“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”   – Philip K. Dick

Emotional manipulation is when someone purposely gets you to feel a certain way, which they then exploit for their own purposes. The experience could be shifted to fear, shame, doubt, guilt, obligation, love, and trust. The manipulator, evokes one of these emotions in their target and leverages it to get what they want. Ultimately, it’s a way to gain power and control over another.

An example of an obvious emotional manipulator would be a school yard bully. The bully creates fear through threats and sometimes physical harm to gain what they want. This tactic is often portrayed it many different ways in movies and media. 

Another well known form of emotional manipulation is casting guilt, often accompanied by playing the victim. Whatever the situation, or if you have some sort of doubt, they’ll turn it against you so you feel you must do what they want.

Some examples of guilt and victimization:
“If you throw me out of the house I’ll end up on the streets on drugs.”
“If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll go live with dad.”
“These things always happen to me, you have to help me or I’ll be lost forever.”

So, what makes subtle emotional manipulation different?

Subtle emotional manipulation isn’t directly aggressive or threatening. It moves in under our radar leaving us with unexplained anxiety and stress.

The way it presents is seemingly innocuous. Often, the manipulator appears as that of the attentive charmer, sweetly telling you what you want to hear. They build rapport so you lower your defenses and hang on their every word. Then, after being so highly elevated and appreciated, the charmer gradually and covertly begins to devalue you. This is also the usual technique employed by the classic narcissist. Another method used by the manipulator, is to cushion the devaluation and persuasion wrapped in affection, gifts, or the guise of caring.  

These types of behavior are confusing, causing you to question your own judgement and feelings. It is especially hard to evaluate objectively when the manipulator seems to be caring or concerned. Naturally, we to want to make others happy, keeping the relationship harmonious, so it’s you that changes and gives in.

Key indicators to pay attention to, are your own feelings and a sense that things aren’t adding up. If your intuition is telling you that something is wrong, it’s usually correct and something is wrong. 

There are a number of subtle tactics emotional manipulators use to get what they want from you:

1 ) Guilt – This is so commonly used, we often don’t even hear it for what it is. It could be as simple as a lingering sigh to make you overly concerned for their feelings over yours.

2)  Sarcasm and Negative humor – Sarcasm is frustration or hostility disguised as humor. Usually the opposite is said of what’s true to deliberately make someone look foolish or feel embarresed. Light hearted teasing is acceptable, but sarcasm itself passive-aggressive bullying.

3) Play “Hard to get” – Often, you don’t really know where you stand with this person. They make and cancel plans a whim, ignore messages and phone calls, and conveniently aren’t available when you need them. They ignore or dismiss you or your needs, even pretending not to understand until you give in and do what they want.

4) Constantly judge and criticize – This tactic is meant to disarm you and put themselves in control of the conversation. They say or do things to make you feel bad even though you’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing you do or say is right and you feel like you’re walking on eggshells, constantly having to prove yourself. Defending yourself or arguing only escalates the manipulator’s attempt to gain power over your feelings and thoughts.

5) Project / Shift blame – The projector shifts the blame and responsibility for their own hurtful behavior or inadequacies onto another. For example, if they’re cheating, they’ll say you’re cheating.

6) Gas lighting – Gas lighting is the ultimate mind game. This is when you believe you experienced something, felt, or thought something, but you’re told you really didn’t. The manipulator denies your experience, discounts it, or twists it around. Gas Lighting erodes your self esteem, generating enormous doubt to the point that you no longer trust your own thoughts and experiences.
These are a few examples: 

Why are you making things up? It never happened that way.

Are you sure about that? You are often forgetful.

What can you do if you’re being subtly manipulated? 

Talk to trusted friend to get a healthy option. This will help recognize the manipulation, validate your feelings and enforce your resolve to do something about it. 

If you find the subtle manipulation is mostly isolated, it can be directly addressed. An honest conversation or counseling can curb the constant guilt trips or habitual sarcasm. But, this is only possible if the offender actually wants to change. It’s important to know when to choose your battles, or if it’s a lost cause. 

Know your weaknesses, and know your boundaries and stick to them. 

Try not to take anything they say personally.

Sometimes the best answer is to simply walk away and limit the time that you interact with them. 

If you find your partner, friend, family member, etc constantly needs appeasement at your expense, you may be the target of subtle emotional manipulation. This is your life. It’s time to reflect on your needs and what you need to do to improve the quality of your life.