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Manipulation

Manipulation Is Control And No One Wins

The personality disordered charm and con and manipulate easily. Narcissists are very good at manipulation.

How Do I Know If I Am Being Manipulated?

If you feel like you can’t be heard, if you are afraid of being put down, if you give in when you don’t want to and feel powerless to cha

nge, if you lack assertiveness, if you are blamed all the time and told you are responsible for what is wrong, you are being manipulated. If you feel like a victim or martyr, you are being manipulated.

Why Do People Manipulate?

Because they can. Because they have proble

ms and found that manipulating is a good way to get what they want. The victim’s compliance rewards them.

Can I Stop The Manipulator?

You can change your behavior and your reactions. This will change the manipulator. It takes two to make the manipulation work. If you empower yourself to change, you can stop the manipulation.

How Do I Empower Myself?

You already have! Here, you are gaining information. That’s the key to change. Learning to recognize the manipulators and their tactics is the first step. Learning what your personal attributes are that makes you vulnerable to manipulation and understanding manipulation techniques and how to respond is the next step.

Is There A Way Out?

Of course. The cycle

of control can be broken and you can learn what the methods are to do this. Learning how “boundaries” work is one step. Finding the right words to respond to a manipulator is another.

How, Why???

victim of a liarSome are manipulated, controlled, harassed, discriminated against or assaulted in some way and can’t figure out how they got here or how to get out. What confuses us is that the perpetrator tries to make us feel as if we deserved to be treated this way.

The narcissists believe they have a right to treat us this way and that their acts against us are necessary and right. However, these actions are never right, they are always wrong and they must stop.

What are some of these actions? They include put downs, outbursts, humiliating remarks, lies, “gaslighting”, rages, assaults, yelling, intimidation, threats, belittling, betrayals, judging and criticizing. Our reaction can be a mixture of rage, fear, timidity or confusion.

Quite often the person controlling or manipulating is trying to define us so his actions are validated. If lies are told about the victim, making her appear in a negative light, the abuser then feels justified in his actions. At this point, he may enjoin others in his betrayal and manipulation by telling them lies about her, and by portraying himself as the victim he is rewarded with their sympathy.

What can you do?

There are many things , depending on the situation.

It is helpful to find a validator who can help you regain a sense of self to fight back. In conjunction with that, we speak the truth, we do not respond to nonsense as if it were reality, we escape, we help others, we protect our children, we look the abuser in the eye and say, “What are you talking about?” We make sure we are safe. We recognize our boundaries and do not let others cross them. We connect with others, and we wake up to our own strengths. Trauma can expand us and help us grow, it does not have to destroy.

Ann Bradley

18 Comments

  1. I just recently shut down a 3 month “whirl -wind relationship.” A relationship that has brought me to levels of dysfunction I didn’t know existed. Trying to identify boundaries, thinking that if you share “your behavior effects me in this way,” it would be looked at and worked through however, that this has now become my problem. I’m the “drama queen” was a statement thrown in my lap! The adoration and grooming he did, blocked my ability to listen to my intuition and identify red flags! I’m so grateful there is material that validates me and reminds me, I too can be groomed by a Narcissit and still survive! Thank you

    • Good for you! I commend you for recognizing that something was definitely wrong and got out fast. When I think about the 3 month mark with my ex and had I ended it then, my life would sooo dramatically different, but hey I guess this is a part of my journey. I sure know now though and can spot a narcissist a mile away, that’s for sure. I know narcissists so well, I “counseled” a classmate about some of the men she was meeting and just by what they told her, I was able to tell her their next move and low and behold, I was on point everytime LOL. She couldn’t believe my accuracy and while I did not want to sound like a pessimist, I knew the narcissist’s “lingo” so to speak, luckily she did listen, and avoided the nonsense. Now if I can just pick some winning lottery numbers LOL.

  2. If only I can say 3 months. I’m breaking free from a traumatic experience after 15 years…u can’t turn back the clock..u can’t change nothing. U can just put a stop to it. Life is nothing But lessons.

  3. I must congratulate you on your wonderful website. It is very nice to read all these healing information after going through abusive relations with people who have narcissistic syndrome disorder.

  4. I thank you for addressing these issues in a easy to “read and understand” web-site…32 years of marriage and now $17,000.00 in legal fees to get rid of him. If you are divorcing a narcissist insure that your lawyer understands narcissism and will support your right to a fair settlement. Mine did/does not and now I am healed (3 years later) I am placing boundaries on what I will and will not accept…regardles of who I upset…

  5. Mari – Congratulations on the narcissist free life you created. It will be a life well lived from here on in and you deserve every fun moment. Those boundaries are critical – thanks for reminding all of us about that. Best, Ann

  6. I have had a crush on a narcissist I work for/with for about 2-1/2 years now. However, I started reading all about narcissism and came to the conclusion I was being “played”, so for the last 6 or 7 months I’ve changed my behavior towards him. He has stopped “playing” me in a sexual way; however, he still likes to lie and talk bullshit. He had a girlfriend (friends with benefits) since the day I met him. At first, I was always confused why he was coming onto me. It would take me at least 3 or 4 hours to “come down” from my cloud. I developed an attraction for him and thought of him day and night, day after day. I now since have healed somewhat from my need for him. It seems lately that he is discarding me and makes no efforts anymore. Sure, now that I’ve been hooked. He is pure evil. He has since broken up and gotten back together with the woman friend with benefits, but it’s only a matter of time that he’ll hurt her even more than before. She apparently isn’t educated on the narcissist. He doesn’t love her because he only loves himself. I feel sorry for her! I am an unhappily married woman, and I believe he played on that because he knew I was vulnerable and so nice, way too nice.

    • Narcs don’t love themselves – they don’t love anyone. They are totally emotionally stunted/arrested at the time of their trauma as a kid. They want power, money, control & attention. Will lie to get it – manipulate – use people – with absolutely no remorse. They will treat you like a piece of dispensable furniture. They like you like a favorite pair of slippers. As long as you are useful, they will keep you in their orbit. If you want to stay there — be a shrinking violet, lose yourself, and wind up with nothing.. You will become an empty shell – a victim of this narc and a mere shadow of who you USED to be. How do I know?? That is me.

  7. I really appreciate the comments of this website. I would like to know if anyone experienced a change in the narcissist. I am been married to one for over 30 years. I am a true believer in the institute of marriage and am an example to my entire family on staying married. However I am miserable and so is he, because his tricks are no longer working on me. Why does a person not want to deal with truth and reality? It’s because they have something to hide.

    • Hi – You sound like you would be the expert here with such a long term marriage to a narcissist. What have you seen and found in your experience?

      My sense is that some change, some do not. There is fluidity in all of life and experiences impact everyone differently. It is possible to become more of something and less of it also.

      Are you going to do something about being so miserable? Life is short, you deserve some happiness. Best, Ann

      • I’ve been asking the why question too for 29 years. Why did my Narc husband sleep in his office many nights? Why did he not give my wonderful children the love they deserved? Why didn’t he pay for my daughter’s wedding and instead bought himself a Camaro. I think we are asking rational questions that can’t be answered. Narcs are mentally ill, crazy. It is just very, very upsetting and difficult to watch someone lack feeling and for “normal” people it is incomprehensible
        .

  8. I am really miserable in my relationship and don’t know (but probably deep down) if he is a narc. My bf is an alcoholic. He is in a lot of denial and blames it on me a lot or changes the subj when I try to express concern re: his alc. He won’t let me have FB and says that it’s because it ’caused a lot of problems for us in the past’, but he has it. I said that it never caused problems that I caused, so why am I being punished? He is just so insecure b/c Im a BB and have a lot of male BB friends, that is ALL it is. But, again, its okay for him to have FB? really pisses me off. I moved out of my house for him. I sold almost all my stuff to accommodate the room required for his stuff (b/c he has to much). He spends money like it grows on trees and has bad credit. The man has about 10 times more pairs of shoes then me, earrings, clothes, watches. I’m just so tired of this! How do I know if I’m dealing with a narc? He has since gone on meds and has been ‘better’ but still has binge episodes of drinking which of course are ‘my fault’. His ‘best friend’ got drunk and beat his wife on vacation and I called security and yet, I am the bad guy and shouldnt have gotten involved. To TOP it off, HE was also intoxicated and called me a B and backed up his friend!! PLEASE HELP.

    • If you are miserable.. and I hope you have left that jerk by now — that is the only reason you need to leave. Identifying him as a narc makes no difference. if you are unhappy, miserable, and causes constant problems.. GET OUT. JUST LEAVE.

  9. I am living with Narcissist. He blamed everything to me if things does not go on his way.I can not even talk to him,like every time I open my mouth,I will make sure he will agree with me,but often time he said I am talking shit.
    Constant criticism keeps going on until I am used to it.I am used to his nagging and sometime I ignore and don’t listen to him anymore
    .After ignoring him,he start texting to his ex girlfriend and they actually meet,and he did not accept it that it was not true.( I have picture of his text as evidence)..Lies..and Lies.
    I have to pay all my financial obligation,from medical to foods from my own money.If I do not have money or job,this guy will not take care of me.
    No affection,no empathy and he hated my son too much because my son have Autism with Asperger syndrome.

  10. It has been such a long time now, so the [for lack of a better word] gtnlefuraess has worn off a bit. The person I am referring to is a university professor, named Molly Fergusson. When I left home at around 16 I also dropped out of school. Up until the point I am going to refer to I had a difficult time sticking to anything-I usually dropped out. Anyway, I returned to university in my thirties and managed to complete the pre-university course only because Prof Fergusson believed in me, encouraged me etc. otherwise I would have dropped out. Now I have almost completed my MA. She is one of my heroes I named my daughter after her.

  11. I have been married to a man for 33 years, The last 14 has come down to needing him to be forced with Firearms into doing what others wanted and needed after a horrible morning in 2001. My husband came to a point he was not going to accept a promise of something in the future that might happen for his benefit if he just backed off a job bid with his seniority. His father and others in the community felt it needed to go to a man with 15 years less seniority than my husband because of his social position in the community. I had managed to keep the peace in a fashion for 16 years by promising if he would just do as he was told instead of pressing his rights for vacations, holidays, jobs and shifts, One day the pressures would let up and he would be able to have the rights he earned, But at that time there were those that had responsibilities in family, church, and society that were just so much more needed than his time off, our marital life or his hate of second shift. looking back every promise I made to get him to back off I knew that promise was not going to be kept, After 16 years it came to be like crying wolf again with no wolf. That November in 2001 I had told my husband If he would back off one more time from his want I would let our marital life normalize, even go to bat for him to get vacations, weekends and holidays where he was not working another 12 or 16 hour shift. He turned me down flat, called me a tramp and liar. Told me he wanted me dead that morning after I locked him out of the house so four men could get him to change his mind.
    I saw all four of those men torn to pieces on my front porch and ended up laying under a kicked in front door being told if I ever tried getting him hurt again. The next date I would have was a six by six by three hole in the ground where he would put me. I know everyone panicked after that night, Firearms started to be used to ensure his cooperation until October 2009, When he allowed depression to the point his immune system was compromised and he developed MRSA in his spine by the time he came home from rehab 31 years of practice and tradition had been in force.
    None of the traditions included him. A couple of weeks after is return he was more than angry. Two weeks after his return I was thrown to the floor begging and pleading for him to pick a place to meet after and event I was going to with his mother, father and his fathers best friend when my husband asked if he was invited. I said it was invitation only and he was not invited when I turned around I was in terror, The same look I saw 11 years before was on my husbands face. He told me that I was not going either< He had kept track of every refusal I had made In our marriage every Day he had worked from the day we had married. The money he had made, The Holidays he had been blackmailed and forced into working the amounts of the ten out of country vacations I had been on with him paying while he worked and every promise I had made, every beg and plea I associated with a promise, and every time my promise never came to pass. He had made a list of names to every time he had been forced at weapon point to do what someone else wanted. He had even Mad a running total of the 256 consecutive holidays he had been forced to miss. Everything Was accounted for In excel. every day and week and month, Nobody but him realized how may decades it had been since a day off or a vacation. That evening I was thrown into the living room and told I owed with his father and others 31 years of his life back. and since he was looking at maybe 15 he was taking the down payment from me that evening. As for the rest he was going to probably find it a need to take there payments out in pain equivalent to the pain we had caused him. I was begging and pleading by that point for him to pick a place to meet after the event, We would all gather and get his Grievances aired and on the table. I had heard what we could allow my husband so long I used that wording.
    He just looked at me and told me we allowed him nothing the last 31 years, now it was his turn to allow what he was willing to let us have especially me, He ripped a new dress off me and everything else. He did not give any choice about having a marital action that evening, When he finished I was hurting and crying, He handed me the phone and said the number is 911, He said don't clean up I was going to probably go to the hospital for a kit to be taken and don't clean up my ripped to shreds clothing. The police would want photos. He was still furious, as his fathers friend hammered on the door. I heard my husband cane as it went to the door to answer, I heard his fathers friend say get out of his way cripple, after my husband refused entry, telling him to get a badge and warrant, The next thing I heard was the screaming of tires, a scream from his fathers best friend, and a dull thud and my mother in law sitting next to me asking what happened.
    All I could do was cry and ask how so much rage could happen just to giving up his time and needs for others, How could somebody that I thought loved me do this. I felt it was only a year or two ago that he came home in 1985. Then we sat down and figured out how many holidays he had worked, how many years had past. I started remembering the vacations we had fights about his going over. It was not he was not told a period of time he should consider taking It was the period between January second and valentines day did not suit him. He wanted to go to Rome In 1987. To Athens three years latter, he was ill in 2012 in rehab. in 2009 He had actually screamed me to the floor at the airport when I told him we had returned his Boarding pass to allow someone else to go on the orient express. Took every cent I was taking except bare needs. And walked out with his middle finger in the air. When e returned from the Rome trip I was out on a bus back to my mothers with the words he was sending me back to her in the same condition received on our wedding day 6 years before announcing it to the world. No break between my arrival and being handed divorce filing, No attempt at trying to negotiate. Just told me that I had broken a promise that I swore on my bible I would do as he wanted after my return for his cooperation. That was the third time I broke my word when he wanted a road trip to Yosemite since I had begged him to allow a lessor seniority have the vacation.
    In the Orient express trip it was so a young couple could go on their honey moon my husband had 33 years seniority to their one year. We came back knowing we were not going to hear the end of another broken promise, He did not show up to pick us up, We were almost strapped for cash when we returned and had to pool the resources we had left to hire a airport bus for the nearly seventy mile ride home. I got home to the locks changed and the bank account cleaned out and everyone trying to locate my husband to go to work that day. He Called in the first time in 30 years Said He wanted to know how to increase his chances for a disciplinary lay off for 30 days, Then everything feel apart after he was pushed in by the sheriff five month later he was on the table loosing the feeling in his legs and cooperation and slowing things down is nothing he is willing to consider now. I tried keeping his cooperation until he broke his fathers neck this last spring I had offered my last compromise about a vacation trip, I told Him That He knew he was going to anger people if he just did not stay home especially his father. I begged him to wait three more years until 2018 and a trip to Hawaii, I asked if it was worth making me and everyone else uncomfortable with his now total defiance. He told me if I went on the vacation he chose at the same time he would not go. IU said I had planned this one until he changed the reservations I would go in three more years, He was going to pull both of our reservations and refuse any money for me going unless he went. Again I was the one backing down. As predicted his father was furious he would defy him again. Came after his son with a ball bat and ended up in a neck imobilizer and nobody going. That's when the world strrarted coming apart, my friends say I have to either kill or dump my husband or they wont deal with me, My husband Is violent enough I cant get him any consideration now. Not that there was any to begin with. My husband has moved us completely away from the society I knew 1230 miles to the west.
    I never knew a way to get my husbands needs meet without causing others to miss out in their needs. I did the best I could for decades trying to get him to see his giving up what he earned was best even for him. He just should have taken his weeks when everyone wanted and maybe everything else would have clicked. His father says only a very lazy man would keep track of decades of no days off and begrudge the rest of us. He also said only a brut would start a sex life up as he did.

  12. Walking away from family especially a mother is what I have done. From name calling to accusing me of having an intimate relationship she created in her selfish mind. Yes after 25 I learned to walk away from her and never look back. I do not miss the humiliation or Name calling. It was a horrible childhood. But I am learning u cannot change them, u can change urself. I have educated myself into my masters already trying too better me and my little brother whom has also fallen in that same hole of my sick minded mother head. Me and Joey (brother) have good spiritual guidance and that too has made my life way much better. Cutting losses is better then living miserable and hateful. God and good people are our graceful outcome.

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