my mother rejects me and doesn't love me because ...

© Lise Winne

Please note: this post is about an abusive parent, not about parents or parenting in general. Read about what constitutes an abusive parent from this post.  

Abusive parents are generally rejecting and unloving. They practice, make-up, break-up on a consistent basis with most of their children, unless the child is a "golden child favorite" (favoritism).

The graphic above are all typical reasons abusive parents will give you for your not being loved.  

Also, the above reasons for why Mom does not love you are defined as emotional abuse. Abusive mothers can sometimes tell their children that they love them, but rejection is not love. In other words, the love they claim to feel is not believable. Love requires empathy. A lack of empathy is not love; it is the opposite of love. 

Your mother may claim that you don't love her, so in reaction, she doesn't love you. This is retaliatory tit-for-tat parenting and that kind of reaction is always categorized as child abuse (and yes, adult child abuse counts too). Note: it is the mother's responsibility to love her child first, starting during the infancy stage, to get the child accustomed to being loved and loving back. A loved child will usually reciprocate love. A rejected child won't. It's as simple as that. 

The reason why unloved children stop demonstrating love to a rejecting mother is because they feel it is of no use, and that they are too flawed for their issues and feelings to be taken seriously or heard (especially if they are under-age). They give up trying to be lovable or trying to love, especially if their mother put them on a merry-go-round cycle of make up, devalue, discard. There are only so many merry-go-round trips a child will take before getting off of the merry-go-round altogether. 

Most adults of child abuse gradually begin to feel that "there is something wrong with Mom", especially when they are exposed to a lot of other mothers who love their kids unconditionally. They see the same "mistakes" being made that they made with their mother, except these "other mothers" never reject over the same mistakes. They may laugh, they may lecture, they may look with concern and ask their child how they are feeling, they may temporarily leave the room for awhile, but they don't reject or isolate their child from understanding and love. Children from abusive homes do eventually wonder why they aren't being unconditionally loved like so many children in other homes are, they may crave unconditional love, but they also know that their parent is not comfortable with a child who has self esteem, so they will constantly try to lower their child's self esteem for the purpose of putting themselves in charge at all times, and this means withdrawing love. The reason for abuse is power and control (an like an addict they will be demanding that you give them more power, control and domination over your life - or else). 

The less self esteem you exhibit, the more likely you are to be accepted by Mom. If you cry the blues and say, "I'm so flawed! How could you ever love me! You're right, I'm crazy, I don't praise you enough, I'm ugly, you have every right to love my siblings more than me, I'm too sickly, I'm a basket case, and I'm especially a basket case without you!" the abusive parent is likely to want you back ... until they find another flaw they don't like and you are thrown away like so much trash from their hearts yet again. 

The thing about these constant makeup/breakups is that the flaws they reject you over will be for smaller and more erroneous reasons than the last time. Some abusive parents beat or reject their kids over a look on their face, for their child confronting their parent about being stolen from, for forgetting to re-cap the toothpaste, for any kind of expression at all other than pain and tears -- yes, it gets as ridiculous and petty as that.

So, why does it get this petty? Why does it increasingly go in the direction of Turpin-style parenting where just about anything is game for rejection, devaluation, isolation and abuse? 

Good question. It has to do with entitlement. Most abusive parents grow up in homes that were also abusive, but they also felt more entitled in some way too. 

For instance, it could be that the abusive parents your mother had only loved her "if" while at home, but her parents made all of their children sound like model children ("better than"), without a flaw in the world, in front of strangers. Your mother's parents may have upheld a false image of the family, in other words.

Another instance is that your mother's parents may have insisted that their children all compete with each other for parental love and affection. Your Mom may have been favored by their parent while the other children were in various stages of rejection, and in return for being rewarded, they felt they always deserve rewards (entitlement). They might have been rewarded for sibling abuse even, and rewards have a lot to do with how a person conducts themselves later on. Your parent may feel that abuse will work in any relationship, to use it in any situation. 

Another instance is that your mother may have had cruel rejecting parents, and therefore learned to be rejecting and cruel to get what she wanted from others. While they accepted being rejected by their parents, they may have normalized being cruel and rejecting themselves when they reached adulthood, so they practice it on their own children (privilege). Thus they expect to be rewarded by being rejecting and cruel -- this would be more unconscious than the above instances. 

These are just a few ways that abusers reach the point of on-going and ever-growing needs to have their entitlement desires fulfilled (i.e. being rewarded for things they want at the expense of others). They are willing to hurt their children to fulfill their needs for absolute power, absolute control and entitlements that go beyond natural human limits. One reason they pick on weaker unsupported individuals (like children) is because they feel weakness equals "giving in". 

One reason why suicide rates for abused children are much higher than for non-abused children is because child abuse victims have been brainwashed by their parents to think that it is their life duty to take care of their parent's needs, their parent's super sensitive feelings, their parent's need for absolute control over them, while sacrificing all of their own. When the child is seen as not fulfilling the desires of the parent and are rejected over it, the child often thinks about self destruction, including suicide. Believe it or not, it's a natural feeling -- brainwashing will pull a child's mind in that direction. 

One reason I put a question mark in the spot of "she likes to hurt me" is because while it is a conscious choice in some parents to hurt their children (those vengeful, retaliatory, tit-for-tat parents for instance), it is unconscious in other parents (who grew up with abuse and therefore think it's absolutely "natural and normal" to hurt their children to get what they want out of them without thinking of their children's feelings, and without thinking of alternatives of relating to children). 

It is often hard to tell if they intentionally want to hurt us, but it isn't hard to tell if they love us or not. The more rejecting they are, the least loving they are (they aren't practicing love, after all; they are practicing rejection and devaluation instead). You will have to accept that your parents don't love you, just like so many other survivors come to an acceptance about it and disengage. It will get easier to accept as time goes on, especially if you can find a good domestic violence therapist and a good trauma specialist.

Time and good company (like spending time with mothers who love all of their children equally and unconditionally, without the unreasonable demands in the graphic above) heal some of the wounds.

fulfilling life goals after being a cast out scapegoat

art by © Lise Winne

available for sale here

I have been reading Lenora Thompson's articles for awhile and I usually respond to them, and we often have discussions about each of them. The reason why? I'll tell you.

Lenora writes for Psych Central and the Huffington Post about being the child of narcissists. She is a self-proclaimed golden child (an only child) to what would seem to be helicopter parents, parents who, according to her, would not let her grow up. You can read her stories in the articles. She has many, many articles on how she felt stifled and imprisoned by her parents, how every decision she wanted to make was superseded by her parents' decision-making, how she felt she was being groomed to please them at all times.

Every abusive family has a golden child (favored and coddled) and a scapegoat (unfavored and picked on, and often rejected). That's just a fact of life when you have Cluster B personality disordered parents who put their own feelings and dreams first, and expect their children to put their parents dreams and feelings first too (no, that's not how it is supposed to work, if you are wondering).

When she and I talk, I give her the scapegoat versions to her stories. They tend to be drastically different, opposites. But not all of the time.  Sometimes we find only nuanced differences between the golden versions and the scapegoat versions.

I have been working on a side project full of scapegoat stories (which I plan on publishing some day). This is just a teaser.

Sometimes she feels the scapegoat is so much better off than the golden child, other times she sees how painful being a scapegoat is.

So what is a common thing that scapegoats and goldens share, since most of the time there is such a huge disparity between the two roles? And let us not forget that these are roles -- they were thrust on us by parents or caregivers (usually) at a young age, perhaps even when we were pre-verbal, rather than how we define ourselves.

Gaslighting would be one of the things that golden children and scapegoats have in common. But the nuances are these:

Gaslighting of a golden child would be: "Oh, she's a little crazy, but we love it! So creative! So full of life and wonder! So cute when she does that, isn't she?" Gaslighting of a scapegoat would be "She's our crazy one. Yes, she's creative, but she has so many problems! We just can't deal with her any more! She should be put away, but that's not how the world works these days." The first one is to get strangers to admire their offspring, hoping they can cover up the abuse with great accolades and admiration and the image of being perfect parents of a lovable crazy child; the second one is to get strangers to reject their offspring before that offspring spills the beans and exposes the abuse and the parent's image.

But who is kidding who? Golden children are just as capable of exposing abuse as scapegoats are, such as in Lenora's case. Goldens often feel so suffocated and burdened by their parents that they feel spiritually squashed, emotionally squashed, physically squashed, developmentally squashed. It is claustrophobia on steroids. Goldens have been brought up to be pleaser puppets. They can't say anything at all that doesn't please their parents, and after awhile, don't even try to challenge that coding (except maybe through their own very private thoughts which they don't dare to share with anyone ... until they can't stand it any more). This is not what life is meant to be, to be an eternal child with no choices and no dreams, and only to be thinking about your parent's thoughts, feelings, dreams and image (let's not forget their image!). Our spirits really have a hard time with being shoved into Stepford child roles (after The Stepford Wives).

I see her point of view. Love is super conditional whether you are a golden child or a scapegoat. For the golden, it is totally reliant on people pleasing and competition with your sibling (if you have a sibling). The golden feels he cannot be anything else, and be safe from the abuse he sees being hurled at everyone else.

I feel sorry for the golden child in my own life who has to live this way and give up his own dreams, who is called to do it constantly, who has to be careful and terrified over everything he says, and walk on eggshells. He has been groomed to compete with his sister on everything (for the parents divide-and-conquer strategies), and since the sister gave up on the competition and left the family, he has to provide ALL of the narcissistic supply now. There are no more roles left, in fact, no other siblings to take up the lost roles. He will have to fulfill them all. And if something doesn't suit his parents, he will have to endure a barrage of shaming, temper tantrums and insults -- as though he is still a little boy who needs to be reprimanded. If he sees rage, he'll have to pretend he didn't mean what he said. He'll have to stir up a pot of excuses, fast talking, fast thinking, taking things he said back, explaining that he didn't mean what he said, saying things like "It was just a stupid comment. I agree with you" even when he might not want to agree with them, asking how to make it better, giving word salad explanations for every little hurt feeling they have that they blame on him, or on his wife, all with the most syrupy apologies. He will have to have no convictions about anything. Interests? No, too threatening. Opinions? No, he's required to have their opinions. A career? No, not one that will take time away from his parents. A sister? How dare he think to have a relationship with his sister when they have anointed him the golden child! How dare he even think about his sister!

He will have to constantly ameliorate them (and make no mistake about it: he is expert at ameliorating -- as if that is a good thing to be).

I have seen him in 24 hour rages when they aren't around, and then turn it all off like a switch and be sticky sweet with model vocabulary and wit. That's a good life??? Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! He has to "go along to get along" with hair-trigger parents. That's not love! They don't love him!

And worst of all, he seems to have become another Cluster B, full of phony faces and charm just to get through life. I believe the swearing, rage-ful, disrespectful, laugh-behind-their-backs, deriding-of-others personality is really who he is, although that may be a cover-up for how scared, vulnerable, sensitive and sweet he really is. Who knows, but it is all so sad. The worse part of it is that he does the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because his parents squashed him, wanted him to be their daily pleaser. They spoiled him rotten, favored him over his sister, and tried to convince him that his sister was at fault for any rage he felt. "Take it out on her, not us!" they cried. Because, you know, all narcissists are perfect, and they can't hear otherwise, and what they did to him has to be taken out on someone, after all ...

So one of the things Lenora and I were talking about had to do with living our dreams, and how she had to put that off for so long (required to be the daily pleaser: don't forget!). Any way, here is my response to this article by Lenora about living your dreams after having them squashed by narcissistic parents for most of your life:

I'm always thinking of the scapegoat part of this story, Lenora.

The thing about scapegoats is that they are onto their NMs or NFs earlier than anyone else. If we are given the scapegoat role in our family, we're the canary in the coal mine. That's why we are scapegoats: we see the evil, we hear the evil, and we speak about the evil we see and hear. How dare we speak about it, right? How dare we want to make that better for all children of the household? 

And the first thing they do about it is try to shut us up and shut us down emotionally. However it doesn't work because we still see, hear, etc ... so we are punished for it instead. The "punishments" for seeing, hearing and knowing are brutal, let me tell you. They are so unethical, unjust and severe as to encode us with traumas and triggers. In fact most "other" family members don't want to acknowledge what we go through because it scares them half to death. So they only "watch" the abuse in horror on the sidelines, perhaps try to tell themselves it is not so bad and that it is "normal" in some way, hoping it doesn't happen to them. 

In fact, they are rarely singled out for abuse until we leave. And we have to leave if we are to survive. When we leave for good to fend for ourselves, the narcissists adopt another scapegoat. They always do; they always feel they have to in order to keep any kind of potential bad image they might acquire away from THEM. 

So eventually we are no longer alone when the new scapegoat appears and says to us, "I went through it too! I'm so sorry!"

But the difference between us and the golden child is that a parent or caregiver trying to disable us and our dreams by severe punishments and THE BIG BAD SILENT TREATMENT does not get internalized within us (well, a lot of us). It may get internalized in the beginning, but for many of us with long term "no contact" or living our lives autonomous from their opinions? Not at all. I think most scapegoats can attest to not feeling much shame at all over being given the silent treatment. Why? Because it almost always is over a myriad of silly excuses like a look on our face they didn't like (as though we should have a facial complex JUST FOR THEM), or because we refused to be their full time Cinderella to our brothers and sisters (as though we should really WANT that for ourselves), and a number of equally bizarre "reasons". They grasp at the most desperate of straws to make a scapegoat. 

They do this scapegoating for THEM, because THEY feel threatened by the truth and by exposure. The more they abuse, the more desperate they are to hide it, the more they absolutely NEED some sort of  scapegoat!!  All people who see, hear, and speak of what they see and hear must be scapegoated in their eyes ... except, wait! Doesn't everyone tell of what they are about behind their backs? Aren't all people in their lives just ass-kissing back-stabbing two-facers? 

So they get ultra paranoid.

The reason why a lot of us scapegoats don't internalize their mediocre dreams for us is because we never "really" try to please them. Ever. We know the cost is too high, and nothing will be good enough. We may pretend at it at times because not every battle is worth it, and we want some peace, just like they pretend to love us, all the while slandering us to everyone they can, and throwing us away to the wolves and casting us as "crazy people".

We aren't supposed to please them anyway: they assigned the scapegoat role to us, the role that can never please them NO MATTER WHAT. We find, unlike the smooth fast talkin' always-make-an-excuse goldens, that there is no smooth fast talkin' for us to adopt. What we say, what we do, is ALWAYS vilified. So we give up on pleasing them, and decide to please ourselves instead, and we go for our dreams. 

That's one big difference between a golden child and a scapegoat child.

We HAVE to go big for our dreams to survive without a family, support, and familial approval. So many of us put our dreams first, in fact, and a lot of us (the ones who don't stay in the matrix of the abusive family to get beaten down again and again), are pretty satisfied with where we end up. There are times we might be taken in by the hoovering of our parents or caregivers, but for the most part we are cast out at pretty young ages. Try 15 as opposed to 30 or 40 for you goldens. 

Sometimes there are narcissists along the way who try to trip us up, or stalk us, or slander us, and other tactics. That can set us back. But we also have been able to get back up from being knocked over since childhood when our parent or caregiver was doing it.

The reason our abusive parent always goes for tactics such as hooverings and punishments is because narcissists hate our successes. Yes, I believe that. 

How dare we be successful when they have tried so hard to beat that out of us, when they have worked so hard to smash our self esteem and make us lower our heads in shame our whole lives! They can't stand that their mediocre dreams are only about narcissistic supply: spreading lies, gossip, covering their tracks, panicking over "not covering their tracks ENOUGH", fear of exposure, trying to convince others that they are model citizens who love their children when they don't, trying to keep all of these false identities and false motives together and trying to remember which false identity went with which person, and which lie and wild tale they told to whom, trying to think of top-of-their-heads excuses as to why they are estranged from their children, and continue to be, trying to think of shamings of their children that will stick like glue and permanently damage them -- what a life! 

And to compensate for a life of boredom that selfishness, insulting of others, discarding important people and unfulfillment inevitably produce, they create drama. How? Rejecting or picking on another empath from their lives, or two or three or four. "Yes, let's do that so that we have no empaths when we are sick and old!" Now isn't that the dumbest thing ever? 

So instead they find themselves surrounded by other narcissists or sociopaths when they aren't feeling well. Who envies that?

So glad we are not them and that we pursue dreams that are actually meaningful and worthwhile, while they muck around in the putrid swamp of "trying" to manipulate people all of the time. Good luck with that agenda, eh?

interview with a narcissist from an alcoholic family

The Gaslighting Narcissist
© 2017 Lise Winne

I received a correspondence from someone who claimed to be a narcissist. He said he had been officially diagnosed by a qualified psychiatrist with NPD.

He wrote to me with a pseudonym. In other words, I do not know his name, age or location. He said he contacted me because he was reading my blog, and he said that it made him uncomfortable that I was listing all of the tricks of the abusers' trade (on the side right panel of this blog) and even going into narcissist's thought processes.

He said: "I know that there are a lot of survivors who are talking now and exposing how we think and do things, but listing them all in a row is a first. Part of me hopes your blog doesn't succeed in reaching many visitors, but I know someone else will just come along and do it if you don't."

The fact that he is a narcissist with gold child status and that he is from an abusive and neglectful alcoholic family, I wondered if he would be interviewed. He said it was his idea before it was mine. Since this blog covers abuse in alcoholic families and narcissistic families, it seemed like a good opportunity to find out why he turned out the way he did. I did not know what to expect, knowing that most narcissists lie, generally feel they have to be in control during the interview process and paint themselves out to be exemplary. So I had no idea what to expect. As it turned out, I believe that the answers I got from him were aligned with the literature I have read over the years about NPD.

He didn't want me to use his pseudonym, fearing he might have used it again in some other correspondence, so I asked him if I could use a single letter (V). He agreed to that.

My fist question was:
"Why would you want to be interviewed if you don't want me to expose who you are? Don't narcissists like exposure?"

V: Not necessarily. Why do narcissists do anything? It is always about obtaining narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is in kind of a crisis right now because so many survivors are talking about abuse and ringing the alarm bells. We can't charm and interrogate new supply for hours on end like we used to, for instance, without being suspected of being narcissistic and abusive. It is very hard to be a narcissist right now.

L: But you still haven't explained. How are you going to get narcissistic supply when you don't tell who you are? Isn't part of narcissistic supply about drawing attention to yourself, being in the limelight? Getting interviewed in a public way?

V: Actually this is a test to see whether any kind of public exposure at all is good narcissistic supply for me. I'll see how you and others respond to what I have to say and I'll decide what to do with it afterwards. I'm finding it hard to be myself, the heartbreaker narcissist I have always been. Not that I have a conscience about it, or at least I don't think I do to the extent that most people do. I have regrets, but mostly at being caught and told I'm a narcissist. A lot of people have walked away from me. I live alone. Narcissistic supply is low. If I'm reading between the lines you've left about your own story, you've gone no contact with your narcissist too?

L: This is not about an interview about me, but I realize that this is what narcissists do. They information-gather to see where you are in the abuse cycle and how much you're being effected by abuse, or if you've left in disgust and so on. Am I right?

V: Yes, but I could be lying. Narcissists lie.

L: Even about making themselves look bad? It seems to me that narcissists lie to make themselves look better, way better than they actually are, not worse.

V: Mostly you are right. There are times we want our partners to know that we could care less about the fact that we broke their hearts, that we are laughing at them when the tears are rolling down their faces. We make a point of letting them know that we want them to suffer as much as possible on our behalf. So there are times we get off on being Machiavellian. Only in private though. But if Donald Trump can get away with it more and more in public, I'm sure we will all take note of that.

L: So what you are telling me is that you enjoy hurting others, is that right?

V: Yes, that's right. I don't just choose anyone though. I'm careful about who I choose for emotional destruction.

L: That's awful. I don't know why I'm giving you attention, frankly. What made you like this, do you think? Was it your childhood?

V: I had alcoholic parents. Both of them. My father got a huge inheritance and used his inheritance on leisure, sailing, womanizing and booze. Lots of booze. My mother had lovers too, but not as many, and she only had them to take away the pain of being cheated on by my father. So I learned that taking advantage of women was normal. It was in my blood to do so. It was what I knew at a very young age. I never knew anything else. I also had an older brother who was 11 years older than me was who was assigned as my babysitter and he spoiled me. He became an alcoholic when I was only 5. My father eventually threw him out of the house when they no longer needed a babysitter for me. He didn't do well. He became a drug addict and no one knew where he lived after he turned 44. I became their favorite child who could do no wrong. You know about that because you have written a lot about the golden child. I think I was assigned that role because I made excellent grades in school and enabled them to do what alcoholics do. I didn't challenge them. I have a very high IQ. But in my core basic self, I am just like my father.

L: So you said you were careful about who you hurt? What do you mean by that? What is the makeup of the people you hurt?

V: The ideal woman for me is blonde with curls or ringlets like a child has. Very, very beautiful. She is also innocent and innocent looking like a child. She doesn't have a heavy support system. In other words, she is from a dysfunctional family who doesn't really show her love or care. She is ignored when she talks in family gatherings. I like women from alcoholic families particularly. A woman who tries to get the parent to stop drinking for health reasons is the best bet because she's going to be empathetic. She is trusting, has horrible self esteem even though she is absolutely gorgeous. So she is love starved for me. I come in and take care of her, and then I watch to see how much she falls for me. Usually I'm pretty good at this and it doesn't take much time before she sees me as the love of her life, her soul mate. As you have written, I mirror her likes and dislikes too, and make believe that she is the only woman for me. Eventually I start testing her to see how much she will allow me to control her. Usually quite a lot. Way more than most people would suspect.

L: So if she's the perfect person, why would you want to risk getting rid of her by hurting her?

V: I don't consciously think about her leaving me over being controlling. At least not until recently when so many social media posts are about signs of narcissists. Before then, it was just a matter of threatening her more if she started being recalcitrant. These kinds of women are not good at putting up a fight. They can be talked into being women that are too selfish, ungrateful and emotional to be attractive. It's very, very easy. They also don't have anyone to run to. It's not like their family is going to take them in or care. The general public isn't going to care because I think, in general, most people really resent pretty women even if they are glorified in the media. They have the attitude of "What's that pretty woman crying about? She's got the looks, the clothes and a man with money. What's she got to worry about?" My experience is that most mothers try to convince their daughters to stay with me too, to put up with me. It is because I got an inheritance. They try to convince their daughters I have always been the dream man before they developed PMS or postpartum depression or something of that nature. The family likes to blame it on the usual emotional ups and downs that women experience, I have found. Some parents refer to their daughters as crazy, so it makes further blaming and gaslighting work like a dream for me.

L: So what is it about women from alcoholic families in particular that you like?

V: I found that alcoholic parents always tried to keep their daughters with me so they did not have to contribute financially or emotionally. You know how it is. Their main concern is drinking, so whomever can take their kids on is what they want.
I think many of them liked me training their daughter to be more compliant too. They wanted that for themselves, of course. They also liked the fact that I came from money and an upper class family with some fairly well known entrepreneurs in it. The parents mostly had the attitude that their daughter was my problem to deal with. That's why I like my women to come from alcoholic families. It puts me in immediate control of them.
Also, if my girlfriend has an alcoholic family, her family is going to be comfortable with my alcoholic family. A lot of hard core alcoholic families are rarely concerned with womanizing tendencies, so no one protests when I have partners on the side. This allows me to be the most hedonistic narcissist I can be. Everything to alcoholics is too much work, too attention-sapping, too hard to deal with, even the welfare of their daughters. Their favorite phrase is "I just want peace." They just want to drink and not care about anything, particularly a grown child.

L: Have you found that the parents of any of these women have narcissistic tendencies?

V: In my case it has been alcoholic families mostly. I'd much rather the parents be alcoholics than anything else because I know how to handle alcoholics. Narcissists are about game-playing, competing, trying to get me to bend to their will, or humiliating me. The mothers who seemed high on the narcissism scale have also tried to seduce me sexually away from their daughter. They were all disgusting, otherwise I might have been tempted to work in tandem with them to hurt their daughters, since I seem to be driven to hurt the women I love.

L: Seem to be driven? It sounds like you don't have impulse control. Surely that isn't the case.

V: Let me explain it this way. To me it is like alcoholism. It is like an addiction in that I like the thrill of it, but it gives me a roaring headache in the end, particularly if she can no longer be seduced into thinking it is all her fault for the way I treated her.

L: Because abuse and narcissism awareness are so big right now?

V: Exactly. And it has opened my eyes to what I'm doing too. Before it was just that I was an ACOA to be pitied and to feel sorry for. In a pinch, I would say I needed to control everyone and everything because people expect ACOAs to be controlling. I grew up in a household of irrational and unreliable alcoholics and I had to find a way to self-control and control what I could of my own environment. That meant controlling others too. I made excuses for myself constantly. I would harangue my victims about how hurt I was by my parents just to get them to feel sorry for me. Beautiful women like to fawn all over guys who have been victimized. Regardless, I believed wholeheartedly that I was the victim of alcoholic parents and I could explain every bad deed I did with ACOA excuses. Everything that went wrong that I couldn't blame someone else over was because I was an ACOA. Narcissists lie to themselves as much as they do to others. They excuse themselves because they see themselves as eternal victims.

L: I noticed. But ACOA isn't about enjoying hurting others.

V: Exactly. When I figured out I was a narcissist, and that I had all of the traits, the game was over. It was especially over when my victims said I was a narcissist, and when my parents went broke, died and the flow of money dried up. I still try to play the game because I'm addicted to it.

L: Addicted to hurting people? That's not a thought that most people can comprehend.

V: You can comprehend it if you think about serial killers. There isn't much difference. We kill people emotionally because it is easier when it comes to the law. And a lot more easy to get away with than what a murderer does. You give the silent treatment and the woman who was on the receiving end of it is about as gone as any murder victim. And you can smile in the most upscale social circles afterwards. You can toast to yourself for a job well done in a fine restaurant and not be worried about being hunted down by a police investigator. Cops don't care about the silent treatment. You can hang out with people with money, seduce another innocent woman and do the same thing to her as you did to the others, run believable smear campaigns on all of your victims, go dancing, go yachting. The world is still your oyster even when you've made someone suicidal, made them beg on their hands and knees for mercy. You traumatized them beyond their wildest imagination, because they never really suspected you were so cruel, and you get away with it all because society does not care. You can't do this when you murder people physically. Emotional murder almost does the same thing as physical murder, except your victims might speak. But you keep them silent by threatening them. And believe me, no one speaks. Until recently. But even then, people who know about narcissism are taught by their money-soaking therapists that narcissistic rage isn't something you want to provoke in us.

L: So you hurt people because you think you can get away with it?

V: I'll admit that I love seeing a really beautiful angelic beauty with tears flowing out of her eyes. Her heart is breaking for me. Little ol' me. That's a thrill. A woman who is crying because you are leaving her for another woman, even if that woman doesn't match in the good looks department, is powerfully ego enhancing. It gives me so much power! I feel giddy and arrogant, carefree and flippant. I'm high five-ing myself. I'm on top of the world because I won!
Of course, you want her back or in a threesome competing with another blonde, so the silent treatment is never for too long. It doesn't always happen that she takes me back, so I tell her that I can't live without her just to re-engage her back into my harem. You do what ever takes the least amount of work and commitment to get her back and under your control.
Before gorgeous women, I was never important to anyone. I really wasn't important to my parents even though I was a golden child. I had to be the biggest phony for my parents in order to be given the honors of being their golden child, so to me it was never a real victory. It was just a way to survive. In your post about favoritism, you talked about how some golden children have to make up stories about their siblings so that they stay clear of the drunken rages. That was me. Drunks are easy to please as long as you enable their drinking and never challenge them.
When I realized I could take those skills and be a phony to beautiful women, I thought "Now we're talking! The life I always wanted!" In the beginning I f**ked a lot of women and didn't care about their feelings. I was indiscriminate. I realize that most people think it is a sick thrill.
But is it much different than using a prostitute who is desperate for money? If she wants your money bad enough, and she's on her last dime, she'll let you poke her any where, right? It's the same thing with these women. They want me to love them and take care of their sweet innocent selves, but there is a price to pay. I'm only required to love them and care for them if I want to. And that can change. There are no laws saying that I have to treat a woman right, or be kind, so I refuse to if I don't feel like it. I try to get away with what I can. Alcoholic families are not going to care that much about what goes on in their children's relationships.

L: So are you sensitive to criticism like other narcissists? Is a woman who stands up for herself perceived as criticizing you?

V: A woman who gives me flack about any of part of my behavior is intolerable. It's not that I can't stand criticism, though I can see why many insecure narcissists might cry the blues over it. It seems they can control the amount of criticism they get if they blow up at people over it. I pity them for being so thin skinned because that's a weakness. I still believe, however, that the thin skin is an act so that no one will challenge them, so they can exert control and tell their victims what to say about them.

L: What do you do if you are losing control? Isn't losing control inevitable?

V: If I have another woman in the wings, I'll just convince the other woman that my present girlfriend is crazy and victimizing me. The fact that I'm challenging my girlfriend with another woman I might leave her for, is another incentive for her to stop being recalcitrant. She's well aware that she's not the only one in the picture and if she sticks up for herself too much, I'll leave her for a new woman. Sometimes I'm just bored with my girl and leave with the other woman anyway. I don't enjoy being in a relationship with one woman more than two or three years. When women don't feel they are anything special or deserve anything, you can get away with so much. It's what I wanted. An easy life, plenty of women, just like my father, only without the drunkenness.

L: So your whole philosophy is to only deal with women who don't challenge you? Doesn't that create a one-dimensional existence? To me that would be like living on planet earth living next to a volcano and never knowing what the rest of the earth was like. You're just dealing day in and day out with a volcano that could blow at any time.

V: Narcissists don't like the spice of life. They create it. They are the spice of life. They like people and things to be predictable. That's why we always put you in roles. Women who are a challenge aren't my preference, though I understand some narcissists like it. I especially feel that way if I am supporting a woman. I feel fine kicking them to the curb without a backward glance. That is, until recently.

L: Because of social media putting the spotlight on abuse?

V: I'm getting older too. And yes, I've been accused of being a narcissist. I left a lot of women in pain who don't want me back at all and have made my life miserable talking to each other. I'm going to keep saying my causing them pain was unconscious in a way. My excuses worked for a long time, even to myself, especially the ACOA angle. I never thought I'd be rejected or called a narcissist. You get arrogant and feel you are infallible, or that you will pop back into form, like you will always be accepted back no matter what you do.

L: So have you changed? Are narcissists capable of change?

V: No, I don't think they are capable of real change in terms of transformation. You still have that addiction whether it is active or dormant. I attribute my very minor change to a very high IQ and wanting to learn about narcissism. I went about learning about the subject to argue my way out of what was being said to me by my exes, but I found the descriptions fit me, no matter how many excuses I gave and counter blaming I tried. None of it worked. They knew and I knew. I doubt many narcissists come to that conclusion. They think they are still always getting away with lies even when the lies stopped working for them years ago.
I also became aware that abuse and tricking people was an anomaly and projection on my part. I really did think that everyone was like me or would want to be like me given the option. Still, I don't believe I can truly understand what an empath feels or what motivates them. Without an exceptional IQ, there is no way a narcissist will change, even a little. They will just keep trying to find more innocent gullible supply, even hitting up very young children if they have to. A young child isn't going to know about narcissism. Or even that their pain is due to abuse. But, children are hard to extract supply from in the long run, especially your own.

L: Does that mean you have children?

V: Yes, from a number of different women. I brought them up the way my parents did, trying to get them all competing with each other for my love and admiration. I find that children see through your game more than women. I'm estranged from all of my children now.

L: No golden child hanging around for hand-outs?

V: The golden child became a consolation prize. When a golden child is the only one left, you feel deflated. What you want is the competition between your children. You go through tremendous withdrawal about the lack of competition. Again, this is about an addiction, not about a relationship with your child. What you do with your child is never a relationship if you are a true narcissist. You set them up to compete, and if they don't compete because they've been reading up about narcissism, or their mothers are giving them books about narcissism, you can't have the game you desperately want. Narcissists are capable of deep depression like non-narcissists. So the golden child just seems like this desperate actor who only hangs on because everyone else has left, who will say any phony thing you want to hear. Maybe I'm projecting. You are right that we are probably pretty guilty of projecting throughout our lives.

L: So does the projection get to the level that when you hurt other people, do you think they are planning on hurting you, so you retaliate? In other words, is it a pre-emptive strike against a phantom hurt?

V: I was attracted to the most innocent empaths, so most of the time no. But if I was in a relationship with a woman who had some narcissistic traits, then maybe. I think my exes all developed some traits of narcissism after being with me, so I wouldn't trust them now.

L: So do you think you are awesome? Are you self-aggrandizing?

V: Yes. It's part of my brain chemistry even when I know it is not a logical. But I have to really, really force myself to think logically about why I might not be as awesome as I think I am. Self reflection is hard. It terrifies me to think of myself as like everyone else, plain, unexceptional. I frankly don't know how anyone else lives with those thoughts either. You want to feel really superior so you can get what you want. Anyway, I feel good, even when I cause a woman to cry. To empaths that doesn't make sense because they would have guilt, shame, regret, be apologizing and so forth. I think narcissists are as happy causing deep emotional wounds to their spouse or lover as they are when they are drinking and being the life of the party. There isn't much difference, or differentiation from the two emotional states like there would be in an empath.

L: So where does the self aggrandizement come from if you can will yourself to think logically, or the opposite about it? Where do you think you are better than others?

V: In the sense that I get away with so much. And that I could acquire many beautiful women who I could practically do anything to just because I had money. They'd stick around even through painful betrayals. Often they worked harder for me when I betrayed them. That's heady. I suppose it is like owning a horse. You try to break their spirit so they will do what you want them to do. You're the master.

L: I can't believe that would be fulfilling. And from all I have read, women leave men like you. So you are abandoned. How does that make you feel on top of the world?

V: It's the addiction to being emotionally abusive. It's like saying "I got drunk at a bar. I drink a whole liter of vodka every day and no one notices that much. I'm pretty awesome that I can fool so many people!" It's not like winning a prize at something inventive. It's not about loving someone and being proud of who they are and the children you have made together. It's about being satisfied that you lied, took advantage of someone's belief in you, abused them, and didn't get caught.

L: So is it like having a sex addiction with multiple affairs? Did you try to keep the women apart so that you didn't lose a single sex partner?

V: Yes, it is very much like that. It's not just sex though. It's getting to control someone's perceptions of you. And not getting caught that you are a liar.

L: But you did get caught, didn't you?

V: I got caught, but I still haven't paid for it.

L: Isn't losing relationships a way you have paid for it?

V: In some ways. But don't forget, I'm still a free man. I can still go out there and do it again to someone else and there are no kids or exes around to tell them who I am.

L: Do you use an alias, like you are with me, to get more supply?

V: I have thought about it, but no. I'm still in shock that I'm a narcissist. If I wasn't so bright, I'd just keep on doing this, and to some extent, I still think this way when I'm on automatic pilot. I learned how to be this way from my parents. It is ingrained in me. It is a family tradition to cheat, lie, womanize, blame everything on someone else, to be thought of as admirable because you are a phony. Tricking people into being narcissistic supply for you isn't hard at all. Even an empath could do it if they put their mind to it. All you have to do is find an empath from an alcoholic neglectful family, interrogate, find the weak spots, exploit, fault-find, gaslight, terrorize, discard, love bomb, repeat. Not difficult.

L: So why do you think most empaths are not inclined to do it?

V: Stupidity? Not caring if they are crucified on a cross? Telling the truth when lying would bring them a much better outcome? You tell me.

L: No, I don't think I will expound on that subject. I'm interviewing you.

V: Stupidity then.

L: No, stupidity is rigidity, an incapacity to change or learn. If abuse is an addiction then you are too stuck in the cycle of the addiction to learn anything, which is the epitome of stupidity. If you live a life of lies for personal gain and convenience, then the truth has to be separate from you, only something others are privy to. That describes stupidity too. When you are so closed off from the truth entering into your consciousness, then you will have to drive yourself insane trying to keep all of your lies straight. You'll never evolve into anything, or reach any kind of enlightenment about anything, or know anything other than your own lies. That is another definition of stupidity. It sounds like living in a haunted house with a lot of anxiety, frankly.

V: You see? That was a trick! You said you weren't going to tell me why, and you did. Narcissists are good at this! But let me tell you, I'm not stupid, and my fellow narcissists are not stupid either. Our intelligence lies in game playing and war strategy. I would put money on it that if you had a chess convention, and pitted a narcissist against an empath at every table, the high majority of narcissists would win over the empaths. To the narcissist, life is a game with winners and losers. The winners get to advance, while the losers stay behind and kill themselves.

L: Kill themselves?

V: Depression, losing, being unpopular, and injustice kills people.

L: So what you are saying about injustice is the game includes cheating.

V: Of course. Especially if you can get away with it.

L: I think empaths like working with others for a more just and peaceful world.

V: We know that. That's why we choose you. Because you want this cotton filled soft gushing love romance with compassion and equality, a life that resembles a heaven with rainbows, and we can take advantage of those deep desires in you, confuse you into thinking it is possible with us. You actually like forgiving us and making excuses for us because you feel sorry for us and the bad childhood we endured. That's your mistake! We're actually disgusted by how you act about it all, but we're drawn to you anyway because you're turning the other cheek, excusing us and looking the other way when we're abusive. It validates our fraudulent selves and criminal abilities like no one else can. It excuses the cheating, acting and lying we do. On top of it all, we'll compete with you about who is more empathetic and kind, even if we have to make total lies and BS out of it, even if we embarrass ourselves for not being believable. The battle and who wins is what is important to us, not how we get there and what tactics we use.

L: But what if the empath walks away from the game?

V: We don't care what you do as long as you think about us. If you don't think about us, we go through terrible withdrawal and wonder who you are talking to. That makes us paranoid, so we tell as many people as we can that you are abusive and crazy. We also make you seem stupid too, if we can. It's the only way to win if someone doesn't want to play our game.

L: You mean the smear campaign is the only way you feel you have won?

V: Correct.

L: So suppose you tell as many people as you can that your victim is abusive and crazy, and that victim accepts that they have been smeared, and goes away entirely forsaking their past, and pursues relationships with people the narcissist does not know? How does that work out for you? Let's face it, that's how many survivors end up.

V: As long as you aren't effecting our potential supply we don't care who you are with. We will defend our supply, our potential supply and our territory to the bitter end against you. To us, we own the people we share in common. Those people belong to us, not to you. We won those people, not you. Our supply are mostly pawns, things we maneuver in a chess game. We need those pawns. We need the kings and queens to validate us too, but a lot of pawns are what we collect and are invaluable to us. As long as you aren't talking to those pawns, we are fine with your relationships, with people we don't know. Except (and here's the crunch) we want all of your people too.

L: Why? It's not enough that you have conned all of the people we both know?

V: No. Anyone you are talking to we regard as potential supply too. They are a threat to our superiority, even if they are unlikely supply or people we would ever come across in our day to day world. We really believe we should have all of your people on our side too, not on your side, so that your self esteem remains in the gutter, so that you are forced to capitulate to us. We also feel threatened if we think there is a connection between your supply and our supply. We don't want there to be any chance that your camp is talking to our camp. We want to keep all of you separated.

L: So how do people react to your divide and conquer strategies? Is this how you feel superior, by maneuvering to take people away from us?

V: Yes, because people are so stupid that they believe us, that they don't investigate anything. It's amazing that people fall for what we tell them so easily. The only time they aren't so easy is when they have been burned by a narcissist before. So it does contribute to why we think we have superior intelligence.

L: So what if there are a lot of people in our world, and we seem to be doing well? Say we have a very active social life and know hundreds of people. Also let's surmise you have given us the silent treatment -- and we've moved on and don't want you back?

V:  The more people there are in your world, the more threatened we feel. So if you are, say, in the public eye, we have an immediate compulsive need to dismantle that or effect it in some way. We might need to do a fast hoover, a total love bombing effort, even pretend to others that we love you to death, just so that we can find a way to manipulate you and your world. We don't want you to hate us and be devastated in that case, so we pour on the love with great regret at having to stoop to your empathetic level. We expect you to be punished for not being controlled by us, permanently punished. We love the idea of the tears we left you with, but if you find a way to be admired and loved without us, we know we have lost and that we are nothing. That is extremely shocking and provoking to us. We cannot stand to lose so we have to re-engage with you to get you back into the game.

L: So an empath should never see reconciliation with a narcissist as genuine, right? It's just tricks like love bombing, manipulation and hoovering, yes?

V: Yes. Absolutely. Would you trust an alcoholic who said he never wanted a drink again? Alcoholics want a drink all of the time. They can't get their minds off of alcohol even when they have been sober for a couple of weeks. Life seems lackluster and boring without alcohol. Just ask any of them. Sobriety is very hard to maintain. Will they go out and drink again, especially if a little voice in their head says there are no repercussions from drinking, and that no one will ever notice they slipped? Probably. It's almost a definite, isn't it? On that basis, will a narcissist abuse the target again when they think they can get away with it? Probably. Again, it's almost a definite. We don't come back into your life to be nice to you, though we have to pretend to get through your door. We come back because we think your life is getting so far away from our ability to manipulate it, and the people around you.
We especially hate targets who read about narcissism. We know they are disgusted with us when they find out who we are, but disgust is the territory of true narcissists. Empaths aren't supposed to be disgusted. They are supposed to be making excuses for us and forgiving us and living in fantasies of peace and harmony. We thought we had the upper hand in the disgust department.

L: Really?

V: Disgust and disdain are for narcissistic control, not for an empath mindset. Even so, I am genuinely disgusted by empaths for being gullible and thinking the world is love and peace. Or unicorns and rainbows.

L: I tend to think that we are entering an era where the empaths being disgusted by the narcissists and the narcissists being disgusted by the empaths will eventually separate the two, like a doves and hawks dichotomy. The empaths aren't going to want to be hawk-like and the hawks aren't going to want to be dove-like. So "birds of a feather must flock together." You should be with your own kind.

V: That's my biggest fear, being stranded with a bunch of narcissists and sociopaths. I'm not attracted to any of them, but I can see how it happens. I'm sure some narcissists get stranded with these awful cast of characters like prisoners in a jail cell. It is harder for them to keep empaths when articles about narcissism constantly come up in facebook feeds. It is the new topic of the day and it is gaining a lot of momentum instead of losing it. You can't just say anything you want any more. Narcissism is getting harder to hide. Especially in the circles I travel in. It's my present crisis, a crisis I never thought I would have to face. My dream was to die with a dutiful wife and several mistresses all pining for me. I thought I'd die a kind of God. But the victims are getting the limelight. The hero worship has gone to the empaths. I really can't see flying with my own flock with that going on. I still really long to be the lone hawk diving for the weakest dove I can hook my talons into. If I can't have that, I'm at a loss. I'm not cut out to be a dove. I'd have to totally disguise myself. I think I may die alone.

L: Most narcissists do. Psychologist Judy Rosenberg said as much.

V: On that note, we are done with this interview.

L: And you make the decisive move.

V: Like any narcissist would.

After the interview ended, I still had some questions rattling around in my head that I wished I had asked. One was a subject that kept popping up over and over in the survivor forum I belong to. It's a subject that survivors have a hard time understanding at all.

So I decided to ask him if I could give him a few more questions. I actually thought he'd reject my request, as the end of our session he seemed short and dismissive. And I knew that narcissists liked to reject what ever they didn't initiate or control. But to my surprise, he was willing to continue provided it was just a few questions, and that I understood that he had a right to end any of them. I agreed. So here is what transpired:

L: After we got done talking about family dynamics, and narcissists playing chess with other people's lives, I got the vision of a narcissistic authoritarian family playing games as their primary family pastime, and a typical empathetic family playing music together as their primary pastime. Am I onto anything here?

V: Maybe. My family played a lot of games after dinner. We never played any instruments together, not once.

L: Interesting. Did your family practice the silent treatment on any of its members?

V: Yes, but not as much as I did.

L: So was there much cohesion within the family? Were there outsiders and insiders, and some who never showed up at family events? In other words, did the family seem loosely connected to you, like there was almost a total breakdown of bonding? What I'm trying to get at here is the silent treatment being part of family tradition in some way.

V: That goes without saying. But some members were joined at the hip too. My parents tried to control it all, but they couldn't do it effectively because they were drunks.

L: Okay, last question: I belong to a survivor forum for adult children of narcissists. Post after post after post comes up about how the narcissist ruined their wedding or their sibling's wedding. There must be a thousand posts on that subject alone. And the responses are commiserating responses like "My mother ruined my wedding too. It's what they do." However, no one really understands why. Because the last thing we would want to do is to ruin our child's wedding. Or not attend. It's unfathomable to people on this forum as to what narcissists get from not attending. They like narcissistic supply, so wouldn't having a lot of inlaws give them that? And if they do attend, why are they so obnoxious and loud that no one wants to be around them? Where is the narcissistic supply in that?

V: This should be self explanatory. They can't stand their child belonging to someone else. They thought the child was all theirs. So if they don't attend, they are sulking about that and trying to punish you for leaving them for another man or woman. Narcissists want all of you, and if they feel they are denied that, they discard you.
If they make a scene, it means they are outwardly showing their anger over the fact that you got married. They want to f**k up your wedding, ruin your dress, ruin your time, ruin the cake, ruin the guest list, get the band to stop playing. They may not do all of that, but they want to. It's like throwing a wrench into all of your plans for a happy and peaceful wedding so that you won't ever dare to upstage them again or make them second fiddle. That means they hate the spotlight on you.
I can't believe that thousands of you didn't get this.

further reading:

What Do You Do? Getting an Apology from a Narcissistic Ex After You’ve Gone No Contact -- by Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

**recommended: When a Narcissist Makes an Apology -- by Sharie Stines, Psy.D, for Psych Central

**recommended: The Fake Apology -- from the Freedom from Narcissistic and Emotional Abuse website

A Narcissist Cannot Apologize or Take Accountability -- by Amy Adam for SelfGrowth.com

4 Behaviors That Unmask Narcissists -- by Peg Streep for Psych Central

Apologizing to a Narcissist -- by Kim Saeed

* a forum for narcissists to answer questions ... they talk about how they are dealing with apologizing in this thread: Apologies and Narcissists 

excerpt from Cool Blonde:

... I can agree that before becoming aware of my Narcissism, I rarely apologized and I think one reason is that I don't usually realize when my behavior is harmful. Also, in the times that I do realize it, it is usually well after the fact, which then makes it especially awkward to apologize. Another thing that makes it especially difficult for me to acknowledge guilt and apologize is that I have so little self esteem that I tend to feel a deep sense of shame rather than what you might call a "healthy" sense of guilt. Then when I feel the shame, my first reaction is to fight it off and bury it before it can "destroy" me. It's kind of distracting, to say the least. This sense of shame is much stronger than guilt, in that it is a feeling of being worthless as a person and cuts right to the core of my being, whereas guilt is more like feeling bad for something I DID, without affecting who I am as a PERSON. Although it is rare, I have felt regular guilt before, and at those times, I felt that I was able to apologize. The problem is that I usually don't know how to approach it so instead I'll sometimes do something like treat the person especially nice or buy them something ...

excerpt from T.C. Brown:

I agree with other panelists that this question has two parts: before diagnosis and acceptance of NPD and what begins to happen after this occurred. 

I rarely apologized for anything I did before learning of my NPD. The reasons are very similar to what others have talked about. I had a heavy sense of negative shame which made me feel as though by admitting I was wrong that I was saying I was a bad person, unworthy of love and all the good things in life.

It was during this time that I did not understand other people were real, with feelings that are not there for my personal manipulation.

8 Common Narcissist Lies -- by Preston Ni M.S.B.A. for Psychology Today

Lies Narcissists Use To Make You Stick Around -- from The Rebel Circus website

How to spot a Narcopath or Narcissist lying -- from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys - Oh My blog

45 Lies a Narcissist Tells to Control You -- from The Narcissist's Wife blog

The Pathological Liar: Sifting Thru a Narcissist’s Word Garbage! -- from the Narcissistic Partners & The Relationship Agenda website

* a forum for narcissists to answer questions ... Lying

the smear campaign in abuse and bullying, why perpetrators slander and try to get others to deride you and hate you

title of illustration: "The Smear Campaign"

© art by Lise Winne

According to Wikipedia a smear campaign is:

an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda. It can be applied to individuals or groups ...

... Smear tactics differ from normal discourse or debate in that they do not bear upon the issues or arguments in question. A smear is a simple attempt to malign a group or an individual with the aim of undermining their credibility.

Smears often consist of ad hominem attacks in the form of unverifiable rumors and distortions, half-truths, or even outright lies ... the tactic is often effective because the target's reputation is tarnished before the truth is known.

Psychopaths and Narcissists

Smear campaigns have been identified as a common weapon of psychopaths[1][3] and narcissists.[4][5][6]

Legality

In many countries, the law recognizes the value of reputation and credibility. Both libel (a false and damaging publication) and slander (a false and damaging oral statement) are often punishable by law and may result in imprisonment or compensation or fees for damages done.

Words related to "smear campaign" include: psychological manipulation, character assassination, discrediting tactic, vilifying, shame campaign, false accusations and swift boating.

Slander differs slightly in meaning from "smear campaign". According to Wikipedia, slander is:

a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.[1]

Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and must have been made to someone other than the person defamed.[2] Some common law jurisdictions also distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, and defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel.[3]

False light laws protect against statements which are not technically false, but which are misleading.[4]

In some civil law jurisdictions, defamation is treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong.[5] The United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled in 2012 that the libel law of one country, the Philippines, was inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as urging that "State parties [to the Covenant] should consider the decriminalization of libel".[6]

A person who defames another may be called a "defamer", "libeler", "slanderer", or, rarely, "famacide".

In other words, "slander" is used more as a legal term than "smear campaign" and tends to be in the form of publications than spoken words, though both have legal ramifications.

The point of using smear campaigns and slander for abusers is to isolate the victim of abuse. For victims of child abuse, the abuser will usually try to isolate you from your family members. For victims of spousal abuse, the abuser will usually try to isolate you from common friends or from your mutual children (called parental alienation, which can turn into parental alienation syndrome), or from co-workers and superiors (for victims of workplace bullying). In general, it is meant to hurt someone else socially. When victims are isolated socially, it makes victims more vulnerable to ever more attack, by ever more people, therefor making the victimization more probable. At its core it is a campaign to rouse others to vilify a target.

You can count on it being used in all abusive situations. It is so predictable, in fact, that if you are a target of abuse, count on it being used and prepare yourself!

The smear campaign in personal abusive situations is a bit different than political, religious or racial smears. For one thing, it is usually told behind your back. If it is in front of you, it is meant to bust up an alliance that you have with another person with fishy facts (divide and conquer). Most perpetrators use smear campaigns in the following way: lies to make you appear as a perpetrator of abuse and the perpetrator to look like the victim of abuse (this is called the DARVO tactic - very common).

The smear campaign feels so necessary to abusers because without attempting to ruin your reputation, you would not go through the maximum amount of "consequence" for what they perceive as "disloyalty" to them (yes, they view themselves as kings and queens). Most abusers want targets to go through the maximum amount of suffering, injustice and damage because they are sadists. Most of them try to do it in a way that does not get them in trouble with the law, however many perpetrators also aren't careful with the law because they assume their victims have higher regard for them than is really the case (that is one reason they are branded as narcissistic). Check with your attorney. Laws for victims are always changing.

Why is isolating a victim so necessary for a perpetrator?

Because they think like predators. If there is a herd, they try to separate the person from the herd.

They do this by trying to ostracize their targets emotionally first. They do it by steps. The first step is to taunt, chide and to dominate their target in what ever way they can in front of others. They try to establish themselves as the authority while at the same time establishing you as the underling (or listener). In the beginning, they try to pass off their derision as your words being funny, a party, a joke. They constantly gauge others' reactions to see if their agenda is working to their favor; i.e. at getting others to see their perspective. They feel if they can get people to agree with their perspective, then they can escalate the bullying. They also gauge how many people are defending the victims so that they can talk them into another perspective. Most of all, they want to see others joining in on laughing, chiding and taunting.

The target may even welcome the laughter at first, just to show he is a good sport. He may say funny things in return (self-mock, much as a comedian would), but in order to make sure others aren't liking the target too much in this stage, the perpetrator will escalate by throwing in a little dig.

It becomes apparent to the target before it becomes apparent to others that he, the target, is being used more than others as a laughing stock. He is also being used, ever-so-slightly, as the object of insults. If the target reacts with pain, the perpetrator might say, "Can't you just take a joke? Aren't you capable of fun? What is wrong with you?"

There is a reason why "What is wrong with you?" is part of the dialogue. It is to get others to doubt your ways of perceiving what is happening, your social competence. It is a way to set up a pecking order too, so that the perpetrator can dominate and control how others see you, the target. It is a way for the bully to become an authority on what the target is about, and especially to constantly whittle away at how the target is being perceived by others as well. The perpetrator might start saying other things along with the usual "What's wrong with you?" like "Why don't you understand anything? Why don't you see that this is just light fun? Why can't you see that we all love you and you're just being sensitive? Why can't you have a sense of humor along with the rest of us? Why are you backing off? Why can't you just go along? Don't be a drama queen!" and so on.

Basically all of this is a form of gaslighting, which is usually part of abuse too. Most gaslighting is slow and insidious.

In order to run a successful smear campaign, gaslighting is necessary in order to get the target/prey separated from the herd, and to get the herd to look at the member as not desirable or lovable, and eventually expendable and worthless.

If the abuser is a sibling, he may want total control of parents and for ALL of the family resources to go his way. If the abuser is a spouse, he may want total control of the kids, and what better way than to smear the other parent? Or he may want his spouse to be an under-ling, in a subservient role where he is calling all of the shots in the marriage. If the abuser is a co-worker, he may be trying to climb the ladder by vilifying and making up stories about his co-worker. If the abuser is a boss, he may be trying to shame you into working harder (ineffective -- in fact, self-sabotaging).

However, gaslighting can work effectively in the short run (as a quick fix) even if it is damaging in the long run.

If the initial gaslighting goes successfully, the perpetrator will then start to cut off as much influence as possible so that the target is no longer part of the herd, and shunned. If a member of the herd listens intently, the perpetrator might interject: "You poor soul! You're seeing her?" or "You're going to listen to her?" or "You know better than to take her seriously!" or "You shouldn't listen to her. You know what the truth is," or "Your ideas are so much better than hers. Why are you listening to her?" or "I swear to God, I'm sick of what she's done to me! How can you listen to her?" or "You can't be listening to her again! You know better than that!" or "You don't know her like I know her." Perpetrators shame other parts of the herd who listen to or have a relationship with the victim. They are also known to arm-twist people who are on the sidelines with rewards, punishments or threats.

It is all very evil ... and unfortunately planned and common among abusers. The whole point of the perpetrator's agenda is to get others to doubt the target more and more and more and more (subtly through time, going in one direction in the continual escalation of abuse), and to render the target voiceless, with perspectives and experiences not worthy of taking seriously or listening to by others in the group. The perpetrator might interrupt the target, find ways to cut off the target's speech, find ways to make a joke out of what the target said, find ways to denigrate what was said, find ways to re-interpret what was said so that it sounds bad, and so on. The whole point is to make the target appear ugly and undesirable to others, to assign ugly motives, ugly words, ugly perspectives, ugly philosophies, ugly incompetencies.

Sometimes both the targets and the herd are confused as to what is really going on, for awhile, but one thing becomes apparent: the target often withdraws, and sometimes goes completely silent, while the perpetrator seems to be dominating most of the time and is getting ever more arrogant, swaggering and blustering as the escalation progresses (I will talk about some reasons for arrogance in another post, so check back).  

If the others do join in, eventually what happens is that the perpetrator starts to escalate to the next level. If the target speaks up, or has a perspective that he wants considered, the perpetrator will either interrupt, find some way to cut the target off from expressing anything, or try to shame or accuse the target of some kind of fallacious wrongdoing.  

Then they try in subtle ways to work on others to see the target as flawed, whether that be calling the target stupid, crazy, ugly, incompetent, not worthwhile, untruthful, selfish, lazy, provoking, too sensitive, or all of it. More often than not, it is all of it, and I mean ALL of it, whether the name-calling is intellectualized or not ("intellectualized meaning replacing "mentally ill" with crazy, "intellectually challenged" for stupid, etc) -- it is all the same thing in the end as far as how abusive it is.

What is most insidious about this progression is that it is erroneous, called erroneous blaming, another form of abuse.

When perpetrators make their target a laughing stock successfully, they have won half the battle. If they have successfully enlisted others to deride the target, they have won all of the battle.

This is when you will notice that the perpetrator escalates by insulting, denigrating and humiliating the target. Even in this next step, they are constantly gauging other people's reactions to see how far they are willing to follow along with going along with abuses (called gang bullying or mobbing). It is a slow process, but absolutely intentional, and it can be deadly (as some targets are driven to suicide, especially if they have no other social networks).

There are challenges to this trajectory, of course, but that is for another post. In the meantime, it is important to put up strong boundaries and to pursue new relationships that they cannot infiltrate.

The smear campaign is an ugly political campaign.

It is probably the worst stage of abuse, especially if it is successful in isolating the target socially. Social isolation means that abusers will have an easier time getting away with abuses within the social group because no one will stand up for the target. Some people rate being gaslighted higher on the scale of being abused than all other forms of abuse, but I would rate the smear campaign higher if only because smears include a lot of gaslighting and lying with a gang mentality. It is like a criminal getting away with a crime, and continuing with more crimes against you, to destroy your life bit, by bit, by bit. It can negatively effect your self esteem and dreams for living in peace without abuse and coercion.

Smears are done to get a victim of abuse derided by any group of people that will listen to smears, and to take smears seriously, as truth. To a perpetrator, it is like getting a jury of peers to all agree. That group of people can include anyone close to you including your family, inlaws, spouse, children, co-workers, boss and friends. Some perpetrators of abuse try to smear your reputation to every person they know about in your social sphere through subtle stalking (I talk about that in this post about triangulation).

If you have gotten used to the silent treatment from an abuser, and prefer to live with it, and if the abuser has caught on that the silent treatment is not packing enough of a punch in terms of making you feel miserable, hoovering you back with love bombing can be the only way they feel they can get access to your latest social contacts and social influences to smear your reputation again and again. The more clever narcissists do feign that living without you has become impossible. They also feign that they are truly sorry for everything they have done, that they cannot live without you any more and will do just about anything to make it up to you. They have also been known to fake tears (crocodile tears) just to gain access to more of your social support. Beware!

The reason why you need to be wary? It is really the only way that they can do damage again, to control, to keep testing their smears with ever more of the people in your life. If they can influence other people's perceptions of you, they feel they have an endless avenue to keep up the abuses and smears. And if you won't let them back in your life, they can, and often do, send out their flying monkeys to lay guilt trips on you. They can even become dangerous stalkers who show up at events just to make you uncomfortable and to rattle you by their intense gazes, dirty looks, tisking and constant presence.

Hoovering often happens when you are getting successful or are successful at something in your life, i.e. when you aren't thinking about them any more. Perpetrators can't stand to be left out in the cold during your high-flying times, so their personalities can often switch to super sticky sweet with crocodile tears when they feel deflated and insecure again (i.e. when their arrogant steps start to flag).

Many abusers could be classified as insane if it weren't for their use of gaslighting and the smear campaign. Unfortunately, that is where evil departs from simple insanity.

Further reading:

This part will be brief as another post is in the works as to how abuse effects the whole family, and why it is such a multi-generational scourge. 

Psychological splitting "is not healthy for children and other living things." - the quote actually comes from a poster (artwork) that was circulating in the 1960s about the Vietnam War that said "War is not healthy for children and other living things." 

Many psychologists have said that domestic abuse is "war at home" and has the same psychological effects, physical effects, and emotional effects as war.  

For the child who is deemed all bad: the effects are feelings of anger at the injustice at being labeled that way (and many children catch on that their abusers like provoking injustice in their victims), feelings of hopelessness, depression, low self esteem (especially if they don't know why it is happening or they don't trust their expressions to come across the way they want to come across), living with constant threats or blackmail, living without the empathy of their parent, expected to please a parent who is shouting "that's not good enough!" when they try to please (because the parent labels you all bad no matter what you do because they can't get out of their own black and white thinking about people - even young children realize their parent is rigid, incapable of reasonableness, and unenlightened). But even when kids realize what is going on, it is terrifying when you are a child-hostage to this kind of parent. A lot of survivors go one of two ways:

1. stay quiet, try to fulfill dreams in their alone time, many are artistic, make plans way before they become full adults about what they will do with their lives, have constant fantasies about running away, are forced to be adults way too soon, and work really, really hard as they are aware that they may very well have to live without familial support. 

2. try to please, but then realize it isn't working (because the black and white thinking isn't changing). Then the child or teenager reacts: they rebel like crazy and do everything the parent does not like or want. They literally try to drive the parent crazy: "You don't like who I am? Well, now you're really not going to like who I am!" They stay out late at night, dress in ways which will make the parent embarrassed, talk about their parent in disparaging ways, they make off-hand remarks, they insult the parent right back, if the parent takes a swing at them, they take a swing right back (it becomes a mutually violent relationship). These are your "talk-back" kids. They try to make the parent feel as entrapped and miserable as the parent has been doing to the child. They lash out and expose the severe isolation and punishments (see above how psychological splitting contributes to abuse and severe punishing behaviors). The kid looks at the parent who has labeled them as all bad as the all bad parent, and the other parent, who, if they are not abusive, as the saint and all good parent. In other words, splitting in the adult sometimes causes splitting in the child. A non-empathetic view of the child creates a non-empathetic view of the parent. The parent is so all bad that they could care less if their parent lives or dies. They become hardened.

Sometimes there is a little of both going on, but usually one of these avenues is the predominant one, and most who are deemed to be all bad children by a parent choose avenue #1 simply because the second one is self-sabotaging (the parent is already sabotaging them, and if anything, they want to protect themselves from any more sabotage, and the best way to do that is to work hard).

And then there are domino effects:

Let's create a scenario that explains one way a splitting nightmare occurs (although there are many):

Let's say that it's the mother who sees her daughter as all bad. 

As the father is made aware that this is happening, and the abuse of the daughter is escalating and inevitable because of the labeling, he tries to protect the daughter. 

Narcissists are generally very childish, and also control freaks, and this narcissistic mother decides to retaliate against her husband for going against her views that the daughter is all bad. She stops cooking meals, she stops helping around the house, she stops the sex, she goes out shopping a lot with the money that he made, she basically "punishes him" (note that adult-to-adult punishments like this are labeled as "passive aggressive bullying" - typical of covert narcissists, malignant narcissists and high functioning sociopaths when they cannot extort certain viewpoints out of their mates). 

So, since she is not getting anywhere with her husband, she enlists their other child (let's say it is the big sister of the child the mother hates). Big sister agrees with the mother's views that her sister is all bad too, to stay in the mother's good graces, and hoping to be rewarded for it too. Eventually big sister is rewarded, so engages in psychological splitting in other ways: labeling, deriding, passive aggressive bullying, all in see-monkey-do fashion. Big sister becomes a narc, just like her mother. 

So the father tries to discipline big sister because he finds her doing unethical things to her younger sister. The mother tries to protect the big sister.

So then the family becomes "split":

Big sister and mother become one unit, and little sister and father become the other unit. 

The mother, meantime, escalates the punishments of her husband by having affairs. 

This creates more splitting in the family with mother, new husband and big sister all living in one house together, and little sister and father living in another house together.

The mother then tries to convince her new husband that her ex husband is all bad and that her youngest daughter is all bad too. Like any narc, she exaggerates or falsifies stories to look like a saint parent to her new husband. And the new husband goes along with the vision lock, stock and barrel - what does he have to lose in not going along with all of it? If he goes along with it, he shows her complete loyalty (which is what all narcs crave).

So everything "hums" along, except the youngest daughter and mother are becoming more and more estranged to the point where they rarely ever see each other. The youngest daughter is happy with the estrangement, remembering her childhood. 

For a narc parent, the problem of having an ex-spouse they are trying to vilify and make out as an all bad parent is that if the youngest child is so attached, praising him up and down, and telling their mutual friends about her mother's affair, their estrangement, how her father is the caring loving parent who is always there for her, it makes the mother feel insecure, and she's losing at the I am the great parent and my ex is the all bad parent, so tries to "win" the youngest daughter from her father by playing a "let's see who can give more" kind of game. 

The father is not too insecure about losing his youngest daughter's love over this, and he knows it is a game, but because the mother has smeared his good name so much, it makes him uneasy (like "What manipulation will she try next?"). In other words, to make her ex-husband look all bad to their mutual friends, she has to split father and youngest daughter. In order to do that, she now has to figure out way to find traits in her daughter that amount to all good so that she can finally vilify her ex-husband as all bad so that the mutual friends will take her side (so they are no longer split in their minds and indecisive). 

Big sister, in the meantime, wants to be loved by her father too, not just by her mother. But the mother resents big sister wanting to spend any time with the all bad ex

All of the sudden praise of the young sister makes big sister insecure, so big sister becomes disillusioned with the mother who has always given her a higher status over the little sister. Big sister becomes resentful, and goes to live with the father, thus creating another split. However, little sister isn't trusting of this big sudden change, especially as she has been seen as all bad and had to endure so much abuse from being looked at as all bad for most of her childhood.

Meanwhile the mother's sisters are all estranged from one daughter too (each of them). 

Dealing with the Narcissist's Smear Campaign (How not to get sucked in and wiped out and eventually recover) - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today

The Vindictive Narcissist -- by Joseph Burgo, PhD

Debunking the Narcissist’s Smear Campaign -- by Zari Ballard

Why Narcissistic People Lie, Smear Campaign, and Gossip About Victims -- from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys -- Oh My blog

Flying Monkeys Lie and Say Narcissistic Abuse Heals Over Time -- also from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys -- Oh My blog

Smear Campaign survival strategies recommended by and for Abuse Survivors -- also from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys -- Oh My blog

Smear Campaign: Is a Narcissist Trying to Ruin Your Rep? -- by Angela Atkinson for the Queen Being website

The Smear Campaign - View it as a Badge of Honor -- by "My Emotional Vampire" (facebook)

Narcissism and Parental Alienation Syndrome -- by Sharie Stines, Psyd

This part will be brief as another post is in the works as to how abuse effects the whole family, and why it is such a multi-generational scourge. 

Psychological splitting "is not healthy for children and other living things." - the quote actually comes from a poster (artwork) that was circulating in the 1960s about the Vietnam War that said "War is not healthy for children and other living things." 

Many psychologists have said that domestic abuse is "war at home" and has the same psychological effects, physical effects, and emotional effects as war.  

For the child who is deemed all bad: the effects are feelings of anger at the injustice at being labeled that way (and many children catch on that their abusers like provoking injustice in their victims), feelings of hopelessness, depression, low self esteem (especially if they don't know why it is happening or they don't trust their expressions to come across the way they want to come across), living with constant threats or blackmail, living without the empathy of their parent, expected to please a parent who is shouting "that's not good enough!" when they try to please (because the parent labels you all bad no matter what you do because they can't get out of their own black and white thinking about people - even young children realize their parent is rigid, incapable of reasonableness, and unenlightened). But even when kids realize what is going on, it is terrifying when you are a child-hostage to this kind of parent. A lot of survivors go one of two ways:

1. stay quiet, try to fulfill dreams in their alone time, many are artistic, make plans way before they become full adults about what they will do with their lives, have constant fantasies about running away, are forced to be adults way too soon, and work really, really hard as they are aware that they may very well have to live without familial support. 

2. try to please, but then realize it isn't working (because the black and white thinking isn't changing). Then the child or teenager reacts: they rebel like crazy and do everything the parent does not like or want. They literally try to drive the parent crazy: "You don't like who I am? Well, now you're really not going to like who I am!" They stay out late at night, dress in ways which will make the parent embarrassed, talk about their parent in disparaging ways, they make off-hand remarks, they insult the parent right back, if the parent takes a swing at them, they take a swing right back (it becomes a mutually violent relationship). These are your "talk-back" kids. They try to make the parent feel as entrapped and miserable as the parent has been doing to the child. They lash out and expose the severe isolation and punishments (see above how psychological splitting contributes to abuse and severe punishing behaviors). The kid looks at the parent who has labeled them as all bad as the all bad parent, and the other parent, who, if they are not abusive, as the saint and all good parent. In other words, splitting in the adult sometimes causes splitting in the child. A non-empathetic view of the child creates a non-empathetic view of the parent. The parent is so all bad that they could care less if their parent lives or dies. They become hardened.

Sometimes there is a little of both going on, but usually one of these avenues is the predominant one, and most who are deemed to be all bad children by a parent choose avenue #1 simply because the second one is self-sabotaging (the parent is already sabotaging them, and if anything, they want to protect themselves from any more sabotage, and the best way to do that is to work hard).

And then there are domino effects:

Let's create a scenario that explains one way a splitting nightmare occurs (although there are many):

Let's say that it's the mother who sees her daughter as all bad. 

As the father is made aware that this is happening, and the abuse of the daughter is escalating and inevitable because of the labeling, he tries to protect the daughter. 

Narcissists are generally very childish, and also control freaks, and this narcissistic mother decides to retaliate against her husband for going against her views that the daughter is all bad. She stops cooking meals, she stops helping around the house, she stops the sex, she goes out shopping a lot with the money that he made, she basically "punishes him" (note that adult-to-adult punishments like this are labeled as "passive aggressive bullying" - typical of covert narcissists, malignant narcissists and high functioning sociopaths when they cannot extort certain viewpoints out of their mates). 

So, since she is not getting anywhere with her husband, she enlists their other child (let's say it is the big sister of the child the mother hates). Big sister agrees with the mother's views that her sister is all bad too, to stay in the mother's good graces, and hoping to be rewarded for it too. Eventually big sister is rewarded, so engages in psychological splitting in other ways: labeling, deriding, passive aggressive bullying, all in see-monkey-do fashion. Big sister becomes a narc, just like her mother. 

So the father tries to discipline big sister because he finds her doing unethical things to her younger sister. The mother tries to protect the big sister.

So then the family becomes "split":

Big sister and mother become one unit, and little sister and father become the other unit. 

The mother, meantime, escalates the punishments of her husband by having affairs. 

This creates more splitting in the family with mother, new husband and big sister all living in one house together, and little sister and father living in another house together.

The mother then tries to convince her new husband that her ex husband is all bad and that her youngest daughter is all bad too. Like any narc, she exaggerates or falsifies stories to look like a saint parent to her new husband. And the new husband goes along with the vision lock, stock and barrel - what does he have to lose in not going along with all of it? If he goes along with it, he shows her complete loyalty (which is what all narcs crave).

So everything "hums" along, except the youngest daughter and mother are becoming more and more estranged to the point where they rarely ever see each other. The youngest daughter is happy with the estrangement, remembering her childhood. 

For a narc parent, the problem of having an ex-spouse they are trying to vilify and make out as an all bad parent is that if the youngest child is so attached, praising him up and down, and telling their mutual friends about her mother's affair, their estrangement, how her father is the caring loving parent who is always there for her, it makes the mother feel insecure, and she's losing at the I am the great parent and my ex is the all bad parent, so tries to "win" the youngest daughter from her father by playing a "let's see who can give more" kind of game. 

The father is not too insecure about losing his youngest daughter's love over this, and he knows it is a game, but because the mother has smeared his good name so much, it makes him uneasy (like "What manipulation will she try next?"). In other words, to make her ex-husband look all bad to their mutual friends, she has to split father and youngest daughter. In order to do that, she now has to figure out way to find traits in her daughter that amount to all good so that she can finally vilify her ex-husband as all bad so that the mutual friends will take her side (so they are no longer split in their minds and indecisive). 

Big sister, in the meantime, wants to be loved by her father too, not just by her mother. But the mother resents big sister wanting to spend any time with the all bad ex

All of the sudden praise of the young sister makes big sister insecure, so big sister becomes disillusioned with the mother who has always given her a higher status over the little sister. Big sister becomes resentful, and goes to live with the father, thus creating another split. However, little sister isn't trusting of this big sudden change, especially as she has been seen as all bad and had to endure so much abuse from being looked at as all bad for most of her childhood.

Meanwhile the mother's sisters are all estranged from one daughter too (each of them). 

From Sacha Slone on how the smear campaign happens
(in her own words):
"Narcissists and Sociopaths pump targets for information, store it, and file it away in their brain to use against the target one day. The only solution is to NOT share personal information with people you don't know or trust 100%":

From someone who has been through a smear campaign
by Tom ("Narcissism Survivor")

found on Twitter:

from sun-gazing.com