Outmaneuvering a manipulator

I've had the recent misfortune of encountering an emotionally manipulative female. at the time, when I was emotionally unstable and overloaded with work and personal problems, this female approached me with a caregiver role. I was quick to share details of my personal life and disclosed far more than I'm comfortable with. It is important to mention that there is a conflict of interest, whereby we are both perusing the close friendship of a common friend. She persuaded me to give advice to said friend and distance myself after I had a disagreement with said friend. She also took on a stance of being in complete agreement with me, and even took part in reaffirming my views. The relationship with the common friend is now irreversibly tarnished. At the time I knew there was some form of manipulation taking place, but out of desperation I reached out as a last resort. I suspect she has divulged all the personal information I shared, and has entrapped me. I feel like this person kicked me when I was down.

I was in the wrong with previously mentioned friend, and should have handled it like an adult. however, in avoiding conflict resolution I was willing to attempt to weasel my way out by forming an alliance with an untrustworthy character to reaffirm my stance. This coupled with an impaired lapse in judgement.

Since this happened I have distanced myself from everyone involved. I am doing better and working out how to form healthy relationships, handle emotional problems, and focusing on my work. I'm not interested in 'outing' her or getting back with old friends. I've moved on.

I have decided to reactivate a few of my social media accounts a few months ago, and since then, the manipulative character has been trying to reach out to me. My instincts tell me that she's doing so to gauge whether I am aware of what she did (I have not confronted her) and covering her tracks by keeping me under control.

She's sent me approximately 6 texts, very brief and asking me how I'm doing. the timing of these texts are usually after interaction with common friends (liking pictures). the most recent is one asking me if i'm ignoring her.

Here are the options:

1) continue ignoring without blocking her number

2) block her

3) brief message such as 'I'm fine, busy with work. hope you're good'

I am resisting the temptation to get even whole heartily. I just don't want an aggressive reaction or to help her spin any more truths.

Block her. Stop over-thinking, pick yourself up and carry on with your life.

Good luck!

keep in mind she'll know if I blocked her. I was planning on just doing a ghost act.

I'm sure she's petty and desperate enough to do more damage

keep in mind she'll know if I blocked her. I was planning on just doing a ghost act.

 

I'm sure she's petty and desperate enough to do more damage

Sounds like you've already answered your own question!

yes but the trouble is you can see when Im online. I don't want to deactivate my accounts. that was one of the things she advised me to do! completely psychotic that people dedicate this much time to deception.

I literally don't want to aid her cause. I don't want to give her any indication of how I feel or who I've talked to or what im doing

This and the slow fade is the best method for such people. Read up on Machiavellian and the Gray Rock Method. Blocking could elicit back-handed drama.

brief message such as 'I'm fine, busy with work. hope you're good'

Just block her.

I would also suggest that you take some responsibility in this drama. No one can make us do anything that we do not want to do.

There is no difference between ghosting and blocking. Both result in ignoring. I am assuming that you continue to ghost to stay attached to the drama.

I would be curious to hear about the deceit?

Realize that you too had a role in this ("as a last resort" but you still chose it), it was mutual and if you think about how to outmaneouver her, you will still be playing a role - the same role as her actually- in this thing that you don't like. Just get out of this by stopping contact.

Sometimes, the best way to win the game is just to refuse to play. At all. If don't want to do that, then acknowledge your own motives in keeping the game going.

look at your title. it's basically how to manipulate a manipulator. scheming is scheming, despite any amount of moral disengagement.

you can not be healthy and be a part of a sick system. you can be healthy and maintain a well-differentiated role in regard to the system, rather than accept the role that it's offering to you. in plain words, rather than moral disengagement from your own triangling and scheming, try actual disengagement from the woman and her appendices. that also means to not overthink how to strategically modify your behavior to prevent her from going on a smear campaign.

she will go on a smear campaign. heck, i'm sure we all know she's already on one anyway. the roast stand is up and running. and any sane and decent person would not entertain her, or engage with her while she is obviously overly-involved with a third party.

the only "damage" you are afraid of her doing is the damage to your image.

get used to the fact some people can be manipulated because everyone likes to have a scapegoat to project onto, and sometimes it'll be your turn. so what.

besides, behind the back roasting is transferred aggression, which is actually great because it is an outlet for the frustrated person who discharges their hatred for you in this way, thus they no longer feel the need to incur direct injury. so, as long as she has sheeple to form an alliance with, you're safe. wherever there's triangling, you're safest on the outsider position.

i agree with the suggestion to review your motives.

if the woman is not appeased and needs her frustration for you manifest in some way, she may twist your mutual acquaintances, and you'll appear to be low end of the power swing. it boils down to whether you need to prove your position and value externally through means similar to hers, or whether you can choose to operate beyond the Big winner/scapegoat binaries and not give a hoot who sees you as the Up person or Down person.

i would not act on the impulse to avenge and nurse a narcissistic injury.

Go the high road here. It's not like she will burn your house down, will she? What practical damage will she cause? What is there to fear, other than the fact that for a while she may have a few people convinced you're bad or whatever. Time to become immune to shame.

i like to just ignore these people and watch them implode as their frustration rises, but as long as she's able to follow and interact with your accounts, that's not an option. you will also find yourself aggravated because you won't know what to post, whether to post, what to comment, what to like or not because she'll feed on your activity and anything indicating anything about your personal life and if frustrated enough, will grab onto whatever is available. so i'd block her, for the sake of my own peace and quiet, and i would accept that she will continue to wage her sick war with whoever is weak enough to tolerate her, but i will be well in my war free zone. as for your "friends", if they're going to take this kind of person seriously, i don't see how you can take them very seriously.

I would certainly block her phone number because i see no need to communicate to her, other than the afore mentioned fear that if she is cut off, she will talk trash.

if you are very worried about how the triangling has affected the third friend, send them a short apology for a lapse in judgement and inappropriate involvement of ManipulativeWoman in the tension you felt toward Friend. then leave it at that.

your old thread says you had a problem with stealing, and at some point became symptomatic again. is this the private info you told her when smitten by her faked empathy? are you afraid she will share it?

sounds like you had systemic therapy judging from your post, so i'm guessing your problems have been addressed with a counselor. if she spreads info and embellishes it, some people will think things, and maybe avoid you, at least for a while until your behavior and her behavior have had enough time to speak for themselves.

your first thread reveals fears of exclusion, of being unanimously labelled as unworthy of connection (which may explain your compulsion to form alliances to strengthen your position). so i think the main pain in your side is indeed the anticipated roasting and trash talking. i would ask my counselor for extra emphasis on overcoming my feelings of shame, humiliation and unworthiness.

everyone needs to project their complexes to externalize their worst real or imagined traits. so it's impossible for anyone to not ever be the screen on which disgraceful images are projected. if you understand shaming is endemic to power-over cultures where people need to be rid of their weaknesses, rather than something which you as a person elicit or deserve, it may be easier to accept such periods in your life.

head high, because many like to see humiliation, and few can function above the infantile need for potency, and the neurotic mechanisms of obtaining it.

wow. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to share your in depth analysis. I felt helpless in my emotionally superficial group of friends I've accumulated over the years. Not to shift the blame on them -- what we all had in common was dysfunction and inability to form relationships resulting in a toxic breeding ground.

I shared information about my family and the sadness I have within about not being able to help. you are completely right about the shame aspect. I would rather someone think I'm an aggressor than someone susceptible to shame.

I go out of my way to discredit gossip aimed at shaming me and my background. I did something unprecedented during my falling out with said group of friends - particularly the girl I was closest to - I fully opened up about family and personal affairs and said it was immensely hurtful that my friends had gossiped about these things. In my distorted thinking and reasoning I took something as I felt it would help me forgive the wrong done to me. It worked temporarily, but then upon reflection I thought I was regressing to coping methods which I've outgrown.

Since posting, I've blocked the manipulator. Part of me was scared that the only way to shake her off and others like her in this group was to self destruct, and rebuild.

I'd to one day be on friendly terms with the girl, and give her a mention in a book I'm writing.

Although I need to learn how to form healthy friendships. currently I'm working and keep too busy to socialize, so lots of thinking to be done.

if you understand shaming is endemic to power-over cultures where people need to be rid of their weaknesses, rather than something which you as a person elicit or deserve, it may be easier to accept such periods in your life.

Please elaborate on this sentiment, I need to understand this

there's a wonderful article on it called working with shame and humiliation. i don't remember all the auhtors (i think it's three females) but one is linda hartling. it's online, look it up, you'll love it.

shaming means that we portray one as unworthy of connection. as you put it, we ostracize them. to humiliate means literally to downgrade someone, to put them in a lowly position, treat them like dirt (from humus- dirt, soil, earth).

humans have the universal fear of being powerless and deemed unworthy. it's a basic fear and we'll do all sorts of things to prevent it from coming true. everyone needs to have value.

for example when a man dominated by this fear pursues you and you turn him down, he turns from the sweet courting guy to a malicious jerk who talks trash about you, or even spreads rumors of you having pursued him but he turned you down. the rejection he feels has placed him on the low end of the power/worth swing, and no one can live like that.

another example is when a person who had in some relationship been abused, later takes on the abuser role in some other relationship, to disengage from their previous victim position. in absence of better solutions, the first impulse is to gain the upside position. that means the other (you) has to be placed in the lower position, and he achieves that through shaming, humiliation and manipulation, and if you're especially unlucky, just plain old violence. a more benign (although only temporary) way of regaining a sense of worth and power would be to go pick up the nearest hot bimbo, buy a huge boat or car or similar. the ideal solution would be to think outside this very limited format of human interaction as having to do with only the position of power.

in short, this behavior may seem offensive to you personally, but it's actually meant as a defense for them personally. it's got nothing to do with you. in systems, the roles are fixed, always. just different people occupying them at different times. if you weren't there, she'd do the same to someone else, as i'm sure she has. there must have been an elephant1, elephant2, god knows which number you are and how many there will be after you, because this is simply how she functions. for her, anyone she can lure into the alliance/empathy trap will do.

if you look at society at large, it's unfortunately all about the position of power, from the sandbox, through relationships and workplaces to governments and international relations.

because most people are reactionary rather than responsive, they just want to alleviate the basic anxiety and the fear of nobodyness. aint nobody got time for sublimating their complexes lol.

some stop to think about the fact that "being someone" isn't necessarily proved only in binaries, that is, in comparison. when it's proved in comparison, than the fact that i am powerful necessarily means there needs to be someone who is not, that i am virtuous is only proved by the fact that someone else isn't and so forth. but if i were in a social vacuum, would i be nobody? surely, i am still a someone, me? and if i am only powerful/competent/pretty when placed against someone who is not, then do i even possess those qualities in the first place? i mean if i do they can't just disappear in absence of a mirroring someone. it's like the zen question of whether one hand clapping makes a sound, and whether trees make noises falling if no one is there is to register the fall.

people are highly conditioned. all think with their lost objects. and all are trying to protect themselves from that loss. if you observe which fear drives them, their behavior is quite predictable. with the benevolent sort, you can put your observation to a good cause and surprise them by consistently doing the opposite of what they fear most. with the malicious sort, you can choose to disengage. they'll either have to find a new person to fit your slot, or, in absence of someone to project their complex onto, it'll bother them on the inside and they'll implode. if you're good, karma will let you watch. sometimes it's fun if the fruits of their actions aren't too brutal, but mostly you just feel sorry for them.

i'm very curious, your previous threads say you've not had counseling but the rest sounds like you did. you described bowen's systems theory in detail in your opening post, it's part of a therapeutic approach of couples/family counselors and clinical social workers.

if you haven't had counseling, you should give yourself massive credit for insight and observation.

 

if you are very worried about how the triangling has affected the third friend, send them a short apology for a lapse in judgement and inappropriate involvement of ManipulativeWoman in the tension you felt toward Friend. then leave it at that.

Also, it's too late for this. I hold no credibility here, and I don't blame her. I did apologize without mention of any names. I was a sort of goodbye letter. I think I made a good decision to not look back. I've made my accounts private, and won't be intimidated into going into disappearing.

Another reason not to mention her again, is that it would be manipulative on my behalf to use her as a scapegoat as she did to me. She didn't cause the falling out, she is merely an opportunist who take further advantage of me and expected me to just fall off the face of the earth.

I'm currently looking into buying some books about shame. It's my weak spot, coupled with an innate belief that I'm inherently a bad person at my core.

need one be good?

what do not-good people deserve?

how does one become good?

there's a poem. you do not have to be good. you do not have to go on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

this is one of the authors of that essay:

and this is the essay:

 

i'm very curious, your previous threads say you've not had counseling but the rest sounds like you did. you described bowen's systems theory in detail in your opening post, it's part of a therapeutic approach of couples/family counselors and clinical social workers.

 

if you haven't had counseling, you should give yourself massive credit for insight and observation.

I went to counselling via my university for a while a few years ago to talk about my family and university stress but no I've never had any counselling for anything beyond that. Thank you, I self-counsel by reading self help books mostly and asking the internet about specific problems anonymously !

I self-counsel

you're a natural.

i hope the posters who compile excuse after excuse of why they refuse to work on themselves are reading this. when we can't afford therapy, it doesn't mean we can't afford insight.

and free uni counseling is the best thing since sliced bread.