5 Ways to Spot an Emotional Manipulator
Sometime back, I decided I needed to take better measures to protect myself from what I sensed were emotional manipulators. I did things people thought I would never do. I MOVED ON. Seriously. I got my journal, my yoga, my meditation ladies, my new circle of friends who lifted everyone up and then moved the hell away from the nasty black hole feelings I got from other people. I became “different” apparently. Or not. If my spidey sense was fully open and I used my sense motive check on the person and found their motives to be dishonest, I moved on. I could physically no longer take it anymore. So how did I spot some of the people I needed to get away from?
5 Ways to Spot an Emotional Manipulator
- Whatever is wrong in your life…their life is ten times worse, so they turn it back to them. If you are going through something, they are going through something far worse and make it a point to let you know that. Over and over and over again. Now your stuff could actually be life-threatening…but their mental drama is far worse. It’s difficult to talk to them about anything seriously hard in your life, because whatever it is, you know they will turn it back to what they are going through. How bad their “shit” is.
- It is never their fault. Ever. After months of listening to them turn every conversation around back to their stuff, they seem to have the same problem over and over again. Naturally, it is everyone around them and not them. They never start anything…it’s the world. They tell you this story to get you to feel sorry for them and they do a great job at it. But when you offer practical solutions to this “problem” they can’t be bothered to actually try anything to move forward. Thus repeating the cycle.
- They use ridiculous phrases that make no sense, yet somehow they weave guilt into the words. Whatever you do or say is never enough. You have no idea how to help anymore because you have tried everything yet they still say phrases like “you just don’t know how this feels.” Here is the KICKER. They repeatedly ask you for help, but not in so many words and when you finally try to help them, they say they didn’t ask for your help. WHAT the actual F Bomb. So then, because of this great and enormous problem they have created in order for you to feel sorry for them in this continual loop, for thinking you might should help them because they seem to want that support from you over and over…when you do try to help, it wasn’t what they wanted.
- They lower your vibration repeatedly. This one can be felt as soon as you walk into a room with one of these people. You immediately put your guard up…but you feel it. You feel like you have to raise their emotional state because you are thrown off-balance. The same story they cling to has now become part of their very fabric. It reaches out to pull you down to that level. Each and every time. This co-dependent cloak they wear will rob you of your ability to realize you are not them or their problems. You actually can leave this situation.
- They shrink back when you shine. You find them not happy for what is going on in your life…and you have no idea why. So overtime, as things in your life improve, the life they are leading takes a turn for the worse as a last desperate measure to keep you there with them. This might be where they start to tell others more lies…as you have gotten this feeling all along, but know that if the feeling keeps getting worse, the end is near. It takes a strong person to see these things for what they are…and the knowledge that there was nothing you could have done differently because they created a world where they wanted to be saved repeatedly, but not really get out of victim mentality.
Continue to focus on the positive things going on in your life and don’t feel guilty for moving forward. Always do what is best for you so that you can continue becoming who you were really meant to be.
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This describes my mom, unfortunately. It’s hard to be an empath with an emotionally manipulative parent.
I understand! Hugs xx