StuFin
Arcanist
- Oct 21, 2020
- 450
I thought it might be useful to post a thread to help people avoid devious people who might want to manipulate you.
Who am I? Degree in Psychology, have written 2 books, am part way through a 3rd one regarding manipulation and personality disorders and the ways they control people.
Basics below, ask anything or contradict or disagree, the choice is yours. I don't mind either way.
Why might they want to come here and manipulate you?
Because by it's very nature this forum is full of vulnerable, emotionally low people who may be more malleable and suggestible, and prone to going out of their way to help people who claim to be "less fortunate than themselves".
One thing you need to realise is that people who manipulate others have spent their entire lives, from infancy to now, learning how to manipulate and control other people.
Trying to take them on, or thinking you have a chance with them is like sitting down to play a game of chess with a Grandmaster, when you yourself have just finished reading Chess for Dummies, and have never seen a chess board before.
You have no chance.
Manipulators will often follow a set pattern, and it usually goes something like this:
1) Cry and wail and complain about how unfair life is, how hard they have it, how bad things are, how you don't care or understand and how they may hurt themselves if you don't help them.
They often do this if for example they are cheating on you and you confront them, they turn on the water works and try to make you feel bad - this is the objective - to create a change of emotional state in you so that YOU feel bad and stop pressing.
It takes the pressure off them, and makes you the bad person - it's not projection, but a reversal of roles.
By the same token if you don't or can't help them, they can tighten the screws to keep you feeling worse and worse until you put your own needs to one side, in order to fill theirs instead - like a cuckoo kicking you out of your own nest of despair so they can fill your life with their problems instead.
2) If you don't succumb to the emotional blackmail in (1) above, then they usually move to threats, aggression, mean-ness, and being generally nasty, because we all shy away from conflict, and usually people will back down and become subservient to the demands of the antagonist. Again creating an emotional change of state in YOU.
3) If (2) above doesn't work then they resort to ridiculing you, trying to make you look and more importantly feel like an idiot, because who wants people laughing at them and thinking they are a fool?
It's an incredibly uncomfortable feeling and is highly effective in getting people to do what they want you to do. Again creating an emotional change of state in YOU.
If (3) above doesn't work, they go back to (1) and ladle it on thicker.
The net result is that your emotions and feelings, and more importantly your feelings about who you are, and your values are called into question in your own head, which makes you feel confused and bad and terrible, and it makes you more than likely to give in after they repeat the process and wear you down.
Don't take people at face value, don't listen to their words, watch their actions and pay attention to their behaviour and that will tell you everything you need to know.
Who am I? Degree in Psychology, have written 2 books, am part way through a 3rd one regarding manipulation and personality disorders and the ways they control people.
Basics below, ask anything or contradict or disagree, the choice is yours. I don't mind either way.
Why might they want to come here and manipulate you?
Because by it's very nature this forum is full of vulnerable, emotionally low people who may be more malleable and suggestible, and prone to going out of their way to help people who claim to be "less fortunate than themselves".
One thing you need to realise is that people who manipulate others have spent their entire lives, from infancy to now, learning how to manipulate and control other people.
Trying to take them on, or thinking you have a chance with them is like sitting down to play a game of chess with a Grandmaster, when you yourself have just finished reading Chess for Dummies, and have never seen a chess board before.
You have no chance.
Manipulators will often follow a set pattern, and it usually goes something like this:
1) Cry and wail and complain about how unfair life is, how hard they have it, how bad things are, how you don't care or understand and how they may hurt themselves if you don't help them.
They often do this if for example they are cheating on you and you confront them, they turn on the water works and try to make you feel bad - this is the objective - to create a change of emotional state in you so that YOU feel bad and stop pressing.
It takes the pressure off them, and makes you the bad person - it's not projection, but a reversal of roles.
By the same token if you don't or can't help them, they can tighten the screws to keep you feeling worse and worse until you put your own needs to one side, in order to fill theirs instead - like a cuckoo kicking you out of your own nest of despair so they can fill your life with their problems instead.
2) If you don't succumb to the emotional blackmail in (1) above, then they usually move to threats, aggression, mean-ness, and being generally nasty, because we all shy away from conflict, and usually people will back down and become subservient to the demands of the antagonist. Again creating an emotional change of state in YOU.
3) If (2) above doesn't work then they resort to ridiculing you, trying to make you look and more importantly feel like an idiot, because who wants people laughing at them and thinking they are a fool?
It's an incredibly uncomfortable feeling and is highly effective in getting people to do what they want you to do. Again creating an emotional change of state in YOU.
If (3) above doesn't work, they go back to (1) and ladle it on thicker.
The net result is that your emotions and feelings, and more importantly your feelings about who you are, and your values are called into question in your own head, which makes you feel confused and bad and terrible, and it makes you more than likely to give in after they repeat the process and wear you down.
Don't take people at face value, don't listen to their words, watch their actions and pay attention to their behaviour and that will tell you everything you need to know.