There is plenty here and as no passes through life, one meets them all. It does not make them any more pleasant. Yet your response really never changes as we recognize the act almost immediately for what it is. Few are truly naive, though many pretend to be.
The greatest error to fall into is to believe you can change the outcome or behavior itself when the person is easily addicted to whatever is provided by their ridiculous behavior.
The only real advice here is to avoid with extreme prejudice. That is probably best.
.
20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You
https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/4/
Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits
engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately
exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and
friends. They use a plethora of diversionary tactics that distort the
reality of their victims and deflect responsibility. Although those who
are not narcissistic can employ these tactics as well, abusive
narcissists use these to an excessive extent in an effort to escape
accountability for their actions.
Here are the 20 diversionary tactics toxic people use to silence and degrade you.
1. Gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that can be described in
different variations of three words: “That didn’t happen,” “You imagined
it,” and “Are you crazy?” Gaslighting
is perhaps one of the most insidious manipulative tactics out there
because it works to distort and erode your sense of reality; it eats
away at your ability to trust yourself and inevitably disables you from
feeling justified in calling out abuse and mistreatment.
When a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath
gaslights you, you may be prone to gaslighting yourself as a way to
reconcile the cognitive dissonance that might arise. Two conflicting
beliefs battle it out: is this person right or can I trust what I
experienced? A manipulative person will convince you that the former is
an inevitable truth while the latter is a sign of dysfunction on your
end.
In order to resist gaslighting, it’s important to ground yourself in
your own reality – sometimes writing things down as they happened,
telling a friend or reiterating your experience to a support network can
help to counteract the gaslighting effect.
The power of having a validating community is that it can redirect you
from the distorted reality of a malignant person and back to your own
inner guidance.
2. Projection.
One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling
to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to
avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection.
Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of
one’s negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else.
It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and
accountability.
While we all engage in projection to some extent, according to
Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, the
projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive.
Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings,
malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on
their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively
cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they
would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior
and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to
project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.
For example, a person who engages in pathological lying may accuse
their partner of fibbing; a needy spouse may call their husband “clingy”
in an attempt to depict them as the one who is dependent; a rude
employee may call their boss ineffective in an effort to escape the
truth about their own productivity.
Narcissistic abusers love to play the “blameshifting game.”
Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and you or the world at
large is blamed for everything that’s wrong with them. This way, you get to babysit their fragile ego while you’re thrust into a sea of self-doubt. Fun, right?
Solution? Don’t “project” your own sense of compassion or empathy
onto a toxic person and don’t own any of the toxic person’s projections
either. As manipulation expert and author Dr. George Simon (2010) notes
in his book In Sheep’s Clothing,
projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the
potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.
Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no
interest in self-insight or change. It’s important to cut ties and end
interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get
centered in your own reality and validate your own identity. You don’t
have to live in someone else’s cesspool of dysfunction.
3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.
If you think you’re going to have a thoughtful discussion with
someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than
conversational mindfulness.
Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad,
circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and
gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever
disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order
to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main
problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual
thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist.
Spend even ten minutes arguing with a toxic narcissist and you’ll
find yourself wondering how the argument even began at all. You simply
disagreed with them about their absurd claim that the sky is red and now
your entire childhood, family, friends, career and lifestyle choices
have come under attack. That is because your disagreement picked at
their false belief that they are omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in
a narcissistic injury.
Remember: toxic people don’t argue with you, they essentially argue
with themselves and you become privy to their long, draining monologues.
They thrive off the drama and they live for it. Each and every time you
attempt to provide a point that counters their ridiculous assertions,
you feed them supply.
Don’t feed the narcissists supply – rather, supply yourself with the
confirmation that their abusive behavior is the problem, not you. Cut
the interaction short as soon as you anticipate it escalating and use
your energy on some decadent self-care instead.
4. Blanket statements and generalizations.
Malignant narcissists aren’t always intellectual masterminds – many
of them are intellectually lazy. Rather than taking the time to
carefully consider a different perspective, they generalize anything and
everything you say, making blanket statements that don’t acknowledge
the nuances in your argument or take into account the multiple
perspectives you’ve paid homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on
you that dismisses your perspective altogether?
On a larger scale, generalizations and blanket statements invalidate
experiences that don’t fit in the unsupported assumptions, schemas and
stereotypes of society; they are also used to maintain the status quo.
This form of digression exaggerates one perspective to the point where a
social justice issue can become completely obscured. For example, rape
accusations against well-liked figures are often met with the reminder
that there are false reports of rape that occur. While those do occur, they are rare,
and in this case, the actions of one become labeled the behavior of the
majority while the specific report itself remains unaddressed.
These everyday microaggressions also happen in toxic relationships.
If you bring up to a narcissistic abuser that their behavior is
unacceptable for example, they will often make blanket generalizations
about your hypersensitivity or make a generalization such as, “You are never satisfied,” or “You’re always
too sensitive” rather than addressing the real issues at hand. It’s
possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible
that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.
Hold onto your truth and resist generalizing statements by realizing
that they are in fact forms of black and white illogical thinking. Toxic
people wielding blanket statements do not represent the full richness
of experience – they represent the limited one of their singular
experience and overinflated sense of self.
5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.
In the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath, your differing
opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into
character flaws and evidence of your irrationality.
Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe what you’re actually saying
as a way to make your opinions look absurd or heinous. Let’s say you
bring up the fact that you’re unhappy with the way a toxic friend is
speaking to you. In response, he or she may put words in your mouth,
saying, “Oh, so now you’re perfect?” or “So I am a bad person,
huh?” when you’ve done nothing but express your feelings. This enables
them to invalidate your right to have thoughts and emotions about their
inappropriate behavior and instills in you a sense of guilt when you
attempt to establish boundaries.
This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as “mind reading.”
Toxic people often presume they know what you’re thinking and feeling.
They chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather
than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act
accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no
apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting
words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or
outlandish viewpoint you didn’t possess. They accuse you of thinking of
them as toxic – even before you’ve gotten the chance to call them out on
their behavior – and this also serves as a form of preemptive defense.
Simply stating, “I never said that,” and walking away should the
person continue to accuse you of doing or saying something you didn’t
can help to set a firm boundary in this type of interaction. So long as
the toxic person can blameshift and digress from their own behavior,
they have succeeded in convincing you that you should be “shamed” for
giving them any sort of realistic feedback.
6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.
The difference between constructive criticism and destructive
criticism is the presence of a personal attack and impossible standards.
These so-called “critics” often don’t want to help you improve, they
just want to nitpick, pull you down and scapegoat you in any way they
can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths employ a logical fallacy known
as “moving the goalposts”
in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually
dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after you’ve provided all the
evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to
meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand
more proof.
Do you have a successful career? The narcissist will then start to
pick on why you aren’t a multi-millionaire yet. Did you already fulfill
their need to be excessively catered to? Now it’s time to prove that you
can also remain “independent.” The goal posts will perpetually change
and may not even be related to each other; they don’t have any other
point besides making you vie for the narcissist’s approval and
validation.
By raising the expectations higher and higher each time or switching
them completely, highly manipulative and toxic people are able to
instill in you a pervasive sense of unworthiness and of never feeling
quite “enough.” By pointing out one irrelevant fact or one thing you did
wrong and developing a hyperfocus on it, narcissists get to divert from
your strengths and pull you into obsessing over any flaws or weaknesses
instead. They get you thinking about the next expectation of theirs
you’re going to have to meet – until eventually you’ve bent over
backwards trying to fulfill their every need – only to realize it didn’t
change the horrific way they treated you.
Don’t get sucked into nitpicking and changing goal posts – if someone
chooses to rehash an irrelevant point over and over again to the point
where they aren’t acknowledging the work you’ve done to validate your
point or satisfy them, their motive isn’t to better understand. It’s to
further provoke you into feeling as if you have to constantly prove
yourself. Validate and approve of yourself. Know that you are enough and
you don’t have to be made to feel constantly deficient or unworthy in
some way.
7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.
This type of tactic is what I like to call the “What about me?”
syndrome. It is a literal digression from the actual topic that works to
redirect attention to a different issue altogether. Narcissists don’t
want you to be on the topic of holding them accountable for anything, so
they will reroute discussions to benefit them. Complaining about their
neglectful parenting? They’ll point out a mistake you committed seven
years ago. This type of diversion has no limits in terms of time or
subject content, and often begins with a sentence like “What about the
time when…”
On a macrolevel, these diversions work to derail discussions that
challenge the status quo. A discussion about gay rights, for example,
may be derailed quickly by someone who brings in another social justice
issue just to distract people from the main argument.
As Tara Moss, author of Speaking Out: A 21st Century Handbook for Women and Girls,
notes, specificity is needed in order to resolve and address issues
appropriately – that doesn’t mean that the issues that are being brought
up don’t matter, it just means that the specific time and place may not
be the best context to discuss them.
Don’t be derailed – if someone pulls a switcheroo on you, you can
exercise what I call the “broken record” method and continue stating the
facts without giving in to their distractions. Redirect their
redirection by saying, “That’s not what I am talking about. Let’s stay
focused on the real issue.” If they’re not interested, disengage and
spend your energy on something more constructive – like not having a
debate with someone who has the mental age of a toddler.
8. Covert and overt threats.
Narcissistic abusers and otherwise toxic people feel very threatened when their excessive sense of entitlement,
false sense of superiority and grandiose sense of self are challenged
in any way. They are prone to making unreasonable demands on others –
while punishing you for not living up to their impossible to reach
expectations.
Rather than tackle disagreements or compromises maturely, they set
out to divert you from your right to have your own identity and
perspective by attempting to instill fear in you about the consequences
of disagreeing or complying with their demands. To them, any challenge
results in an ultimatum and “do this or I’ll do that” becomes their
daily mantra.
If someone’s reaction to you setting boundaries or having a differing
opinion from your own is to threaten you into submission, whether it’s a
thinly veiled threat or an overt admission of what they plan to do,
this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and
has no plans of compromising. Take threats seriously and show the
narcissist you mean business; document threats and report them whenever
possible and legally feasible.
9. Name-calling.
Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to
their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever
be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic
injury that results in narcissistic rage.
As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from
low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense
of superiority.
The lowest of the low resort to narcissistic rage in the form of
name-calling when they can’t think of a better way to manipulate your
opinion or micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is a quick and easy
way to put you down, degrade you and insult your intelligence,
appearance or behavior while invalidating your right to be a separate
person with a right to his or her perspective.
Name-calling can also be used to criticize your beliefs, opinions and
insights. A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly
becomes “silly” or “idiotic” in the hands of a malignant narcissist or
sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful,
convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you
as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in
any way they possibly can. It’s important to end any interaction that
consists of name-calling and communicate that you won’t tolerate it.
Don’t internalize it: realize that they are resorting to name-calling
because they are deficient in higher level methods.
10. Destructive conditioning.
Toxic people condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and
happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by
sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits they once idealized
as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and
holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and
make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.
Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise toxic people do
this because they wish to divert attention back to themselves and how
you’re going to please them. If there is anything outside of them that
may threaten their control over your life, they seek to destroy it. They
need to be the center of attention at all times. In the idealization
phase, you were once the center of a narcissist’s world – now the
narcissist becomes the center of yours.
Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious
and don’t want anything to come in between them and their influence
over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot
have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that
you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the
toxic person, what’s to keep you from leaving them? To toxic people, a
little conditioning can go a long way to keep you walking on eggshells
and falling just short of your big dreams.
11. Smear campaigns and stalking.
When toxic types can’t control the way you see yourself, they start
to control how others see you; they play the martyr while you’re labeled
the toxic one. A smear campaign is a preemptive strike to sabotage your
reputation and slander your name so that you won’t have a support
network to fall back on lest you decide to detach and cut ties with this
toxic person. They may even stalk and harass you or the people you know
as a way to supposedly “expose” the truth about you; this exposure acts
as a way to hide their own abusive behavior while projecting it onto
you.
Some smear campaigns can even work to pit two people or two groups
against each other. A victim in an abusive relationship with a
narcissist often doesn’t know what’s being said about them during the
relationship, but they eventually find out the falsehoods shortly after
they’ve been discarded.
Toxic people will gossip behind your back (and in front of your
face), slander you to your loved ones or their loved ones, create
stories that depict you as the aggressor while they play the victim, and
claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that they are afraid you
will accuse them of engaging in. They will also methodically, covertly
and deliberately abuse you so they can use your reactions as a way to
prove that they are the so-called “victims” of your abuse.
The best way to handle a smear campaign is to stay mindful of your
reactions and stick to the facts. This is especially pertinent for
high-conflict divorces with narcissists who may use your reactions to
their provocations against you. Document any form of harassment,
cyberbullying or stalking incidents and always speak to your narcissist
through a lawyer whenever possible. You may wish to take legal action if
you feel the stalking and harassment is getting out of control; finding
a lawyer who is well-versed
in Narcissistic Personality Disorder is crucial if that’s the case.
Your character and integrity will speak for itself when the narcissist’s
false mask begins to slip.
12. Love-bombing and devaluation.
Toxic people put you through an idealization phase until you’re
sufficiently hooked and invested in beginning a friendship or
relationship with you. Then, they begin to devalue you while insulting
the very things they admired in the first place. Another variation of
this is when a toxic individual puts you on a pedestal while
aggressively devaluing and attacking someone else who threatens their
sense of superiority.
Narcissistic abusers do this all the time – they devalue their exes
to their new partners, and eventually the new partner starts to receive
the same sort of mistreatment as the narcissist’s ex-partner.
Ultimately what will happen is that you will also be on the receiving
end of the same abuse. You will one day be the ex-partner they degrade
to their new source of supply. You just don’t know it yet. That’s why
it’s important to stay mindful of the love-bombing technique whenever
you witness behavior that doesn’t align with the saccharine sweetness a
narcissist subjects you to.
As life coach Wendy Powell suggests, slowing things down
with people you suspect may be toxic is an important way of combating
the love-bombing technique. Be wary of the fact that how a person treats
or speaks about someone else could potentially translate into the way
they will treat you in the future.
13. Preemptive defense.
When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl,
that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility
without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.
Toxic and abusive people overstate their ability to be kind and
compassionate. They often tell you that you should “trust” them without
first building a solid foundation of trust. They may “perform” a high
level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning of your relationship to
dupe you, only to unveil their false mask later on. When you see their
false mask begins to slip periodically during the devaluation phase of
the abuse cycle, the true self is revealed to be terrifyingly cold,
callous and contemptuous.
Genuinely nice people rarely have to persistently show off their
positive qualities – they exude their warmth more than they talk about
it and they know that actions speak volumes more than mere words. They
know that trust and respect is a two-way street that requires
reciprocity, not repetition.
To counter a preemptive defense, reevaluate why a person may be
emphasizing their good qualities. Is it because they think you don’t
trust them, or because they know you shouldn’t? Trust actions more than
empty words and see how someone’s actions communicate who they are, not
who they say they are.
14. Triangulation.
Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as “triangulation.”
Often used to validate the toxic person’s abuse while invalidating the
victim’s reactions to abuse, triangulation can also work to manufacture
love triangles that leave you feeling unhinged and insecure.
Malignant narcissists love to triangulate their significant other
with strangers, co-workers, ex-partners, friends and even family members
in order to evoke jealousy and uncertainty in you. They also use the
opinions of others to validate their point of view.
This is a diversionary tactic meant to pull your attention away from
their abusive behavior and into a false image of them as a desirable,
sought after person. It also leaves you questioning yourself – if Mary
did agree with Tom, doesn’t that mean that you must be wrong? The truth
is, narcissists love to “report back” falsehoods about others say about
you, when in fact, they are the ones smearing you.
To resist triangulation tactics, realize that whoever the narcissist
is triangulating with is also being triangulated by your relationship
with the narcissist as well. Everyone is essentially being played by
this one person. Reverse “triangulate” the narcissist by gaining support
from a third party that is not under the narcissist’s influence – and
also by seeking your own validation.
15. Bait and feign innocence.
Toxic individuals lure you into a false sense of security simply to
have a platform to showcase their cruelty. Baiting you into a mindless,
chaotic argument can escalate into a showdown rather quickly with
someone who doesn’t know the meaning of respect. A simple disagreement
may bait you into responding politely initially, until it becomes clear
that the person has a malicious motive of tearing you down.
By “baiting” you with a seemingly innocuous comment disguised as a
rational one, they can then begin to play with you. Remember: narcissistic abusers
have learned about your insecurities, the unsettling catchphrases that
interrupt your confidence, and the disturbing topics that reenact your
wounds – and they use this knowledge maliciously to provoke you. After
you’ve fallen for it, hook line and sinker, they’ll stand back and
innocently ask whether you’re “okay” and talk about how they didn’t
“mean” to agitate you. This faux innocence works to catch you off guard
and make you believe that they truly didn’t intend to hurt you, until it
happens so often you can’t deny the reality of their malice any longer.
It helps to realize when you’re being baited so you can avoid
engaging altogether. Provocative statements, name-calling, hurtful
accusations or unsupported generalizations, for example, are common
baiting tactics. Your gut instinct can also tell you when you’re being
baited – if you feel “off” about a certain comment and continue to feel
this way even after it has been expanded on, that’s a sign you may need
to take some space to reevaluate the situation before choosing to
respond.
16. Boundary testing and hoovering.
Narcissists, sociopaths and otherwise toxic people continually try
and test your boundaries to see which ones they can trespass. The more
violations they’re able to commit without consequences, the more they’ll
push the envelope.
That’s why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often
experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they
go back to their abusers.
Abusers tend to “hoover”
their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse and empty words
of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more
horrifically. In the abuser’s sick mind, this boundary testing serves as
a punishment for standing up to the abuse and also for being going back
to it. When narcissists try to press the emotional reset button,
reinforce your boundaries even more strongly rather than backtracking on
them.
Remember – highly manipulative people don’t respond to empathy or compassion. They respond to consequences.
17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.
Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at your expense.
These are usually dressed up as “just jokes” so that they can get away
with saying appalling things while still maintaining an innocent, cool
demeanor. Yet any time you are outraged at an insensitive, harsh remark,
you are accused of having no sense of humor. This is a tactic
frequently used in verbal abuse.
The contemptuous smirk and sadistic gleam in their eyes gives it
away, however – like a predator that plays with its food, a toxic person
gains pleasure from hurting you and being able to get away with it.
After all, it’s just a joke, right? Wrong. It’s a way to gaslight you
into thinking their abuse is a joke – a way to divert from their cruelty
and onto your perceived sensitivity. It is important that when this
happens, you stand up for yourself and make it clear that you won’t
tolerate this type of behavior.
Calling out manipulative people on their covert put-downs may result
in further gaslighting from the abuser but maintain your stance that
their behavior is not okay and end the interaction immediately if you
have to.
18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.
Belittling and degrading a person is a toxic person’s forte and their tone of voice is only one tool in their toolbox. Sarcasm
can be a fun mode of communication when both parties are engaged, but
narcissists use it chronically as a way to manipulate you and degrade
you. If you in any way react to it, you must be “too sensitive.”
Forget that the toxic person constantly has temper tantrums every
time their big bad ego is faced with realistic feedback – the victim is
the hypersensitive one, apparently. So long as you’re treated like a
child and constantly challenged for expressing yourself, you’ll start to
develop a sense of hypervigilance about voicing your thoughts and
opinions without reprimand. This self-censorship enables the abuser to
put in less work in silencing you, because you begin to silence
yourself.
Whenever you are met with a condescending demeanor or tone, call it
out firmly and assertively. You don’t deserve to be spoken down to like a
child – nor should you ever silence yourself to meet the expectation of
someone else’s superiority complex.
19. Shaming.
“You should be ashamed of yourself” is a favorite saying of toxic
people. Though it can be used by someone who is non-toxic, in the realm
of the narcissist or sociopath, shaming is an effective method that
targets any behavior or belief that might challenge a toxic person’s
power. It can also be used to destroy and whittle away at a victim’s
self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of something, shaming the
victim for that specific trait, quality or accomplishment can serve to
diminish their sense of self and stifle any pride they may have.
Malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths enjoy using your
own wounds against you – so they will even shame you about any abuse or
injustice you’ve suffered in your lifetime as a way to retraumatize you.
Were you a childhood abuse survivor? A malignant narcissist or
sociopath will claim that you must’ve done something to deserve it, or
brag about their own happy childhood as a way to make you feel deficient
and unworthy. What better way to injure you, after all, than to pick at
the original wound? As surgeons of madness, they seek to exacerbate wounds, not help heal them.
If you suspect you’re dealing with a toxic person, avoid revealing
any of your vulnerabilities or past traumas. Until they’ve proven their
character to you, there is no point disclosing information that could be
potentially used against you.
20. Control.
Most importantly, toxic abusers love to maintain control in whatever
way they can. They isolate you, maintain control over your finances and
social networks, and micromanage every facet of your life. Yet the most
powerful mechanism they have for control is toying with your emotions.
That’s why abusive narcissists and sociopaths manufacture situations
of conflict out of thin air to keep you feeling off center and off
balanced. That’s why they chronically engage in disagreements about
irrelevant things and rage over perceived slights. That’s why they
emotionally withdraw, only to re-idealize you once they start to lose
control. That’s why they vacillate between their false self and their
true self, so you never get a sense of psychological safety or certainty
about who your partner truly is.
The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll
trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring.
Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense
of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you’re facing and at the
very least, develop a plan to regain control over your own life and away
from toxic people.
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