Recognizing Manipulation and Healing from Emotional Abuse

Have you ever found yourself questioning your reality within a relationship? If so, you're not alone. Many individuals struggle to reconcile the conflicting words and actions of their partners, especially when those partners are skilled manipulators or abusers. In today's episode, we delve into these discrepancies and offer insights on how to navigate through them.

Transcript

Welcome to the relationship recovery podcast. Hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others and heal the relationship with yourself, so you can learn to love in a healthy way. Hello, and as always, thank you for being here. I want to start out with a fact.

A common thread of abusive personality, is that what they tell you and what they show you is not the same. And often when I'm working with somebody, I will remind them that you need to look at their actions, not their words, words mean nothing. You have to look at the actions. And it's easy to get trapped in an abuser logic, reasoning and their explanations because they essentially build an alternative reality. This reality, their reality is dependent on you accepting their logic, which is gas lighting.

They gas like you to make you second guess, your version of reality, to lean into their version of reality, which is a control tactic. It's manipulation This is all designed to force a second guess. This is not a tactic to try and reach agreement. This is not tactic. To try and work on a relationship.

This is a tactic to gain control. And you can tell this is happening because the conversation will shift quickly to it goes from the immediate situation at hand to something abstract or all encompassing. For example, a situation focused on today, we'll quickly turn into all the time all days. Sometimes this is their name calling, Sometimes this is through ridiculous accusations, It causes the conversation to shift from the immediate situation. To then defending yourself because you're trying to establish a shared reality.

Now think about that You go from your own reality, your own hurt, your own trigger. To very quickly defending your reality. In hopes to get to an even point where you might then say, neither of our realities are true, but already even there, especially if you've been abused, you are now saying, my reality isn't true. And I'm gonna a second guess it, and I'm gonna think about it because now I'm gonna lean into your reality too. And honestly, in repairing anything, it's not the worst thing to be able to say, my reality, in your reality, you know, maybe we're both wrong and there's a place in the middle.

Problem I have with that is that if you are being abused and if you're being mistreated, then you are being gas into thinking that you're wrong. But you don't wanna feel so far immensely from your partner. Right? We're likely trauma bonded, regardless, but definitely also probably trauma bonded. And it's usually surprising at these times to hear accusations from your partner, that's usually like, you're usually thrown off.

And now the conversation is derailed. So what do you do? How do you get back to a conversation on any reality? Sometimes it's helpful, Not all the time, but sometimes it could be helpful to point out the tactic. You can name it as a distraction and refocus the conversation back on what you were talking about.

The onset. This often doesn't work unless the person you're dealing with is not aggressive. Usually they up the in the conversation and move from the issue at hand. So for example, if you're in a conversation disagreement about, like, a situation that happened today, And it's like, I'm really upset that, like. I was just getting water out of the fridge.

I'm sorry that I asked you. You know, to step back for a second, like, when you try to initiate a hug, I just wanted the water. You have been out of control all week. All of a sudden you're like, what? What do you mean?

I've been out of control all week. You have been out of control all week. Since Sunday, since Sunday, you've been a fucking cycle path. This moment you're likely thinking. Okay.

Sunday, I did this, and then Monday, Did this. And then Tuesday, we had Sex like a great at what? You're already gas lit. And in this moment, you're like none and then but most likely, what we do is we say, no I wasn't. What are you talking about?

I wasn't. I have no idea what you're talking about and they go all week, you've been crazy. And you don't even see it. And so in this situation, you might say, I feel like you're distracting from this issue that just happened can we stand this issue. We can talk about this week and come to an understanding at another time.

But right now, that's a distraction away from the issue right here. Let's get through here. A lot of times they wanna be right. They wanna be mad, they wanna control. They want the a outcome.

They wanna go back in time and get what they want. Which means that you don't exist in your needs don't exist. So a lot of times this doesn't work, but at least it will help you not feel crazy. And it's 1 possible thing. And if somebody does respond to it and they're like, okay.

You're right. You're right. Right. Like, let's stay on this. I'm over reacting about this week.

We can talk about that. Let's talk about that tomorrow. That's great. Because at the very least, you'll be able to understand what the hell they were talking about and likely come to a common ground. If they are, that's self aware to realize that they're being psycho about it.

Another thing that you can do is give them space to continue to talk, so you step back from defending yourself, and you just give them enough rope to hang themselves essentially. And the more you do this, the more you'll be able to see how they are. So in this example, if it's like, and you are crazy and all week, you were nuts and you were like, didn't engage with me and I haven't seen you and all you care about is, like, getting to this wedding on Saturday, and you have, like, not even acknowledge that I exist. And me me me, and you're just, like, Holy fucking shit. What the fuck is going on, and they're just like, on and on and on and you're just like, right.

My needs are supposed to be completely focused around what you need and therefore, Why do I even have weeks? I mean, you would never say that to them, but you might say that in your head? Because when you give them when you would like, just let it keep going? Kind of tend to see how ridiculous it is. Because when you don't respond, that's a boundary.

Not responding is the boundary. And then they amp it up. And the more you do this the more that you'll see how they actually are and how they actually are thinking. And I know that sometimes people listen to this wanting to figure out how to stay in the relationship out what I'm gonna tell you right now is that If this is going on and this is not getting resolved, This is your life. This is what this is gonna look like.

Of course, somebody could be like, holy shit. I keep on unloading on you and I really need to stop. That takes self awareness on their part. And I don't know if we've seen it if you're listening to this. This is another way that they're showing you their reality.

They are trying to get you to do whatever they want, In a large part of this is them wanting to advertise their view of themselves. This is about how they see themselves. They don't want to see themselves another And this tells you what their focus is? And so you can ask yourself, is this conversation about us? Is this about the incident?

Is this conversation circular? Does this conversation just revert back to somebody being right and somebody being wrong? Or that no matter what? This was all because of me. I'm to blame.

Like always. Did I come with a concern And now they're the victim. I read once that there is a similarity between this and a false police interrogation. There is this controlled space and an outward projection of certainty. The instance of a theory bolstering the perspective of a reality with evidence that's denies your reality until you crack.

Wouldn't you agree? Don't you agree? Isn't this true? It's not based in a reasonable place. It's based on control and assert that you are right because you can't actually control anybody.

The abuser thinks that they can control. And, you know, in being an abusive relationships like, yeah, I certainly have felt controlled. And I certainly have felt like, I can't fucking do what I want because of the outburst, but the truth is in a lot of cases, I could have. I just didn't want... I didn't want the consequence on the other side, so I fond to a trauma response.

But the key here with this is to not bite the hook. Because the purpose of this behavior is to invalidate you. And when they are invalid you, they are not respecting or acknowledging, your lived experience. Go back to that example. You're at the fridge, you're getting the water.

They come up, they hug you. You're holding the b and the cup. Right? You're exhausted. Can you just give me a second?

I'm just gonna get water. You know, like, in this image as I say it, like, I see a woman that looks like a depleted plant that just means like a little water, that like just had a long day and like she needs to like, have a second. And then most likely she'd be able to hug and give that person what they want, but they wanted it now. They wanted it now. Right?

And so it's about doesn't matter what her experience was that got her there. It doesn't matter what that is. What matters is they didn't get their need met. And now they're upset, and now they're gonna make up any idea of why that happened, including the fact that she's been a cycle all week invalid in all these things, because how could they not show up. And then the only way that I can see this going with an abusive person is that she ends up apologizing for not accepting the love.

And how sick is that? What then we are doing is accepting love that comes with control. That's not based on mutual understanding, That's not even based on. Sure babe get the water. Sorry about that.

How are you? You okay? I'm tearing up as I say this. I'm tearing up as I say this because in abusive relationships, there's such a lack of actual compassion. For the person being abused, and they grow to accept that.

And I feel like my whole life's work is trying to help people understand that they deserve to feel, like their needs matter, too. And often there is a pattern that comes up then, of not respecting or acknowledging somebody's lived experiences. And it shows up in a variety of ways, and I'm gonna touch on these ways because I think it's important. There's 5 I wrote down. Gas lighting.

In which, you know, we talked about gas a lot, but distant didn't happen or did not happen or the way you believe it did didn't happen or the meaning of it isn't true. Is different of what you attribute to? They may police thoughts. You should feel this and not that? Why are you thinking that way you should be thinking this way?

The shift priorities of the impact. So they'll make your experience feel like it's a third party, making the impact not based on your reality, which invalidate how you feel, but like anyone would feel this way. Anybody would want this I wanna feel this. So like that's the reality. Quick caveat to that is with a past partner who used to do this all to me all the time.

He'd be like, anybody would... I'd be like anyone, how many people have you pulled don't do that. It didn't go over well, but I... I mean, I would say it at all. I'd be like, okay.

Like, can you show me the pulling data of everybody hold of that everyone that would have done this? Oh, couples therapy is ridiculous? Okay. Can you please show me all of that data? Thank you.

I can be a real asshole sometimes, they will focus on the symptoms not the cause. And now this pattern is often seen a lot with reactive abuse, so it's important, but your experience will be undermined, and instead of focusing on what's cause. They focus on the symptoms, but is essentially victim blaming because it's not the I didn't let you get the water or, like, I made a problem because you wanted water or I had a reaction because, like, you wanted to do that before you hugged me. It turns into... And then you pushed me away, and then you looked frustrated and then you were angry, and it's like, no.

I was all those things because I simply couldn't just ask for a second. And then I was fighting. And then after 11 hours of work, I didn't want be fighting. And I was trying to not fight, so I was deflect and so I was probably invalid myself because all I wanna do is be out of this. But most likely, they'll focus on all the other things that happened and not.

The incident that caused it. And lastly, this gets really confusing is when they focus on their trauma processing not yours, you may need space to process. Right? We all get triggered. I don't care who you are and what your background is, And if you've been in therapy for 20 years or if you haven't, which I have been, and I still get freaking trauma a triggered, I everybody gets triggered, we have triggers.

They focus on their trauma are processing and not yours, meaning their triggers matter more than yours, You're triggered, not as important as the fact that they were. They take space. They dictate to you how much space you get. If you need space that's used stonewall. If they need space, it's a boundary.

To really, really, really Not okay. Because the abusive person will use anything, especially language to shape this reality, they want that validation and they seek to create a specific reality and have you accept that reality and this happens over and over and over get and that's why things never freaking feel resolved. This is why you don't feel okay. It's why your body is getting sick. And It's why when people ask you how your relationship is.

You're like, oh, it's great. Why you don't post pictures on social media. And if you're able to create enough mental space, which is what they don't want you to do. You might start to see the pattern clearly. I have this whole course on boundaries on my website for 19 dollars and in that course, I talk about how does that a boundary with an abusive person, which is essentially finding ways to take enough space with the abuser.

And so the point of that is is that when we are in the cycle, we just see, like, red, and we don't see things early because we can't see things clearly because it is so dis disoriented. And likely, we do see things clearly, but then our reality is turned upside down, so we don't see things clearly clearly and when you do create enough mental space, even a day, you likely will stop blaming yourself and getting wrapped in conversations that are circular and meant to hurt you because you're not going to want to. When we have more space and we're able to think for ourselves and at least, like, regulate our bodies. We don't wanna be in that cycle. And I don't say this to help you stay in the relationship.

I say this because I care that you, like, or in a healthy relationship, and it's so hard to leave if you don't know what is actually happening. But if you can see it clearly it will be easier for you to begin to leave. Well, easy is definitely relative and in air quotes, but it won't be easy. But it will help resolve some cognitive dissonance if you're able to begin to create that space because the part of you that loves them and cares about them and wants to be with them, and the trauma bond tells us that, like, they're the person that can heal the wound. There'll be another side of you that is like, I couldn't even get water without it causing an issue.

This brings us me back to where I started is that You can't depend on what they tell you, you have to look at what they show you because they likely will say, this is what's real. And you really have to look at what's happening. The words need nothing because usually they're also telling you that they want what's best for you. That they love you that they care about you that, of course, you can go get water? Why are you being silly?

Of course, I just wanna give you a hug Right? Think about how that comes up in other places. I know a lot of this is really hard to hear. I know a lot of this is hard to process. I know that.

You listen to this because you want clarity and if I can leave you with 1 thing, it will just be that you're not wrong for having needs. And it's okay to know what they are. And maybe that's a first step of all of this asking yourself, what do you need? And what needs are you not getting met? By yourself from yourself.

I hope that this was helpful. If you need some help beginning to understand some of the emotional abuse behavior. If you can go on to my website. There's a course, the emotional abuse breakthrough course and that will help you identify some other behaviors and begin to set those boundaries I talked about that you can begin to take some space and really begin to think for yourself because my belief is that when we're in it, we don't see clearly. I know I didn't.

But every time I had that little bit of space, it helps so much, and it just became something I had to continue to deliberately give myself. As always, you can reach out to me at jessica at jessica night coaching dot com. You can email me at that at jessica desk night coaching dot com. My website, emotional abuse coach dot com, and you can find me on Instagram. At emotional abuse coach.

As always, if you have questions, please reach out.