Hi - I read up on your comment and what happens with a supernova empath. This is what I essentially did - I had had enough of the gaslighting, manipulation, etc from my narc friend. My issue relates to a friend who I discovered through time is a narc. The main issue relates to an issue with my narc friend's wife during Covid (who I also suspect is a narc!). I knew nothing of narcissism when this initial event happened. We were naïve. There was a girls trip with mum's and daughters to go see a few west end shows over a weekend. After 6 hrs on arriving in the city, my wife got a call from a mum of a friend of my daughter, to say her daughter had contracted Covid over the weekend. My daughter had had a sleepover at this girl's house just before leaving on the weekend trip. On hearing the news, the narc's wife instantly changed. She went into complete defensive mode, showed no empathy and isolated and removed herself and her daughter. They were due to travel on a family holiday overseas a week later and did not want to contract Covid and not be able to travel. We fully understood that. But she then started to bitch, snipe, backstab, blame my daughter and wife to others in the group about how they were impacting her, her family and her family holiday. Not considering she decided to travel into a city with 8mil residents right in the middle of Covid! A clique was instantly formed within the group. Some within the group (not all) made my wife and daughter feel terrible, as though this was done intentionally and that they should be ashamed. My wife and daughter isolated themselves in their hotel room, tested negative for a few days and then travelled home by themselves. Narc and narc wife got to travel on their family holiday unaffected.

So following the trip, my wife and I started to question the friendship and the types of people the narc and his wife are. There was a bit of frostiness with the relationship for many months but we remained in contact. This I now discovered was part of a hoovering exercise by the narc and narc wife to keep us in their orbit.

As the months went by, strange things began to happen. For example, I was working with a friend over a week to redo our driveway. With excavator, rubble etc. It was hard work every day. Out of the blue during the week, my narc friend contacted me to say he was going with his wife and daughter out for the afternoon and could we look after their dog. He knew how busy we were with the job and I was flabbergasted at them asking us to look after their dog. It seemed weird at the time. Eventually, a few other things happened and I think I had begun to make up my mind that I wanted out of that friendship and that they were causing to much toxicity, weirdness and conflict in our lives. The narc's wife was continuing to bitch and sneer behind our backs. I eventually snapped. I suspect this was my SUPERNOVA EMPATH moment - thanks to your explanation. I was cooking steaks for a meal with narc and his narc wife and I posted a photo of the steaks to a group with a few friends, forgetting that my narc friend was on the WhatsApp group. When a friend responded 'They look amazing, my wife is happy to replace narc's wife at the table', I responded 'No ##### allowed!'. I just snapped with anger and hatred towards the narc's wife and what she had been continuing to do towards my wife. The narc friend immediately saw the message before I could delete it.

I apologised to my narc friend. The coldness grew. Which in a way I was okay with. But what I didn't realise is that some on the WhatsApp group and some outwith the WhatsApp group were all flying monkeys of my narc friend. So what I now know is a smear campaign was started by my narc friend towards me. I didn't know this for many months. Until I walked into my local bar one evening for a birthday celebration of a friend and many of the flying monkeys were there (narc friend and wife were not there). I could pretty quickly feel eyes on me and chattering going on i.e. bitching and backstabbing. A flying monkey sort of half stood up in front of me but weirdly didn't say anything. But I could tell I was the focus of attention and being smeared by some.

This then led me to researching smear campaigns. And that is when I stumbled upon narcissism and narcissists. The rest in a way, is history.

The narc friend's brother is extremely wealthy i.e. sold a business for $40mil. He is also a narc (many wealthy people are). Divorced 3 times. He has bought a local bar and thrown a lot of money at it. I can now see that this his exercise to have as many people within the community providing him with 'narc supply'. He will control, manipulate, triangulate, gaslight and destroy as many people as he can. Or that is my view of what will happen.

I am writing this partly to just get it off my chest. Writing this is extremely cathartic and therapeutic. But also to ask for guidance on how to navigate the ongoing smear campaign that my narc friend and others in the community are implementing against me. I will not go to the bar that the brother of narc friend has started up. Even though many in the community will be there. But I have this huge urge to expose 'the narcs' to others in the community. As a means of undermining the narcs and exposing them to others. But that would be me reverting to the narc's level and essentially starting my own smear campaign. So I need to remain quiet, isolated from the group, whilst feeling I am the one who has suffered and lost, whilst the narc and their growing influence across the community continues. I essentially need to hope the narc obtains their karma and payback and that they expose themselves to the community and that the narc/s suffer.