Casualty of a Manipulative Person

My healing process includes listening to a lot of podcasts and YouTube videos.

Over the weekend I found a new-to-me YouTube channel with some really good videos about narcissistic abuse: "Stephanie Lyn Coaching."

She has a video called "How to Handle A Manipulative Person" that I found particularly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAbon_o01hI

She says that manipulative people are "very child-like" and that growing up they never learned how to respect boundaries. Uh - check!

She says, "These are the people that learned over time that if they pushed and pushed, either their parents or siblings or whoever... you know, pushed . . . that they eventually got their way and people around them caved in."

This explains so so much about the relationship.  There are posts - serious posts of desperately abusive, destructive incidents - that I haven't written yet but that this video explains.

She claims that perhaps these people had parents who were a narcissistic/codependent combination and who observed one parent using manipulation tactics against the other. "They learned, over time, these tactics, in order to control the outcome of a situation and ultimately get what they want from someone."

She goes on to say that manipulative people are "extremely insecure" and that they have "very fragile egos" so that when someone says "No" to them, it creates a wound and bruises their ego. "They never learned how to accept a 'No' and how to process that and how to deal with it. Again - very child-like." 

She explains that "life is a game" to manipulative people, that it's about "who's winning, who's losing, who's in control, who's not, who has the power... they're not the people who are going to rationally sit down and think about what's fair or, you know, 'Let me compromise with you.'." That explains so much about the power and control dynamic that existed!

She says, "They just want what they want when they want it!"

This was the crux of all of the abuse.  All of the bullying.  All of the psychological manipulation.  All of the fights.  All of the character attacks.  Everything.  It always always came down to that I wasn't giving him what he wanted, and he was determined to try to get what he wanted from me, no matter the consequences.  No matter the effects on me. 

And the effects on me have been enormous. Six years of (C)PTSD symptoms following on after I (still very uncertainly) ended it.

She said next on the video said something that was so simple and yet was so profound to me because it explained SO much of my ongoing experience of subtle abuse and coercion in the relationship.  She says, "These are the people that, when they ask something of you, they want an answer right away. And again, it's that pushing back - it's that, 'I don't want to give you a second to think about what you actually want and how you feel. I want you to give me an answer right away, because I want what I want and I want it right now. So if you were to say to a manipulative person, 'Well you know give me a minute' or 'Let me talk to you tomorrow about this, I just need time to think about it.', they won't like that, and they will continually be pushing on you until you give them the answer."

OH. MY. GOD. This was so much of the abuse, right here, in a nutshell. This was some of the worst and most insidious parts of the relationship. This was where he trapped me the most, so many times. This was where so much of the true scarring of the abuse happened. It was so fucking underhanded. He would come across, at certain times, as being so "reasonable," when really he was absolutely pushing me to answer *right now* to what he wanted.

It was *so fucking abusive* and *so controlling*. All of my internal bodily systems told me so at the time. But at the time he also managed to make it sound like he was being so incredibly relationally focused.

It's really hard to even figure out how to explain it!

He pressed me in this way in particular when it came to committing to events and to dates on the calendar. He frankly made me feel like I was a super commitment-phobe, when I'm really not, it was just that he would push me so fucking hard! 

So sadly, I remember a conversation in my car on our way to go sailing one night during our last year back together when I remember actually hoping we were making a tiny step forward in progress together.  He was pushing me to commit to attending his family's July 4th gathering *again* - there was never any room for compromise or any recognition that I have my own tradition of spending July 4th with my own family - and he *totally* emotionally manipulated me by extolling how his own family was putting a lot of pressure on him over the phone about committing to whether or not we would attend the annual gathering.  He *totally* emotionally manipulated me about it! I remember that the conversation was so incredibly stressful for me - because he kept pushing and pushing - and yet that he did an "emotional reveal" where I actually felt like maybe he was emotionally vulnerable with me for once, about the stress he was feeling because he said his family was putting pressure on him about committing to attend. I now believe that was all pretty much utter bullshit. He was merely using yet a different other manipulation tactic on me to get me to agree to do what he wanted to do. Fucktard! What a fucking asshole.

We broke up for good before that July 4th event ever happened.

She (Stephanie Lyn) goes on to say some stuff that's frankly hard to hear, about how these people know their targets and know our vulnerabilities and so target those with intention toward getting what they want from us. :(

"When all else fails and they're still not getting what they want out of you, here's where the really abusive behavior comes into play.  Here's where the bullying starts, and the threatening, and the name calling - 'You're selfish,' 'You're crazy,' 'I do everything for you and you're never there for me.'"

All of the ensuing tactics are to make you doubt yourself, to make you wonder if what you want and how you feel is wrong, and that you should be giving them what they want because they deserve it. "It's that sense of entitlement also within a manipulative person, that it shouldn't matter what you want or how you feel, 'This is just what I want, and I deserve to get whatever I want at any moment, and if you're not giving it to me, then you're going to get some backlash.'"

She goes on to say some really good stuff about knowing how to set good boundaries.  This is what I was doing certainly at least the last year together. I was paying attention to how everything felt inside. I was paying attention to all the boundary violations. I was paying attention to how much I was giving and to where my internal limits were, and to all the way he insisted on pushing those limits. I was paying attention how it felt different when I was giving to him or the girls from a genuinely loving place versus when I was giving or doing something because he was manipulating me into it. Ugh!  That last part was SO SO horrific and was the absolute downfall of the relationship! 

I want my life back!! I want myself back, not just the self I was before him, but the awesome self I was *while* I was with him! I gave him all of my very best self.  I want her back!!!  Sometimes, when I think I'm missing him, I have to remind myself that who I am actually missing is myself.  I don't know how to get myself back. :(