As practice shows, it is impossible to always function normally in society and to be free from it. Throughout his life, each person has been in contact with a huge number of different people. And not all of these contacts can have a positive effect on us, some of them have a very destructive effect. Sometimes life situations happen that can seriously harm a person’s psychological health. First of all, we are talking about contact with someone called a manipulator, an energy vampire. There is even a scientific definition of this type of personality - a perverse narcissist. And such people are called manipulators. So how to resist manipulators?
Who are manipulators?
Manipulator - a person who does not go to open conflicts, the struggle for power, the use of force. Such people achieve what they want through psychological abuse of other people. Any person can match the signs of a human manipulator. Even a mother, father, brother or sister can be a dodgy narcissist. This is even worse than if a stranger turned out to be a manipulator. As practice shows, most often this category of people includes men, from whom you least expect to be hit in the back. How to manipulate a relationship?
Why do manipulators behave this way?
Manipulation is a process of influencing another person, the basis of the activity of which is the great desire to pervert, twist, turn everything upside down. The name "perverse" comes from the Latin word pervertere, which means "perverted" in translation. Usually these people are hiding behind some non-existent childhood injuries or say that someone brought them, but this is not entirely true. The manipulators chose a strategy of psychological violence in their behavior only because they do not have an emotional life. Most often, people ask the question: "How to resist the manipulator at work?" An answer will be given below.
What is the lack of emotional life?
The signs of a human manipulator are that he is not capable of true human feelings on a purely psychological level. A person never experiences emotions such as empathy, compassion, he does not face such a problem as a nervous breakdown, and in fact he does not have any emotional injuries, which he usually hides. Despite the fact that the manipulator did not experience this entire spectrum of feelings, he is faced with the task of provoking such feelings in his potential victim. He takes pleasure in the destruction of another person, appropriating the feelings of other people.
Why it happens?
The behavior of manipulators is psychological violence, destructive effects on another person, and so on. That is why such people began to be called energy vampires. The thing is that this is the only acceptable way of functioning for them, otherwise they do not know how to exist. Manipulators do not perceive others as individuals, but rather as objects or objects. That is why the attitude to them is consumer, as to objects that perform specific functions, and these people "serve" the manipulator as long as they can perform what he needs.
Who are the victims?
Many are of the opinion that the victims of the manipulator are people with some kind of mental problems that are easily influenced by. And this is fundamentally wrong. The situation is quite the opposite, because such "victims" are already initially uninteresting to the manipulator. They are just interested in strong people who give the impression of unbroken, optimistic in life, energetic, successful, positive, those who do not like cynics and liars, always defend their point of view and are considered very independent in making important decisions. Such personalities are the number one goal for manipulators. Here, the victim is no longer a psychological characteristic of a person, it is a role that a person gets according to the situation. You can become a victim once, or you can succumb to the influence of the manipulator over and over again, without even realizing it. In fact, absolutely anyone who simply trusts the opinion of a loved one can listen to the bait, listen and are ready to build strong and healthy relationships with other people. The manipulator begins to press on these feelings, and here a fierce game begins, and not a sincere relationship. Usually, a person becomes a victim exactly at the moment when the manipulator decided that a particular individual has something that he needs to immediately appropriate to himself. Therefore, if you believed that the victim herself attracted the offender, then this is fundamentally wrong. The manipulator literally parasitizes on a person and affects him only through psychological violence. To understand that you have become a victim of such a person is quite difficult, because these people do not act by force. How to resist manipulators?
The stages of building relationships with the manipulator
Psychologists believe that the relationship between the manipulator and the victim of manipulation consists of several specific stages. Perhaps their manifestation in various situations will take place in different ways, but the essence remains unchanged. So, we will analyze each stage and the rules when communicating with manipulators.
Seduction stage
It all starts with the most banal seduction. The manipulator positions itself as the right person for the victim and begins to pretend love, affection and care. If the relationship is built between a man and a woman, then at this stage constant attention is paid by the manipulator. These are messages, calls, caring and “sincere” interest. The victim does not have to be a lady, but most often these are women. The manipulator, as it were, scans his victim in order to create for her an ideal model of his behavior. At this stage, he kind of catches the victim on a hook of emotions, after which the ability to rationally think and adequately evaluate what is happening is completely turned off. The stage of seduction is characterized by sharply flashed feelings, which are exaggerated as much as possible to confuse the victim. Usually the manipulator spends the maximum amount of time with his victim, using the most common methods of seduction: flowers, dinners, gifts, and so on. At this stage, the manipulator's task is not to fall in love with the victim, but to inspire her with the idea that someone needs her love.
The stage of ingrowth
The task of the manipulator at this stage is to plant the victim "on himself" as a drug. He patronizes the victim, preventing her from feeling lonely for a second. At this stage, he is already beginning to use the "benefits" that he had originally hoped for. The following is also characteristic of this stage: the manipulator stimulates the victim to move away from friends, relatives and relatives, so that all the human energy is concentrated on the manipulator. It is important for him to think and decide for his sacrifice. From a narcissist, you can hear phrases that you don’t understand feelings, and only the manipulator knows what you really feel, or will claim that he knows what you want, and no denial will help. Even the estrangement from friends and relatives can be perceived by the victim as the only true option for the development of further events. Already at this stage, the victim does not have any personal space, and what can we say about time or forces on something other than the desires of the manipulator! Any personal boundaries are erased, and the victim is already reprogrammed to the behavior necessary for the narcissist. The manipulator acts very carefully and gradually, the victim “devalues” himself systematically. Naturally, this happens with the filing of narcissitis.
Stage of operation
Now we can proceed to the stage of open manipulation of the victim. This manifests itself in avoiding the conversation, ignoring it, it can disappear for a while, and then refuses to explain what is the matter here. His mood and behavior changes too often. He may, in principle, refuse to maintain dialogue, on the basis of the position that they do not communicate with objects. But it can build a displeased mine, it is hard to sigh or even deny the conflict in principle. The victim makes an attempt to understand what happened, what was done wrong, but does not receive any answers to the questions asked. Now it remains only to wait for condescension from the narcissist. And when he deigns to speak with his “ward,” the victim seems to be paralyzed, because she was not given the right to be heard, they were not given the right to know the truth. By such manipulation, the energy vampire transfers the blame for his activities on the shoulders of his victim. Ignoring leads to the fact that a person takes responsibility for the relationship on himself, begins to apologize for all mortal sins, while not realizing that he is not guilty of this. In fact, it was precisely this kind of behavior that the "master" sought. The minimum program has been completed, now the manipulator has every right to educate his ward further. A new stage in the devaluation of the victim’s personality begins. Pressure is applied to everything, be it a figure, appearance, mind, work, family, and so on.
What happens to the victim at this moment?
The victim still does not understand what is happening, because she cannot even allow the thought that such a dear and beloved person can do so on purpose, fully aware of the consequences of his actions. That is why a person does not see danger from the side of the manipulator. In the eyes of the victim, the "master" looks as confident as possible in his abilities and words, has unconditional authority. That is, theoretically, there is nothing to complain about in his behavior. He operates with phrases such as “do not invent”, “you behave incorrectly”, “try a little and everything will be fine” and so on. And if the manipulator is already 100% "immersed" in the victim, then he does not let the ward into his inner world. The victim begins to live in constant stress, every second she begins to feel that she is doing something wrong and wrong, and feels guilty for all this. After a certain amount of time, after constant conflict and misunderstanding, the mental health of the victim becomes precarious. And the manipulator adheres to its model of behavior and continues to conduct its game. The main problem is that the victim cannot determine what exactly she should complain about. After all, it was she who was constantly to blame, it was she, this was all because of her. The victim gets used to the fact that the manipulator does this to her only because something is wrong with her. He begins to put pressure on her more and more, and each time she seeks more and more excuses for herself. The victim is not allowed to pour out their own emotions, accusing her of an unstable emotional state, of constant mood changes and so on. And the victim has to keep all the emotions in herself, as she is sure that this is necessary in order to continue communication with her.
Are changes happening at the physiological level?
Manipulators in the psychology of victims change everything so dramatically that it also affects physiology. This is due to a constant change in the level of hormones in the body of the “ward”. It works as follows:
- At the initial stage, the victim's body was oversaturated with endorphins, hormones of happiness.
- Then, during stressful situations, cortisol is released.
- The stage of ingrowth, as well as manipulation, entails constant jumps in the level of hormones.
It turns out that when a person manipulating another is supportive of the victim (for example, answered the call), endorphins are produced, then a period of ignorance sets in and cortisol is released. Now think about what will happen if these races occur constantly? It turns out that the victim acquires both psychological and physiological dependencies. This effect is reminiscent of the effect of drugs and the victim constantly needs a dose of attention from the manipulator. After all, she has long had no other sources of energy consumption. Old friends and acquaintances are in the past, communication with relatives has been lost, the manipulator has become the only light in the window, because the victim literally dissolves in it, and it becomes one of the possible sources of energy. To maintain this state, the manipulator constantly keeps his victim under stress so that she does not have the opportunity to recover and rationally evaluate what is happening.
Victim Destruction Stage
There are two options for the development of events:
- The first is simply to accept everything that happens, to obey and come to terms with psychological violence. And when addiction begins, the victim may even “ask for more.” The manipulator retains interest in the victim exactly as long as she still at least somehow resists. As soon as the victim dutifully falls to his feet, he immediately becomes uninteresting. It turns out that after this the narcissist sets off in search of a new purpose. As for the victims, they simply break down, usually here they cannot do without the help of a psychologist. Often, victims reach suicide.
- The second outcome of events is possible only for initially psychologically strong people. At some point, they begin to realize that this whole situation will simply kill them if they do not solve this problem in any way and take action. When this awareness comes, the victim begins to change the pattern of behavior, she snaps, she is humiliated - she is humiliated in response, and so on. As practice shows, the only way to escape from the claws of the manipulator. When the number of such situations increases, the manipulator has to abandon his victim and go in search of a new one. From the side it may seem as if the kindest person in the world is escaping from the clutches of an unbalanced hysterical person, but in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Like it or not, manipulators are scary people in whose world you are only an object, using which you can get profit.
How to understand that you are being manipulated?
If at least once in your life you have the idea that friends or relatives can manipulate you, then do not forget to stop yourself and ask yourself the question why you are doing what they ask you to. By analyzing yourself and your behavior, you will eventually know your weaknesses that the manipulator can press on. After that, it’s worth starting work on these weaknesses. The best way to resist the manipulator is to try to control and realize the motives for performing certain actions. Also, do not forget about the presence of your personal space and do not accept someone else's responsibility on yourself, be aware of your area of responsibility. For example, mom’s sick stomach. This is primarily her area of responsibility, because she is an adult. If your leader gave you the task later than necessary, just because you forgot about it, this is also his area of responsibility, and there are thousands of such examples. Do not fulfill all requests and tasks thoughtlessly. Try to give yourself time to think and analyze the situation, especially if you feel an urge to succumb to the entreaties of the manipulator. Keep your emotions under control, and when the narcissist sees that his pressure does not produce the desired result, he simply switches to another person. Another good way to confront a female or male manipulator is to ask him guiding questions and behave unconventionally, to confuse him. Offer an alternative, take the reins of government into your own hands, make it clear to him that you are in control of the situation at least on an equal footing and are definitely not going to give in to anyone.
What is the outcome?
Manipulation is a destructive effect on a person. In order not to fall into the clutches of the manipulator, develop self-confidence, self-control, do not take responsibility for others. Remember that the manipulator has no feelings for you, it is only a question of psychological violence. This is not sincerity, but the purposeful destruction of personality.