The smear campaign has been called the trademark of the sociopath, but it is not only sociopaths who exhibit this extraordinarily malicious behavior. Although the author links the distortion campaign to BPD, borderline personality disorder, it is also a characteristic of people who better fit the diagnostic criteria of other personality disorders; narcissistic, histrionic, and anti-social or psychopathic. The bottom line is that it is not “normal” to set out to harm others. Anyone who degrades to such behaviors is either personality disordered or a recruit with weak character, a minion.

The article, and the comments that follow, provide an excellent read about personality disordered vindictiveness, the susceptibility of bystanders, the inability of courts and other authorities to recognize the malign behaviors, and the devastating consequences for both the individual being targeted and others in his/her proximity; especially the children in custody cases.

Note: The terms vilification campaign, smear campaign, and distortion campaign are used synonymously.

BPD Distortion Campaigns

Written by: Rob
December 29th, 2008

One of the classic behaviors of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder is the vilification campaign. The target is the person against whom the perpetrator Borderline conducts the vilification. The intent is to destroy the target’s reputation and thereby destroy the target’s relationships with family and friends, employers, co-workers, doctors, teachers, therapists, and others. The intent may even be to force the target to leave the community, put the target in prison, or even kill the target. As with so many things involving Borderlines and their typical inability to understand or respect boundaries, there really are no limits. They will use basically any means available to them to cause damage to their target, including denigration, endless disparaging remarks, fabrication, false accusations, and even teaching others (including their children!) to lie on their behalf as part of their vilification campaign.

What is a narcopath?

Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths share several characteristic traits and behaviors, such as egocentrism, lack of empathy, grandiosity, and manipulativeness. The newly created term narcopath can be used to reference an individual exhibiting these traits when their specific personality disorder diagnosis is either unknown or insignificant in the context. Toxic is an equivalent, more common description for people belonging to this general category.