No one deserves to be manipulated, right?
Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, but it can happen to anyone, at any time. I found that out the hard way.
A few years ago, I was being manipulated by a close friend. It took me a while to realize and accept it, but looking back, it was as clear as day.
The best thing you can do with manipulators is to avoid them at all costs, but sometimes it’s not that simple. It could be a coworker, a friend, or even a family member.
While my experience with manipulation wasn’t pleasant, it taught me how to deal with manipulators and how to take their power away from them. Without that power and influence, they can’t hurt you.
Today, I’m sharing 6 ways to silence a manipulator without losing your cool to make sure you’re prepared to protect yourself if you encounter a manipulator.
Let’s get started.
1) Educate Yourself About Their Tactics
Manipulation is the use of emotional control to gain power or influence over someone. “A manipulator intends to gain power and control over others to get what they want.”
I can tell you from personal experience that when you’re going through this, it’s very hard to see because you think this person cares about you. You trust them and don’t expect them to hurt you in this way.
But what I recently realized is that everything my friend did to manipulate me was typical manipulation. There are typically four stages of manipulation and I went through every one of them.
If I knew the signs of manipulation to look out for, I would likely be able to spot and stop it much sooner.
The first thing you can do to be prepared to silence a manipulator is to learn their tactics.
2) Set Clear Boundaries
Setting clear boundaries is important in all of your relationships, so this should just be standard practice for you. But setting boundaries with a manipulator is especially important.
Here’s why: The ultimate goal of a manipulator is to have unlimited control and influence over you. Boundaries are a barrier because they are clear limits on what you are willing to accept.
Setting clear boundaries does two things to silence a manipulator:
- It makes it easier for them to manipulate you because if you maintain boundaries, it’s much harder for them to control you.
- It allows you to see early in a friendship or relationship that someone might be a manipulator. Most people will simply respect your boundaries, so you know you need to be extra vigilant about those who push against them.
As PsychCentral explains, there are a lot of signs that someone is violating your boundaries, but “the main sign that someone is not respecting your boundaries is that they don’t stop their actions after you express their discomfort,” says Quinelle Hickman, a licensed couples and individual therapist in New York City.
By setting strong boundaries and looking for signs that someone is actively trying to cross them, you’re more likely to catch a manipulator in the act, and the earlier you spot them, the easier it is to stop them.
3) Stay Calm and Emotionally Detached
How easy is it to stay calm in an emotionally charged situation?
It’s not easy at all, which is why the following advice for silencing a manipulator without losing your cool is hard but also important.
Manipulation only works if you’re emotionally invested. The manipulator puts a lot of effort, initially, into building trust with you and creating what feels like a deep bond of friendship or maybe even love. Why?
It’s really simple: once you trust them, you’re more likely to give them the control they want over you. That’s why it’s common for manipulators to blame their victims and make them feel guilty.
Doing these things makes you emotionally reactive. It’s like you want to prove to them that it’s not your fault or that you feel guilty, so you go along with what they want.
But here’s the interesting part: without your feelings of guilt or having something to prove, the manipulator has nothing. If you stay calm and emotionally detached, they won’t be able to get to you, and they won’t be able to control or influence you.
Staying calm and keeping your emotions out of the matter is the key to silencing a manipulator.
4) Surround yourself with a strong support system.
This affected me greatly, as having a strong support system was the reason I finally realized that my boyfriend was manipulating me.
Isolation is the second stage of manipulation. The manipulator gradually tries to isolate you from the people who truly love and support you.
“The goal is usually to isolate you from people who might notice the manipulation,” explains Taylor Drown, a licensed professional counselor and marriage and family therapist.
My “friend” would talk badly about my other friends and try to tell me that they weren’t good for me. He would always make me feel guilty for spending time with them. Fortunately, I didn’t lose touch with them and in the end, it was their friendship that helped me get away from the manipulation.
By surrounding yourself with a strong support system of friends and family, it’s harder for anyone to manipulate you. You always have people looking out for your best interests, even when you can’t do it yourself, and they’ll call out manipulative behavior when they see it.
5) Don’t Act on Impulse; Stop, Slow Down
See: It’s no secret that emotions cloud our judgment. As psychotherapist and executive coach Moshe Ratson, MBA, explains, “Strong emotions can cloud our judgment and make it difficult to think objectively and critically.”
That’s exactly what manipulators want. They want to create an emotionally charged situation that plays on your emotions and forces you to act on impulse.
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That’s why one of the red flags of a manipulator is to make you feel pressured to do something.
But if you slow things down and resist the temptation to act on impulse, you give your emotions a chance to calm down a bit, and you can think more clearly again.
One of the most effective ways to silence a manipulator without losing your cool is to stop, slow things down, and avoid acting on impulse. This will prevent you from making any major mistakes that give the manipulator power, and it will frustrate them greatly.
6) Stick to the facts and document everything
When it comes to manipulators, you have to stick to the facts and document everything. If you don’t, they’ll likely try one of their favorite tactics on you: manipulation.
A manipulation is a form of manipulation where the manipulator tries to distort reality to make the victim question their sanity. They will try to make you think you are crazy by suggesting that things didn’t happen the way you remember them.
This is very confusing and dangerous because you trust this person, so if they tell you something, you want to believe it even when it goes against your deepest thoughts. The only way to defend yourself against this is to stick to the facts.
I would go as far as keeping a record of the real things that happened and were said so that when they try to make you doubt yourself, you have a record and are certain of what happened.
If they can’t make you doubt yourself and they can’t twist the facts, it’s almost impossible for them to succeed in manipulating you and getting what they want from you.
Final Thoughts
Manipulation is a cruel and selfish act where the manipulator hurts you for personal gain.
While it’s never your fault if it happens, it’s your responsibility to do everything you can to protect yourself from it and stop it as soon as possible.
If you suspect you’re being manipulated and want to stop it without losing your cool, follow these six steps and you’ll disarm your manipulator in no time.
When they realize they can’t get what they want from you, they’ll move on to someone else.
