating and attempting to gaslight people might be not the right thing to do; most of them, but they get off on it, they
emotionally, psychologically,
they just think it's the best thing in the whole world to pull one over on somebody right? When they do apologize,
it's fake, it doesn't mean anything, they do it to achieve a benefit for themselves. If they can pretend they're the victim,
this is where they play the narcissistic injury thing.
Only false apologies will come out of this if any apology comes out of it. Sadly,
the reason they smear campaign is because it makes them feel better about themselves and they like to pretend that they're victims in order to
get attention. There's no biologically inspired empathy from a narcissist, They don't just... it just doesn't exist inside of them.
They may know that they're causing harm, they don't care. They don't see you as a whole person,
they see you as an object or a sort of person,
I know that sounds weird, but they really... they literally just don't see you as
someone who is as important as they are in the world. i'll like you to remember three really important things;
Number one, remember who you are and what your values are.
So take the time to figure out exactly how much you're willing to do here, the fact of the matter
is that, the best revenge is always living well, but the narcissist doesn't usually roll that way,
so what can you do from your side to maintain your personal values and your personal ethics while still
distancing yourself from the narcissus.
Number 2, if you're dealing with the narcissist who wants revenge, because you've got no contact or because you've left their little circle of influence,
the main thing you need to do is just be who you are and continue on your own personal route.
This brings me to number three which is, all about being ready to walk away.
The fact of the matter is there's a good chance that if the narcissist is after you for revenge
there's no resolving that relationship, so don't stick around and continue to put up with that crap,
don't allow yourself to be abused in a relationship.
So if at all possible
you're gonna want to get away from the narcissist as far as. If the narcissist is your boss, look for a different job.
If the narcissist is your
romantic partner, look for a different place to live. If the narcissist is your parent, go no
contact and don't allow them to contact you or call you anymore.
Make sure you don't break any laws when you're looking for
protecting yourself from a narcissist in their revenge, because you certainly don't want the narcissist to have the law on their side.
You don't want to help them get the better of you
right?
If you're gonna go to court with a narcissist be sure you get a good lawyer and be sure you get one that has some
idea of what narcissism is and how narcissistic
personality disorder looks in a courtroom and also on what narcissistic abuse is. If you let the lawyer know in advance
that you're dealing with a
narcissist they will know whether or not they can help you win the case or not ahead of time,
make sure you get a consultation before. In addition to taking any sort of legal action necessary,
make sure you get a restraining order or an order of protection, if that's possible in your case in your situation.
Aside from that, focus on yourself, don't look at your narcissist as a problem anymore,
don't give them that power over you. If you look at your narcissist as
dangerous or someone who becomes a problem for you,
all that does is kind of give them a little more control over you as you move forward. If you want to take back your
life, you have to take control of every aspect and that includes keeping yourself safe and separate from the narcissist.
It allows you to close the doors to being attacked
if you do this, work on yourself and stay away from the narcissist. Remember that regarding a smear campaign or anything else,
It's not really your problem
It's not really even your business what other people think, say and feel about you, especially when it's negative,
and as always you know, let your friends know;
Hey, look if you still want to hang out with this narcissist cool, but if you do
I hope you'll understand if I take a step back from you, because I'm distancing myself from this person.
People who know you and understand you will be on your side. People who don't
probably weren't really your friends in the first place.
Now you want to take some time to dig into yourself, deep dive into who you are as a person;
So you've spent a long time being oppressed by the
narcissist and so there's a lot of you that hasn't even come to the surface in years or maybe ever, so this can be
actually a really fun and exciting time for you to dig into
discovering who you are, what you're all about, what you really want in life.
Take a moment to look through the people in your life and determine which ones are beneficial to your life,
which people are actually helping your life as opposed to hurting it and how can you change who you're dealing with
in order to better suit who you want to become. The person you want to become is what I would be focused on this whole
time if I were you. Fact of the matter is, if the narcissist is so focused on
hurting you and getting what they want and their own little agenda and you're focused on growing yourself, on making yourself better,
living well making your life better, who's gonna win in the end?, it's gonna be you.
The narcissist can stay petty if they want to, they can stay small and insignificant, that's okay,
it's not your problem. You in the meantime,
I want you to take control of yourself, of your life, because you can and because you deserve to
become the person that you really want to be, the person you should have been all those years ago
when you met the narcissist. Just a little secret between you and me, the one
single thing that works to really exact any sort of revenge on a
narcissist if you were interested in such a thing is to better yourself,
create the person you want to be become, the person you want to be and do all of this in spite of or
despite the existence of the narcissist. Pretend that the narcissist doesn't exist and for you, soon enough
they won't. Fake it till you make it if you have to. You have to understand that by trying to enact revenge on you the
narcissist is simply trying to show you that they still have control,
show them that they don't. The reason that the narcissist chose you among others is because they thought they could control you, they
believed that on some level they had access to control you.
They believed that because you doubted yourself or because you needed outside
validation that they had more control over you and as time went on, for a while at least they did. If you
figure out a way to become
rock solidly
unapologetically
yourself? Guess what
my friend ain't nothing they can do. They will move on to someone else, someone who is not
solid, someone who doesn't understand how to be
unapologetically themselves, what do you think? Let me ask you a question
and this is in fact the question of the day. The question of the day is; Can you imagine becoming so rock solid, so
unapologetically you that nothing the narcissist does could ever affect you again? What do you think? share your thoughts,
share your ideas, share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it.
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I'll see you soon.