You haven’t lived until a narcissist decides you’re the villain in their story. One minute you’re their obsession, the next you’re the enemy of the state, the traitor, the Judas, the ungrateful piece of shit who dared set a boundary. Congratulations. You’ve just met the vindictive narcissist in their final form.

They’re not sulking. They’re planning. And you’re not just being discarded, you’re being erased. Publicly. Loudly. One social post, one fake friend whisper, one rage-fuelled email at a time.

This post isn’t theory. This is survival and what happens when narcissistic rage collides with a bruised ego and no one left to manipulate. This is vindictive narcissist behaviour laid bare, with every unhinged smear campaign, every late-night password reset, and every moment you realise the person who once begged you not to leave is now trying to destroy you.

Spoiler: they probably still want you back.

If this is hitting too close to home, I break down the whole cycle in Surviving BPD and NPD: ADHD, Addiction, and Everything in Between — it’s not just a post. It’s a map through hell.

What is vindictive narcissist behaviour?

Let’s be real, it’s what happens when a narcissist doesn’t get their way. The mask slips, the charm cracks, and you get a front-row seat to their malignant narcissist meltdown.

Vindictive narcissists don’t just block you. They hack your socials. They don’t just bad-mouth you, they write an alternate reality where you were the abuser. And they tell it to anyone who’ll listen, and you’re not just discarded. You’re annihilated.

It’s a full-blown smear campaign, and it usually looks like this:

• Sudden lies about your mental health
• Impersonation and fake accounts
• Public humiliation (often with receipts they doctored)
• Subtweets, vaguebook posts, or straight-up email blasts to your professional network
• Covert narcissistic rage masked as victimhood

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s a playbook. You’re not crazy. They are.

And it often starts with love bombs. If you’ve ever wondered what grooming by a narcissist actually feels like, I wrote about that brutal mindfuck in The Love Bomb Is a Lie.

10 survival tips when you’re the target of a vindictive narcissist

1. Document everything — Screenshots, emails, voicemails. You’re building a legal folder, not a memory box.
2. Lock it down — Change your passwords. All of them. Yes, even your Spotify.
3. Go no contact — Block them. Block their friends. Block their cat.
4. Tell trusted people — The smear campaign works best when you stay quiet. Don’t. Warn people.
5. Expect hoovering — They’ll try to “accidentally” message you. Don’t fall for it.
6. Don’t feed the fire — Rage replying? That’s a win for them.
7. Legal advice — Especially if revenge porn, impersonation, or stalking is involved. Yes, these are crimes and often punishable by imprisonment (I wrote about that in Revengeporn: When Your Trauma Gets Views: and yes, it’s as awful as it sounds).
8. Own your story — Narcissists lie. You don’t have to.
9. Therapy. Full stop. — Because what they did wasn’t just manipulative; it was traumatic. My best analogy on my experience? That sometimes you don’t realise how bad it’s been until you step back and realise, you’re in the eye of the storm.
10. Write the book — Or read mine. It’s called Good Luck Getting Rid of Me. And it’s exactly what happened when I fell for a charming liar who turned out to be a professional manipulator with a PhD in destruction. Unfortunately, mine also had BPD.

Final word on the vindictive narcissist

If you’re Googling vindictive narcissist behaviour at 3am, know this: you’re not alone, and you’re not insane. You’re recovering from an emotional war with someone who weaponised love. This isn’t just heartbreak. It’s psychological warfare.

I’ve been there. I know how deep the shame cuts, how the world goes quiet, how you start to question everything; even your own memory. It’s ugly. It’s lonely. But I promise you, it’s survivable.

If I could, I’d reach through the screen and hug you. Not in the creepy way, just in the “I see you, and I know how bad this hurts” kind of way. You don’t have to do this alone. Talk to someone. Talk to me. Seriously. Send a message. You’re not too much, you’re not crazy, and this was not your fault. Or read more about how to know if someone is manipulating you — the red flags are real, and they start small.

But you survived.

And if you want the unfiltered truth about what it’s like to fall in love with a narcissist with BPD, AuDHD, and a Class A drug habit, to watch yourself unravel while they call it love, to drown in the chaos and claw your way back, read my memoir: Good Luck Getting Rid of Me. It’s brutal. And dark. Yes… also strangely funny in the way that trauma sometimes is. And it’s got more red flags than a dictator’s funeral.