25 Red Flags

1. When a person repeatedly tells you what to do. 

You are a grown adult and you do not need other adults telling you what to do. You get to make your own decisions, and anyone who thinks that it is their job to boss you around is controlling, and if you like it, then you are giving up responsibility for your life to other people. STOP. 

2. When a person interrupts you while you are speaking.

If you feel that you are regularly interrupted while you are speaking to a person, then it is true. It's really happening. Face that you're being interrupted and being squished out of conversations with this person and accept the red flag for what it is and don't try to change the other person into a healthy person who can relate on your level when it is clear that they can't even let you talk.

If you interrupt others when they are speaking, stop. Everyone needs to be seen, heard and understood.

3. When a person doesn't listen to you.

When someone is listening to you, you feel it, you hear it, you sense it, you know it. When someone does not listen to you, it is a sign that the person does not care and never will--it's best to let this person go and/or keep them at a distance because they will never listen and it's damaging to you to try to communicate and relate with someone who won't listen to you.

4. When a person refuses to allow you to exist. 

If you feel like talking to the person is hard work, that sharing anything about yourself is very difficult, or getting a word in about what your life is all about is not easy and flowing, then you are dealing with an emotional stingy person. Communication should be easy, flowing and reciprocal. 

4. When a person tries to make you feel guilty for setting a boundary in the past.

Some people hang your boundaries over your head like you did a bad thing when you set it; you hurt them with your boundary, need for space and/or distance.

5. When a person texts you asking how you're doing, then doesn't respond when you respond to their text.

This is an annoying Red Flag. It's a pattern with some people and if they do this to you, it shows you that there is something wrong. Normal, healthy, loving friends and people who want the best for you don't leave you hanging via text. It takes 5 seconds to text someone and hold up the conversation. It should be a rare occurrence when you or your friend leave texts wide open with no response. *Super Irritating

6. When a person tells you to go hang around or be with someone who has abused you in the past.

No one who cares about you would tell you or encourage you to go be with someone who has injured and hurt you in the past.

7. When someone states the way they need you to be in order for them to feel comfortable.

People who are toxic will share the quiet part out loud. This is usually a subconscious process, so they don't mean to do it, but they will give red flags to their red flags. They will say things like:

• "I need you to make less money than me because I would feel uncomfortable if you had more than me."
•  Oh that's great, "I can date you and my ex-wife will become jealous."

 8. If someone brings up something negative about yourself that you shared. 

People who love you and care about you and who are for you do not do this. The only person who would do this is 

1.  1) Someone who is trying to gain power over you through making you feel bad and negging you; 
2. 2) Someone who feels threatened by you and feels the need to bring you down to make them feel better about themselves; or
   
3. 3) Someone who is playing power and control games.
   

 9. When someone only likes people who think exactly like they think.

It's human nature to be unique and have our own opinions and beliefs. If someone is closed to you having your own ideas and doing your own thing, then that is a red flag. 

10. When a person does not text you back or call you back as they said they would.

I don't even need to explain this one. This is a huge indicator that the person you're talking to doesn't like you, respect you or give one crap about you.

11. When someone calls you up to tell you their problems, but when it's your time to speak, they have to get off the phone. (This is a pattern)

No explanation needed.

12. When someone brags about their life.

A healthy, secure person does not have to brag about themselves. It's okay if a friend tells you about great things happening, but this should not turn into a nightly monologue about how great they are.

13. When a person is addicted to drugs. 

You cannot have a relationship with someone who is addicted to drugs. You also cannot help a person who is addicted to drugs. An addict must help himself or herself. Getting involved with this person will lead you to a dark place--steer clear.

14. When a person flies off the handle and goes cray cray on you.

Obvious red flag.

35 Manipulation Tactics of Toxic People

35  Manipulation Tactics of Toxic People 

By Jenna Ryan 

The Manipulator seeks one thing. Power and thus, Control. Control of your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, your cognitions. The controlling person wants to own a piece of your mind and sees you as their puppet, or tool. 

The best way to steer clear of manipulation is knowing how you feel. Staying tuned to your feelings, and knowing why you feel the way you feel helps you to untangle the knot of manipulation.

1. Love Bombing  / Bait & Switch
   
2. Flattery/ Mimicry
   
3. Rug Pulling
4. Guilt Tripping
5. Playing the Victim
6. DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, Offender
7. Gaslighting
8. Giving Commands 
9. Silent Treatment 
10. Wounded Bird - Poor Me
    
11. Lying and Deception
12. One-Upping
13. Virtue Signaling 
14. Self Righteous Religiosity
15. Bringing up Past 
16. Pushing Buttons
17. Game of Uproar 
    
18. Pretending / Acting
19. Smear Campaigns
    
20. Hovering
    
21. Playing Dumb
    
22. Denial
    
23. Propaganda
    
24. Recruiting 
25. Triangulation
    
26. Name Calling
27. Moving the Goalposts
    
28. Generalization & Hyperbole
29. Word Salad
30. Re-Writing History 
31. Negging & Digs  
32. Diminishing & Dismissing 
33. Harassing and Stalking 
34. Invalidation
35. Blaming

Pulling the Rug

Psychological Abuse and Manipulation Tactic 

"Pulling the Rug" is an intricate power and control siege of the perpetrator by a unknowing victim. 

 

Pulling the Rug is a covert abuse tactic used to disintegrate, confuse and control the target without their knowledge, and with the target's naive cooperation. The tactic uses an intricate manipulation matrix of guilt, fantasy and shame triggers to render the target powerless, and to take over the solar plexus.  

 

Rug Pulling involves building fantasies using key words and phrases as well as taking specific actions that (if resolved) meet the unmet needs and deep emotional wounds in the target. These words, actions, behaviors work within the target to quickly dissolve defenses and give quick access to deep recesses of the psyche.   

 

Pulling the Rug occurs when someone builds up your expectations and abruptly (or subtly) begins to pull the rug away in an attempt to trigger your sense of shame and self doubt, ie: control your emotions and cause you to feel pain.

This is a power play that is part of the push/pull dynamic, but with much more sinister motives of the perpetrator and dire consequences to the victim.

Pulling the Rug involves engaging the attachment system of another person through deceptively building up false hopes, making false promises, and then, unilaterally deconstructing the attachment through off-handed comments, intermittent silence and generalized failure to deliver.

The "Pulling the Rug" process involves six distinct parts

 

1. Setting the Rug - Love Bombing - Using words and phrases and actions that solve deep inner need that lays wounded and dormant in the target. The love bombing is the bait that leads the victim into the trance of the fantasy that their needs of external validation (impossible to meet externally) will finally be met and resolved through the actions (false and deceptive promises, word salad) of the Manipulator. 

2. Building on the Rug - The Rug Giver (RG) starts to build fantasies around the Rug Puller (RP) who is doing the love bombing. The RG starts making future plans, raising expectations and relying on the RP's continued contribution to the game. The RP builds his or her life, thoughts, feelings, behaviors and in extreme cases, gives money and resources to the RP.

 

3. Slow Pull - Slowly stop using said phrases, making said promises, or leading, guiding directing toward original objective to meet said need. This process involves intricate, covert positioning by the abuser that is often undetected by others, including the victim. Slight-of-hand tactics include: devaluing, diminishing, shaming, disrespecting and ignoring. The process involves intermittent reward / punishment, thus making the victim feel addicted to the RP. Devaulation Phase.

4. Rip - When the rug is completely ripped away suddenly, unexpectedly, leaving the victim dangling, shattered on the floor with a broken heart and broken dreams. This is the discard stage.

 

5.  Protest of Victim - Victim protests the behavior through a variety of means, only to be left with a hand full of ashes. The victim finds that there is no rug at all, and it was their own (perceived) foolishness that led to the whole debacle, and the process begins again.  

6. Replacing the Rug - The rug is replaced again and again, for as long as the victim will tolerate the behavior and fall prey to the game. 

Pulling the Rug requires two participants. There is the Rug Giver and Rug Puller. The Rug Giver gives the Puller the access through lack of awareness and deep inner wounds and unmet needs. 

The Rug Giver holds the power that the Rug Puller wants. If the Rug Giver wants to get out of the Gordian Knot of the game, then he or she must simply refuse to take the bait. The seductive bait is an intoxicating elixir of serotonin given in the form of deceptive emotional connection through false promises, soothing word salads and pretense. In more extensive, enduring cases, actions of self sacrifice may be taken by the Rug Puller, in anticipation for the ultimate sadistic tug and final pull of the entire rug, leaving the contents placed atop in shambles. 

The game repeats ad infinitum, until the Rug Giver wakes up and sets boundaries, or the Rug Puller finds another target. The game is always a mystery, hidden under a cloak of covert possibilities.

Your Treasure Chest

 

By Jenna Ryan

I tell my coaching clients who are struggling. I tell them, deep inside your being, there is a treasure chest of gold, and that treasure chest is you, hidden under layers and layers of dirt. This dirt is the lies that you believe about yourself from the messages and words and actions you've received.

Inside this treasure chest, bound by chains is a beautiful being. It's YOU. It's beautiful you and the truth of who you are. This you is banging on the sides of the chest, wanting to get out. This is the pain. The pain points the way to your true self, so therefore, lean into the pain (through grief) and allow yourself to go towards the pain and begin the process of digging her out. Layer by layer, tear by tear, day by day.

And then she starts to realize who she is, and the chains break, and she gets out of the chest, and she rises up out of the ashes and is able to see truth clearly, and everything makes sense.