gaslighting one day you asked your wife if she wanted to go to the beach on Saturday and she said yes because she's excited to make sand castles Friday night came and you asked her to get her bikinis ready only for her to tell you she never agreed to going to the beach because she hates sand but you specifically remember her agreeing to the trip despite that she keeps insisting she doesn't like the beach until you start questioning your memory and accept that you're wrong that's what gaslighting is it's a sneaky manipulation tactic where someone makes
you doubt your reality memory or sanity you believe the sky is blue but someone tries to make you doubt your eyes and convinces you it's green before you know it you start thinking about getting your eyes checked every time you look at the sky the term comes from a 1938 play called Gaslight where a husband tries to make his wife thinks she's losing her mind by dimming the gas lights in their house and then denying anything has changed the wife starts questioning her perception which is what the husband wants to happen gaslighting can happen in
small subtle ways or more serious situations it often starts slowly so the manipulated person doesn't notice it immediately little by little the gaslighter chips away at their Target's confidence and sense of reality until the person starts questioning their sanity it can also lead you to doubt yourself more until you start relying on the other person for emotional support gaslighting can be used in sneaky ways through misdirection or anything that can make the person feel confused someone might use it by telling you you're overreacting or just imagining things over time you start losing trust in your
thoughts until you become dependent on another person's perception and opinions as if your partner is now your personal GPS because you don't know where to go without them guilt tripping guilt tripping is like someone handing you a bag of guilt and saying here carry this for me it's a manipulation tactic where a person tries to make you feel responsible for their unhappiness discomfort or even failure as if it's somehow your fault or job to fix imagine you've been busy at work and haven't called a friend in a few days instead of just saying hey I
miss you they hit you with I guess you're just too busy for me these days I wouldn't want to bother you with my problems that sounds hurtful right now you feel like a terrible friend instead of feeling happy to catch up that's guilt tripping in action at its core guilt tripping is about control the person using it wants to influence your behavior but instead of asking directly or healthfully expressing their needs they take a detour through guilt City they might not even realize they're doing it but it can leave you feeling emotionally drained and manipulated
it often works because no one likes to feel like they're letting others down we naturally want to fix things especially when we think we've caused someone else pain think of it as your emotion's way of being Bob the Builder because it wants to fix everything but you're usually not the real cause of their feelings they're just using your sense of responsibility to steer the ship in their favor it's like being in an emotional gym where you do all the heavy lifting for your gym buddy in the long run instead of getting emotional muscle gains you'll
only be weighing yourself down love bombing imagine getting flowers today cake tomorrow a puppy the next day and a new car next week all coming from an admirer who claims you deserve all the love in the world on the surface it feels like you're being swept off your feet by a real life version of a Disney prince but there's a more calculated motive behind it that's what happens when you're being love bombed love bombing feels like the emotional equivalent of being hit with a fire hose of affection at first it feels like you've won the
soulmate Lottery they're calling you the one showering you with gifts and acting like you're the star of a ROM C it's flattering sure but after a while it starts to feel like they're trying to hand you the keys to a brand new car that you didn't ask for you're left thinking is this a relationship or a game show prize reveal but that's exactly the point the idea is to sweep you off your feet so fast you'll need a seat belt for the emotional roller coaster suddenly you're hooked on their compliments like their emotional candy and
before you know it you're craving that validation like it's your morning coffee The Twist is that the same person who love bombed you is suddenly backing off now you're stuck in a weird limbo desperately trying to get back to that early honeymoon phase where they were basically a love Fountain by this point you might be emotionally tied to them giving them all the control over your happiness this is commonly seen in abusive relationships or even in Cults in short it's like pushing the fast forward button on a relationship but instead of leading to True connection
it leads to control silent treatment you think you're on good terms with a friend because things went well the last time you hung out even though there was a minor disagreement about your preference for pizza but suddenly that friend goes radio silent and stops communicating you don't get a single text or call you don't even get a single like or thumbs up emoji when you post memes then you realize you've been given the silent treatment this manipulation tactic is the emotional equivalent of a passive aggressive power play like playing chess with someone who refuses to
move their pieces it can leave you confused anxious and desperate for answers as if you've become invisible the person giving the silent Tre treatment essentially uses their silence to control or punish you often after a disagreement or conflict silent treatment is a manipulation tactic because it plays on human nature most of us are wired to seek connection and validation from others especially in relationships when someone withdraws that communication it triggers a panic that makes you ask yourself did I do something wrong should I apologize how could I fix this the silent party holds all the
cards and leaves you scrambling to get back into their good graces often at the expense of your emot wellbeing at first glance it might not seem as harmful as yelling or name calling but the silent treatment can be just as damaging it creates a power imbalance in relationships where one person controls the flow of communication and the other is left an emotional limbo think of it as someone who constantly blocks and unblocks you on Facebook leaving you powerless in this relationship triangulation draw a triangle where the three points are three people the point at the
top is a manipulator while the other two points at the bottom are you and a third person now imagine the lines connecting you to the manipulator are puppet strings this allows the person at the top to hold emotional power over you and a third person in a situation called triangulation imagine you and your friend disagreeing but instead of talking it out your friend brings in a third person to stir things up this third person could be another friend a cooworker or a family member it's like turning a simple argument into an episode of a reality
TV show by involving them your friend might twist facts or exaggerate things to make it seem like they're the victim or the one in the right this creates an imbalance of power because it's not just you and your friend hashing things out instead it's you versus someone with a cheerleading team backing them up the manipulator might use triangulation to create riffs between you and another person making it harder for others to unite against them they can also use it to validate themselves by getting someone to agree with their point and make you question your own
and it can also be used to shift the blame to you instead of dealing with the issue directly it's a tactic often seen in toxic relationships or workplaces where someone tries to climb the ladder by playing people against each other for example a boss might give an employee a raise while leaving the other employees with pizza parties causing jealousy and competition between everyone in the workplace while maintaining control and preventing you and your workmates from teaming up and demanding higher salaries projection imagine spilling milk all over the floor but instead of owning up to your
mistake and saying Oops I messed up you turn around to your brother and say why did you make make me spill the milk that's one way projection works this manipulation tactic is also a psychological defense mechanism where you take your feelings thoughts or behaviors and instead of owning up to them you try to attribute them to someone else you're pointing fingers at everyone around you before looking at a mirror you're in a psychological game of hot potato where you toss around your uncomfortable emotions into another person so you don't have to deal with this problem
in relationships projection can show up in more serious ways let's say someone is feeling jealous or insecure instead of recognizing that they feel that way they accuse their partner of jealousy or insecurity people do this because it's a way of protecting their ego owning up to uncomfortable feelings like jealousy guilt or anger can make someone feel vulnerable instead of facing that vulnerability projection lets them push those emotions outward it's like I'm not the problem you are so projection is like a game of emotional dodgeball where you're throwing your feelings at others instead of catching them
yourself but sometimes it might be best to play this game solo blame shifting blame shifting happens when you avoid responsibility by directing the blame onto someone else instead of looking at a mirror you'd rather blame it on the camera when your selfies come out so while you protect yourself from getting blamed you get everyone in trouble blame shifting comes into play when you're in a situation where someone suddenly accuses you of something you didn't do it's like a bad magic trick where instead of a disappearing rabbit accountability disappears let's say someone messes up maybe they
forgot an important task or or hurt someone's feelings instead of owning up to it they'll flip the situation to you to turn you into the villain they might say something like well I wouldn't have forgotten that task if you didn't forget to remind me suddenly the focus shifts away from their mistake and onto something you supposedly did wrong it's like they've got a special Shield that allows any incoming criticism to bounce off they twist The Narrative so that you're the one who's left feeling guilty or questioning yourself it can leave you thinking wait am I
actually the problem here people who blame shift often want to protect their ego or avoid consequences it's a defense mechanism but toxic because it derails healthy communication instead of working through the issue it becomes a game of deflection and confusion they may also do it to maintain control in the relationship or situation making the other person feel off-balance or responsible for things beyond their control but accountability is always a two-way street where you must own up to your mistakes instead of making people go through a one-way road to blame town playing the victim when you're
in a tough situation that you caused but are too prideful to accept your mistake you can always use the oldest play in the book by pulling out the victim card doing so means you're playing the victim in a bad situation where you're the bad guy this manipulation tactic is the equivalent of wearing the poor me hat even when you're not the victim hoping to influence how others treat you imagine someone getting caught stealing but instead of owning up to their mistake they tell their life story and how they grew up poor they start focusing on
how hard their life is or how they're always misunderstood now the attention shifts from the theft to the sob story of how the person is the victim of society's economic inequality suddenly they're now in a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination you might hear things like oh I can't believe you're mad at me after everything I've been through or nobody ever appreciates how hard I try suddenly you're not talking about what they did wrong because you're feeling guilty for calling them out in the first place it's clever because it plays on people's empathy most of
us don't want to hurt someone who seems vulnerable or in distress and manipulators know this after all you wouldn't want to throw salt in the wound of someone already down on their knees but people who use this tactic exaggerate their problems or twist facts to make it seem like they're constantly under attack or dealing with a tough life which makes others back off or even apologize for confronting them so if someone pulls out the victim card on you it might be best to use the crimeia River card on your own stonewalling you're in an argument
with someone about something important but instead of discussing or responding to your arguments that person goes silent giving you one-word answers or completely ignores the topic you might ask hey what's going on and get a response like nothing or I don't want to talk about it over time this can feel like you're talking to a brick wall that's why this manipulation is called stonewalling it's basically when someone pulls up an invisible wall between you making it hard for you to get your point across the idea is to create create a barrier that prevents a meaningful
conversation from continuing which can be frustrating for the person on the receiving end people use stonewalling for a variety of reasons sometimes it's because they feel overwhelmed or emotionally flooded and they shut down to protect themselves other times it's a way of controlling the conversation or avoiding Conflict by simply refusing to engage like a kid hiding under the covers during a thunderstorm hoping the world will forget about them this tactic can be particularly harmful in relationships because it blocks communication like a traffic jam on a highway preventing any issues from getting the green light while
stonewalling might seem like a way to avoid an argument it often worsens things in the long run the person being stonewalled feels ignored invalidated or even disrespected leading to frustration and resentment it's like the dreaded scene Zone situation on social media sometimes it can get so frustrating that you feel you'd have to go through a fortress to get your point across mirroring mirroring is like someone is trying to be your clone in a sneaky way that you won't immediately recognize this happens when they mimic your speech patterns making you think wow they really get me
the idea is to create a sense of connection and Trust making the other person feel more comfortable this tactic is rooted in our nature of finding common ground with people so if you're talking to someone who makes you feel you're talking to your long lost twin it makes it easier to form connections on the other hand talking to someone who's the complete opposite is like talking to a rock imagine talking to someone at a party and you realize this guy is doing the same hand gestures and has the same tone you use this makes you
feel more connected in a way that would make you think he's a brother from another mother you'd feel more understood and appreciated leading to a stronger Bond it sounds good and all until someone uses it against you miroring can also be used manipulatively especially when someone wants to use it to gain influence or control for example A salesperson sees you're wearing a Lebron James jersey and starts making you think he's also a basketball fan to create a sense of familiarity which would be enough to make you buy something or politicians might try to gain your
vote by making you think you come from the same background because you talk the same and have similar values you might think we're mirroring you because our videos make you feel connected with us but we're not instead we simply have a lot of things in common so you might want to help us out by subscribing to our Channel and joining our Discord love withdrawal you and your partner disagree because you wanted to eat at an Italian restaurant and they wanted to go to a French beastro but instead of resolving the situation they stop being affectionate
maybe ignore your texts or give you the silence treatment it's like they've hit the pause button on love and you're left wondering if you said something wrong or if the relationship is on the Rocks this is what happens when someone uses love withdrawal it's a manipulation tactic where one person in a relationship suddenly goes as cold as frozen pizza to make the other person feel anxious or guilty in most cases the manipulative partner dials it back on the communication department and even makes physical and emotional interactions rare you may be sleeping on the same bed
but there's no action happening under the sheets people people use this tactic to gain control or get what they want by pulling back they aim to make their partner feel insecure and more likely to apologize or change their behavior it's a way to manipulate their feelings sort of like a puppet master pulling strings but way less Charming the tricky part is that this tactic can wear down the trust and connection in a relationship over time it might lead to feelings of resentment and confusion the partner on the receiving end might start doubting their selfworth constantly
seeking validation which can become a NeverEnding cycle on the other hand and the manipulative partner would always use the same Playbook until it eventually wears the relationship down in the end love withdrawal can turn a relationship into a cold war except it's mxs instead of missiles [Music]
