UNDERSTANDING THE BLACKMAIL TRANSACTION
Diagnosis: Emotional blackmail
The issues may differ but tactics and actions are the same and easily recognized.
- A demand: it may be direct or indirect and may not even sound like a demand until the blackmailer is set in the course of action and is not willing to discuss or change it.
- Resistance from the target
- Pressure
- Threats
- Compliance
- Repetition
Manipulation becomes emotional blackmail when it is used repeatedly to coerce us into complying with blackmailers’ demands and at the expense of our own wishes and well being. When you see people trying to get their own way regardless of the cost to you; you’re looking at the bottom-line of the emotional blackmailer. There is little interest in compromise or conflict resolution.
The Four faces of Blackmail
Punisher let us know exactly what they want and the consequences we’ll face if we don’t give it to them. They may express themselves aggressively or they may smolder in silence but either way, the anger is always aimed directly at us. The closer the relationship, the higher the stakes and the more vulnerable we are to punishers. When blackmail escalates, the threatened consequences of not acceding to a punisher can be alarming. They will resolve to abandonment, emotional cutoff, withdrawal of money and other resources, direct explosive anger at us and in extreme cases, threats of physical harm.
Self-punisher turn the threats inward by threatening what the will do to themselves if they don’t get their way. High drama, hysteria and an air of crisis (precipitated by you, of course) surround self-punishers, who are often excessively needy and dependent. They often enmesh themselves with those around them and struggle with taking responsibility with their own lives. The ultimate threat self-punishers can make is frightening in the extreme of suggestion that they will kill themselves.
Sufferers are talented blamers and guilt-peddlers who make us figure out what they want and always conclude that it is up to us to ensure they get it. Sufferers take the position that if they feel miserable, sick, unhappy, or are just plain unlucky, there’s only one solution: we give them what they want even if they haven’t told us what it is. They let us know in uncertain terms, that if you don’t do what they want, they will suffer and it will be your fault. Sufferers are pre-occupied with how awful they feel and often they interpret your inability to read their mind as proof that you don’t care enough about them.
[Who on earth can read other people’s mind! (~,~”) my suggestion: BE LOGICAL]
Tantalizer put us through a series of test and hold out a promise of something wonderful if we’ll just give in to their way. They are the subtlest blackmailers. They encourage us and promise love or money or career advancement and then make it clear that unless we behave as they want us to if not we don’t get the prize. Every seductively wrapped package has a web of strings attached. Many tantalizers traffic in emotional payoffs, castles in the air full of love, acceptance, family closeness and healed wounds. Admission to this rich, unblemished fantasy requires only one thing: giving in to what the tantalizer wants.
Each type of blackmailer operates with a different vocabulary and each gives a different spin to the demands, pressure, threats and negative judgments that go into blackmail. There are no firm boundaries between the styles of blackmail as they can be combined.
A Blinding FOG
Emotional blackmail flourishes in a cloud just below the surface of our understanding. Our judgement becomes hazy. In the midst of the FOG we’re desperate to know: ‘How did I get into this’, ‘How do I get out’, ‘How do I make these difficult feelings stop’. When blackmailers pressure us, there is practically no time between feeling discomfort and acting to get relief.
The Real F-Word: FEAR
Blackmailers build their conscious and unconscious strategies on the information we give them about what we fear. Their fear of not getting what they want becomes so intense that they become tightly focused and are able to see the outcome they want in exquisite detail; they are not capable of taking their eyes off the goal long enough to see how their actions are affecting us. All information that they had gathered about us in the course of the relationship has become ammunitions for driving home a deal that’s fed by fear. One of the most painful parts of emotional blackmail is that it violates trust.
Obligation
Often our ideas on duties and obligations are reasonable and they form an ethical and moral foundation in our life. Sometimes these are out of balance. Blackmailers never hesitate to put our sense of obligation to the test. Reluctance to break up a family keeps many people in relationships that have gone sour. Most of us have terrible time defining our boundaries and when our sense of obligation is stronger than our sense of self-respect and self-caring; blackmailers quickly learn to take advantage.
Guilt
Guilt is an essential part of being a responsible person. It’s a tool of conscience but in its distorted form, it registers discomfort and self-reproach if we’ve done something to violate our personal or social code of ethics. One of the fastest ways for blackmailers to create undeserved guilt is to use blame; actively attributing whatever upset or problems they have to their targets. Once blackmailers see that their target’s guilt can serve them, time becomes irrelevant. There is no statute of limitations. Guilt is the blackmailer’s neutron bomb. It can leave relationships standing, but it wears away the trust and intimacy that makes us want to be with them.
Tools of the Trade
The tools are consistent and run endlessly in varied scenarios of emotional blackmail. All blackmailers, no matter what’s their style use one or more of them.
The Spin
Blackmailers see our conflicts with them as reflections of how misguided and off base we are, while they describe themselves as wise and well intentioned. They let us know that they ought to win because the outcome they want is more loving, more open, and more mature. Any resistance on our parts is transformed from an indication of our needs to become evidence of our flaws. In addition to discrediting the perceptions of their targets, many blackmailers turn up the pressure by challenging their character, motives, and worth. We may be labeled heartless, worthless or selfish in any relationship with a blackmailer but those labels are especially difficult to withstand when they’re coming from a parent who can wipe out our confidence faster than anyone else.
Pathologize
Some blackmailers tell us that we’re resisting them only because we’re ill or crazy. This is called pathologize. The experience of being pathologized can be a devastating blow to our confidence and sense of self and is therefore an especially toxic and effective tool.
Pathologize often arises in love relationships when there’s an imbalance of desires like more love, more time, more attention and more commitment. When it’s not forthcoming, he/she questions our ability to love. Like the spin, pathologize makes us unsure about our memories, our judgments, our intelligence, and our character. With pathologize the stakes are higher, and can make us doubt our sanity.
Enlisting Allies
If single-handed attempts of blackmail are not effective, blackmailers call in reinforcements (family members, friends), to make their case for them and to prove that they are right. They may turn to a higher authority such as the bible.
Negative comparisons
Blackmailers often hold up another person as a model, a flawless ideal against which we fall short. Negative comparisons make us feel suddenly deficient. We react competitively.
e.g blackmailer said to their target “oh XXX is my BEST SISTER and she is always there when I am in need” and with this statement they abused their target and left target feeling stupid and useless after spending 10++hrs to placate her. Target being to wonder ‘why am I always the one here to attend to her and WHERE is that so call best friend? ‘
To be continued…..
