Quote from John Freeman on July 10, 2023, 8:52 pm

Yes Bel, reacting appropriately to agression and/or domination is a difficult art. We talk a lot about it for good reasons. I think it comes with practice, feed-back and introspection as you do. So I think it takes months to years to become good at. Like some Hollywood celebs. They had to endure tons of attacks before being able to react with social finesse. I think that’s the general principle: to react to attacks with social finesse.

That is not to turn it into an open confrontation but either to nip it in the bud or to turn it around to a collaborative frame or a funny frame or a frame that is slightly disempowering to the attacker enough so that it closes the fight and not too much that you seem the agressor.

Anything that when you’re being unjustly attacked you win in such a way that there is no counter or come back from it.

All of this to say that props to you man for going out of your comfort zone and experimenting with new behaviours. It is paying dividends slowly but surely. Thanks for sharing it’s inspiring!

Quote from John Freeman on July 10, 2023, 9:03 pm

About the clown. Value taker humour as it’s been pointed out by Lucio. He does not make fun of himself, no social critique. Making fun of other people is easy.

In this case leaving was the best option I agree.

Quote from B on July 11, 2023, 9:31 pm

Fight-flight-freeze-fawn

I had an epiphany today.

So far I thought I was a submissive person, and that I had basically submitted to many people in my life.

There are, in abstract, four "trauma responses" (ie ingrained standard behaviors that people adopt as a response to childhood trauma and to episodes that resemble traumatic childhood experiences): fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

I thought I was a "fawn" person, meaning that I acceded to the manipulators' demands.

But now I realize I was, and still am, a "flight" person. More passive-aggressive than submissive, if you want.

I now realize that I never really acceded to the manipulators demands. I rather (unconsciously) tried to make them pay underhandedly.

And now I see that I was somewhat very good at this.

In my own family, when they tried to manipulate me into compliance, I used to retreat into my room, stay alone, and even exit the house all day.

My ghosting all manipulators in my life is also consistent with the "flight" response.

And my wanting to lose all contacts with those who power move on me, as if they don't exist for me anymore: I still have this tendency, that is clearly visible from many of my posts here (I remember Lucio suggesting to me I keep in limited contact with some power movers, and me wanting to just lose them).

My leaving all bad workplaces.

My estrangement from my family, as well.

I am a "flight" person. It's an ingrained behavior from my childhood.

It served me well until I was able to better defend myself.

But I also paid a big price in terms of loss of many relationships. And probably also in terms of loss of the capability to be considered a "leader".

I now see why I often avoid entering into disputes I'm not part of.

Now that I now this consciously, positive change may finally be possible for me.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 12, 2023, 12:34 am

Yeah, I think to acquire status and, even more, leadership, engaging with the conflict around you may be important.

The person who says "not my business" may enjoy an easier life -and by all means it's a perfectly valid approach and sometimes even superior approach in some circumstances and depending on what one wants-.

But rarely ascends to leadership.

And while he avoids making enemies, he also loses strategically important opportunities to make good allies.

Many folks also look down on the "not my business" type of person -you know the Divine Comedy ,the "ignavi"-, and some others may see it as similar to passive/fearful.

Quote from B on July 12, 2023, 12:07 pm

It's basically what TPM and PU teach:

don't retreat, just learn to play the game.

I suppose lowering the unconscious "flight mode" is something that comes naturally once one is not in fear anymore.

Quote from B on July 12, 2023, 3:11 pm

It was the raging, and the gaslighting.

These were the two things that squashed my assertiveness in my family of origin.

Raging frightens the child. It is designed to make him feel powerless to stand up and assert his rights. And if it is triangular, it also contains a gaslighting element.

Gaslighting twists reality, making the child think he is the guilty party, and that the abuse was not abuse, but either did not happen, or was a legitimate reaction to his nasty behavior.

A deadly combo that squashes assertiveness in children and sets them up for a life of submissiveness.

Unless one is strong, and in pursuit of the truth.

Quote from B on July 12, 2023, 7:00 pm

Update on the person who tried to play this handshake opening gambit on me last year:

Quote from Bel on August 9, 2022, 9:05 pm

Handshake opening gambit

I was at relatives’ house for a birthday.

My relatives invited a couple of friends (that I did not know) from the same area for the cake.

The wife arrives first, and says her husband would come in a bit, as he needed to sleep because he was tired.

Ten minutes later (!) the husband arrives, and I am the first person he encounters coming in. I am sitting with my back at the door, and I stand up to say hi.

The power move

He looks at me, I go to shake hands and, as we are about to…

… he extends his hand to my partner (who is standing beside and behind me) and shakes her hand, ignoring me altogether.

My response

Then he turns at me and this dialogue ensues that everybody hears:

Him: Hey! Sorry I didn’t really see you! (shakes my hand)

Me: Take it easy, I also wear glasses. (sly smile)

Me: (I turn around and sit down again with my back at him)

His wife: (to him) I don’t understand, Bel even got up to say hi and you do this?

His wife: (to me) Please excuse him Bel. He’s really like this unfortunately.

Him: (to me while I was sitting with my back at him) Really I don’t know why I didn’t see you.

Me: (turning my head a bit without looking at him): Don’t worry, I understand what happened.

He definitely did it on purpose.

My partner later told me everyone felt he was an as*****. She said that his wife basically verbalized the feeling everyone got from the interaction.

Rest of the interaction

Basically he tried to make me react to (what I felt were) nasty one-upping questions two or three times. I responded with dismissive jokes and didn’t give him real answers, as I had the feeling he was trying to see if he could regain a footing.

——

What a nasty move btw. Makes me wonder whether it might be a mistake to keep standing up to shake hands. Probably not though: if other person power moves and you react well, other people see you as kind and the other person loses out of his own gambit.

I am also wondering if I would have done better to reengage him in normal conversation later. But I felt the move was too nasty and played in front of everyone to demean me, so I didn’t trust him anymore.

Turns out that (my relatives told me) the wife of this man now caught him chatting online with other women.

And, to her chagrin, when she asked him why, he told her something like "It's obvious: I want to meet them!".

I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted.

It's too far out.

But that's exactly how a dark triad would behave if he wanted to "get caught", maybe as a way of pushing her to divorce him.

Which also might explain his bold move with me and Bella in my post quoted here above, which was precisely done in front of his wife.

Quote from B on July 15, 2023, 2:13 pm

This is something I fully realized only today:

The outcome of the final power showdown with my former boss protects me and my career (and gives me future leverage against him) more than anything I could have hoped for. 

I am now seeing that the power showdown with my former boss ended really, really well for me. Incredibly well.

I now see I likely destroyed his self-image as dark triad more than anything else I could have done.

The premise is that dark triads only want power over people, including the power to frame people who left their workplaces as "bad", and the power to blackball former employees forever in their career field.

In contrast, I now see that:

• while, when I left his toxic workplace, his "story" was that I was a "bad employee", I now have written proof that he later called me back in for another project

I have several certified emails where I ask him for payment for the last work I did, which definitely (and in writing) do prove that he called me back after I left.

Now I see why in my last email I wrote "the work you asked me to do".

This (proof that he wanted me back) counteracts his inevitable lies (about me leaving as I was "not good") more than anything I could ever do or say.

• I have proof that - after this last project - our relationship ended not due to my behavior, but due to him "disappearing and not wanting to pay me"

This is because I have several certified emails, over the course of two years, where I asked him to be paid for the last work I had done, and to which he never responded.

In other words, he self-framed (in writing, this time due to my writing and him not responding) as the one who was "bad" and "trying to disappear not to pay me".

If he ever spouts lies on what transpired, I can just say

"He just disappeared suddenly after the work was done. I had to chase him for two years to get paid, and all the while he never responded me.".

And I have the written proof to back everything up. This frames him as the bad guy (as he is) better than anything else.

• the fact that he ultimately paid me exactly what I asked for, rather than going to a lawsuit, proves I was the one who had the "true" frame

In other words, by ultimately paying me, he confirmed the truth forever.

• the extreme (two year) lenght of the power showdown reinforces my good faith and reinforces his "badness"

The fact that the power showdown extended for more than two years now frames me as extremely reasonable and cautious and kind, and him as trying to evade his responsibility to pay me for more than two years.

• if I ever face him again in the future, in any context, I now have the strongest card possible against him

If I ever find myself blackballed by him, I can just show the above and everything will be settled correctly.

This means, I now see, that unless he is able to now regain power over me in another way, he'll likely leave me alone forever.

He won't ever risk that I tell somebody the above story, or - worse for him - that I show the proof I have.

Now I finally see why Lucio told me, at the end of the whole ordeal, that I had obtained the biggest win possible:

I now have (future) power over him.

And it all relies on having been able to have written proof of the truth, and on him having made the mistake of not paying me immediately.

And one last point:

• his last nasty email to me (where he wrote I was "an offensive ingrateful delusion of a human") gives me even more power over him now 

Paradoxically, if I now sent him to the bar to be disciplined for his last email, I would lose power (over him).

I now see why Lucio and John suggested for me to just keep his last email, and do nothing.

In conclusion:

A true power-showdown cementing forever everything that transpired.

And the incredible fact is that I was not conscious of why I was waiting so much at the time.

Quote from B on July 16, 2023, 4:45 pm

I am starting to realize that so far I have unconsciously adopted certain "emotional behaviors" in close relationships that are directly derived from what my parents used to do at me.

While on one hand I was angry at my parents, on the other hand it seems I have internalized them and their ways.

I suppose this is the phase where I need to get rid of my own power moves.

I think these internalized ways of behaving like them were in me all the time so far; but I was unable to even contemplate them as long as I had the feeling everybody was power-moving on me, and I was defenseless.

I need to remind myself that while my former suffering was useless, and pre-programmed in me to render me useful to them, this time my suffering is good, as it is allowing me to progress toward health and life.

I guess not being like them - not in the sense of doing the opposite of what they did, but in the sense of freeing myself from their programming - is now my next goal.