Emotional blackmail is one of the abuses that are least talked aboutalthough its consequences wreak profound havoc on the personality of children and adults who suffer from it.
On a social level, it is not widely recognized and, on a personal level, the victim, not being able to realize that she is immersed in a relationship of submission, can go through years enduring this type of manipulation. After a long period of abuse, his self-esteem will have been badly damaged (with the aggravating circumstance that the longer a person suffers from emotional blackmail, the more difficult it will be for them to break this toxic relationship).
In order to help you recognize if someone close to you, or yourself, you are being a victim of emotional blackmailI have compiled some of the characteristics of those who exercise it.
If you identify any of these traits in your partner or a friend, you may be suffering from emotional blackmail. It is also likely that if you look back in your history, you can recognize these characteristics in a relative or adult in your environment (father, mother, grandparents, etc).
Boys and girls who have been blackmailed in their childhood often their self-esteem is diminished and, in their adulthood, they become either victims of this type of person, or similar abusers. For this reason, in the list that I offer you below, you will be able to identify these signs in both present and past people.
Traits of an Emotional Blackmailer
- Selfish people. They want to achieve their goals and manipulate others to get what they want.
- They lack empathy. Only your interests matter. The motives and needs of others do not concern them.
- They use guilt and fear of losing their love to manipulate. Phrases like “you are going to kill me”, “with what I have sacrificed for you”, “if you love me, you have to…”, “ungrateful, with everything I have done for you”, “you owe me everything” , “without me you are nobody”.
- They insult, disqualify and belittle. To undermine the self-esteem of others, they blame them for everything bad that happens. Also, they magnify any small mistakes that others may make to make them see how useless they are. In addition, they lead them to think that by their side they are nothing, that they lack any value.
- victimhood They cry or even get sick (or feign illnesses) to upset others, cause grief and, in this way, achieve their controlling objective. This is a very sophisticated version of the aforementioned use of guilt.
- Uncertainty and restlessness. To create a state of instability, they don’t always express what they want. In this way, they keep the other in constant tension and always aware of their whims. Attitudes such as stopping to speak for any reason and phrases such as “you will know what you have done” seek the submission of the victim.
- Relentless pressure to get what they want. They repeat what they want a thousand times until the other despairs.
The repeating wheel
As you can see, these They are not very refined strategies or sophisticated, but it must be taken into account that if a father or a mother applies them to their children (much smaller and immature), the damage to their self-esteem will be enormous. Later, as adults, these boys and girls crushed in their childhood, will not be able to identify, nor defend themselves, from other people who use these same words with them. handling mechanisms.
In my practice, I frequently receive adults who live with a couple who emotionally blackmails them. They go to therapy to work on their low self-esteem and in the course of their sessions, we become aware of how they are trapped in a relationship of complete submission.
Furthermore, as we progress in therapy, we discover that in her childhood, in order to manipulate her behavior, one of their parents already used similar strategies with them.
Valentine’s case
Valentina was one of these girls who came to work on her self-esteem and discovered how he had been twice the victim of emotional blackmailfirst by his mother and, later, by his partner.
The young woman told me that she had broken her marriage a few months after becoming a mother. She told me that by holding her little baby in her arms, she found the strength to begin to oppose her husband and to Defend your daughter from parental abuse.
This resistance upset his partner. Used to manipulate herFaced with Valentina’s opposition, the husband reacted by increasing his level of pressure and aggressiveness, to the point that, in an argument, he grabbed the girl by the neck, threatening to drown her. This situation of extreme violence was the trigger that pushed Valentina to take the step that she had never dared to take. With a baby that was less than a year old, she separated from her.
Two years later, Valentina came to the office and we were able to see how she had been subjected to her partner during the 7 years that their relationship had lasted. During all this time, her husband, to achieve her purposes, spent all day crushing and crushing her.
valentine I was not able to notice these blackmails because, as we discovered throughout the sessions, her mother had used the same strategies with her that, later, his partner used. Faced with the mistreatment of her husband, the young woman reacted the same as she did in her childhood before that of her mother: shrinking and annulling herself.
The first step to free yourself from these characters is recognize the mechanisms used to manipulate. The list you have above is a summary of the strategies most used by these people. If you recognize in them someone from your present and, in addition, you can identify a relative from the past who also blackmailed you, you have taken the first step to free yourself from them.
Gather all your strength and work to regain your self-esteem and to rid yourself of the harmful effects of emotional blackmail.