10 Diversion Tactics Manipulative People Use to Silence You

Often, people who have been in a relationship with a manipulative person don’t realize it until after they’ve left. It’s only later, when they look back objectively, that it becomes clear how humiliating they were.

This is because we try to understand manipulative people, such as narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths, according to our own standards of behavior.

But they don’t follow societal rules, and so, they use a range of tactics that confuse and distort our sense of reality. Here are ten of them:

1. Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of mental manipulation where the perpetrator uses emotional and psychological intimidation tactics to convince their victim that they are crazy.

The term comes from the 1938 film Gas Light, in which a husband wants to drive his wife crazy and dims the gas lights in their home, but he tells his wife that she imagined it. He uses this and various other techniques to convince her that she is crazy.

2. Projection

Manipulative people often use projection as a way to distract from their own shortcomings. Projection is a way of putting the focus on someone else and highlighting (or fabricating) a negative aspect of their partner’s behavior.

For example, a husband might cheat on his wife, but instead of apologizing to his wife, he might cite her clingy behavior as the reason for his betrayal. A fired employee might blame his coworkers and say she was constantly bullied.

3. Frustrating Conversations

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and ended up walking away, completely stunned and confused, wondering what just happened? You might have been talking to a narcissist or psychopath.

These manipulative people use words like bullets in order to distract you from any truth they don’t want you to know. Especially if you challenge them. They will do everything they can to confuse, distract, and frustrate you from knowing the truth.

4. Moving the Goalposts

A manipulative person doesn’t actually want you to succeed at anything, so they will do everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen. He will move the goal posts to see you fail.

Once this happens, their disappointment in you can be justified. Even if you meet their expectations time and time again, be prepared for the goal to be higher than you expected. It’s their way of telling you that you’ll never be good enough in their eyes.

5. They Change the Subject

A narcissist always wants to be the subject of conversation unless they’re in some kind of firing line, so changing the subject works two ways. If you bore them with talking about yourself for too long, they’ll quickly bring the subject back to themselves. For example – talk about the march you went to in support of gay rights? They had a friend who died for the cause.

However, if they’re responsible for some felony, they’ll want to get off the subject immediately, and it’ll be at your expense. Talk about how they haven’t had a job for a while and they’ll mention the horrible way your mother treated them at a birthday party and how they’re supposed to work after that?

6. Love Bombing and Devaluation

Manipulative people shower you with affection, attention, and admiration until you become addicted to them. But the moment you become addicted to them, and start thinking you’re in the beginning of a great relationship, they turn into arrogant people.

All the things they did in the beginning of the relationship, the constant texting, the phone calls, the weekend get-togethers, all of which were instigated by them by the way, are now being labeled as weird behavior by you, the clingy, needy one.

7. Triangulation

Adding a third person into the mix who agrees with the abuser against you is another favorite trick of toxic, manipulative people.

They use this third person to justify their abusive behavior and often disguise it as a joke but in their eyes they mean it. The third person will take it as lighthearted banter and go along with it, not knowing the full extent of the abuse. The abuser basically does this to leave the victim wondering about themselves.

8. Cruel Comments Disguised as Jokes

Don’t you hate it when someone says something really cruel about someone and then covers it up by saying “just kidding!” To me, that’s like evasion.

Using this method is a license to be a bad person without anyone calling you out for it, because if you do, you will be labeled as precious or sensitive, or you can’t handle jokes. This is truly verbal abuse and should be called out whenever it is seen.

9. Condescension

Although a toxic person will throw tantrums constantly and may deserve to be talked down to, they are the ones who talk down to their victims.

Of course, it is a form of control and humiliation of their victims and they are happy to do this not only in public but in private as well. They use condescending language to silence you and intimidate you into losing your trust. It is an awkward situation, and the less trust you have, the less they will be condescending. It is a win-win situation for the abuser.

10. Control

At the end of the day, it is all about control for a manipulative abuser. They ultimately want to have complete control over you. They want to isolate you from your friends and family, control your money and freedom, make sure they know exactly who you spend your time with (if anyone), and most importantly, control your mental health.

This is more often than not via their moods. You might never know what mood they will be in on a day to day basis, or what sets them off. It could be something different every day, making it virtually impossible to keep them happy.