So far I’ve written and spoken about interpersonal narcissism and how to avoid replaying the same tangled mess with those who want ultimate control over you, and how to successfully respond to their attempts to overpower you. In writing about the strategies of disentanglement, I have steered away from describing the need for and actions toward retribution and justice against those who have done you or I wrong…until now. Here’s my story:
I had a knowledge vampire situation with a collaborator who was also a friend. Knowing this person well, I knew I couldn’t accuse them or even suggest that they extracted my knowledge over a period of time and presented it back to me as if it was theirs all along, because if you’ve read my previous pieces, you would know that you can’t be honest with someone who is invested in their own agenda. If you try it, I can guarantee they will DARVO you and use additional accountability averse behaviour. Rather than expose them and become perceived as the threat and the cause of conflict, I chose the gradual gray rock method to slowly withdraw my intellectual, emotional and attention supply to assist my exit from the collaboration and the friendship without them noticing.
They were so engrossed in their new networks using extracted knowledge to groom and recruit new connections and collaborators, and continue to extract unique knowledge from within this network for their own agenda, that they also paid less attention to me, which was my aim. It was all going smoothly until they accused me of doing to them what had been done to me. My invitation to discuss this further was ignored and communication between us ended.
I was off the hook, right?
Nope.
I had a lot of feelings about what had happened.
Relief that I exited what had turned out to be a toxic relationship that required my submission to the needs and demands of the other.
Pissed off about being knowledge vamped and discarded by someone I trusted then accused of wrongdoing.
Anxious about the person’s next moves and anticipating the worst
Yearning for mutuals and those with social capital to hear my side of the story
Curiosity about how each of us contributed to this situation
Threatened because I suspected they were likely to seek revenge
Psychological warfare began. First up was my character assassination. Mutuals made accusations about my wrongdoing without hearing my side. Lies about me and wrongdoing infiltrated a network of people who didn’t know me. Threats about involving lawyers came my way. Though there was no remaining sign of a relationship, the trauma bond between us was a connection that enabled negativity to flow.
There are a number of symptoms that show up during the attack on the accuser’s morale and psyche that many can experience during a relationship conflict.
Symptoms of psychic and emotional attack
feeling hypervigilant on social media and in public settings
frequent, invasive & paranoid thoughts about the person and their flying monkeys
awareness of their presence and a sense of being haunted
sudden overwhelming fatigue and inability to keep one’s eyes open
brain fog, slowed information recall and loss of words
feeling threatened without a known source or stimulus
fantasy confrontational conversations
nightmares about being harmed or loved ones being harmed
doubt about one’s own experience and whether they’re the real perpetrator
feeling powerless and frustrated about the injustice and other’s allegiance to the accuser
Despite my solid reputation and strong connections in my professional and personal life, it seemed as if they were dictating my response rather than me taking charge of my own experience. I thirsted for something more than self-defence. Revenge made sense because it could subdue and intimidate them enough into inaction.
I wanted revenge and I had a plan.
Except there was one problem with my plan.
Revenge is incongruent with my principles.
Revenge (noun): the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. To avenge (oneself or another) usually by retaliating so the one who caused suffering is made to suffer.
Revenge is tricky because I believe it’s harmful – to the avenger/attacker and their target. Anyone who intends to wound, hurt, punish someone they believe has wronged them is someone who intends to do harm, which causes trauma. Causing harm to another, that didn’t involve a life/death situation, can be a moral violation even if the person can justify their actions in the moment. This person can’t see that there are repercussions to transgressing their morals until their conscience nags at them relentlessly. That is, unless they’re completely dehumanized and lack empathy, a feature of dark tetrad personality traits.
If you’re into going down rabbit holes, this Psych2Go video describes pathological narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism and sadism, collectively known as the dark tetrad.
Intentional harm, rather than harm as an unintended consequence of one’s actions, is a feature of dark tetrad behaviours, and vengeance provides the fuel.
While I’m against revenge as a course of action, feeling vengeful isn’t wrong, bad or even unhealthy. Vengeance is an emotion that signals a desire for justice. I also know that I can inflict harm on another when my thoughts and prayers are fuelled by vengeance, envy or moral superiority. While I might have believed at one time that this was the way to restore justice, in the name of justice, I was also harming myself. I came to the conclusion that actioning this emotion to feel vindicated cannot justify the potential harm to all involved.
And yet, the revenge persisted.
The slippery slope toward revenge
Here’s my dissection of the complex feelings associated with vengeance, drawing on my own past experiences from childhood to the present. Usually something happens, like a betrayal of trust, that makes what seemed like a good relationship start to look and feel like a toxic relationship. Once you see the toxicity that you can’t unsee, you will need to emotionally disconnect for self-protection and plan to exit the relationship. Eventually the death of the dissatisfying relationship happens, and even when it’s welcomed, this loss is experienced as grief. The grief, alongside a sense of feeling discarded, abandoned or deceived can evoke shame. Shame is often accompanied by feeling inadequate, inferior and powerless, which can be painful, and compel you to do anything to no longer feel totally worthless. Vengeance provides the solution to overriding all the painful feelings because it holds the possibility of alleviating the pain caused by these complex emotions with the fantasy of justice.
Revenge is when you act out your fantasy to create your ideal and alternative reality where your powerful, superior and intimidating self-perception is restored. The potential for reward (justice) held in the fantasy, and the pain held in feeling victimized can provide enough justification for seeking revenge, or payback, without the nuisance of self-examination to discover how you contributed to the conflict.
I also understand this rationale. No one likes to feel like they’re inferior, powerless or insignificant. Especially someone who has compromised or diminished empathy preventing them from critically reflecting on their perceptions, their role in the conflict and the possibility they might be the wrongdoer, not the wronged.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
-Klingon proverb
Anyone can be overcome by the desire to want the other person to hurt the way they’ve been hurt…and worse. It’s the desire to be seen by the one(s) who they perceive wounded them that drive them to force the target to see and experience their pain. This is what will go down:
The actions will first involve confrontation to accuse the target of their offence. “You hurt me.”
If the avenger isn’t satisfied with the outcome and feels that equilibrium hasn’t been restored, they will try to recruit others with greater influence to confront the target with the same accusation of wrongdoing in hope of having others 1) witness their hurt and be seen 2) coerce the target to admit to wrongdoing so they can be properly punished by the accuser in a manner that satisfies the them, that is often humiliating for the accused. “She hurt me and I want you to all to see how hurt I am so you will want to tell others how much she hurt me so she can’t hurt me and others again.”
If that attempt fails, the recruitment continues and a smear campaign begins to tarnish the reputation of the accused. The attempts continue to escalate with increasing intensity with the aim to now alter the reputation of the accused to align with the accuser’s preferred narrative about them (character assassination) and destroy their identity as if to erase them from existence. This is the original punishment with an additional penalty for choosing not to submit to the accuser at the initial confrontation. “I can distort or falsify the story of what she did because she hurt me and I’m doing this to protect others from her so she can’t hurt me or others again AND she won’t advance in her life because of what she did.”
If the smear campaign is successful, it can lead to doxxing, life threats, mobbing, personal and professional shunning, reputation destruction, financial ruin and psychological trauma.
As Katherine Brodsky said, cancelling someone is a low cost endeavour and attempts to take down the accused costs the accuser nothing. The accuser could say whatever they want to action their own revenge fantasy at no cost to them within a shared social network.
If everything that’s been described so far (and below) sounds a lot like bullying, that’s because it is. Being the accused is the same as being a bully’s target.
Resisting the temptation to fight like the accuser
It’s tempting to want to retaliate when you’ve been accused of wrongdoing by the actual wrongdoer, and you haven’t given in to their demands for justice.
It’s normal to feel like you want to take them down and neutralize them so that the assaults stop. It’s easy to let the feeling of vengeance convince you that doing to them what they’re doing to you, or worse, will eventually make you win. But if you’ve already been on the receiving end of an accusation after being in a relationship with that person, they already have fight power fuelled by their narcissistic rage, entitlement and desire for your attention. They were already dominating the relationship when you managed to get out.
The relationship has taken another form in which the accuser no longer has to play by rules, values and expectations that governed the now defunct relationship. They get to break all rules, including past confidentiality, respect and negotiation, even if you wouldn’t do the same.
As they’ve been dominating, or if you’ve been bullied, you’re already wounded or injured, and therefore not at your strongest position. You will need time and space to recover and self-protect rather than fight.
Defending yourself or engaging in a battle requires energy.
If you’ve experienced trauma from being bullied, smeared and targeted by one or many, you will need enough energy, resources and protection to sustain a war. If you don’t have all of these, you will need to consider how you can regain and build your strength, resources and protection for a future battle.
The accuser can’t see, empathise with or consider the impact of their actions on the other person. They want to fight until they win. You as the victim of their actions are now drawn into a battle that they decided needed to happen. You are not in control until you take the reins to defend yourself strategically, remaining a few steps ahead of your accuser.
Before I round off this piece with a TO DO and AVOID list about navigating revenge, I’ve compiled some rules to guide how to proceed when defending against revenge.
Guide for thwarting revenge
Revenge does not rebalance the scales of justice. Justice is not possible with someone invested in harming you by attacking your reputation, your network of alliances including your family, your economic state, your psyche, your property and/or your shared spaces. Crush any fantasy that the accuser is capable of having a change of heart.
You cannot forcefully take anyone down without bringing more heat on yourself.
You cannot use the tactics used against on you on them. This will only result in prolonging the entanglement with that person rather than enabling you to gain distance from them and harmful situations.
They are obsessed with taking you down and won’t relent until they’re stopped by a force more powerful and influential than you or they eliminate you from their existence.
They underestimate you in every way because they’re occupied by feeling superior and preserving this illusion. This is an advantage for you because they won’t anticipate any of your strategies in response to their continuous attacks.
They will continue to find creative ways to bait you into a confrontation because they believe you think like they do and will therefore do what they expect you to do.
Remind yourself that you’re not the wielder of justice. Justice is not in your hands because a destructive person is self-destructive. Your focus is to increase distance between yourself and the accuser so they have more space to expose themselves to enough people that they will hasten their own downfall.
How to navigate your accuser’s revenge tactics
Assuming your enemy’s actions don’t qualify as criminal behaviour and that there isn’t enough evidence of wrongdoing to use legal protection, you will need to be strategic about how you respond to their attempts to threaten, intimidate and take you down. What I’m describing here is for when your life is NOT under threat.
Given that the perpetrator of wrongdoing craves the reward that vengeance promises, your goal is to prevent further injury to your physical, social, psychological, reputation and economic wellbeing.
What do I know from experience about revenge? Call it karma or retribution, they will reap what they sowed as long as you do the opposite of what your enemy does and expects you to do in response to their attacks.
They want to hurt you so you feel their pain. Therefore don’t inflict harm or strive to make them suffer.
They will have you under surveillance. Therefore, maintain existing public and social presence without disruption to your routine. Shut down your access to viewing anything about them directly and through other connections.
They will send their flying monkeys after you to investigate. Therefore restrict or remove their access to you by blocking, unfollowing and ignoring online.
They will attack by spreading lies about you through their accomplices (flying monkeys) to recruit allies. Therefore, strengthen your web of support who witness their toxicity. Ask them to be neutral allies who don’t need to defend your honour, spread gossip or counterattack.
They will do things to grab your attention directly or through others. Therefore act as if they are insignificant and there is no conflict. Resist wondering about them and their activities or nostalgia about the past.
Subsequent attacks on your reputation and morale will get you down.Therefore reframe your angst as a nudge pushing you to clarify your own personal/professional goals in order to create something new from the challenge.
They want you to be miserable and fail. Therefore focus your energy on healing, strengthening beneficial connections, achieving your goals and living your best life.
They will continue to obsess over you as you achieve your goals and appear unaffected by their attacks, fuelling frustration, jealousy and sloppy revenge practices. Therefore, continue to focus on kicking more goals in your life and notice the increasing number of witnesses in your social network who have been exposed to and report of their toxicity.
They will continue until you are replaced with a new target. Therefore, repeat all strategies to increase the emotional distance from the original toxic situation.
Despite ongoing attempts to take you down, they will get bored, disengage or self-destruct without any intervention on your part. They might have experienced the consequences of their harmful actions by their own hand or found a new target to feed the drama/reward addiction. Therefore, you get to take stock of everything you learned, created and developed in yourself and with others as a result of this challenging situation, with a clear conscience.
“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults.”
-Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather
None of these self-defence moves will give you that fleeting rush of energy that successful execution of a revenge plan does, that can eventually turn you into a sadist when the taste of power feels so damned good.
You will need a LOT of self-restraint and trusted supports to debrief with frequently especially when the accuser turns up the heat by interacting with connections in your social network or in your shared professional spaces. Your trusted and stable connections, and faith in yourself will give you strength (and patience) needed to gracefully respond to every attack and thwart future attacks.
The greatest revenge is living your best life.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end, sharing this labour of love, supporting my work and subscribing,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker
Wow! What a comprehensive piece. This is such great advice for anyone in this hellish situation. I just want to say to any reader who is going through this, that often when in the middle of these situations, we struggle to believe the 'theory' we read. However, reviewing this through the lens of my own work related nightmare, this works. Don't seek revenge, do carry on being yourself, integrity intact, don't be afraid and do the opposite of what your persecutors think you will do. Eventually it's all over and we have to live with who we are and what we do. Don't stoop to their base level. You know you're better than they are - thats why they came after you. So hold on to that.
I live this every day, several times in the evening and a lot on the weekends. I wish I could have read this years ago, instead of having to live it to learn it. When you are their focus, sorry for you. Whenever they open their mouths, they are baiting you. If you are not careful with your reply, it is the end of you, life, family, career, friends, they will all hear the most horrific things about you, things you would never do, so convincing they are, even the police believe them. It does not help to deny anything, because they have more proof to pin on you. They are basically perfect at displaying your faults (and also imaginary faults of yours) to everyone, until you are laid bare for the world to see, and you have to gather yourself and your soul, piece yourself together, step up, and live your best life. If the whole world knows your faults intimately, then you have nothing to be ashamed of, either everyone still likes you or they don't. I am mostly free, as I live knowing what I say and do is bait to her, I try my hardest not to give her something to grab hold of, so avoiding baiting questions, has helped a lot, also learning her triggers which change according to the weather has helped. Revenge does not work, only silence and grey rock. They are masters of revenge, and we are not wired that way, which is why it hurts so much. They feel nothing, your emotions mean nothing to them, your tears mean nothing, basically if you have nothing to offer, you mean nothing to them. Also having the support of someone does help you with the strength to live your best life, my support is my two daughters, the three of us are so strong together, as we have suffered horribly together until we put ourselves together to be stronger, still scared and wary, but stronger. Your articles are so correct, it is amazing for me to read it as I live it, thank you.