My Guide to Devious Manipulators

[StuFin]

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.

 

[woxihuanni]

Some lines from a master manipulator who convinced my husband to kill me:

This is just how I am.

I am territorial.

I will do xyz (she won't) if you don't get rid of the woman you are with.

Turn on the waterworks when he points out she has been getting somebody else's dick in her cunthole for years.

Act over-the-top cute towards men in her cult but vomit venom behind their backs.

Play at being a victim when people do not do exactly as she says, even when it could literally endanger those people's lives or when it is illegal to obey her wishes.

Play victim and claim the world is in a conspiricy against her, and simultanously market herself as strong and independent? While she is so dependent on my husband that he is not allowed to be with anybody else after her cunt stopped being of use to him for ten years? Independent when my husband even writes her pathetic cv for her? At that point I think maybe she is drugging people.

So on and so forth. She is both the eternal victim and the paragon of strength. Strength apparently traslating to, throw her toys out of the pram for no reason all the time because people find it cute.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Hmm, I think I've definitely been guilty of doing the first step far too often, especially in my recent situation. I even try to preface everything I say with a statement that I'm not trying to manipulate but the truth is even if I don't believe I am being manipulative, I'm so desperate for love and attention that anything I would do to get it is objective manipulation. I'm starting to realize I wouldn't be able to avoid it at all which sucks...

 

[Ghost2211]

It is very true that even the strongest personality falls to the cycle. Prior to meeting my ex I was a very strong independent person, and by the end of it I just got sucked into his manipulation and mind games unendingly. Even now as we are separating it is incredibly hard not to get dragged into the usual cycle of crying, justifying awful behavior, and just general unpleasantness. It's sad really how manipulators can affect the psyche of others.

 

[mahakaliSS_MahaDurga]

It is very true that even the strongest personality falls to the cycle. Prior to meeting my ex I was a very strong independent person, and by the end of it I just got sucked into his manipulation and mind games unendingly. Even now as we are separating it is incredibly hard not to get dragged into the usual cycle of crying, justifying awful behavior, and just general unpleasantness. It's sad really how manipulators can affect the psyche of others.

Don't beat yourself up over it. I've had an ex (who I wrote about here already) who would be incredibly emotionally and verbally abusive, then in a matter of days he would cry and tell me how he was feeling guilty and awful because of it (and yes, it was never really his fault, he would act like that because it was an anniversary of someone's death, someone else had upset him etc. - totally unable to accept responsibility for his actions) . It was a volatile relationship from the start and we would break up every couple of weeks and then get back together. When things finally ended, he called my employer and talked shit about me, which he continued doing for the next 5 years. I think he just couldn't bear the thought of not having control over when and how the relationship ended. With these types, it is all about control.

Every six months or so, he would send me a text saying he would like to be friends with me, or he would come at me with some paranoid construct, and when I did not respond, he'd call my boss. I only responded once, when he called my mother and talked shit about me to her. I told him to leave me alone and he threatened to call the cops on me for disrespecting a veteran or some other delusional bullshit. I stuck with "no contact" policy from then on and I am proud of myself for doing that. My boss once suggested that I file a lawsuit, but I said that would only show him that he has got to me and it would give him attention. I said that even if he straight up approached me in the street and murdered me, I would still not acknowledge him. I lived in fear, though, for a very long time.

We did have some nice moments when we were together, and he had what could be objectively considered a hard life - became a soldier at the age of 16 and suffered from PTSD as a consequence, plus he had some health problems that have led to his untimely death this Summer (he was 45). When I heard that he died, I thought how maybe I should have replied to some of his texts while he was still alive, which goes to show how low my self esteem is. Sorry for the long rant.

 

[Ghost2211]

Don't beat yourself up over it. I've had an ex (who I wrote about here already) who would be incredibly emotionally and verbally abusive, then in a matter of days he would cry and tell me how he was feeling guilty and awful because of it (and yes, it was never really his fault, he would act like that because it was an anniversary of someone's death, someone else had upset him etc. - totally unable to accept responsibility for his actions) . It was a volatile relationship from the start and we would break up every couple of weeks and then get back together. When things finally ended, he called my employer and talked shit about me, which he continued doing for the next 5 years. I think he just couldn't bear the thought of not having control over when and how the relationship ended. With these types, it is all about control.

Every six months or so, he would send me a text saying he would like to be friends with me, or he would come at me with some paranoid construct, and when I did not respond, he'd call my boss. I only responded once, when he called my mother and talked shit about me to her. I told him to leave me alone and he threatened to call the cops on me for disrespecting a veteran or some other delusional bullshit. I stuck with "no contact" policy from then on and I am proud of myself for doing that. My boss once suggested that I file a lawsuit, but I said that would only show him that he has got to me and it would give him attention. I said that even if he straight up approached me in the street and murdered me, I would still not acknowledge him. I lived in fear, though, for a very long time.

We did have some nice moments when we were together, and he had what could be objectively considered a hard life - became a soldier at the age of 16 and suffered from PTSD as a consequence, plus he had some health problems that have led to his untimely death this Summer (he was 45). When I heard that he died, I thought how maybe I should have replied to some of his texts while he was still alive, which goes to show how low my self esteem is. Sorry for the long rant.

That's quite awful but familiar in so many ways. Ex is currently in the be nice and to make everything good again part. Then he oopsed and said he's been friends talking to the home wrecker he cheated with and left me for, and now acting like he did nothing wrong keeping contact with her since they were just friends. These types of people are all from the same cookie cutter.

 

[mahakaliSS_MahaDurga]

That's quite awful but familiar in so many ways. Ex is currently in the be nice and to make everything good again part. Then he oopsed and said he's been friends talking to the home wrecker he cheated with and left me for, and now acting like he did nothing wrong keeping contact with her since they were just friends. These types of people are all from the same cookie cutter.

Indeed. Are you planning to get a divorce? If I understood correctly from your posts, you are separated but still live under the same roof?

 

[BipolarGuy]

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.

I'll be honest, when I saw the thread title and that you wrote it, I thought it was going to be a subtle-but-not-really jab at me, just like another that was called out by another user earlier today and shut down.
But I'll give you credit, you've written a good post.

It could have been more detailed. I felt by the time I was getting into it and following it, it then stopped.
But good post and nice to see it was well intentioned and not some hidden attack, because I know you conduct yourself better than to do something like that.

@GoodPersonEffed has written a post about how manipulation takes place, which is an interesting read.

 

[Ghost2211]

Indeed. Are you planning to get a divorce? If I understood correctly from your posts, you are separated but still live under the same roof?

Not married, he's justifying fucking us all over because he won't cohabitate in a civil way if I don't have romantic interest in him.

 

[Gentleman]

Really good post. I'm curious what's your degree in psychology.

 

[StuFin]

Well I was going to write more but couldn't really be bothered.

Degree in psychology Open University 20 odd years ago.

Wrote 2 books and sold about 18000 copies, which isn't exactly a best seller, but most books don't sell many at all, especially in science / academic.

I know one woman who is a professor of economics, she spends 2 years researching and writing her books in a niche area and sells maybe 150 copies a year. It varies.

I reckon I did alright.

I have a 3rd one I've written now, don't know if I'm going to bother selling it, was thinking of Amazon kindle rather than in print this time, but was also thinking of adapting some of it to other areas and releasing variations for different things.

Again, don't know if I have the energy to be bothered. New book is about Narcissism and abusive relationships and how to get over the abuse, overcoming cPTSD etc and the mind rewiring they put you through.

It's a hot topic, but getting saturated, been sitting on it for 8 months after I finished writing it.

Had it edited and etc and they say it's good, but they always do, is it worth the effort to launch it?

Everything is swallowed up and lost in the sea of Amazon.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

New book is about Narcissism and abusive relationships and how to get over the abuse, overcoming cPTSD etc and the mind rewiring they put you through.

It's a hot topic, but getting saturated, been sitting on it for 8 months after I finished writing it.

It's definitely a hot topic, and the market may be saturated, but I have yet to find a book that really nails recovery. Lots explain how to identify it, and Patricia Evans does a particularly good job, I think, of explaining the inner workings in a way that doesn't reinforce making narcissists and abusers monsters, which to me just reinforces the internal reactive fighting and therefore the other's power, but rather she interprets the humanly flawed ways they view and interpret others. Still not going to get through to them, but it makes some room for non-alarming awareness and well-boundaried compassion and, for me, gives me more power to stand more calmy and observe what's going on rather than react to run or fight or appease, and therefore exist and respond based on my observations and my own inner calm.

What I find utterly lacking in the market is how to manage when one is in an ongoing situation with a narcissist or abuser, how to heal in progress, to find and connect with one's center even as it's going on. It's not always possible to go no contact with someone, and of course one can't change them, but there's nothing out there about managing really well throughout it. Folks like that want to take one away from themeselves, hence the CPTSD, and if one already has those issues from the start, it's even more challenging, but I think there can be a way to heal, connect and grow in spite of the externals, and in fact to use them as tools for the self. Narcissists, antisocial folks and manipulators just keep the hits coming from every angle, it would be nice if there was a method that taught how to have a shield all around you and yet have room within it to breathe and move around, to not be constricted within and hemmed in by what's going on outside. I would pay a lot of money for a book like that.

 

[madbananas]

Haven't even read all this but I can't bear this anymore. Read this so many times on this forum just recently about people with BPD and manipulation and the way it's typically generalised and as someone with BPD who absolutely does not want to manipulate people, it's too much reading things that make me feel like I'm a monster.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Haven't even read all this but I can't bear this anymore. Read this so many times on this forum just recently about people with BPD and manipulation and the way it's typically generalised and as someone with BPD who absolutely does not want to manipulate people, it's too much reading things that make me feel like I'm a monster.

Hey @madbananas! The post isn't about you or about BPD. "Devious" is referring to people who manipulate in a predatory way, and that happens sometimes on the forum as well as irl. The OP even talks about people who specifically use environments such as SS because there are so many people in need, which makes them potential targets for manipulation. I've posted about the same thing many times since I first joined, and my signatures are warnings about the same.

I honor that you're still upset about the other thread and may be sensitized right now to any mention of manipulation. Maybe you can recall that narcissism and manipulation were mentioned about the guy who virtue signaled about mental health and suicide awareness? That wasn't about BPD or about you.

 

[madbananas]

Hey @madbananas! The post isn't about you or about BPD. "Devious" is referring to people who manipulate in a predatory way, and that happens sometimes on the forum as well as irl. The OP even talks about people who specifically use environments such as SS because there are so many people in need, which makes them potential targets for manipulation. I've posted about the same thing many times since I first joined, and my signatures are warnings about the same.

I honor that you're still upset about the other thread and may be sensitized right now to any mention of manipulation. Maybe you can recall that narcissism and manipulation were mentioned about the guy who virtue signaled about mental health and suicide awareness? That wasn't about BPD or about you.

I hear what you're saying and you're right I'm incredibly sensitised to everything right now never mind just the BPD thing.

 

[Symbiote]

They know how to lovebomb you making you do something you don't want to do, then discard you afterwards when you provided them with said wants and needs.

 

[262653]

I find fascinating the ways we humans use deception and manipulation to our own advantage. I'm quite interested in human behavior and the subtle influence we exert on each other interests me the most.

I had an experience in one MMORPG: there was a party of three clanmates (M1, M2, M3), and I'm one of them (M1). Due to negligence, M3 loses a very valuable item. I pick up this item and despite the requests of M3 refuse to return him the item. M2 then PMs me saying: "Let's split the reward." He was very insisting, but after finding out that he won't be getting anything, he writes in the party chat something like: "Hey, give him back the loot. We are clanmates and all that."

M2 was also a clan leader, knows the game mechanics very well, and showed me a few exploits. Later turns out, he's at least just as good at exploiting other people.

I kinda miss the times in online games when people were actively trying to manipulate me. I lost a lot of items, influence and reputation, recieved some raw trades, but also gained some valuable insights on human behavior, and by extention my own behavior.
No one does that to me in RL though, probably because I'm commonly seen as not valuable and having nothing to offer (nothing to take advantage of).

 

[StuFin]

They know how to lovebomb you making you do something you don't want to do, then discard you afterwards when you provided them with said wants and needs.

They find someone else who can give them a better level of service than you do for less effort and then ditch you after destroying you.

Then, when you're at your lowest and are starting to recover, they come back and tell you what a mistake they made, how much they care about you, and inflate your ego with a false sense of value - that they "own" and are in control of, they can withdraw it again at any time.

If you allow yourself to get hoovered back in then they have even more control over you and will make your life even more miserable.

 

[woxihuanni]

They find someone else who can give them a better level of service than you do for less effort and then ditch you after destroying you.

Then, when you're at your lowest and are starting to recover, they come back and tell you what a mistake they made, how much they care about you, and inflate your ego with a false sense of value - that they "own" and are in control of, they can withdraw it again at any time.

If you allow yourself to get hoovered back in then they have even more control over you and will make your life even more miserable.

I have been of irreplacable service and of no cost, but he decided to kill me. How about that?

 

[mahakaliSS_MahaDurga]

I have been of irreplacable service and of no cost, but he decided to kill me. How about that?

Do you have a thread or post about this, where you are explaining it in more detail? The search function is not working and I cannot access your profile.

 

[woxihuanni]

@mahakali88 I do, but I cannot reach them either. In a nutshell, he brought me to his country to share our lives which meant I gave up an acceptable life set for me in another country: phd, funding, university job, project, permanent residence. I have served him very well and he never claimed somebody else could do it better. Now he is throwing me out.

 

[mahakaliSS_MahaDurga]

@mahakali88 I do, but I cannot reach them either. In a nutshell, he brought me to his country to share our lives which meant I gave up an acceptable life set for me in another country: phd, funding, university job, project, permanent residence. I have served him very well and he never claimed somebody else could do it better. Now he is throwing me out.

I am very sorry to hear about that.