How to Spot Toxic Manipulation Tactics

All right, welcome back to how to be Toxic. Who remembers last week's lesson?

All right, welcome back to how to be Toxic. Who remembers last week's lesson? Keep them confused. Exactly. Love bomb them randomly get those spikes in dopamine and oxytocin, and then be cruel to them again next week. That way, in their nervous system, we're not just the cause of the pain, we're also the cure. But what if they accuse us of mistreating them? It's a great question. Start with gaslighting. Just deny the reality altogether. If that doesn't work, we can always pivot to invalidation, mocking them. Maybe throw in a little shame spiral. Okay, so that would sound like you're really going to make a big deal about that. Oh my gosh. What's wrong with you? I guess you just wanted to start a fight. We were having a good day together. Why do you view me as the worst person ever? Wow. Someone's an overachiever. The goal is to emotionally destabilize them and erode any confidence in their own decision making by making them wonder maybe they're the toxic one here. Yeah, but how do we do that? By consistently telling them that they are. Plus, if you neglect someone long enough and they don't feel safe to bring it up, all that bottled up energy causes them to eventually explode or lash out. And then we can use their reaction as justification for why we're mistreating them. It's genius. Manipulation 101. But don't they ever wonder why they're the only ones question themselves in the relationship and wondering if they're the toxic one? Now, it's pretty normal for them to feel like they need to earn love, but why don't they rebel against the obvious double standards and power dynamics? Because we've carefully created an environment where it's not safe to. That's why it's so important that we're appropriately manipulating their abandonment fears from the beginning. Smart. Alright, next week's lesson is going to be on taking accountability. No, no, I'm just kidding. We're going to learn how to weaponize therapy speak. So get ready to set some boundaries that are actually just control. Whew. I'm good at those.