Today, my therapist asked why my sister or the boys’ father might want to undermine me and damage my credibility. The simple answer is that I refused to submit to them.
A narcissist seeks to “punish” anyone who openly questions them by directly expressing clear limits and needs. They may pretend to be genuinely curious about helping or understanding, but their true intention is to diminish, silence, and erase their target.
Standard Smear Tactics:
- Smear campaigns often happen as a form of retaliation for speaking out about or questioning offense to unjustness or unwholesomeness.
I understand that a smear campaign arises from entitlement, a need to be right, control the narrative, and protect one’s status and image. Someone with strong narcissistic traits meticulously curates their public persona to present only as successful and accomplished. Their methods of implementation vary.
- Lies and Distortions: Spread rumors, exaggerations, and lies about the target.
- Use Personal Attacks to Avoid Substance: Attack the target’s character instead of discussing or working to address and resolve clearly identifed and communicated issues at hand.
- Gaslighting: Twist words and create confusion.
- Shift blame: The narcissist will shift the blame onto the target to avoid accountability for their own unfortunate behaviors.
- Stonewalling: Silent Treatment. Refusal to engage or acknowledge requests to have open dialog about the issue.
Note: I did absolutely present as an insane person.
Unhinged from a highly sensitive and dysregulated nervous system, and without anyone to shelter or teach me self-soothing techniques, I experienced literal nervous breakdowns from sensory and emotional overload. In typical gaslighting scenarios, my sensitivity and inability to manage it were exploited to justify brutality and judgment against me, presented as evidence of my supposed wrongness. “Clearly, she is crazy.” I lived in a constant state of destabilization and panic. But if I am deemed “crazy,” does that make cruelty acceptable?
