Hello,
So, let’s start with psychological/emotional abuse – Manipulation.
Most of us experienced manipulation and there is very high chance we did manipulate someone too. However, manipulation is unhealthy human trait which is abusive. Manipulation is one of the control tactics and can be very subtle and difficult to spot. Mostly, we get manipulated by the closest people that is why it is more difficult to recognise it. Anything for our loved ones, right?
Cambridge dictionary provides description of Manipulation – controlling someone or something to your own advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly.
Based on one psychology website, there are 25 manipulation techniques (link is below). Today I will cover these 5:
- Gaslighting
- Emotional Blackmail
- Deception and Lying
- Love Bombing
- Isolation
Because manipulation is such a big theme I will have to split it.
Gaslighting – ”is a form of psychological manipulation in which an individual or a group is purposely made to question their own memories, perceptions, and sanity. This can involve tactics such as denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, ultimately leading the targeted individual or group to feel confused, anxious, and uncertain about their own reality”.
Questioning your own reality can be very direct – where person literally denies that they have done something when you know they did do it. Indirect denial – they don’t deny it, but they question your mentality.
Unfortunately, I won’t remember all the examples from my own experience, however, one of the examples, that I do remember how my ex-partner gaslighted me was regarding him being unfaithful. When I confronted him with evidence of it, he tried to claim he doesn’t consider it cheating and that it was long time ago as it happened in the beginning of a relationship and that I should forget about it. In his defence, it was not important and that didn’t mean anything so why I should be worried about it? However, because I couldn’t forget or trust him, during our arguments it would come out from me reminding of what he did and why I couldn’t trust him, to which he said it is my problem that I cannot trust him and I should be the one doing something to be able to trust him again. Later on, he started completely denying he ever cheated. One of the conversations that we had after a breakup, he basically said he didn’t cheat, when I asked – so you deleted all the proof, chats and gonna tell me I’ve imagined everything? To which he answered simply – yes.
When someone keeps denying the truth, sooner or later, you do start doubting yourself and your own memory. I was questioning all the memories and thinking maybe I misunderstood them. I absolutely stopped trusting my instincts.
Of course, if there is no proof, anyone can say anything. Doesn’t matter if you know in your heart what is reality but imagine if someone keeps denying your reality constantly. At some point you don’t know anything any more.
Manipulative people love to avoid your questions and instead questions your sanity. Same thing he did to me, when I wanted to order batteries for a smoke alarm from an online shop suddenly something was wrong with me. In the beginning of our relationship, I was the person who would go to physical shops to buy things, and he always bought everything online. Eventually, I did same as him, ordered everything online because he questioned my intelligence when I said I only buy in physical shops. He would say that it doesn’t make sense to buy in physical shops and it is waste of time, when you can buy everything online. But that one day, he suddenly changed his mind. When I said let’s order batteries for a smoke alarm online because I didn’t think they sell them in a grocery shop, he said: you don’t know you can buy things in a shop, Egle? You don’t know that you can go there and buy stuff?
I can only imagine my poker face I gave him and how stupid I felt. When I explained to him, that we always order online, so that is why I thought of it. He argued that things like this can be bought in physical shop and there is no point to order it. If you can spot him changing realities, questioning my mentality from – don’t buy in physical shop when you can by online and that it is stupid to do so and then questioning me when I was about to order online – that’s good. However, this one is very subtle, and it only showed itself after 3 years.
Another way he made me question my reality. Let’s say he was late from work and I asked him – what happened, why you were late? He immediately would get angry and say – what you don’t know that things like traffic happens on a road? I’ve noticed that manipulative people in general like to avoid answering direct questions. From what I read and heard of others living with manipulative people is that they cannot answer your question directly as most likely they were doing something they don’t want you to know about. Something behind your back. My ex-partner was great at doing things behind my back.
Emotional Blackmail – ”Emotional blackmail is a manipulative tactic that involves exploiting a person’s emotions through guilt, fear, or shame to get them to comply with the manipulator’s desires. This can include threats to withhold love, approval, or support unless the victim meets the manipulator’s demands, taking advantage of the victim’s emotional vulnerabilities”.
One of the things that come to my mind is – silent treatment. Silent treatment is actually very abusive behaviour in any type of relationship. Withdrawing attention, love and affection just in order to get what you want is abusive. One thing is asking partner to give them time and space during an argument, another thing is stopping to communicate entirely. This makes person who gives silent treatment to be above and in control, while usually a victim tries to initiate communication. They basically just ignore your existence, that is the best way I can describe it. After giving you a silent treatment for however long they want, they pretend that nothing happened and move on. They don’t try to resolve a conflict or talk about it. Or they wait until you apologise to them or confirm that conflict doesn’t matter anymore, so they wouldn’t need to talk about it. That is also a way they avoid accountability.
Another way of emotional blackmail can be considered avoidance of any type of physical touch. So, they on purpose start avoiding your touch when they are mad at you or angry, but they won’t communicate why they feel that way. They just withdraw. Victims then are left questioning themselves what they did wrong that person doesn’t even want to touch.
In my personal experience I was manipulated by fear and guilt. Mostly by fear and example how it can look like is simple – if you won’t do as I say, these bad consequences will be waiting for you (physical abuse, threatening and etc). And if you know they are capable of those things they are threatening you with, you automatically agree to do as they want you.
I will give you an example from what my ex-partner did, but my mom was doing this to me as well. I don’t want to make an impression that all abuse came from my ex-partner as unfortunately, a lot of it came from my mom. Simple example probably would be – if I don’t do something, I will get hit with a belt. I know some people will say – well my parents were saying the same or they would hit me or whatever. Well, sad news – you have experienced physical and psychological abuse – welcome to a club and welcome seeing how normalised it is. Being threatened that you will get hurt if you don’t follow demands, is ABUSE. Nothing less. We need to stop make it look like a normal thing because abuse alters our brain and how we develop. There is research done that confirms it. Especially, during our childhood when brain is developing. So, if you had same experience – you were abused and go to the therapy because I can guarantee it is affecting your life in some way but maybe you are not realising that (which I don’t blame you for, I didn’t realise it myself until I got into a romantic relationship).
So, what my ex-partner did – he used emotional blackmail, including fear and guilt. Situation – we were getting ready to go to Czech Republic and we needed to bring our pets – degus to his colleague’s/manager’s home. I don’t remember what initial argument was, but basically, he wanted to do something his way, and I wanted to do something that degus would feel more comfortable with. In this case it wasn’t about me, it was about well-being of my pets. However, because I didn’t agree with him, he said: If you cannot agree on anything, I won’t be taking degus and leave them here and it will be on you. I asked: are you seriously gonna leave them for 10 days without food and water? To which he replied: yes, because you cannot agree on anything with me. I started crying because genuinely I got scared. Then I said to him, that he can go to Czech Republic, that I won’t let him to leave them and I’m staying with degus. He didn’t expect that, so he then used guilt tactic. He said – so you paid all the money for the trip, accommodation, flights and you won’t be going? You’re wasting all your money for what? At that point I couldn’t care less about the money and I answered – I don’t care, I’m not leaving degus. Then he said – What my parents are gonna think? We were supposed to come together and now you’re not going, what I’m gonna say to them? And that’s where he got me. I felt so guilty because I didn’t want to ruin holiday for his family and thought it will be not nice to not come and I then agreed to do as he wanted.
Manipulative people know what works on you. They know that eventually, you’ll give up. So, my advice – don’t give up.
Deception and Lying – ”Deception and dishonesty are often used as manipulation tactics. Manipulators may fake information, conceal the truth, or distort facts to benefit themselves. These actions gradually break down trust and leave victims susceptible to additional manipulation”.
I think this one is self-explanatory. You can only find out if they lie or use deception if you catch them. Which can be more difficult than it seems.
Love Bombing – ”Love bombing is a deceptive strategy used by manipulators to overwhelm their targets with an outpouring of affection and attention. This can involve excessive flattery, lavish gifts, and constant admiration, all aimed at creating a deep emotional reliance that makes it challenging for the victim to break free from their influence”.
Love bombing can occur in different ways; however, it is basically giving you constant attention 24/7 and making you feel so special and loved that you think – it is meant to be. Love bombing can be – constant messaging, wanting to talk with you. Or it could be buying you small or big gifts, learning what you like, asking many questions about you and keep saying that they are so in love with you and that you mean so much. Love bombing happens immediately.
My own example is that my ex-partner immediately showed care, he was very constant with messaging me and wanting to help me. I was in situation, where I had some struggles and there, he was offering me everything he possibly could. He made me feel that he cares about me so much like no one ever before. Relationship with manipulative people can start very quickly as they shower you with attention and love and it gives you this feeling as you need to hurry up to be with them, otherwise you are losing your love of the life. They don’t really give you time or space to actually to get to know them. Love bombing is a technique to use to trap you in a relationship as soon as possible without giving much thought to it. Also, when you are love bombed it can make you feel as if this person knows you the best, they listen to you and they make sure you are happy. That is why it is difficult to distinguish what is actual care and what is just a show.
Isolation – ”Manipulators often employ isolation as a means to undermine the support systems of their victims, thus heightening their dependency. This involves severing connections with friends, family, or any other sources of support, allowing manipulators to exert control and restrict the victim’s ability to seek assistance”.
Manipulative people are great at isolating you and making them as your go to person. They will always undermine other people and make you feel like they know the best. You will not only start questioning people around you, but yourself included. The main isolation I have experienced is that 2 abusers that I lived with would start telling me that a person I get close to is not a good person and would start make me doubt about it too. As if they knew that person better. I am not saying I was very easily manipulated and I would fall for that and start questioning if my friend is actually good or not. Which is not right, obviously, I should have had my own opinion, but they would give me arguments why let’s say that friend is not a good friend, so therefore, I would start withdrawing from people.
Or another way of isolating you from someone is them getting mad at you when you go out with friends or making arguments and fights before you go and this way make you tired, that you end up not going. In my last experience I lost a connection, because I ended up cancelling all the meetings as my ex made sure, we either argue or I would start crying and I couldn’t go out while feeling so down.
In general, manipulative/abusive people study you. They will want to know everything about you, so they would understand your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. The more information you give to them, the more they can use it against you and know how easier to manipulate you.
Their questions about you disguised as ”I care, I am interested”, usually is to learn your vulnerabilities and to see what they can exploit. If you meet a person who keeps asking you questions, especially, if you are not comfortable answering but they keep insisting – this can be a warning sign.
If you feel like you are being forced to talk about yourself, try saying no and put boundary in place, that you don’t want to talk about certain themes yet. See how they react. Abusive people don’t respect your boundaries and they will try to push you to speak.
Healthy people will have emotional intelligence and will give you space. If they see you are not feeling comfortable talking about something they won’t push you. They will give you space and safety. They will wait when you are ready to talk about it.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading! Next post about manipulation in a month!
Egle Ku 