Unmasking the Abuser Episode 24 - Tricks of the Trade

Welcome to episode 24 of the Unmasking the Abuser Podcast. I'm Dr. Dean of McMillan. I'm a social psychologist, a relationship consultant, and an expert on domestic abuse and violence. Last episode we looked at ways to protect your new superpower, your ability to stand back from a situation and see what's really going on. The superpower is actually applied critical thinking. It means when you're interacting with someone new, whether there are a potential romantic partner, a friend, a work colleague, someone involved in a shared cause, you'll also be assessing what's happening instead of just experiencing it. Because you are aware now of the potentially high price of getting it wrong, you'll go over the conversations and behaviors in your head and consider whether or not there were any serious warning signs. If there were, you'll seek out more information before inviting that person further into your life. You may even decide it's wise to distance yourself from that person. In that episode we talked about something else I feel is really important. I've said before that I don't trust any person, group, or social cause who try to scare me into compliance or attempt to force me to share their views. In my experience, that always leads somewhere grim and pretty awful. If you want me to see something or do something, then give me verifiable evidence. Don't try to trigger fear or revulsion or make me angry. Give me facts and then the time and space to consider it all. Also show a willingness to accept it if I consider the evidence and still say no. If there's one word that manipulators and abusers hate, it's the word no. If anyone tries to coerce me saying do this or else something bad is going to happen to you, I become very suspicious. If they punish me for hesitating or even for asking questions, that lets me know something is seriously wrong. That's manipulation and my superpower tells me they're not really trying to help me. They're trying to use me. They know they have to have my permission in order for it to work. I don't and won't give my permission to be manipulated and used by any person or cause. Neither should you. That's why all of these podcasts are about developing your own superpower so you can assess the information in front of you and then you get to decide. I'm not going to decide for you and neither should anyone else. We've also discussed throughout this series that people who try to manipulate us often use ploys and maneuvers and tricks. We're going to discuss and challenge some of those tricks in this episode. You're listening to the Unmasking the Abuser podcast with Dr. Dena McMillan. Are you going over past situations in your mind now and asking yourself if you've been played with, coerced, manipulated or tricked? If the answer is yes, don't be too hard on yourself. Most of us have been there and done that. That's why I decided on today's topic. I decided to call it the Tricks of the Trade. I thought it would be useful to highlight some of the most popular tricks used by abusers on their targets and victims. This time, I'm not only going to spotlight maneuvers used at the very beginning when abusers are grooming new targets, but also those that happen after the relationship is established. Some of these are to keep their victims from recognizing the danger. Others are aimed at deflecting attention away from the abusers' serious flaws. And some are performed to lure a victim or survivor back into the abusive relationship. I thought it would be useful to consider all of those and to have them presented together in a single episode. So are you ready? Let's do this. Let's start at the start. Let's begin with the tricks and ploys that happen most often in the very beginning before the relationship is fully established. Some of these are psychological maneuvers, while others take advantage of social norms. Most are part of a bigger tactic, but I think you'll appreciate having them pulled out and exposed on their own. I've tried to give them catchy names to make them easier to remember. Trick 1. Late date. This is incredibly common and is part of the tactic I call testing and training. With this maneuver, the abuser keeps changing details about one of your first meetups at the very last minute. Not calling you ten minutes before you're supposed to actually meet to say he's running late due to something about work. He may do this even earlier, contacting you on the day you're supposed to meet for coffee, to say he has to work now and can only meet you for dinner. Sometimes it involves changing venue, again without much time for you to reconsider and plan. What he's really doing is gaging your flexibility, assessing how enthusiastic you are about saying him and getting you used to compromising to meet his needs and demands. Trick 2. Large and in charge. With this ploy, the abuser takes control from the moment the two of you walk into a venue. If he's smooth and charming, he'll give reasons why he's insisting the two of you sit inside instead of outside like you want it. He'll say there's too much traffic noise or too much smoke. If he's just controlling, he won't say anything, just insist you do it his way. He'll be enthusiastic about a certain dish on the menu and say you just have to try it. He'll tell the server you don't want dessert without asking you, requesting coffee instead. I've mentioned before about the guy who asked whether I wanted wine and when I said I didn't want alcohol, he supposedly went to the men's room and came back with a bottle and two glasses. He then insisted wine isn't alcohol and poured some for both of us. Of course, I didn't drink it. These moves are included in the testing and training. Are you willing to just let him dominate everything or even in a small way? Will you push back? Trick 3. Mr. Popularity. Charming abusers often take you to places where they're well known to impress you with their popularity. If they can't, they'll find a place that also includes women they've been with in the past. This is done to make them seem more desirable and hopefully to trigger feelings of competition for their attention in you. If it works, they know you'll be less inclined to resist when they make their demands. It will be fresh in your mind that they have other options. Now, this one has a part 2. Another aspect of the Mr. Popularity trick is to limit the amount of time the two of you spend in situations where people like and admire you. If you have a work function or you win an award for your volunteer program or anything else where the spotlight will be on you, they'll either attend with great reluctance, whistle their attendance at the last minute, or try to embarrass you while they're there. Some will look at everyone with contempt while standing apart. Others will flirt shamelessly to the point of complete humiliation for you. Others will only interact in an attempt to gather information for put downs later, including telling you that people at the event don't really seem to like or respect you as much as you think. A few really clever ones will try to charm everyone in your life. world, taking the attention away from you, building in protective armor for when things get really bad. Then they hope these same people won't believe it. After all, he's such a great guy. Trick number four. I'll show you mine. Anyone who studies human behavior soon learns the best way to get intimate information or even confessions from someone is to confess first. To make it even more effective, abusers may say, "I never tell people this but." And then they'll say something painful or potentially embarrassing. They'll look you in the eye and then wait, expecting you to make a confession of your own. The norm of reciprocity that's been drilled into us since we were little can make it compelling to give in and fess up. If you do, if you reveal something painful or embarrassing or admit a desire you don't usually share with anyone, it will stimulate a strong sense of artificial intimacy. If you remember, artificial intimacy makes you feel like you know someone well and for a long time. That's a main goal for abusers. They want you unguarded, bonded to them, and divulging key knowledge they can use to manipulate you. Trick number five. The big secret. If you look up marketing tools and powerful words or even a search engine, one of the main ones on everyone's list is the word secret. Abusers know that if they tell you something and say it's secret, it's going to have an impact. It will make you feel special. It will make you feel trusted. There's nothing like someone revealing a secret to make us feel valued. It will build or reinforce the bond between you and the abuser. Many times this move can encourage you to disclose when the "I'll show you" mind trick we talked about before wasn't quite as effective as the abuser hoped. It may be accompanied by another power move with the abusers saying "I've never felt like this before" or "I've never done this before." You, my super-powered audience, know they're lying. They're following the same script they use every time they target someone. But if you don't know that and you do reveal, the trick is going to work. Abusers are able to play their targets like a violin. Trick number six, night in shining armor. During the early phase of the relationship, abusers will pay attention to anything you say you don't like doing or confess you don't do well or anything where he has an obvious advantage in resources or expertise. He'll present himself as your knight and you'll feel so grateful when he has his account and do your taxes, makes all of the plans for your upcoming trip, handles that pesky service that won't give you a refund. He'll use this as more proof that he's on your side and it's you and me against the world. In reality, he's taking control over everything in order to make you completely dependent. Soon you'll forget how to do things. Won't know where all of your paperwork or even your resources are kept and will become so reliant on his efforts and his moods that you'll have to keep him sweet in order for your life to run smoothly. This is an area where I have to be fair and give a shout out to all of my male listeners who are worried about abusive women. How many times have you heard men say they don't know when to send a card to their parents for their birthdays or know when their kids have a dental appointment. Just like we should now be wary when we watch women get over the top Valentine's Day present sent to their workplaces, we should also be alert for men. Having a wife or partner who takes over everything in your life means you'll have huge problems if you split up. Go classic for a really good example. Look at the film "Cramer vs. Cramer." The whole premise was that when his wife left him the man didn't know how to care for his child, take care of his home or do anything he needed to in order to function as an adult. It's dangerous to revert to childhood regardless of the sex of the people involved. It's also really tempting and therefore a very alluring trick. Trick number seven, nagging. If you're relatively young you probably know this one. It was made famous by the group of men known as the pick-up artists. These guys taught expensive seminars where they gave other men psychological tricks to manipulate women into having sexual contact with them. However little interest the women actually had. In effect pick-up artists were teaching men how to be successful sexual predators. Nagging involved giving a woman a compliment that's really an insult like "Oh great dress! Pause! My mom has one just like it." A variation of users sometimes like to use is to purposely ignore what a woman is saying and compliment instead on something mundane. An example, you're passionately describing your work with differently able teenagers and telling him how fulfilling it is. The abuser interrupts to compliment you on how beautiful your eyes are in this light. You're thrown a little because you thought what you said was important. Both tricks the compliment slash insult and also distracting you from what you were discussing to give you a really odd compliment put you on the back foot. Turn your confidence into uncertainty. When it works you'll then put extra effort into getting the abuser to appreciate whatever it is he's just insulted or ignored. You'll be so busy trying to prove you're worth to him you won't notice his faults or that he's really not worth that extra work. Trick 8. Let me be your angel. Despite warnings this ploy still works so often and so well I felt I had to include it. Abusers know if they meet their target at a location associated with positive qualities like a church a charity shop or an event for a good cause they'll get automatic good guy points. Add in their fluency in the jargon of the group claims of long membership or frequent attendance and the halo effect fires up with full force. Abusers keep using this move because it's one of the easiest and most effective ways to lure new targets into their net. If it's used on you you'll probably be convinced the abuser is everything he says. You'll automatically trust him in a way you probably wouldn't if you met him when shopping for Doritos at 2 a.m. at the local 7 11. If you're not careful your trust in the goodness and the goals of the organization can completely displace all of your hard one critical thinking and discernment. Trick 9. High velocity. In this case velocity means both fast and deep. This trick starts early and continues throughout the relationship. A connection with an abuser will be many things but it will not be boring. In addition to the rapid speed of the relationship the abuser will include major intensity. Often the more completely the abuser wants to control you or the more pathological his behavior the more he'll include fun exciting and envy-inducing behaviors into his repertoire especially in the early days. Abusers fully understand intensity of experience can mesmerize and be used as effective misdirection dazzling you with gifts or gestures or compliments or promises so you'll rationalize away the hypergellacy overwhelming demands and raging outbursts that are also occurring. Those negative actions and events empower possible to predict or prepare for are just as forceful in the other direction and may outnumber the positive actions even in the beginning. Here our brain doesn't help us. That forceful push pull back and forth builds a stronger bond than if the interactions between the two of you were moderate and predictable. Now let's continue with a few tricks that are used after the relationship is established. Trick 8. Broken Promises. One of the captivating things abusers do from the beginning is make lots of promises. They'll get you emotionally invested, encouraging you to visualize how wonderful it will be when their promises are fulfilled. Then they'll break most of these either as a punishment for some act of defiance or just to keep you from feeling you can predict their moves. Abusers often make promises with every intention of breaking them. When you don't have a conscience about not keeping your word, you can pledge anything because it won't affect what you'll actually be required to do. And always you as their partner will be blamed for the fact that the promise isn't kept. You'll be assured if you don't make a man agree next time, if you comply more completely, if you submit then the next promise will be kept. Trick 9. Gaslighting. Although gaslighting can take place at any stage of the relationship, it's more likely once the relationship is committed to some extent. With this maneuver, when confronted with something awful that they've done, the abuser will claim you're either exaggerating or it didn't happen at all. And they won't let it drop. They'll use any evidence where you forgot something or a detail was missed as proof that you got this wrong too. They'll act hurt and then angry that you're making this accusation. They'll make it so costly to press the point you're likely to just give in to keep the peace. Many times gaslighting turns into Darvo, deny, attack, reverse victim and defender. With abusers, they are rarely satisfied with just convincing you that you were wrong in your accusation. They'll take it further, turning themselves into the victim and blaming you for all the pain that was caused. Trick 10. Transformers. Abusers are usually well acquainted with the exact lines and behaviors they need to keep in their back pocket, just in case you wise up and end the relationship. They'll always claim they'll change, but they need you to help them do it. They may agree to go to intervention groups or even individual therapy or other classes where they're going to be instructed on how to be more respectful and gain self-control. Most even know what they have to do to make these claims convincing. Once you go back fully into the relationship though, three things will occur. First, they'll return to the mask they wore when they were first luring you in. They need you to report back to their therapist or even their probation officer about how well they're doing. You all know, because you're my audience, that that mask at the beginning is all fake. This only works if you bought it in the first place. But the second move, they'll begin backsliding, claiming whatever they do is a temporary slip and it will not happen again. This will normally involve scary emotional abuse, not necessarily physical assault. And then third, they'll go back to the way they were completely and they're going to punish you for putting them through the challenges of group therapy or arrest or whatever else you did. Tricks 11 through 15 are kind of linked, so I called them baby come back. While we're discussing tricks and separation, I thought it was worthwhile to go over some of the other ploys that are less time consuming and involved than actually going to therapy. Abusers will often try these first to keep from being rejected. Tricks 11 don't be cruel. With this trick, abusers will use whatever they know about your values to make you feel like a horrible person for rejecting them. If they're in a different demographic group, race, religion, nationality, they'll tell you your rejection is actually due to prejudice. They'll say you don't really want a relationship or perhaps that you don't like men. If you have strong spiritual or humanitarian beliefs, they'll say you're betraying your beliefs by not giving them a second chance or because you're judging them too harshly. Abusers always know what buttons to push to make you feel mean for putting them out. Tricks 12 can we talk? This trick is to get you to spend so much time connecting and discussing your reasons for the rejection that you decide to keep going in the relationship. The abuser will just keep asking for more details about why you won't continue the relationship. They'll claim you owe it to them to explain. Whatever you say, however, no matter how clear you are, won't be enough. Nothing you say will be sufficient to actually end the conversation. The abuser will try their best to wear you down until you give in with rational sounding reasons to dispute everything you say. Trick 13, friendly persuasion. This is a very cunning ploy that often works well. The abuser will seem to accept the rejection and then ask if the two of you can be friends. This tactic is often described by the acronym LJBF. Let's just be friends. Abusers know most people would rather not have an angry breakup. So their chances are good. This offer will be accepted. Once you give in, they'll whittle away at your resistance. Whispering criticisms about any new guy that interests you. Using snide remarks and contempt to make you doubt yourself and generally just biting their time until they can talk you back into a romantic relationship. Trick 14, every breath you take. It's unusual for an abuser to go away just because you say you don't want to see him anymore. Abusers don't believe their target or victim has the right to end the relationship. Usually they'll act like you didn't say anything and continue contacting you the same as before. They often will stalk you online and in person, going places they know you'll be or even enlisting your friends to convince you they're a good guy or the second chance. This trick and the next one we're going to discuss are definitely ones where you should gather reinforcements. Keep a record of all the contact after you've ended the relationship. Pay attention to your social media and look to see if you suddenly get trolls. It's usually the abuser or one of his friends harassing you. If necessary, if you feel unsafe, make reports to the police and get a restraining order to keep the abuser away from you. Also, if you break it off with an abuser, change your routine and don't post your locations on social media. Be very clear about your breakup with family and friends and tell them you'll accept no excuses if they try to intervene on the abuser's behalf. Trick 15. Breathe again. Some abusers will threaten to hurt or even kill themselves if you end the relationship. Softhearted women will often relent and return to the relationship when emotional blackmail like this is used. This type of threat should always be taken seriously, especially as an abuser whose potentially suicidal is also potentially homicidal. Call the police and a local domestic violence service if he tries this. Don't try to handle it yourself and don't see this as a reason to return. Like any new strategy, your new anti-abuser super power works. best if you're informed about possible weaknesses in your defenses. Understanding not only the tactics, but also the common tricks abusers use to get into your life and staying in your life can be useful. Now, do you have any tricks that have been used on you that weren't mentioned? Want to share with the rest of us? As always, if you have any questions or comments about this episode or if you want to share a personal experience, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. That's unmaskingpodcast all one word at gmail.com. Thank you for listening. Until next time, I'm Dr. Dina McMillan.