When an empowered individual possessing traits of high emotional intelligence enters into a love relationship, he or she does not intentionally engage in manipulation of the large scale. However, in circumstances where a person has fallen in the heels of a narcissist (or another person with a personality disorder), they are sure to enter into a relationship in which they will be harmed by their shining knight armor.

As part of their recovery, survivors of narcissistic abuse often perform an “autopsy” on their relationship in therapy in relation to their narcissistic abuser. An autopsy of emotional abuse allows the survivor to recount and discover when the red flags of manipulation began in the cycle of abuse, thus strengthening the survivor and enabling them to be on the lookout for such warning signs in future relationships.

When a pathological person targets an individual for a love affair, they ensure that the prospect has qualities that will generate a significant narcissistic supply (or ego fuel).

Sandra Brown (2009) defines these characteristics as “supertraits” in her groundbreaking book Women in Love with Psychopaths: Inside Inevitable Hurt Relationships with Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and Narcissists. Desirable preferred qualities in a love object include high empathy, cooperation, extroversion, competitiveness, goal-orientation, and career ambition, among other qualitie

Not to mention that some targets may have their own trauma history schema that makes the sick person “familiar” to the survivor. However, it is interesting that no one is immune from the potential predation of a narcissist/psychopath. However, there are red flags a person can look out for to be alerted to a potential manipulation before they allow themselves to overpower Mr./M. Too good to be true.

How do you know if someone is trying to manipulate you?

Here are the signs that a person may have encountered a manipulative dating partner with potentially nefarious intentions:

Love Bombing / Falsifying the Future:
At the beginning of a relationship with a narcissist/psychopath, the targets describe that you are literally swept off their feet and falling into the ecstasy of the effects of a love explosion. This manipulative tactic is a pathological person’s attempt to hook their partner at the peak of the ideal stage of the relationship.

Narcissistic people shower their love stuff with charms, affection, gifts, nonstop phone calls/texts/emails, dates and marathon sex, promises of future life blends, marriage proposals, and pregnancy to manipulate you.

The abuser makes himself so relevant and ubiquitous that the object of love becomes laser-focused on his new love, ruling out anything that bases it on logic and reality testing. Targets often report feeling rushed into the relationship and not having enough time to truly discern how they feel about their lover, as chemical cocktails of oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine ramp up during a time of infatuation acceleration.

This “other mundane” experience is literally intoxicating to the target, who feels he/she is high on the best mood-enhancing drug ever…and he/she…with a love cocktail thrown by her narcissistic partner like a grenade.

The target easily relates to the abuser because he is capable of true intimacy, sympathy, and vulnerability. A narcissistic abuser can bond with his partner but cannot bond in a healthy way and breaks up as easily as a leech, once the initial rush of ego fuel satiates him.

Seduction of Mind Control/NLP Techniques:
Narcissistic/psychopathic individuals are very skilled at using flowery and suggestive language to manipulate you. They use language designed to seduce and induce trance states in which the target feels connected and connected to their abuser through images and storytelling.

The Internet is full of seduction websites that teach people how to deceptively seduce people through mind control, and there is no doubt that abusive and deceptive suitors have noted (and practiced) these sinister tactics on many unwilling and unwanted targets.

Intense eye contact is also woven into the descriptive language that links the target to its suitor. He/she may think that her new partner is staring lovingly into her eyes only to discover that this really intense look is of a creepy and predatory nature.

The aggressor really quantifies his prey and drinks in how he extracts the maximum supply from the narcissist, with generous bursts of power and control. If your newfound lover is cute and you find yourself in charming, ecstatic-like states after spending some time listening to him talk about how he blended his life into yours, complete with vivid sensory details, you’ll do yourself a favor quickly get some fragrant salts and wake up. Search for mind control seduction techniques on the web and you will see exactly how the abuser grooms you into the seduction stage, so you will attach to them like Velcro.

3 – The altruism/heroism / outer mask interface:
Many people in positions of power and successful standing in the professional world are healthy, healthy individuals. However, some people are deceptively not in good health and hide behind the mask of doing good to society (pastors, doctors, healers, teachers, lawyers, politicians, etc.).

This mask allows the predator to hide among the masses and extract first-class ego fuel (attention, adulation, praise, and eventually pain and emotional suffering) from large amounts of people. In contrast, pathological abusers can perform high on the outside (or in a dating profile) at the beginning of a love relationship. However, over time, the mask inevitably slips off, and the restless belly is eventually revealed.

Gas lighting:
Abusers will deploy this trick when they want to destabilize their love object, throwing them away from the center. Extreme narcissists will retract something they said or do and offer their loved one the hint that the lover made the situation or that he is crazy. The term was coined from the movie Gaslight (1944) starring Ingrid Bergman.

Gaslighting leads to cognitive dissonance, disorientation, and dichotomous thinking that a person feels when at the same time feeling love towards their offender, aka the abuser is engaging in some form of psychological abuse, causing him harm. Gas-lighting occurs in the devaluation and discard phases, and will resume after Hoover if the target allows for another cycle.

Projection/blame shifting:
The abuser verbally regurgitates his feelings about his love object. Most of the time, it is ironic that the extreme narcissist does not have high self-worth and lacks strong insight. Narcissists are unable to examine and acknowledge their transgressions and shortcomings.

Grandiosity prevents the narcissist from allowing himself to be weak as a human being and examines areas for growth. Instead of accountability, narcissist “vomits” their buried feelings of themselves over the things they love.

Over time, the target is frequently abused, shamed, blamed, and criticized for the same issues as extreme narcissists. Eventually, with exposure to constant projection and gaslighting, the subject’s self-esteem declines.

Shock Bond:
Patrick Karns discussed the idea of a trauma bond in his work, The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997). Narcissistic abusers are notorious for mixing methods of abuse such as gaslighting, silent treatment, and projection to get past the devaluing phase of the traumatic bond, with scattered crumbs of attention here and there.

The intermittent reinforcement of the shock cycle of abuse perpetuates the traumatic link, making individuals extremely strong and immune paralyzed, and feel chained to the aggressor. Fortunately, this bond of trauma can be broken through intensive treatment of the survivor and no contact with the abuser.

The silent treatment:

The silent treatment has been widely written as a severe form of emotional abuse, and should not be confused with non-contact. The survivor does not communicate when they decide to end the relationship with the abuser, as a way to create healthy and safe boundaries and end the emotional pain and suffering the abuser inflicts on them. Pathological abusers use silent therapy to manipulate you and invoke a state of power and control over the victim.

The object of love is often set or limited, perhaps criticized and the work of the narcissist (and rightfully so with the scandalous behavior shown during the stages of devaluation and disregard). In response, a narcissistic injury follows the narcissist who cannot comprehend the grandeur, grandeur, and “specialty” of it.

To punish the transgressor, the narcissist uses silent therapy for as long as the abuser deems it appropriate to resume power and control in the relationship. Oftentimes, the endings of relationships initiated by narcissists are extended silent treatments where the abuser later taps into the target for additional ego fuel (if the survivor wishes to play the game again).

The above are just a few of the manipulative tactics that a narcissistic/psychopathic abuser deploys in his arsenal of emotional chaos. Those who are dating and looking for romantic relationships should be especially keen on getting a vet exam and taking the time to get to know their dating partners and if they are trying to manipulate them.

Know your value. Knowing that anything legitimate and real is worth waiting for and taking the time to explore and establish honesty, healthy boundaries, integrity, authenticity, empathy, vulnerability, reciprocity, accountability, and compromise.

Narcissistic and psychopathic abusers are not capable of any of those items with high emotional intelligence. They may pretend to confer these qualities because they are such good actors. Always check yourself the pace of your dating relationship. Again, know your worth. You have the power there.

How do you know if someone is trying to manipulate you?

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