You didn't "ruin their life" or "turn people against them"...

[TiredOfNarcs]

...they ruined their own life and turned people against them when they abused you in the first place. The onus is not on you to preserve their reputation by keeping your mouth shut.

I've noticed myself really struggling with this notion a lot lately, now that it's a more well-known fact within our mutual circles that my narcissistic ex is not the person he portrays himself to be. There are two ways I've noticed myself internalize the idea that it's my fault if his reputation crumbles.

1) Guilt - Even though my rational brain knows better, there are still moments where I feel like a bad person for "destroying" his reputation by talking about the range of fucked up things he did to me. There's a guilt that still wells inside me because even after months of leaving him it's so hard to de-program those years of feeling like I always had to defend him and protect him. I still feel like I'm betraying him by outing his abuse.

2) Vindictive glee - There's a spiteful part of my brain that sometimes takes a certain pleasure in knowing that my outing his abuse has caused others to look at him differently. Like getting the last laugh after everything he put me through. There's a part of me that almost wants to claim credit for "ruining his life," because it's the first time I've genuinely felt any sort of power to hurt him the way he always had that power to hurt me. I can't help but want to look him in the eye and say, "This is what happens when you fuck with me."

Anyone else experience anything similar?

[losingmyself]

Yes. Yes. And more yes.
They do not have the ability to see how their actions, words, etc eventually keep people away. It's definitely a journey to get to a place where you don't automatically feel guilty. You're healing, that's good.

[moglow]

You sure about that? I can't tell you how many times I've heard that from my mother. No awareness or accountability whatsoever of her part in any given situation that she forced to go sideways.

And yes there is some small guilty pleasure when it rolls back on her.