20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You
Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits
engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately
exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and
friends. They use a plethora of diversionary tactics that distort the
reality of their victims and deflect responsibility. Although those who
are not narcissistic can employ these tactics as well, abusive
narcissists use these to an excessive extent in an effort to escape
accountability for their actions.
Here are the 20 diversionary tactics toxic people use to silence and degrade you.
1. Gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that
can be described in different variations of three words: “That didn’t
happen,” “You imagined it,” and “Are you crazy?” Gaslighting
is perhaps one of the most insidious manipulative tactics out there
because it works to distort and erode your sense of reality; it eats
away at your ability to trust yourself and inevitably disables you from
feeling justified in calling out abuse and mistreatment.
When a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath
gaslights you, you may be prone to gaslighting yourself as a way to
reconcile the cognitive dissonance that might arise. Two conflicting
beliefs battle it out: is this person right or can I trust what I
experienced? A manipulative person will convince you that the former is
an inevitable truth while the latter is a sign of dysfunction on your
end.
In order to resist gaslighting, it’s
important to ground yourself in your own reality – sometimes writing
things down as they happened, telling a friend or reiterating your
experience to a support network can help to counteract the gaslighting effect.
The power of having a validating community is that it can redirect you
from the distorted reality of a malignant person and back to your own
inner guidance.
2. Projection.
One sure
sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or
her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being
held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a
defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative
behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately
acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.
While we all engage in projection to some
extent, according to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr.
Martinez-Lewi, the projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive.
Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings,
malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on
their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively
cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they
would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior
and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to
project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.
For example, a person who engages in
pathological lying may accuse their partner of fibbing; a needy spouse
may call their husband “clingy” in an attempt to depict them as the one
who is dependent; a rude employee may call their boss ineffective in an
effort to escape the truth about their own productivity.
Narcissistic abusers love to play the
“blameshifting game.” Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and
you or the world at large is blamed for everything that’s wrong with them. This way, you get to babysit their fragile ego while you’re thrust into a sea of self-doubt. Fun, right?
Solution? Don’t “project” your own sense
of compassion or empathy onto a toxic person and don’t own any of the
toxic person’s projections either. As manipulation expert and author Dr.
George Simon (2010) notes in his book In Sheep’s Clothing,
projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the
potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.
Narcissists
on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in
self-insight or change. It’s important to cut ties and end interactions
with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your
own reality and validate your own identity. You don’t have to live in
someone else’s cesspool of dysfunction.
3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.
If you think
you’re going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic,
be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational
mindfulness.
Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad,
circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and
gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever
disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order
to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main
problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual
thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist.
Spend even ten minutes arguing with a
toxic narcissist and you’ll find yourself wondering how the argument
even began at all. You simply disagreed with them about their absurd
claim that the sky is red and now your entire childhood, family,
friends, career and lifestyle choices have come under attack. That is
because your disagreement picked at their false belief that they are
omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in a narcissistic injury.
Remember: toxic people don’t argue with
you, they essentially argue with themselves and you become privy to
their long, draining monologues. They thrive off the drama and they live
for it. Each and every time you attempt to provide a point that
counters their ridiculous assertions, you feed them supply.
Don’t feed the narcissists supply – rather, supply yourself with the
confirmation that their abusive behavior is the problem, not you. Cut
the interaction short as soon as you anticipate it escalating and use
your energy on some decadent self-care instead.
4. Blanket statements and generalizations.
Malignant
narcissists aren’t always intellectual masterminds – many of them are
intellectually lazy. Rather than taking the time to carefully consider a
different perspective, they generalize anything and everything you say,
making blanket statements that don’t acknowledge the nuances in your
argument or take into account the multiple perspectives you’ve paid
homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on you that dismisses your
perspective altogether?
On a larger scale, generalizations and
blanket statements invalidate experiences that don’t fit in the
unsupported assumptions, schemas and stereotypes of society; they are
also used to maintain the status quo. This form of digression
exaggerates one perspective to the point where a social justice issue
can become completely obscured. For example, rape accusations against
well-liked figures are often met with the reminder that there are false
reports of rape that occur. While those do occur, they are rare,
and in this case, the actions of one become labeled the behavior of the
majority while the specific report itself remains unaddressed.
These everyday microaggressions also
happen in toxic relationships. If you bring up to a narcissistic abuser
that their behavior is unacceptable for example, they will often make
blanket generalizations about your hypersensitivity or make a
generalization such as, “You are never satisfied,” or “You’re always
too sensitive” rather than addressing the real issues at hand. It’s
possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible
that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.
Hold onto your truth and resist
generalizing statements by realizing that they are in fact forms of
black and white illogical thinking. Toxic people wielding blanket
statements do not represent the full richness of experience – they
represent the limited one of their singular experience and overinflated
sense of self.
5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.
In the hands of a malignant narcissist or
sociopath, your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived
experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your
irrationality.
Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe
what you’re actually saying as a way to make your opinions look absurd
or heinous. Let’s say you bring up the fact that you’re unhappy with the
way a toxic friend is speaking to you. In response, he or she may put
words in your mouth, saying, “Oh, so now you’re perfect?” or
“So I am a bad person, huh?” when you’ve done nothing but express your
feelings. This enables them to invalidate your right to have thoughts
and emotions about their inappropriate behavior and instills in you a
sense of guilt when you attempt to establish boundaries.
This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as “mind reading.”
Toxic people often presume they know what you’re thinking and feeling.
They chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather
than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act
accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no
apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting
words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or
outlandish viewpoint you didn’t possess. They accuse you of thinking of
them as toxic – even before you’ve gotten the chance to call them out on
their behavior – and this also serves as a form of preemptive defense.
Simply stating, “I never said that,” and
walking away should the person continue to accuse you of doing or saying
something you didn’t can help to set a firm boundary in this type of
interaction. So long as the toxic person can blameshift and digress from
their own behavior, they have succeeded in convincing you that you
should be “shamed” for giving them any sort of realistic feedback.
6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.
The difference between constructive
criticism and destructive criticism is the presence of a personal attack
and impossible standards. These so-called “critics” often don’t want to
help you improve, they just want to nitpick, pull you down and
scapegoat you in any way they can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths
employ a logical fallacy known as “moving the goalposts”
in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually
dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after you’ve provided all the
evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to
meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand
more proof.
Do you have a successful career? The
narcissist will then start to pick on why you aren’t a multi-millionaire
yet. Did you already fulfill their need to be excessively catered to?
Now it’s time to prove that you can also remain “independent.” The goal
posts will perpetually change and may not even be related to each other;
they don’t have any other point besides making you vie for the
narcissist’s approval and validation.
By raising the expectations higher and
higher each time or switching them completely, highly manipulative and
toxic people are able to instill in you a pervasive sense of
unworthiness and of never feeling quite “enough.” By pointing out one
irrelevant fact or one thing you did wrong and developing a hyperfocus
on it, narcissists get to divert from your strengths and pull you into
obsessing over any flaws or weaknesses instead. They get you thinking
about the next expectation of theirs you’re going to have to meet –
until eventually you’ve bent over backwards trying to fulfill their
every need – only to realize it didn’t change the horrific way they
treated you.
Don’t get sucked into nitpicking and
changing goal posts – if someone chooses to rehash an irrelevant point
over and over again to the point where they aren’t acknowledging the
work you’ve done to validate your point or satisfy them, their motive
isn’t to better understand. It’s to further provoke you into feeling as
if you have to constantly prove yourself. Validate and approve of
yourself. Know that you are enough and you don’t have to be made to feel
constantly deficient or unworthy in some way.
7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.
This type of tactic is what I like to call
the “What about me?” syndrome. It is a literal digression from the
actual topic that works to redirect attention to a different issue
altogether. Narcissists don’t want you to be on the topic of holding
them accountable for anything, so they will reroute discussions to
benefit them. Complaining about their neglectful parenting? They’ll
point out a mistake you committed seven years ago. This type of
diversion has no limits in terms of time or subject content, and often
begins with a sentence like “What about the time when…”
On a macrolevel, these diversions work to
derail discussions that challenge the status quo. A discussion about gay
rights, for example, may be derailed quickly by someone who brings in
another social justice issue just to distract people from the main
argument.
As Tara Moss, author of Speaking Out: A 21st Century Handbook for Women and Girls,
notes, specificity is needed in order to resolve and address issues
appropriately – that doesn’t mean that the issues that are being brought
up don’t matter, it just means that the specific time and place may not
be the best context to discuss them.
Don’t be derailed – if someone pulls a
switcheroo on you, you can exercise what I call the “broken record”
method and continue stating the facts without giving in to their
distractions. Redirect their redirection by saying, “That’s not what I
am talking about. Let’s stay focused on the real issue.” If they’re not
interested, disengage and spend your energy on something more
constructive – like not having a debate with someone who has the mental
age of a toddler.
8. Covert and overt threats.
Narcissistic abusers and otherwise toxic people feel very threatened when their excessive sense of entitlement,
false sense of superiority and grandiose sense of self are challenged
in any way. They are prone to making unreasonable demands on others –
while punishing you for not living up to their impossible to reach
expectations.
Rather than tackle disagreements or
compromises maturely, they set out to divert you from your right to have
your own identity and perspective by attempting to instill fear in you
about the consequences of disagreeing or complying with their demands.
To them, any challenge results in an ultimatum and “do this or I’ll do
that” becomes their daily mantra.
If someone’s reaction to you setting
boundaries or having a differing opinion from your own is to threaten
you into submission, whether it’s a thinly veiled threat or an overt
admission of what they plan to do, this is a red flag of someone who has
a high degree of entitlement and has no plans of compromising. Take
threats seriously and show the narcissist you mean business; document
threats and report them whenever possible and legally feasible.
9. Name-calling.
Narcissists preemptively blow anything
they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In
their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say
otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage.
As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from
low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense
of superiority.
The lowest of the low resort to
narcissistic rage in the form of name-calling when they can’t think of a
better way to manipulate your opinion or micromanage your emotions.
Name-calling is a quick and easy way to put you down, degrade you and
insult your intelligence, appearance or behavior while invalidating your
right to be a separate person with a right to his or her perspective.
Name-calling can also be used to criticize
your beliefs, opinions and insights. A well-researched perspective or
informed opinion suddenly becomes “silly” or “idiotic” in the hands of a
malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot
make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your
argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your
credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can. It’s
important to end any interaction that consists of name-calling and
communicate that you won’t tolerate it. Don’t internalize it: realize
that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in
higher level methods.
10. Destructive conditioning.
Toxic people condition you to associate
your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and
disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about
the qualities and traits they once idealized
as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and
holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and
make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.
Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and
otherwise toxic people do this because they wish to divert attention
back to themselves and how you’re going to please them. If there is
anything outside of them that may threaten their control over your life,
they seek to destroy it. They need to be the center of attention at all
times. In the idealization phase, you were once the center of a
narcissist’s world – now the narcissist becomes the center of yours.
Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious
and don’t want anything to come in between them and their influence
over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot
have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that
you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the
toxic person, what’s to keep you from leaving them? To toxic people, a
little conditioning can go a long way to keep you walking on eggshells
and falling just short of your big dreams.
11. Smear campaigns and stalking.
When toxic types can’t control the way you
see yourself, they start to control how others see you; they play the
martyr while you’re labeled the toxic one. A smear campaign is a
preemptive strike to sabotage your reputation and slander your name so
that you won’t have a support network to fall back on lest you decide to
detach and cut ties with this toxic person. They may even stalk and
harass you or the people you know as a way to supposedly “expose” the
truth about you; this exposure acts as a way to hide their own abusive
behavior while projecting it onto you.
Some smear campaigns can even work to pit
two people or two groups against each other. A victim in an abusive
relationship with a narcissist often doesn’t know what’s being said
about them during the relationship, but they eventually find out the
falsehoods shortly after they’ve been discarded.
Toxic people will gossip behind your back
(and in front of your face), slander you to your loved ones or their
loved ones, create stories that depict you as the aggressor while they
play the victim, and claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that
they are afraid you will accuse them of engaging in. They will also
methodically, covertly and deliberately abuse you so they can use your
reactions as a way to prove that they are the so-called “victims” of
your abuse.
The best way to handle a smear campaign is
to stay mindful of your reactions and stick to the facts. This is
especially pertinent for high-conflict divorces with narcissists who may
use your reactions to their provocations against you. Document any form
of harassment, cyberbullying or stalking incidents and always speak to
your narcissist through a lawyer whenever possible. You may wish to take
legal action if you feel the stalking and harassment is getting out of
control; finding a lawyer who is well-versed
in Narcissistic Personality Disorder is crucial if that’s the case.
Your character and integrity will speak for itself when the narcissist’s
false mask begins to slip.
12. Love-bombing and devaluation.
Toxic people put you through an
idealization phase until you’re sufficiently hooked and invested in
beginning a friendship or relationship with you. Then, they begin to
devalue you while insulting the very things they admired in the first
place. Another variation of this is when a toxic individual puts you on a
pedestal while aggressively devaluing and attacking someone else who
threatens their sense of superiority.
Narcissistic abusers do this all the time – they devalue their exes
to their new partners, and eventually the new partner starts to receive
the same sort of mistreatment as the narcissist’s ex-partner.
Ultimately what will happen is that you will also be on the receiving
end of the same abuse. You will one day be the ex-partner they degrade
to their new source of supply. You just don’t know it yet. That’s why
it’s important to stay mindful of the love-bombing technique whenever
you witness behavior that doesn’t align with the saccharine sweetness a
narcissist subjects you to.
As life coach Wendy Powell suggests, slowing things down
with people you suspect may be toxic is an important way of combating
the love-bombing technique. Be wary of the fact that how a person treats
or speaks about someone else could potentially translate into the way
they will treat you in the future.
13. Preemptive defense.
When someone stresses the fact that they
are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or
emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you
whatsoever, be wary.
Toxic and abusive people overstate their
ability to be kind and compassionate. They often tell you that you
should “trust” them without first building a solid foundation of trust.
They may “perform” a high level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning
of your relationship to dupe you, only to unveil their false mask later
on. When you see their false mask begins to slip periodically during
the devaluation phase of the abuse cycle, the true self is revealed to
be terrifyingly cold, callous and contemptuous.
Genuinely nice people rarely have to
persistently show off their positive qualities – they exude their warmth
more than they talk about it and they know that actions speak volumes
more than mere words. They know that trust and respect is a two-way
street that requires reciprocity, not repetition.
To counter a preemptive defense,
reevaluate why a person may be emphasizing their good qualities. Is it
because they think you don’t trust them, or because they know you
shouldn’t? Trust actions more than empty words and see how someone’s
actions communicate who they are, not who they say they are.
14. Triangulation.
Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as “triangulation.”
Often used to validate the toxic person’s abuse while invalidating the
victim’s reactions to abuse, triangulation can also work to manufacture
love triangles that leave you feeling unhinged and insecure.
Malignant narcissists love to triangulate
their significant other with strangers, co-workers, ex-partners, friends
and even family members in order to evoke jealousy and uncertainty in
you. They also use the opinions of others to validate their point of
view.
This is a diversionary tactic meant to
pull your attention away from their abusive behavior and into a false
image of them as a desirable, sought after person. It also leaves you
questioning yourself – if Mary did agree with Tom, doesn’t that mean
that you must be wrong? The truth is, narcissists love to “report back”
falsehoods about others say about you, when in fact, they are the ones
smearing you.
To resist triangulation tactics, realize
that whoever the narcissist is triangulating with is also being
triangulated by your relationship with the narcissist as well. Everyone
is essentially being played by this one person. Reverse “triangulate”
the narcissist by gaining support from a third party that is not under
the narcissist’s influence – and also by seeking your own validation.
15. Bait and feign innocence.
Toxic individuals lure you into a false
sense of security simply to have a platform to showcase their cruelty.
Baiting you into a mindless, chaotic argument can escalate into a
showdown rather quickly with someone who doesn’t know the meaning of
respect. A simple disagreement may bait you into responding politely
initially, until it becomes clear that the person has a malicious motive
of tearing you down.
By “baiting” you with a seemingly
innocuous comment disguised as a rational one, they can then begin to
play with you. Remember: narcissistic abusers
have learned about your insecurities, the unsettling catchphrases that
interrupt your confidence, and the disturbing topics that reenact your
wounds – and they use this knowledge maliciously to provoke you. After
you’ve fallen for it, hook line and sinker, they’ll stand back and
innocently ask whether you’re “okay” and talk about how they didn’t
“mean” to agitate you. This faux innocence works to catch you off guard
and make you believe that they truly didn’t intend to hurt you, until it
happens so often you can’t deny the reality of their malice any longer.
It helps to realize when you’re being
baited so you can avoid engaging altogether. Provocative statements,
name-calling, hurtful accusations or unsupported generalizations, for
example, are common baiting tactics. Your gut instinct can also tell you
when you’re being baited – if you feel “off” about a certain comment
and continue to feel this way even after it has been expanded on, that’s
a sign you may need to take some space to reevaluate the situation
before choosing to respond.
16. Boundary testing and hoovering.
Narcissists, sociopaths and otherwise
toxic people continually try and test your boundaries to see which ones
they can trespass. The more violations they’re able to commit without
consequences, the more they’ll push the envelope.
That’s why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they go back to their abusers.
That’s why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they go back to their abusers.
Abusers tend to “hoover”
their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse and empty words
of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more
horrifically. In the abuser’s sick mind, this boundary testing serves as
a punishment for standing up to the abuse and also for being going back
to it. When narcissists try to press the emotional reset button,
reinforce your boundaries even more strongly rather than backtracking on
them.
Remember – highly manipulative people don’t respond to empathy or compassion. They respond to consequences.
17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.
Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious
remarks at your expense. These are usually dressed up as “just jokes” so
that they can get away with saying appalling things while still
maintaining an innocent, cool demeanor. Yet any time you are outraged at
an insensitive, harsh remark, you are accused of having no sense of
humor. This is a tactic frequently used in verbal abuse.
The contemptuous smirk and sadistic gleam
in their eyes gives it away, however – like a predator that plays with
its food, a toxic person gains pleasure from hurting you and being able
to get away with it. After all, it’s just a joke, right? Wrong. It’s a
way to gaslight you into thinking their abuse is a joke – a way to
divert from their cruelty and onto your perceived sensitivity. It is
important that when this happens, you stand up for yourself and make it
clear that you won’t tolerate this type of behavior.
Calling out manipulative people on their
covert put-downs may result in further gaslighting from the abuser but
maintain your stance that their behavior is not okay and end the
interaction immediately if you have to.
18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.
Belittling and degrading a person is a toxic person’s forte and their tone of voice is only one tool in their toolbox. Sarcasm
can be a fun mode of communication when both parties are engaged, but
narcissists use it chronically as a way to manipulate you and degrade
you. If you in any way react to it, you must be “too sensitive.”
Forget that the toxic person constantly
has temper tantrums every time their big bad ego is faced with realistic
feedback – the victim is the hypersensitive one, apparently. So long as
you’re treated like a child and constantly challenged for expressing
yourself, you’ll start to develop a sense of hypervigilance about
voicing your thoughts and opinions without reprimand. This
self-censorship enables the abuser to put in less work in silencing you,
because you begin to silence yourself.
Whenever you are met with a condescending
demeanor or tone, call it out firmly and assertively. You don’t deserve
to be spoken down to like a child – nor should you ever silence yourself
to meet the expectation of someone else’s superiority complex.
19. Shaming.
“You should be ashamed of yourself” is a
favorite saying of toxic people. Though it can be used by someone who is
non-toxic, in the realm of the narcissist or sociopath, shaming is an
effective method that targets any behavior or belief that might
challenge a toxic person’s power. It can also be used to destroy and
whittle away at a victim’s self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of
something, shaming the victim for that specific trait, quality or
accomplishment can serve to diminish their sense of self and stifle any
pride they may have.
Malignant narcissists, sociopaths and
psychopaths enjoy using your own wounds against you – so they will even
shame you about any abuse or injustice you’ve suffered in your lifetime
as a way to retraumatize you. Were you a childhood abuse survivor? A
malignant narcissist or sociopath will claim that you must’ve done
something to deserve it, or brag about their own happy childhood as a
way to make you feel deficient and unworthy. What better way to injure
you, after all, than to pick at the original wound? As surgeons of madness, they seek to exacerbate wounds, not help heal them.
If you suspect you’re dealing with a toxic
person, avoid revealing any of your vulnerabilities or past traumas.
Until they’ve proven their character to you, there is no point
disclosing information that could be potentially used against you.
20. Control.
Most importantly, toxic abusers love to
maintain control in whatever way they can. They isolate you, maintain
control over your finances and social networks, and micromanage every
facet of your life. Yet the most powerful mechanism they have for
control is toying with your emotions.
That’s why abusive narcissists and
sociopaths manufacture situations of conflict out of thin air to keep
you feeling off center and off balanced. That’s why they chronically
engage in disagreements about irrelevant things and rage over perceived
slights. That’s why they emotionally withdraw, only to re-idealize you
once they start to lose control. That’s why they vacillate between their
false self and their true self, so you never get a sense of
psychological safety or certainty about who your partner truly is.
The more power they have over your
emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth
about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and
how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge
of what you’re facing and at the very least, develop a plan to regain
control over your own life and away from toxic people.
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