Are there any manuals on emotional self-defense that help one protect oneself from the emotional manipulations of toxic people?
So, the first thing I'd say is that one of the most potent methods of managing this kind of thing is a regular practice centred on self-awareness and awareness of how your choices are affecting your goals.
This can include everything from journaling to meditation to therapy or counselling with an appropriate professional to simple self-awareness checkins on a daily or regular basis to an ongoing commitment to reading things that make you think about common types of issues to - well, you can keep adding, I'm sure.
(A bunch of practices in the religious traditions I'm most familiar with do this, too: everything from grounding and centering or divination in Pagan traditions to the Ignatian spiritual practices in Catholicism, to scriptural study in a number of religions of the book.)
The other big one is choosing - as much as one can - to spend time with people who are, as one of my friends (and a mutual ex of my ex-husband, with whom this was a relevant point) says: "You must be this tall to ride this ride."
I don't expect my friends to be perfect - but I do choose to spend my time with people who *want* to be decent, fair, reciprocal, reasonable adults. We have give and take all the time - some years, someone will need more support. Sometime I will. But there's a way that works when everyone's trying for that endgoal that doesn't work if one or more people in an equation aren't willing to do that work, be self-aware, and attentive to how they're treating others.
(Also, this is the tenth anniversary of my ex-husband and I separating: I've been single since then, though with some great friends, and honestly, I would *much* rather have this than a not-good relationship. Life's too short to have relationships that make me miserable or are more work than pleasure and mutual support.)
Sometimes you really can't escape someone easily, or the good parts are good enough or important enough to you that you put up with the bad parts. But recognising when that's the case means you can put better boundaries around behaviours, how and when you spend time with someone, and so on. I love my mother, but for several years, we didn't talk, and then for a bunch of others, it was touchy in places.
These days, she's learned how not to be difficult about the stuff that was really a no-go for me, I spent a lot of time finding safe topics to talk about (I joke that my safe subject with her is Richard III, but it's true!), and making sure that mostly I see her either for limited time or when I've got some of my own plans and/or transportation. (Without that, I'm good for about a 3 day visit at most.)
So, resources. I second the
Gift of Fear recommendation (and I'd note that the domestic violence chapter is a difficulty for three reasons: he and his mother were victims of domestic violence, it's a subject that's clearly much more personal to him than others in the book - and so the clear view he gives of other kinds of issues is very different in that chapter - and also that the book's old enough that some of how we view domestic violence and responses has changed a lot. Which is good, but yeah, that chapter.
I also definitely second the Captain Awkward rec, and I'd add, for more professional/workplace/organised hobby issues, Ask A Manager (
http://askamanager.org).
I'd add Suzette Haden Elgin's books - the classic is
The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense but there's a number of others, and if you fit into any of the specific groups for those, they might be helpful. They're really good at helping explore scripts for disengaging from emotionally manipulative conversations that are not to your taste. (If you are a strongly tactile or kinesthetic sort of person rather than good with words, I also really recommend her
Try to Feel It My Way, even if you have to go out of your way to dig up a copy)
One of the classics on the topic is also Dion Fortune's
Psychic Self-Defence and I'd recommend it with caveats that it needs to be read with an understanding of the esoteric community at the time, Fortune's own background (which is esoteric groups, not Pagan), and not thinking there's lurking stuff around every corner.
Finally, I think it's good psychic hygeine practice to do some things regularly:
- Regular cleansing practice for self and home (or at least your sleeping space)
- Be thoughtful about the energies you bring into your home. Think about what you're watching, listening to, and reading, in particular, as well as who you welcome as a person and who you don't. If a lot of your media consumption pushes unhealthy relationship models (or just plain models you don't want), it's going to confuse your goals for a quieter less drama-filled life.
(Moderation is really the key here: I enjoy reading romance novels, which often do problematic relationship models in various ways, but they're by no means the only or majority thing I read. I listen to the news, but I don't own a TV in part because I found that having it on in the background wasn't good for me, and for news in particular, I'm usually better with radio, in smallish chunks, not all the time. Etc.)
- If you have problematic relationships where part of the problem is you, do what you can to make that right, or to break things off, whichever is necessary. Having stuff in limbo that's emotionally weird (that you're contributing to or did) makes you more open to other people doing similar things to you, in my experience, where setting clear boundaries and then following through on them tends to shut down the loose ends.
- My website section on practices at the top at
http://gleewood.org/seeking/practices/ has several relevant pages (specifically the last couple in that first section): if you have past problematic relationships and find yourself repeating the same patterns over and over, trying the tie-severing work once you've done your best to resolve the situation other ways might be useful.
- And in general, I tend to think that the same pattern repeating over and over again is often either that we're doing something that we don't realise that keeps making that happen (sometimes consciously, but usually not, but this is where the self-awareness work comes in), or that there's some thing the universe is trying to get through our thick skulls.
- In my experience, it's really common to take a step back, decide to change a thing, hold firm for another round or two of it, and then everything shifts in the direction you want. (It does usually take a test or two of 'are you going to do the same thing? No? Sure about that?' before it settles into the new pattern, but I've found that noticing it only takes one or two repeats helps me decide to make the pattern shift in the first place.)
- Finally, I generally think that a lot of emotional manipulation isn't conscious on the part of the person doing it. (This doesn't make it any better, but it means that the action choices are a bit different.) Again, refusing to play that game, in various ways, often helps a lot. Be aware that sometimes things get worse before they get better: look at the term 'extinction burst' as applied to bad relationships.
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August 01, 2011, 06:27:46 am
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