Block the Kick
Originally posted in November of 2006
From: barbarany_9 (Original Message) Sent: 11/7/2006 6:24 AM Another fantabulous contribution from Kathy Krajco!
Written by Kathy Krajko
When a narcissist is playing Block the Kick to destroy the credibility of someone she has targeted for serious abuse or some other serious offense against, she conducts a vicious campaign of character assassination in advance. She spreads slander and calumny about that person far and wide. Vandalizing someone's image is a kind of voodoo that works like magic to destroy people. When you destroy someone's image, their good name, you ruin a life. In fact, you take a life. For, that person's real life goes up in smoke. You replace it with a work of art.
And just as myth says in the symbolic form of voodoo, it causes that person unbearable pain.
When a narcissist is the character assassin, there's no excuse for people believing the lies. That's because narcissists pull an identity switch with the person they slander. They project their flaws off onto the shiny spots in the target's character. In fact, it's amazing how consistently they manage to do this and how carefully they word their accusations to do so. So, the accusations are always ironic, considering both the target and the source. People who know both the narcissist and the person she's smearing need only pause and think, "Could this be true?" and review that person's past conduct to see if it squares with such an allegation. If you do this, you'll always see that the accused is virtuous in that department and that the accusation rather fits the accuser herself. So, nobody should ever be fooled. People are fooled only because they're eager to swallow the Forbidden Fruit.
So, for example, if you believe a smear about someone being a liar, he wasted many years proving to you by his conduct that he is honest. You had to suddenly unknow all those years of facts testifying to his honesty in order to believe that he's a liar. Where did all those years of his past life go? Up in smoke. Because the Forbidden Fruit looked good to eat. The victim might as well have been as bad as the assassin made him out to be, for the truth doesn't matter. He must think, "Why did I live a good life and build a good reputation if some liar can come along and destroy it all in a day? What good is it to be good and do good when everybody unknows the past twenty years overnight to believe a fiction about you instead?" Why didn't he just be as bad as he wanted and then go steal somebody else's good name like the narcissist stole his? His fate is intolerable because the one who stole his reputation is also the one this bad reputation belongs to: that just cannot be accepted.
Only a fool plays by the rules in a game fixed for cheaters to win. Telling him that God will straighten it all out after he dies won't get you anywhere, because he will condemn God for not enforcing his rules like any president, teacher, parent, court, or police officer should enforce the rules. He will cite the adage Justice delayed is justice denied. He will be as skeptical of promises about justice in an afterlife as he is about great deals on property in Florida, sight unseen. This is where cynics come from.
Character assassination destroys careers, marriages, and relationships, isolating the victim "to the desert" of humankind. Except for the fortunate who have independent means, it's usually a trip down Skid Row, with one ramification after another barring every way out and relentlessly crushing and hammering the victim into guess what? Exactly what their assassin says they are. This is where rag pickers and bag ladies and suicides come from. The victim will ask why he bothered to be a good person when what a person is isn't up to him when it's up to whatever others choose to make of him.
There is no worse thing you can do to a person. It would be less cruel to kill him with a gun. This is the fate worse than death and everyone's deepest, darkest fear.
Character assassination is virtually allowed under our justice system. It needn't be though, because the worst offenders, malignant narcissists, will establish a pattern of destroying people. Patterns don't lie. Patterns prove malice of intent. A person with 20 trashed careers in his or wake obviously belongs in jail. Patterns permit class action. Patterns are quite prosecutable if you write sensible laws and enforce them.
A large share of a narcissist's character assassination occurs in the workplace.
Especially in tax-exempt institutions. This is because narcissists can get away with murder in them. In fact, narcissists are often hired by them.
For, tax-exempt institutions are allowed to deny employees due process on the record. These institutions obstruct justice by abusing their "privacy" to keep secret the documents and evidence, even from the employee they are about, refusing to surrender them to the courts. Take the Catholic Church for example. To get the documents about any such secret doings in its administration of its schools and hospitals, you need a La Salle lawyer that you can afford to pay for fighting through ten years of the usual stonewalling stonewalling so willful that state governments and even the federal government dread going up against it. This secret discussion of that employee, his life, his performance, his character, and his job are HIS business, and the arrogant Church has no right to treat it as though it isn't. The same holds true for all private institutions. There's no reason to hide that information unless you're getting away with soliciting and exploiting slander that affects the status of employment to dummy up and pocket accomplices in illegal actions so you can get away with a purge to restaff with new employees at the bottom of the pay scale every few years. This is done to deny the target their human right to a defense. It's nothing but lynching. The right to justice is inherent in every right enumerated in the Constitution, and no institution has the right to deny this right to any American citizen. No matter how holy or charitable its trappings. If we did that today, these institutions would clean up their act and stop hiring bully administrators as hatchet men/women to exploit the work force.
http://www.operationdoubles.com/narc
From: CZBZ Sent: 11/7/2006 10:14 AM "People who know both the narcissist and the person she's smearing need only pause and think, "Could this be true?" and review that person's past conduct to see if it squares with such an allegation. If you do this, you'll always see that the accused is virtuous in that department and that the accusation rather fits the accuser herself. So, nobody should ever be fooled. People are fooled only because they're eager to swallow the Forbidden Fruit." ~Kathy Krajko I'm figuring every person here has been through a 'smear campaign' not only by a N-partNer, but also by people we never suspected to be the Smearer. Most likely, they're chumming up with us behind the scenes, if you know what I mean. As we've been talking about on WoN, there are degrees of gossip that might be considered useful for group cohesion and united goals. But the Smear Campaign is an escalation of intentional destruction stemming from something deep inside the 'projector'...such as Envy perhaps. The intention is not 'connection/cohesion'; it is disconnection.
For those of us who have faced the campaign and kept our heads up, it's more painful than most people can imagine. Why? Is it painful because we care about what the SMEARER has to say? No. Not really. But because we care about what other people choose to believe. I've even said to people 'Now why on earth would you believe something like that about me?' I am sure most of you have said the same thing to your friends at some point in your life. Especially if you're female.
For the most part, the Narcissist presents such an air of authority about him or herself, that people who doubt themselves AT ALL will take his or her word for it! I think it's especially easy to get away with tactics like this if a narcissist is dealing with vulnerable people; which of course, includes spiritual organizations. We go to church to eradicate layers of ego in order to have a direct relationship with God. How simple it would be to start a smear campaign and destroy a target if a narcissist wears an unquestioned mantle of authority.
This is true for ALL human organizations. Remember
Martha Stout's 13 Rules and always question authority. Most of us learn this the hard way though. Ouch!
Love,
CZ
From: UnlimitedHoneybear Sent: 11/7/2006 5:06 PM Ouch.
You know, over the years of our marriage, I watched husbaNd do smear campaigns on several people he worked with in the church. Good wife that I was, I simply took his word for what happened. I am embarrassed and disgusted with myself in retrospect that I believed some of the things he told me. I know now that in several cases, these were good, moral, upright people who somehow had knowledge of what my ex was doing preying on women in the church, and he started a smear campaign I am SURE in hopes that they would be fired.
In one case, there was a very nice, beautiful younger woman in our last church. There was some kind of huge blowup with my h that I never totally understood, but at the time (and this was before my D & D), I just believed that she was some kind of psycho with "issues". I have since been in contact with her and found out that he was inappropriate with her, she called him on it, and like so many others she was on his shiite list. She and her family eventually left the church because she told me that even when she went to several people in authority, they refused to believe her or do anything about my h.
This was NOT an isolated incident. I personally was treated to a diatribe time and time again about people who "were out to get him". Hindisight affords us a whole different view, doesn't it? I would like to go back and talk to these people, get the truth, and apologize for MY part in their public destruction, even if I did not know the whole truth at the time.
I mean, what wife would NOT choose to just accept what her huslband says about someone if you trust them, love them, and believe they are dealing honestly with us?
Honey
From: barbarany_9 Sent: 11/7/2006 7:10 PM "What wife would NOT choose to just accept what her husband says about someone if you trust them, love them, and believe they are dealing honestly with us?"
Exactly. These predators are experts at making us (and everyone else) believe we are in a trusting, private, loving relationship. That's part of the mental & emotional rape, isn't it though?
I will never understand people like N2's wife though. She is still with him after hard proof and the police told her he was soliciting prostitutes, using the internet to prey on vulnerable women, using thousands of dollars to do all this (wife's a CPA for gosh sake) and yet she is still there, still believing him? And btw, he just re-started his smear campaign... like he does every few months when he hits that brick wall of reality and finds out I am not going away or changing my story.
Barbara
http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com
From: UnlimitedHoneybear Sent: 11/8/2006 3:27 AM Barbara,
There was a time in my marriage when I just don't think I had the ENERGY to believe any more crap about my husband. When the snowball started down the mountain and things started coming to light, I went into some kind of fugue state. I got up, went to work, turned into myself like a rolled up sock, and just could not deal with anything else.
I had my proof, too, through emails to one woman and even walking in on my h with another and yet I STILL didn't "get it". Over the years we are conditioned to believe them. We hold fast to the illusion that these are Good Men because they work very, very hard to make sure we are still invested in that illusion. I was lied to, manipulated, had my own honesty and intuition questioned and ridiculed......he did a real job on me over 30 years. I was so absolutely convinced that The Mask was the maN and so afraid of emotional and physical abandonment, that I just couldn't accept even what my own eyes were telling me.
It is so easy for others to look at these kinds of situations and say, "Why the he!! does she stay with him???" . I had the same questions from my own family who were absolutely appalled that I didn't kick him out to the curb the moment I walked in on him and OW. But they also don't know the emotional abuse that brings us - even strong, wise and stable women like us - to the point where we can experience something like that and then actually STAY.
Also, I realize now the strength it took for me to walk away. I don't know where it came from but I give God the credit because it sure didn't come from the pathetic, needy, beaten-down woman who existed at that time.
I don't think my ex has started any overt smear campaign, but I know that he tells people that "Honey had some kind of mid-life crisis and left me and I couldn't do a thing about it". That is his line and he is sticking to it. I am sure that is the line he fed his new young wife to snare her, and I am sure she will accept it until she gets slapped upside the head with who he Really Is. I feel sorry for her on one hand, but on the other hand she could have checked him out and found out about what happened very, very easily. I know that before I became so involved with my fiance I made sure to check HIM out. Googled, checked out everything he told me about himself, met his colleagues, spent time with his friends.
To my knowledge, my ex chose a woman exactly like I would have expected him to choose. Someone who thinks she got the brass ring, who was "too nice" to check him out, who just has accepted his line of b.s. So good luck to her.
Honey
From: barbarany_9 Sent: 11/8/2006 6:07 AM "Over the years we are conditioned to believe them. We hold fast to the illusion that these are Good Men because they work very, very hard to make sure we are still invested in that illusion."
Well said. I have come to the same conclusion about N2's wife. She must be in willful denial because she's so invested. Maybe she likes the status, maybe she can't NOT be married. I know having the police at her door with hard evidence of his illegal activities could not have done her much good - but she did help him file false charges against me.
I am still glad I did what I did. She has the facts, maybe over time she will look a little more closely at him. I know he's been on a short leash for 3 years now and he's lately doing things to show he wants to get off that leash. Bottom line - he's her problem and if she chooses to look the other way, I feel sorry for her. Maybe when she gets an STD she'll get a clue.
Barbara
http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com
From: CZBZ Sent: 11/8/2006 2:36 PM "I am embarrassed and disgusted with myself in retrospect that I believed some of the things he told me... I would like to go back and talk to these people, get the truth, and apologize for MY part in their public destruction, even if I did not know the whole truth at the time." ~Honey
See, dear friend? This is exactly why I love you so! Being honest about the foolish things we've done is never an easy thing to do and in the beginning of our healing, it's probably not recommended. Once we are out of the projecting-relatioNship and away from a blaming and sNeaky partNer, we can think clearly about the mistakes we've made...and even some of the things we regret. Like what you just said. Examining 'why' we'd want to think the rumors were true is a good question to ask ourselves if we want to spot a personal issue we can work on.
"Over the years we are conditioned to believe them. We hold fast to the illusion that these are Good Men because they work very, very hard to make sure we are still invested in that illusion"
You and I were married to meN most people would never suspect of infidelity, nor sexual harassment. I believed his snort-and-bull stories because I had no reason not to. He didn't ogle women in public, was never inappropriate with women in my family or our daughter, he appeared to be a feminist-at-heart. ROFLMAO So whether I was in denial and couldn't see the truth or not, who's to say? When I did see the rat-bazturd riding his bike with his soulmate, I didn't turn a blind eye you can be sure of it.
Anyway---what I can introspect about is 'why' I might want to believe rumors about other people. What's in it for me? What don't I want to know about myself? It's a good question to ponder maybe. sometimes I don't like the answers...but I never pause to say Grace for the fact that I can introspect and tolerate some rather ugly truths without projecting all over other people.
Love,
CZ
From:CZBZ Sent: 11/8/2006 2:49 PM "And btw, he just re-started his smear campaign... like he does every few months when he hits that brick wall of reality and finds out I am not going away or changing my story"~B
I am soooo sorry to read this, Barbara of the
http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com . The X does not bother with a smear campaign in my case but it helps that our kids are adults and I moved to another state. He doesn't demean me to our kids, nor does he try to replace me with the Better Mother he found for them. LOL
I can only imagine what it must be like for those of you with younger children. My kids can stop him in his tracks with one hand up and a stern look on their faces: "We will NOT talk about Mom!" But what does a child do? It's horrible really.
I took it really hard when people who knew me believed my X when he said I was unwilling to work (the fact that HE walked out on a super-duper job seemed to escape their attention). I can carpenter with the best of 'em and have managed my own gardens and homes for thirty years. It was such a low blow for him to tell people that; but even worse that they'd believe him.
Finally, it was too painful to keep feeling bad for what other people chose to think about me and voila! I learned how to detach from their perceptions, too. I'm not sure how it happened exactly but all of a sudden, the triggers were just GONE. When a friend told me my x said I was 'unwilling to work', I just looked at her and asked why she'd want to believe that. hahaha It just hit me that we 'choose' to believe things we cannot prove.
This insight made a very good friend-filter. ROFL
Love,
CZ
From: barbarany_9 Sent: 11/8/2006 4:15 PM CZ - N2 tried to get some more of his AWFUL political type articles published. One publisher bit - this means he was looking for more vulnerable women to write him, tell him they liked his word, so he could lather them up - start an affair and dump them; knowing there was NOTHING they could do about it.
I took all his hooker reviews, his online ads, his threats to me, his little homemade porn to the police and they listened to me. Investigated and some various people are now behind bars. But not him - somehow, he was able to go to his county police and file false stalking charges and pay a lawyer to write me a supposed cease & desist (which I NEVER recieved - I used to paralegal and there was no letter, no return receipt, nothing!!) and show the police in his county that I supposedly VIOLATED the C&D by sending all his sleeze to his wife. (I knew this guy since I was 18 years old! so this was not a new relationship at all)
He & wife have money so everything got dropped. I think he keeps hoping its going away but when his latest article got published - I knew he was trying to get back to his net trolling and one of the other women sent this publisher all his sleeze and he exploded -
If you want to see what he did to his website - write me off list - I don't want to publish the URL here. Basically its designed to accuse me or anyone else of malicious gossip! LOL. Stuff he did to himself of course.
barbarany
From: UnlimitedHoneybear Sent: 11/8/2006 4:40 PM Isn't it ASTOUNDING how these idiots get away with this crap?
My h preyed on and bedded vulnerable younger women in the church using his role as "mentor" and church musician to seduce them. The last "shtick" with his children's choir director (married and 3 children, now divorced) was in a fairly small community. I KNOW that the gossip had to be flying fast and furious once I walked out on him, but you know what? He is doing a "choir festival" next year with the huge Baptist church there. This Baptist choir director is a good man. I know him and his wife well, and WHY he consented to be a part of my ex's "stuff" is beyond my imagination.
this is one of the major reasons I have written off the institutional church. It is FULL of (mostly) men who circle the wagons when one of them finally gets caught LITERALLY with his pants down. They "forgive" him and life goes on, usually with the new woman and family while the dumped wife and children is struggling, angry, spiritually aghast, and left floundering and wondering what happened to all those CHRISTIAN MORALS that have been so publicly touted.
don't you just WISH you could figure out a way to make it all blow up in their faces???? LOL
Honey
From: barbarany_9 Sent: 11/8/2006 7:36 PM I think some of it did blow up in his face 3 years ago. I know he SUPPOSEDLY can't email or IM with anyone but "family" now and is on a short marital leash.
However, don't you just KNOW like all Ns he's pulling the "don't you trust me yet" or "I have learned my lesson." Yeah, and he learned it so much he doesn't have the cahjones to say he's sorry to the people he's REALLY hurt. Just the ones he has to live with. So of course, he's trying to start up all over again.
Not on my watch. Sorry.
BarbaraNY
http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com 
Total Members: 
