Getting Smeared (And How To Deal With It)
The smear campaign is a regular weapon in our arsenal. Deployed in order to maintain our façade and ensure that everybody thinks that you are the abuser, you are the trouble maker and that you are the Crazy One. A method of getting our retaliation in first. The smear campaigns are such that you have no idea they are being carried out until the damage is done. You may find out through a third party tipping you off about what is being said about you. You may find out because we have instructed a lieutenant to tip you off in order to allow us to draw fuel from your horrified reaction and frantic attempts to repair the damage. Naturally, we only allow the tip off to take place once we are satisfied that our smears have sunk in and taken effect. The first you may know about these smear campaigns is when you try to tell other people about our behaviour, either during the relationship or when you have sought to escape or have been discarded. You find that you are met with shaking heads, blank looks and declarations of disbelief as your protestations are regarded with scepticism and whispered comments about you having lost the plot. To come up against this wall, especially when you are often in the greatest need, is distressing. This distress is magnified when it occurs with people you thought that you could rely on. Our poison seeps everywhere.
The smear campaign is almost always used at some point when you have become entangled with our kind. There are many different kinds, but here are six which are regularly used.
- The Abuser
We like to trot out tales about how cruel and unpleasant you have been to us. Whether it is preventing us from seeing our friends, not letting us have our say, making decisions for us, hitting us, failing to attend to household chores whilst we are out working to support the household, not showing us any affection, questioning us about our movements, calling us names and so on, it will be used against you. Much of the smear campaign is based on projection as we tell everybody that you have been doing the very things that we have been doing. That way we can provide sufficient detail about the form of abuse, because we have done it ourselves, so that it is given the mantle of believability. If we furnish such detail and avoid vagueness, our lies are made all the more believable. All types of smear campaign operate on the basis of making you out to be abusive in some way. Some are specific, as you will see below, whereas this form of smear campaign is predicated on an avalanche of plausible behaviours which cover a vast spectrum of abusive actions towards us from locking us out of our own home at night because we went out with friends to tipping freezing cold water over us when sat in the bath and pretending it was a joke, from making us sleep on the floor to hiding our car keys when we needed to be somewhere. A long list of awful abuses will be detailed along with how much of a martyr we have been in trying to put up with them and make things better.
- The Philanderer/The Slut
We play the card that we are not given any affection, love or sexual gratification by the abuser but more than that you are busy engaging in frequent affairs and one night stands with other people. We have given you chances after discovering what you have been doing, because we want to get things back on track. We have given you everything and this is how we are repaid. We are heart-broken by these repeated infidelities. We will identify people of the opposite sex that you are close to and pedal lies that “there is something going on” between you and them. Those people we know who enjoy some tittle tattle will be approached first in order to give the lies some “legs” so that they will not only believe what they have been told about you and the neighbour, you and your colleague and you and the gardener, but they will spread the smear even further. Add in some casual sexual encounters we have learned about, linked to the fact you work away/work in a bar/ are friendly and out-going then the lies gain more traction.
- The Spender
We work hard each day to provide for you and all you do is sit around ordering things off the internet, going out to lunch, organising another home improvement and frittering away our hard-earned money. We make out that you are squandering the fruits of our labour by pointing to the recent purchase of some expensive shoes, conveniently leaving out that this is the first pair you have bought in two years and you saved up for them. The joint credit card which bears the hammering of our profligate spending will be attributed to you. Words such as fraud, leech and gold digger will be bandied around as we make you out to be a free loader who has taken considerable advantage of our hard-working nature and generosity.
- The Lunatic
This smear campaign will involve heart-felt explanations to medical professionals about your behaviour in order to have them say that there could be something wrong but they would need to undertake a proper diagnosis. We will take from this informal consultation the part we want to hear and then spread this around to other people.
“Yes I was concerned about her behaviour and because I care, I mentioned it to Dr Whitecoat and he told me that it would appear that she has a mental health issue. I know, it is terrible but it explains so much of her erratic behaviour. The thing is, I don’t know if she will allow herself to be treated. Of course she will insist that there is nothing wrong with her, but apparently that is what these people do, they have no insight that there is anything wrong with them.”
Sound familiar at all? We will pick on entirely innocuous behaviours of yours and magnify them so they become regarded as problematic. Idiosyncrasies will be portrayed as aberrations from normal behaviour and of course the more you try to point out that it is us and not you, the crazier you appear.
- The Turncoat
In this smear campaign we actually place the focus of your horrible behaviour on not just us but other people as well. We spend our time telling other people the horrible things you have said about them behind their backs. Of course, since we are in a relationship with you, it stands to reason that what we are saying must be true, otherwise why would we make it up about the person we love. We maintain that we are telling the “victim” of your scurrilous comments so they can keep an eye out for it happening again and to be a little wiser in their engagements with you. This will be based on oral recollection, so difficult to prove, but often we will engage a lieutenant in corroborating our lies so that the recipient believes us and is too busy basking in their own indignant and annoyed reaction to test the veracity of what they are being told.
- The Addict
You have a serious problem and the time has come to tell other people about it. You enjoy the occasional flutter on the horses. You actually have a huge gambling issue which incorporates the casino, slot machines, betting on line, frequent trips to the bookmakers and even betting on which of two rain drops will trickle down the pane the fastest. You may like a drink now and again and we will turn this into full blown alcoholism, showing off pictures of the empties in the over flowing recycling bin. Those empties are ours or are the product of a weekend party but we are not going to let that get in the way of our smear. You are addicted to sex, watching porn, trying to make us do things in the bedroom that we do not want to do, demanding sex on tap and demeaning us. Your recent weight gain, although nothing significant is used against you as evidence of addiction to food, the money you waste on take away food is really starting to stack up now and the salad section in the fridge only ever stocks cream cakes these days.
How might you deal with these smear campaigns and wipe them clean from your reputation? You are never in a position to stop them before they begin because you will not know about them until they are at least up and running and unfortunately to you heartfelt and emotional protestations just work against you, give us fuel and encourage us to up the pressure against you.
- Avoid reacting to them in an emotional fashion. This starves us of fuel and may cause us to drop the campaign because it is no longer having the desired effect. Some damage has been done from it already, but you will limit that damage.
- Consider carefully who you feel the need to disavow of our lies. If you need support in the context of your escape, save your energies for addressing the lies with those that matter in terms of providing you with support. You may lose some friends, but were they really good friends to have if they were taken in by the smear campaign?
- Use any independent evidence you may have to show to people – documents, video recordings, independent witnesses and just provide this to the relevant recipient of the smear campaign for them to make up their own mind. State your side of the story, refer to the evidence and let them make their own mind up. People don’t like to be told what to do. By allowing them to reach their own conclusion as to who is telling the truth you are more likely to gain an ally again and one who will also expound your truth to others on your behalf.
- If people approach you concerning the lies and want to discuss it with you, more out of a desire to engage in salacious gossiping than know the truth, there is no point engaging in a lengthy discussion in order to persuade this person. They are not interested in the truth, only the buzz which comes from having some gossip. Raise your hand as they begin and tell them, “He has told lies and I do not want to hear any more or discuss them.” That will stop it in its tracks. You may also wish to add that the matter is in the hands of lawyers which often causes people to back off as they do not want to become embroiled in legal action.
- Don’t engage in a reverse smear campaign by talking about what we have done. This creates fuel from us and because we have got in first, it makes you look like you are only saying this because of what we have said. Concentrate on protecting your own reputation. Don’t be concerned with blackening ours.
- Adopting the above points will turn the tide so that we are left with a choice of having to expend more time and energy to maintain the smear campaign in light of your non-fuel provision and calculated approach or more likely we will see it is not working and look to concentrate on someone else rather than you.
- If the smear campaign is having adverse effects in terms of your job, your professional standing and interaction with the authorities, engage a lawyer to set the record straight. A well-drafted letter to the relevant decision-maker is often sufficient to address the matter. Don’t engage in sending threatening letters to us (unless the smear campaign is especially bad and having serious repercussions on your life and livelihood) as this provides us with fuel and also provides us with an arena for us to continue the allegations and to look to gain further traction.
- Sometimes the most appropriate way is to ignore what is being said and get on with your own life. This demonstrates you have not taken the bait which will infuriate us. You may find it uncomfortable having lies said about you, but if it is having no visible effect on you, we will move on. Third parties are usually too caught up in their own lives to have much regard for such tittle tattle for long.
Smear campaigns are usually rolled out at when you are at your lowest ebb, feeling frazzled and emotional and this is why they become so effective, but you are able to wipe the mud away and move forwards. You can learn how to deal with the smear campaign by reading Smeared which is available in e-book and paperback on Amazon.
23 thoughts on “Getting Smeared (And How To Deal With It)”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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How do you know if you’re smeared or not id it was a discard and you are No Contact and don’t see any of the gross flying monkeys? A common friend who was curious wtf she wanted had dinner with the narc. Narc said nothing about me. Narc said the new supply “is a really nice person” (narc also said that about ME in her previous conversation with this friend when the narc was doing damage control about our “breakup” .
I know she smeared previous ex- but she knew the ex was smearing her. She doesn’t know anything about me I don’t think. No common strings so far.
See the book ‘Smeared’.
GRACE,
What helps me a bit is keeping in mind these two statements:
1) all the terrible things MY NARC did and does against me, in order to destroy me,
ARE ONLY EXPRESSION OF HIS INNER DEVASTATING SUFFERING.
Being it recognised or not, it always lies down there in their abyss…
So the the way he behaves concern WHAT HE IS and not what i am!
2) everything he does is focused on the basical aim to gain FUEL.
In his perspective it is necessary for him to survive.
As any other addiction, it’s an obsessive and compulsive necessity.
In a certain sense it’s like a cage that imprison theme inside of their schemas and patterns.
I think they are in prison because, even if they are aware of what they are ( referring to the Greater kind), they can maybe choose when and how to gain fuel.
But they cannot choose IF gaining it.
They HAVE TO! Anyway….
The best things i can do for myself are:
1) accepting him for what he is, and NOT for what i expect him to be.
2) stop trying to change him.
Any eventual change has to be his own choise.
3) work on MY EMOTIONAL DETATCH from him. If you think that nothing can hurt you unless you allowe it to, you can understand that this power is in your hands, not in his!
If he tells me deprecable things,i can simple consider this as his own point of view about me! But it doesn’t mean that i am a wrong or an awful person!
I’m with you! ❤️
Thank you so much, Dandelion. This recovery has been a huge realization for me and, surprisingly, has helped me see my own value more than ever. Like you say, I can’t determine my self-worth based on what he says he thinks of me. I’m not even sure he really thinks I’m a horrible person, but until I went no contact, when he said I was a horrible person, he got the reaction he needed. I’m fairly sure that he actually has no opinion of me at all aside from what fuel I can bring. I often wonder if he has the ability (or rather desire) to “measure” people based on their strengths and weaknesses at all. Instead, he has to decide how valuable we are according to what we bring to his fuel matrix. And right now, I bring zilch to it… so I’m a whore today. Tomorrow I might be the love of his life, his dream girl, the only person he ever really loved. If that doesn’t bring fuel, he’ll try some other valuation to see if he can bring me back around.
Love your advice to stop trying to change him. My strict No Contact should definitely help with that, right? haha . At this point, I most need to work on the emotional detachment you mentioned. I absolutely have to figure this part out. Still not a day goes by that I don’t have an imaginary conversation with him in my head. Hopefully soon I can stop that and actually move on. Until I actually do move on, I will certainly present the facade that I have done so. Fake it til I make it!!
PLEASE Believe It……Sick individuals who prey on the innocent. Great Job HG!
Good advice! I would add that you have to quit caring what other people think. That’s one quality about me he was able to use in excess.
Thank you.
HG, I have not received any emails from you in several days regarding knowing your narcissist. Are you still sending?
I am. You may need to reset your subscription.
Thank you. I am getting them now.
Jolly good.
Today, I am a homewrecker, a whore, a liar, a thief, and a whack job…. being smeared like never before. This reminder of the best tactics for dealing with the utter chaos this causes came in the nick of time. Impeccable timing, HG…. Thank you! Going to read the book Smeared again as well.
I think I’ve commented more here today then I ever have, but this new smear campaign has really done a number on me. This is the only place I feel safe even venting a little bit. If I say anything to anyone who’s been dragged into this, I give him control. He is trying to hurt everyone even remotely connected to me so that I will call him and tell him to leave people alone. This time they’ll have to fend for themselves. I have my tin hat on and I’m hunkered down for what’s to come. Throw up a prayer for me, if you’re so inclined. I appreciate the help from HG’s info, but I could use a little boost from the All Mighty as well. This is getting so very ugly and I am at a total loss for what to do…. so I’ll just keep my head down and weather the storm… freakin’ hurricane.
Hang In THERE!******& KEEP READING
Thanks, Melissa. I am grateful that HG is so a productive blogger! He will keep me busy so I won’t break NC!!
snarkandgrace,
Prayers and love coming your way! You are doing the right thing. It’s horrible and heart breaking. I had all of the above list too.. Probably still do!
The best thing I did?.. stop peeking at social media.( I just hang here now. ) We need space to heal. XO
He did me a favor there and deactivated his Facebook. I’ve heard he has an Instagram but I have no interest in tracking that down. Like you, I finally figured out I’m better off not looking…. ignorance is bliss?
Now, if people would just stop calling me and telling me I need to get him to stop his bullshit, that’d be stellar. All of my messages today have been from the people he is dragging into his smear campaign. They somehow think I can make him stop…. If I could, I would have made him stop YEARS ago. I keep telling myself he has to stop sometime but whenever I get a respite and think he is finally going to let it go, he starts up again and each new campaign is worse. And every time, I think it can’t possibly get worse! I have GOT to stop thinking that… clearly it can get worse. It always does.
But then it gets better, so that’s what I’ll hang onto.
I spend more time here during the “storms” as he calls them. This is when I would usually break ranks and call him to tell him to stop acting like a freakin’ psycho and he would cry and say, “You’re right. I’m so sorry, yada yada bullshit….” And then the whole shit show starts all over.
Finally I found this place and I feel like I’m getting a real grasp of the reality I have to face. I have to totally delete him, and I will. How terribly sad.
that’s what had to happen with me. I heard about him from 2 sources today. I know the feeling. Even isolation doesn’t stop them, but we can greatly -reduce- the Hoovers by our OWN salami slicing! ::Hi-YA::
I hope for better days tomorrow. For all of us~ 🌼
Grace, I’m glad you’re getting away. What you’re going through right now is a very difficult time. Keep coming here to stay strong and to let your ‘crazy’ out. You are being very smart. And find as many support resources in real life who understand exactly what you’re dealing with. I found that my lawyer and the judge saw through him. They must see it all the time. But I had to remain calm and not react or anything lest it be used against me. He got so low at times with the things he accused me and my family of. Stay graceful outwardly and be snarky here all you need to. Just know it will be over soon enough, especially if you act like a neutron with him. He can’t survive off of neutrons.
Congratulations on taking the step to get your life back!
Thanks, DUTG. This is not the first time I’ve tried to go NC but, as God is my witness, this will be my last. I don’t have much in the way of real life support, so finding this blog has been such a God-send. I had one friend who really understood, but at some point even she just got tired of the drama, I think. At this point, I figure the fewer people I’m connected with, the fewer people he can turn into flying monkeys. Taking your advice and assuming neutronic persona! NoFuC!!!
snarkandgrace
Vent your spleen (HG quote) here. The less you say outside of here and the more he keeps on, the more he is building a case against himself. Only a nutter keeps going on and on when there is no response or rebuttal from the other side. Sounds like people are already forming that opinion if they are asking you to make it stop, although they should be doing that for you by cutting him off instead of pleading with you.
That’s my plan, Narc Angel! When I feel like I can’t take it anymore, I will unload here. Sometimes just reading articles and comments makes me feel better but sometimes I want to screeeeeam and shake him until he’s completely bald. But I can’t do that so I will vent here.
I think people are starting to get the picture of what I’ve been dealing with, but I actually had a “friend” say, “He was never like this when you two were together….” He was never like that to them because he had me to torture. Now his crazy is flying everywhere. All of our mutual friends are getting a good dose of what they’ve been missing out on all these years. But at least I’m out! And this time I am STAYING out! It’s every man for himself!
Reading the banter between you, Sniglet, and HG is the best entertainment I’ve had in a while anyway. Had me in tears laughing earlier. It really helps to see people who’ve been where I am and have kept, regained, or maybe even sharpened their senses of humor. I feel that I am in the best company possible.
Amazing, just shocking!!! These people seem to have all followed the same script.
One thing I have realized about the smear campaign, is that when I do decide to get out of Dodge, there will be much, much less reason for me to ever return. That won’t be happening. You are right, these were never friends.