Daily life lessons - Nkechi

COMMUNICATION & MANIPULATION PATTERNS 1

* Deflection — instead of addressing what they did, they shift attention to something the other person did.

* Blame-shifting — they make the other person responsible for their behaviour rather than taking accountability.

* Whataboutism — “Yes, I did X, but you did Y,” so the original issue never gets resolved.

* Counter-accusation — responding to a complaint by immediately making an accusation against the person who raised it.

* Derailing — moving the conversation away from the original issue, sometimes by focusing on one harsh word said during an emotional argument.

* DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. In some situations, the person who caused the harm positions themselves as the victim and makes the other person appear to be the wrongdoer.

* Guilt-tripping — bringing up the other person’s faults specifically to make them feel guilty and abandon their original concern.

For example

Suppose a partner lies about something and you say:

“You lied to me, and I’m hurt. I need you to acknowledge what happened.”

Instead of saying, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied,” they respond:

“Well, you’ve lied to me before. And remember the time you said something horrible to me? You always make me feel like I’m the bad person.”

Now the conversation has moved from “Why did you lie, and can you take responsibility?” to “Let’s prove that you are also a bad partner.”

If you then become frustrated and say, “You’re being horrible!”, they may focus entirely on that:

“Did you hear what you just called me? You called me horrible! How can you speak to me like that?”

The original issue—the lie—disappears.

That is often called Deflection and Blame-shifting, and if it is a repeated pattern, it can become a form of Emotional Manipulation.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that……