What is manipulation?
Manipulate: Manipulate means a strategical technique to get someone to do or think something without addressing it directly.
Manipulation is a psychological tactics used to control, change or wrap the behavior or perception of others. It uses the underhanded methods to control what other think about the situation.
Manipulative persons are always trying to make everything as someone’s fault. If you said them to stop doing something bad, they will reverse your words to you back and make like you have said something wrong to them.
Q. How to know if someone is manipulating you?
If someone is manipulating you, here are common factors that manipulators use to manipulate others:
- They instill self doubt in others:
Manipulators often start by reversing the situation and get you into second thought. They basically try to make you low your self-confidence and creates doubt about yourself. Have you ever met some people with whom you spent a short time and you are already feeling low confidence?
Those type of people are emotional manipulators, they keep you in doubt about yourself. Be aware of them! - They are experts at guilt-tripping:
Manipulators are expert at evoking certain feelings in you where they make you feel like a crap and after putting you in a weird situation, they find themselves enjoying you being in guilt. And when you talk with them, they will start blodging you and blaming you using your own emotions.
They make you frustrated and powerless, even when you try to set boundaries with them, they make you feel stupid. - They take advantage of your kindness:
Kind person are always ready to help others and manipulators use them to take everything they can from the kind person, they take all advantage with that person and often deny them when they ever asked for help. Manipulators do things for you, maybe even the things you didn’t asked for and use that as a currency to get you to do what they want you to do. So, every act of kindness seems to have strings attached. - They spread false information on purpose:
Manipulators try to spread false information to damage the credibility of others, increasing lack of trust in other to make them prey of what they want them to do or think. - They never take the blame:
When you raise an issue with the manipulator, they always point the blame towards you for that situation and they are not ready to take the blame even if it is their fault.
They can be like “I am not the bad guy here, you are because of the this and that reason”. They manipulate you and make you think that you are the faulty and guilty one.
Q. How to escape a manipulative narcissist?
No communication is the best way to escape a narcissistic relationship.
You need to learn this the hard way. If you gave them an inch they would take a mile. There are some narcissists that are so manipulative and crafty that even talking to them for a minute can be a huge mistake.
It can be hard because it has been hard for many people out there to be able to separate from emotionally compulsive people, it’s really cutting them off completely!!
I understand the fearfulness and separation anxiety because they have trained their victims to become codependent.
It does take time to detox from a narcissistic relationship. Get help from a professional counselor! It’s important that you have a counselor or someone that can affirm you to heal from that.
I believe once you are aware of their evil tactics and the manipulation, that opens your consciousness to be able to receive change..
Q. What are manipulation tactics in relationships, and why do people use them?
The five phrases that narcissistic manipulators uses:
- “why are you blaming/attacking me?”
- “I don’t want to argue”
- “I can’t be listening to your anger”
- “I am sorry for the bad things you think I’ve done”
- “I am not the bad person here and you are because …..”
- “It’s not all about you”
- “I am sorry, happy now?”
- “Sorry if I did/said something wrong”
Signs of emotionally manipulative person:
Emotional manipulative people are those who use various tactics to control and influence other’s thoughts and feelings.
Signs:
Playing the victim:
Emotionally manipulative persons always act themselves as victim to deflect responsibility and gain sympathy. When someone is playing victim they over complicate or exaggerate their distress to evoke empathy and sympathy.
This act is done to get us to do something they want without asking directly for it. Emotionally manipulative people use this victimhood as a shield deflecting any attempts at addressing concerns or problems.
Gaslighting:
Gaslighting is form of emotional abuse where one person seeks to make another person doubt their perceptions and sew the seed of doubt in their mind. Gaslighting is the signature tool of the narcissist.
The term “gaslight” originally came from the 1994 film, where a husband manipulates his wife into believing that she is losing her mind. Gaslighters often isolates the victim from their family, friends and other support systems.
When somebody says you, you’re too sensitive and you have no right to feel that specific way, and when they say this they mean to say that the person’s emotional world is invalid and that person needs to be emotionally dependent on the gaslighter.
Examples of gaslighting:
Manipulating the victim to feel low: Phrase “You’re too sensitive. You are over reacting to the situation. Please stop doing this”.
Blaming the victim: Phrase: “You are responsible for those every things. You are causing problems here because of your behavior”
Making their tactics always normal: Phrase: “See, this proves you wrong because you have done that. You can’t trust your own thinking”
Twisting conversation: Phrase: “I don’t want to talk about this today because you make me feel this way”
Q. Why might someone play the victim in a relationship?
victim: Someone who is taken advantage of by another person.
Playing victim: Who is taking advantage of other people, to solve their own problem.
Someone will play the victim so someone would save them from their problems. They’re looking for a rescuer. Someone who plays the victim has two main weapons: obligation and guilt, pity. They make you feel guilty for not taking certain obligation.
If people feel pity on them, they will get people on their side which increases the chance someone will come and rescue them.
Basically, victimizing yourself is a coping mechanism. Victim mentality usually takes the negative experiences of our past and and attaches them to our identity so that it is difficult to see outside of us.
7 signs that you live with victim mentality:
- You keep repeating the same set of reasons of why you can’t overcome situations.
- Negative feelings a always blamed on others.
- Constantly replays the past without growth.
- You don’t know what you want.
- You tolerate abuse.
- You often feel stuck.
- Constantly thinks others have an advantage over you.
How can the silent treatment affect communication and trust in a relationship?
Q. What is triangulation, and how does it create conflict in relationships?
Triangulation is a tactic where a person brings a third party into your relationship to create jealousy, insecurity and competition. They might flirt with someone else,
talk about other person’s interest in him/her, or compare you unfavorably with others. It is a catalyst for creating conflict between the relationship as the parther
may react animalistic out of jealousy and ends up being parted.
Q. How can someone protect themselves from being manipulated in a relationship?
The only way of protecting themselves from being manipulated in a relationship is to stay away from that relationship. It might be difficult because of codependency between the two of you but it will help you only if you stayed away from that person/partner. Stay disciplined even though it seems difficult and try not to contact them again.
Q. What role does self-awareness play in recognizing and changing manipulative behavior?
Self awareness increase the awareness about ourselves which encourage us to take charge of our own behavior and reflect on ourselves. Self awareness helps us to recognize our manipulating behaviors and makes us to work on them until that behavior is no more consuming us and is completely gone.
Q. Are manipulators bad?
No, manipulative people are not always bad because the way that they learned how to relate with their their emotions are may be the indications of some kind of traumatic experiences in their childhood. May be they raised in a manipulative family because manipulators can be anyone, both inside from your family and outside from family.
When they have felt extreme anxiety throughout the course of their life, and they are uncontrolled about that, it results in being them manipulator to control other people, to make them listen to as they say to gain the feeling of superiority. They are going to control people as an adult
to make them feel as you are because they didn’t learned how to do that.
If you are close to that person than encourage them to seek help of psychologists, therapists and some kind of mental health evolution.
Q. Can Normal people can be a manipulator?
Yes, normal person can be manipulator and most of the time they don’t know that they are manipulating. They are not ever going to be aware that they are going to influence someone’s behavior and use them for their own advantage. To make them aware that their behaviors seem unnatural, you need to talk with them and encourage them to visit to the consultant.
5 signs that you maybe unintentionally manipulative:
- Saying that you will do everything by yourself:
When you say that you can do everything by your own, it seems that you are being independent and that may induce guilt on others to help you. This may end up others feeling guilty for not helping you, even though they are not aware that you really needed help at all. This is why it’s important to think about whatever you are saying is fair enough or not and whether you can be more specific about your needs. - You make promises a lot:
Over promising is also said to be a manipulative behavior because when you make promise to someone, and don’t make up for that promise, this can make the other person feeling deceived, angry and less likely to trust you again in the future. - You give somebody the silent treatment:
Do you know that saying nothing and making other person to guess everything you are feeling can be emotionally coercive? You might have stayed silent during the times of argument because you thought that as a best option that time. The thing is that this behavior often comes from the place of hurt. Many psychotherapists admit that people are unknowingly manipulative when they use silence as their weapon. It’s an ineffective way of dealing with the hurt. Rather than being silent a better way can be trying to communicate to the other person about how you feel. - You Withhold Affection:
You intentionally leave out important details to trigger someone’s decision. When you withhold affection, the other person may feel anxious or uncertain about the relationship. They might start to question what did they do wrong and become more eager to please you to restore that affection. This can be a way of punishing someone for behavior you dislike without directly communicating about the issue.
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