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How Manipulative Personalities Isolate People
[I originally posted an off-topic, then moved it to my journal to remain on topic here]
I also added a new item on isolating power moves in the post prior to this one in this thread.
This is indeed an awesome thread, Bel thanks a lot for sharing.
I'll add a couple:
"I'm only doing this because I love you"
The good old one. This reinforces the idea that the manipulator has the mark's best interests in mind and that the abusive action is actually benevolent (gaslighting). This isolate the mark by implying "and those other people don't". So when an 3rd party's idea/belief/behaviour contradicts what the manipulator intended the idea/belief/behaviour is rejected as it is subconsciously labeled as "bad".
Like in cults when the brainwashing is confronted with outside opinion, it reinforces the brainwashing (I'm not talking here about the manipulation: "people are going to tell you lies about me" which is another one).
Manipulator warning you of a manipulator
"Be careful this person is trying to manipulate you" which reinforces the trust in the manipulator and therefore isolating the mark from others. What I noticed is that actually sometimes they are right. Manipulators are great at detecting other manipulatory.
Quote from Bel on July 31, 2023, 1:19 pm31. Faking having been abused by a third party
A manipulator will speak of his interactions with third parties (with whom the mark is not acquainted) as if they have social climbed on him, abused him, conned him, disrespected him, and even worse.
In reality, it may be likely that it is the manipulator who has done these things to the third party, but in retelling the story he will lie and paint the third party as having done to him what he has done to the third party.
This will obtain several effects at once:
- it will unconsciously make the mark associate “new people” with “bad behavior” and “abuse”, while the reality is that most people are normal empathetic people;
- it will trigger the “justice/help/fairness mechanism” in the mark, who will feel compelled to “help” the manipulator;
- it will pre-frame any future common interactions with third parties as “we are unite against this bad person”, in other words it will set up a joint competitive frame and make the mark fall into the frame of abusing the third party for the manipulator (ie being a flying monkey);
- it will cover the abuse of the manipulator against the third party and smear the third party to the mark, by preframing the third party as “bad/not worthy of a relationship”.
A very close relative of mine was a master of this move.
He would interact with new people and instantly provoke them with countless power moves. Sometimes they would react and check these moves.
He would then come to me and tell me the story, entirely omitting the part where he provoked them, and only tell me of their strange reactions as if they were narcissistic/crazy.
Sometimes, he would even fake they had “provoked him”.
Examples:
- once, he told me he was speaking with an old lady who immediately told him “My name is X, not Y!” as if she were fixated on small things. Then I remembered the countless times he would intentionally mispronounce my name to irritate me. No doubt he omitted that part in the story. When I talked with the lady, she was kind and gentle.
- another time, he spoke of a person provoking him more and more, and him finally “responding by raging”. No doubt the “being provoked” part was entirely faked.
The same effect can be obtained by means of triangular guilt tripping, which can be faked, ie done without the third party having done anything bad.
I found a definition about one prong of this behavior (ie the prong where details of the story are omitted, rather than fabricated):
“selective abstraction”.
I think it may be a good definition for a power move consisting of “omitting part of what transpired (usually the part where the manipulator started the conflict) to alter the mark’s view of the situation and manipulate the mark into a frame self-serving to the manipulator”.
It’s probably a very frequent power move, because it is difficult to pinpoint unless one already personally knows the situation being “told” - or the person “telling it”.
34. The mark will undergo negative personality changes that will impair his relations with other normal people
Being manipulated means having the "fight or flight" mechanism constantly triggered.
This induces automatic changes in the personality of the mark, which reduce his or her natural empathy, and increase his "narcissistic traits".
The mark will automatically behave more bluntly, reduce social pleasantries, be defensive, stonewall; if anything as a reaction against the constant onslaught of manipulation.
But, since the mark by definition does NOT understand that the manipulator is manipulating him on purpose, the mark will tend to adopt these defensive behaviors indiscriminately: ie toward everyone.
This will have the effect of alieanting most normal people from the life of the mark, including those who were initially close and willing to help.
Also: the cognitive dissonance in the mark's mind - between the induced trauma bonding and the natural flight instint, ie to get away from the manipulation - means that the mark will contradict himself frequently in how he sees things.
Other people will see the indecisiveness and changes in opinion and stance, and interpret this as "illness", or "crazyness". They will thus get distance.
35. Provoking the mark behind closed doors or 1-1, and then letting the mark overreact in front of everyone
This tends to isolate the mark because the manipulator makes it so that third parties will not see the provocation, but only witness the overreaction, or reactive outburst, of the mark, and do not know what triggered it.
So the third parties will focus on the reaction of the mark alone, and will deduce that the mark is crazy or abusive.
Note that the manipulator may have provoked the mark into overreacting for months in private.
Then, just one single outburst in public by the mark will harm the mark hugely.
One example is a manipulative father calling his son in another room, provoking him covertly, then quickly moving back to the dining room where everyone is: so that the son’s unconscious angry reaction will take place there.
36. Finishing sentences for the mark, or expressing to others the mark’s supposed thoughts
This is often done by manipulative parents or partners, often in front of the mark.
Often coupled with gaslighting.
It self-cements a dynamic in the mark which induces the mark to rely on the manipulator to know how the mark himself thinks and what he wants, and thus makes the mark less capable of social interactions.
It also makes third parties lose interest and respect for the mark, who basically is always trampled over in conversation.
37. Inconsistent push-pull: subtle demeaning interspersed with subtle or overt praise or attention
Manipulative personalities train the mark to accept abuse by "surprising" the mark with subtle put-downs right after they have elevated or praised them.
This is, in some cases, directly derived from the very fragile ego of the manipulator, who may really want to be "praising and positive", but then - right after he has "elevated" the mark - finds himself suddenly seething with envy or bad emotions toward the mark, and decides to regulate these emotions by demeaning the mark or gaining power over him (eg by suddenly tasking him).
But there is probably no real "feeling" in the manipulator: not behind the praise, not behind the put-downs. The manipulator simply does what, from moment to moment, regulates best his "emotional state". Something like "I want to be helpful for this person - but then I resent him because he's getting better". Of course no manipulator is going to admit this.
In other cases, it is deliberately planned with no ego involvement.
In all cases, the result is that the mark is brought onto a roller coaster of "elation" followed by "downing", which reinforces the subconscious feeling of the mark that other people cannot be "trusted".
(It also normalizes the put-downs. For the mark, being put-down becomes the "price" to be paid to receive the interspersed "praise".
And, it also works as a form of conditioning with "intermittent rewards". The "praise" or "elevation part" becomes like a drug, making the mark more amenable to trying to "get into the good graces" of the manipulator.
And the start-stop effect also makes any chance of real progress by the mark much more difficult.)
Some examples:
- engaging the mark in conversation, making him interested, and then abruptly changing subjects;
- praising the mark to make him lower defenses, then saying something mean (or power-demeaning);
- bringing up other people all the time to make the mark feel "irrelevant";
- appearing interested in what the mark has to say or do, but then weaponizing "fake incompetence" to make the mark expend useless effort (ie effort for something that the manipulator either already had - including information - or that the manipulator could more easily have provided himself).
The best absolute way to counter this is to become able to take the "good" that the manipulator provides, and absolutely ignore or counter the "bad advice/put downs".
This will infuriate the manipulator more and more... and more. The manipulator may even make a mistake then... or leave the "former mark" and move to easier victims.
38. Covert smearing the mark to others by asking for others' opinion on the supposed "weird or bad behavior of the mark"
One example:
Orion: Many years ago a female who was close to me was all distraught. Apparently her boyfriend had taken her out for dinner on Valentine's Day and as they were eating dinner in the middle of the restaurant apparently this man just decided to start yelling and screaming at her and berating her and criticizing her before storming out of the restaurant. And this woman was distraught and wanting to know how she might navigate this situation.
Orion: And I began by responding okay I don't really believe that that's how things went down... I said I don't know this guy but I doubt that he's psychotic and a normal adult man does not just sit in the middle of a public restaurant and start yelling and screaming at his woman on Valentine's Day... there had to have been something that you said or did that triggered that interaction.
Orion: She started yelling and screaming at me: "Why you take this man's position! I can't believe you would take his side!!"And she hang up on me and and that was the end of that.
39. "Timed" power moving: ie done only when a specific person (to whom the manipulator wants to smear the mark) approaches, and to be stopped when that person leaves, and then resumed when that person approaches again, etc.
Classic example: the "friend" who, while having lunch or dinner at a restaurant, only makes demeaning jokes on the mark when the waiters approach, and during the rest of the evening is apparently "polite and pleasant".
Or the online forum user who is generally helpful, praising, etc., but crucially subtly demeans the mark when many other users have shown to be interested in a specific post of the mark.
This is meant to:
- cover the power moves (because the behavior is inconsistent, thus more difficult to detect)
- destroy the mark's reputation in that place (because the third party, who always see power moves when he approaches the mark, will start thinking the mark is the "social bottom guy").
Quote from Bel on November 21, 2023, 11:32 amIt's apparent (from the woman's reaction to the fact that Orion did not believe her) that the only purpose this woman had in "asking for advice" was to smear the guy she was talking about: in fact, she was only focused on "whose side Orion would take".
This technique is very effective because it is covert: the manipulator does not say "X acted bad to me", but embeds the smearing inside an "advice frame": "How can I deal with the fact that X had this bad behavior towards me?"Now the frame is not:- "I want you to convince you that X did a bad thing to me"It is rather:-"I need your help about X doing a bad thing to me".And this makes the embedded smearing much more likely to be "accepted unconsciously", if the recipient does not know the technique.
The general approach is valid, including the hiding the power move in sekign advice.
Albeit to say whether the ultimate goal is isolation or not one must look at the bigger picture.
And, personally, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that she was smearing the guy (personally, I don't think it was her main goal since this was a guy that he didn't know).
Also, in my opinion, the way he went about it was quite poor -not just in breaking rapport, but in a strategic sense: you don't get much intel with that approach-.
Quote from Bel on November 21, 2023, 12:00 pm39. "Timed" power moving: ie done only when a specific person (to whom the manipulator wants to smear the mark) approaches, and to be stopped when that person leaves, and then resumed when that person approaches again, etc.
Classic example: the "friend" who, while having lunch or dinner at a restaurant, only makes demeaning jokes on the mark when the waiters approach, and during the rest of the evening is apparently "polite and pleasant".
Or the online forum user who is generally helpful, praising, etc., but crucially subtly demeans the mark when many other users have shown to be interested in a specific post of the mark.
This is meant to:
- cover the power moves (because the behavior is inconsistent, thus more difficult to detect)
- destroy the mark's reputation in that place (because the third party, who always see power moves when he approaches the mark, will start thinking the mark is the "social bottom guy").
This seems to me a clearer example of targeted manipulation / smearing (and potentially isolating a target).
To be a clearer example of isolating a target, the power move shouldn't be with a stranger (a waiter, or someone who doesn't even know the target).
It should instead be with the social circle and/or people who are close to the target (so the forum example, in my opinion, is a better example).
P.S.:
The reason why I'm being so nitpicky about each entry here is because this thread has the potential to be a great resource.
So I want to make sure I add more details and context for future readers (or for a future article).
I agree with you, Lucio.
Only observation I have is regarding the restaurant/waiter situation: if one goes to that specific restaurant often, these moves may do work in "isolating the mark", in the sense of making it unpalatable to go to that place again.
Because: if the waiter starts power moving on the mark as well (as it used to happen to me in these kinds of situations), the mark may avoid going there in the future because of feeling "disrespected by the staff".
And I, in fact, found myself avoiding going to restaurants after going there with this "friend of mine", and being disprespected by him and by the waiter (who had seen him do so and "joined him").
All the result of the original power mover showing the waiter that "not much respect needs be paid to the mark".
OFF TOPIC, EDIT: Recently, I found myself also leaving bad reviews on these places after similar facts.
Especially because the power loss due to the server joining my "friend" in power moving, I felt, was much higher than that of my "friend" power moving on me.
In other words: it's my decision whether to tolerate it from my "frenemy", but the server cannot take the liberty of joining him in any case.
Well, technically he can, but the place will pay a price for that: my review.
I also surmise that if this happens another time I will be much more direct with the server in checking this kind of behavior. Which makes me think, unfortunately, that I won't probably find myself in this situation again easily.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that after getting the skill to check these kind of behaviors, others unconsciously stop behaving that way.
They rob us of the pleasure to put them in their place socially in front of everyone.
What a drag :)
END OFF TOPIC
