Emotional Manipulation
Bombarding with excessive affection, time, and energy to earn devotion and trust
Love Bombing
“I don’t want you to hang out with Max anymore.”
Controlling your life
Characterized by open communication, mutual respect, honesty, trust, mutual support, and other positive traits
Healthy Relationships
Making you question your memory and interpretation of events so that you doubt yourself and are more likely to trust and believe the manipulator in the future.
Gaslighting
You are working on a new task at your job.
Your coworker says “Aw, sweetheart nice try. Why don’t you leave that to the real adults?”
Infantilizing
The stages of this include Calm, Tension Rising, Abuse, and Reconciliation
The Cycle of Abuse
Steering away from conversations that allow the victim to feel capable/successful or receive positive attention from others
Changing the subject
While hanging out with your girlfriend, you say something that makes her mad. She doesn’t speak to you and won’t hold your hand or engage in other usual affection.
Silent treatment
The characteristics that differentiate an Unhealthy Relationship from and Abusive Relationship
An imbalance of power and control
Changing the rules part way through to prevent the victim’s success
Moving the goalposts
Aimee is going to see a movie with her friend and wears an outfit that she feels cute in. During the movie he tries to “make a move” on Aimee multiple times which she blocks. After the movie she tells him that it made her really uncomfortable.
He angrily says, “Stop playing hard to get. Obviously you’re into me, why would you dress like that if you didn’t want attention?”
Victim blaming
The imparting or exchanging of information.
Communication
Involving a third person in a disagreement that is going to ensure one side “wins” due to favoritism or misinformation
Triangulation
Your friend Max is upset after you explain that you won’t be able to go to their birthday party. He complains to your other friend Daniel saying things like “they didn’t even try to ask their parents”, or “they always cancel last minute on plans like this, it’s so rude”
At lunch time, Max starts talking about how disappointed he is that you aren’t going to his party, and Daniel jumps into the conversation saying you haven’t been trying to show up for them the same way they do for you.Triangulation
An individual's ability to effectively communicate and assert their own interests, desires, needs and rights
Self-advocacy