Smear and Loathing (6 Reasons Why Smears Affect You)
I have previously explained some of the forms that the smear campaign takes and also why they are so effective. Now I turn to the six reasons why they affect somebody like you so much. Smear campaigns are a constant in the arsenal of the narcissist. Effective, utilised through word of mouth and with the capacity to envelop several people at once who in turn perpetuate the smear, the smear campaign is a favoured manipulation of our kind. Here are six reasons why they affect you so much.
- Denial of assistance
The smear campaign is usually utilised during devaluation and on the cusp of discard. Its timing is such that you will more likely than not find yourself in a position of desperation, fatigue and confusion. Battered and buffeted by our manipulations through the devaluation period,you are in a poor position to defend yourself never mind having to defend your reputation with others. Once the discard hits you and knocks you for six, you are in need of considerable assistance. You need somebody to help you make sense of what has just happened. You need somebody to listen to you as you pore over the relationship and try to piece together (usually unsuccessfully) the cause of your fall from grace and subsequent discard. You will need assistance on practical items such as money, paying bills, eating, child care, washing and cleaning in some of the more extreme cases where your ability to function has been hammered. When your need for external assistance is at its highest, you find that those who you thought you could rely on to help you have been poisoned. Friends become unobtainable or suddenly busy with other commitments. Family are sceptical about helping you since they think you have brought it on yourself and they are even ashamed of your supposed behaviour. Colleagues are not inclined to assist someone who has been painted the way you have. These people disappear, turn their backs or even worse ally with our kind and the help and assistance you so desperately need has been taken away from you. This furthers your isolation, your pain and your distress. It also reduces your capability to address the nature of the smear campaign and neutralise it.
- The Corruption of the Truth
You abide by the truth. You speak it and live by it. Yes, you may tell the odd white lie but you are a paragon of virtue compared to our mendacious and repeated untruths. You believe in the truth and you need others to know that you are an honest and truthful person. You base your life on having honest dealing with people, both towards them and from them. It has been an horrendous enough experience dealing with our lies that we told time and time again to you, but it becomes even worse when you are being lied about. You may have reached the conclusion that we are well-practised liars and that is the way we are but to have your own reputation impugned and your character stained as a liar is anathema to you. This causes distress and the fact you know that other people are believing a lie about you will have a damaging effect on you and we know this full well.
- Frustration
You feel a huge sense of frustration that your reputation is being smeared but added to that is the frustration that people are actually believing what is being said about you. You are surprised and dismayed that people are falling for what we are saying about you. You are disappointed in those people who you thought would know better than to be taken in by what we have said. You really ought to know by now that just as oyu were taken in by our charm and seduction, so have they. Did you really expect them to respond any differently when you did not? The difficulty is, is that you know the truth about the lies being spun about you and you desperately want others to see through this but they do not. You understand why, because we base the smear on a grain of truth, we magnify and manipulate and twist and warp the truth so that people are deceived in an expert fashion but nevertheless you really though that people who you could rely on would see through this tissue of lies, this web of deceit. The frustration at this overhwhelms you and adds to the distress of the situation as a whole.
- The Lack of Control
We hate losing control. Most people do not like to lose control because this causes distress, anxiety and apprehension. If something bad happens and you are able to at least do something to address it, counter it or mitigate its effect you automatically feel better. However, if you are swept along on a tide by a force over which you can exert no control, the sense of helplessness is massive. You are made to feel like this because when the smear campaign commences your coping ability has been hugely reduced. We however are at the top of our game, calling the shots and orchestrating everything with considerable effectiveness. You do not truly understand why it is happening, why we are behaving like this and moreover why people believe what we are saying. You feel as if you have no control over the progression and outcome of the smear campaign and this increases its effectiveness in terms of how it affects you.
- Keeping Up Appearances
Related to the corruption of the truth. Whereas the corruption of the truth alarms you because of the way that a central quality which you adhere to and believe in is being damaged, the smear campaign is also damaging how people think about you. You are not a person who is immersed in pride. You are neither vain nor conceited but you still want people to think well of you because you are a good and decent person. You just want people to know what you are and to have them told that you are something contrary to your actual appearance becomes especially upsetting for you.
- The Hammer to Your Reputation
Not only is your character and outward appearance as a good and honest person shattered and dented by the smear campaign, the effects of a smear campaign often go further. Your professional integrity is called into question with ramifications for your job, career advancement and livelihood. Your standing in the community is adversely affected which could have repercussions where you hold positions of trust and authority. If you have to be licensed by the authorities in some way, a smear campaign can place that in jeopardy. You may lose friends, your family may distance themselves from you but the repercussions of a smear campaign can infect your professional life, your income, your integrity and your standing. You are made to feel like a pariah and you may lose clients and customers, the backing of your superiors, be regarded as an albatross to an organisation. People are obsessed with appearances and if you become a PR nightmare not only is your personal life hammered by the smear campaign your professional and business standing is also.
26 thoughts on “Smear and Loathing (6 Reasons Why Smears Affect You)”
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Nice!!! I like!
This is the very best “Bloody RAW a TRUTH” written about the detailed “cause and effects” of a discarding Toxin’s Flaming Smear Campaign. if If my scars/wounds could speak in such disastrous words of my demise 7yrs years/tears ago, THIS article would be eternally etched in the “Halls of my Soul” after being publicly burned at the stake by my Ex of 32yrs of marriage and her Fiery Smear Campaign as she was exiting our toxic 32yr relationship. Thank you HG, your raw truth continues to solidify/heal my recovery with your Flaming TRUTH!
Thank you Roger, good to see you here
Welcome Roger ! 😃
Do you know how toxic it gets when my mother & I embark on a campaign to simultaneously smear each other? We can go for days at a time…it’s exhausting.
I’m imagining adjudicating on that very contest.
No one adjudicates these contests. My father keeps quiet, my middle sister has her own life with her own children & is too busy to get involved, & my youngest sister…takes sides, or rather she alternates sides depending on her mood.
Laughing…….yeah, who needs a HD tv when this is available?! 🙂
I would have loved to have had tea with Hunter, perhaps while skating in the sand.
Now that sounds cool! Skate in the sand. !!!
I join you for that tea 😃
Yes! Skating in the sand or swimming in the clouds. I would love to sit with you for tea.
I am a sky lover! Would love the tea with you also 😃👍🏻
Hmmm maybe not… I dont join anywhere where there is a hunter. 😖😖😖 i have total aversion to hunting ❌📛⛔️
F&R means Hunter S Thompson the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the title which my own title was a play on, Nikita.
Hmm thanks for the explanation HG i was totally in the movie of action.. Of course F&R with her profound approach of everything.
Nikita you evoke laughter in me, thank you. The title of this authors post ” Smear and Loathing” is a parody of ” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson, who was a radical expressionist, an author and journalist. Its a great read of which I could see you drinking tea and laughing hysterically.
LOL F&R if it makes me laugh then I will Take a look at fear and loathing 😂.
I hope you enjoy!
Hi F&R
I read about what it is, and i dont doubt it can be funny… seems maybe “the doors” movie is a modified version of this comedy..
I did watch the doors in my twenties and remember the scenes of their acid trips and the colored dessert, and thought how horrible it must be to not feel your feet on the floor….hmmm thise movies about loosing control due to drugs and alcohol did call my attention during the 20s -maybe because of the potential exposur you have at that age to them, but my 20’s passed normally and before reaching 30s I had kids and so I never did drugs .. ..
And today those kinds of movies are foreign to me.. But maybe you can tell me with your analysis what is the parody in HGs posting.
Smearing and loathing is being also totally out Control? Loosing the feet off the ground?
Have a nice day ☀️
Hello Nikita. The works of Hunter S Thompson are rich in philosophical, psychological, mathematical and socio-political natures. Not only did he imbue this in his works and person, he caused momentum towards the opening of trenchant thought and analysis of thinkers, which in turn helped reshape the collective social conversation. I am not a drug user myself, however, it is not unusual for individuals that are highly creative and/or thinkers, to have addictions or periodic relationships with drugs. There is a “craze” that is involved with depth of thought, and can be dangerous if one falls into the rabbit hole and stays there for too long, in that the deeper one descends into their being can cause an almost numbness of experience as they are then ahead of the self that exists in the grounded reality of what is. This is a fascinating subject matter, however a completely different conversation. He was also known for blurring the lines between truth and untruth and had a brilliant sense of humour. The parody of HGs title for his post was just that, a parody. A parody is imitating something of anothers in a humorous way.
The sun has risen where you are and the moon is filling the skies here, which means I am free to go to sleep. Good night.
Hi F&R
Its so nice to read you. Still no sun here .. But at least the temperature raised.
Wikipedia definetly failed to describe the “ouvre” like it was in all of its depthness.
So I will keep into account for the next Amazon order.
Concerning the drugs, yes I know about it and the artists. I was an animal activist during 10 years and many of my colleagues were artists of all kinds. Made sculptures, paintings, writers etc.
its another discussion .. Yes..
Have a nice day ☀️. Thanks for being here.
And eating jellybeans!
I love how you miss nothing!
Yes jelly beans and I are dear friends. When I muse inside or am Thourea-ing, along the waters edge, I would be found to be enjoying jelly beans. I think they help me think.
This sounds like a very hard challenge in life. Its sad to think that love can end this way due to not letting go on time.
I wish for all the people here that nobody has to go through this. 🌷
HG your articles are giving me understanding I never had. After going NC with ex and now breaking up with controlling friend ( lost one friend i lost whole group) I must say i dont know how i d been able to stay focused if I hadn’t read your articles . You once said emotional healing is alien to you but the healing you are doing what you have given us I feel I don’t even need emotional healing when I read this . And for some reason what I read is what I need . God is in control . He brings it when I need it .
You are welcome FA