Red Flags to Spot Manipulative People

Identify Manipulative people

If you want to identify manipulative people to avoid in relationships you must look at YOUR own behavior and intuitive feelings. This list is very complete…ENJOY!

To help you focus on what situations you have been attracting into your life, it is useful to go through this list and circle the ones you can recognize from your life. Most people specialize in 4 or 5 of these Red Flag Scenarios. When you have your list be sure to see if anyone in your life now fits into these categories.

Much of attraction is unconscious and you must focus on these qualities consciously in order to be aware of them.

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What is the main reason married men have extra marital affairs…it may surprise you

While extra marital affairs do involve sex, research shows that sexual drive is not the main reason married men have affairs. You may be surprised what research shows.
See article http://blogs.psychcentral.com/healing-together/2013/09/an-unrecognized-reason-that-married-men-have-affairs/?utm_content=bufferd5ed3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Borderline Personality Relationships-are you in one?

Borderline Personality Relationships

Are you in a relationship with a person with Borderline Personality Disorder?

Have you had intense passion and intimate feelings for a person with high highs and low lows?

Does this sound familiar: obsessing about him/her, yet no matter what you do, you can’t seem please the person?

If this applies to you, read further to see if you are in a relationship with a “Borderline Personality.”

– Your partner swings from extremes like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

– one moment passionately loving you in a way that makes you feel very special and in the next moment attacking you, threatening you and even raging violently.

– Being blamed and criticized for everything wrong in the relationship to the point that you are afraid to reveal what you really think or feel. You feel like you are in a double bind: you’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. If you ask for anything you are told your needs are wrong or not important.

– Feeling that if you want to keep the relationship you have to deny what you feel to the point that you have become confused about what you really feel. You feel like you’re loosing your grip on reality. Just when you decide you have had enough the Borderline will throw in some caring behavior to throw you off balance and keep you confused.

– When you try to leave the relationship the other person makes declarations of love and devotion or makes threats to you like “no one but me will ever love you.” Emotional abuse victims can be convinced that no one else could want them and they stay in abusive situations because they believe that if they leave they will just be alone forever.

– The abusing person seems to have an uncanny ability to know what you’re thinking and can see into you with such amazing accuracy that you feel special in some way when you are with them much of the time. Longing for these loving moments when you feel seen keep you in the relationship.

-Emotional abuse can be more damaging than psysical abuse because the insults, criticism and accusations chip away at the person’s self esteem and their very core until they blame themselves for the abuse and sometimes even cling to the abuser. Often the abuser in this type of relationship has Borderline Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Traits.

Help is available

If you know anyone who is in a relationship like this please show them this article and let them know that they need help. Both people in an abusive relationship need help. I work with couples in abusive relationships to show them what can be done to create a good relationship. I also can give the person with BPD a referral to a therapist who is skilled in working with this issue. Anyone who is truly committed to doing what it takes to change can change these destructive behaviors and learn how to have a good relationship.

Emma Roberts Arrested for Domestic Dispute BPD and relationships

“Niece of Julia Roberts and budding actress Emma Roberts is on her way to fame. She’s set to appear in the new movie “Meet the Millers” alongside Jennifer Anniston this month and stars in the popular television series “American Horror Story”.

But even though 22-year-old Emma’s career is successful, her personal life may not be so wonderful.

On July 7th, Roberts was arrested in a Montreal hotel after police responded to calls about a domestic dispute between her and her boyfriend, actor Evan Peters. Peters was bloody and Roberts was reportedly arrested on the spot.

Often, people understand domestic violence as a male physically attacking or harassing a female, but domestic violence can be between any two people and is often traumatic and difficult to walk away from.

Roberts may even be suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, where she can be sweet and head-over-heels for Peters one day, and violent the next. (See my post on BPD here)

Roberts and Peters need to work through their issues without violence to reach a healthy mental state. If you have had an experience with domestic violence, or you’re in a relationship with someone who seems to have BPD, there is help.

Get the help you need. Talk to a trusted loved one or friend, read about BPD and/or domestic violence, and break free. You can even call me for a free consultation.

Hopefully, Roberts and her boyfriend will seek help to establish a more healthy relationship.

Do you find yourself clinging to an addictive relationship? Should you leave or should you stay?

Are you in an Addictive Relationship?

Are deeply unhappy in your relationship but yet you remain clinging to it? How can you tell whether your failure to leave the relationship is based on preference, commitment or if you are in a addictive relationship.

To check if you are in an addictive relationship, ask yourself these questions:

Even though your objective judgment and the judgment of others clearly tells you that this relationship is a dead end and has no chance of getting better, you stay in the relationship anyway. When you think of ending the relationship you feel frozen terror and aloneness and then you cling to it even harder. Have you asked yourself you you’re engaging in an addictive relationship When you try to leave, you feel such withdrawal anxiety and physical pain that can only be relieved by re-establishing contact. You have a strong body-emotional reaction which takes over (when you try to leave) that is so powerful that many times it erases your memory of all the reasons why you had decided to leave the relationship. If these signs are there you can be sure that you have lost the ability to direct your own life. You must admit to yourself that you are in an addictive relationship and are powerless to direct your life. You will have the choice to stay in the relationship as it is or to get the help to understand what you are dealing with in yourself and get the support and insight to leave it. Hungry for a connection? Longing to feel connected to someone or something?

The main reason people get hooked into an addictive relationship has to do with Dependency needs developed in childhood.

Emotionally Abusive Relationship…Are you in a Relationship with an emotionally abusive person with Borderline Personality Disorder…Does your partner seem like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Recovering From Emotionally abusive relationship often involves a person with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Emotionally Abusive Relationships often are with a person who has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The main characteristic of this kind of personality disorder is that the person becomes very controlling in an attempt to avoid being rejected. Rejection is the greatest fear of someone with BPD.

Emotional Abuse Relationships have these characteristics:

In the beginning the person thinks you are perfect and professes love for you that they have “never felt before for anyone” They alternate between this state and rage at you. When they are in the rage state you rationalize their behavior by telling yourself how loving and adoring they can be and your longing for that keeps you in the relationship. They will give you just enough of that to keep you around. That adoring behavior is very powerful and addictive because they have an uncanny ability to read you and therefore can make you feel “seen” maybe for the first time in your life. As good as this feels, it is a sign that you are with a person with BPD.
The other person demands that you to put aside your needs to tend to their needs and no matter how much you give, it’s never enough. Then they criticize you for not doing enough to fulfill their needs using verbal assaults belittling, screaming, threatening, humiliating you. They use fear to control you threatening to end the relationship . You start to feel helpless and trapped.
Being constantly put down and accused of doing things you never did, yet when you try to leave the relationship they will try to keep you there by declaring love or threatening you.
You can never plan or count on social engagements because the person will change the plan or refuse to go at the last minute.
The other person reacts differently at different times to the same behavior that you exhibit.

The one thing that a BPD (border personality disorder) person needs the most is for their partner to set clear and definite limits. When a partner enforces these boundaries, it helps the partner to become more confident and the BPD person to feel safer, by knowing how far they can go. The limits actually help people feel safe because it teaches them how to behave so that they aren’t rejected. An abusive relationship cannot continue when the partner maintains clear and strong limits as to what is acceptable behavior.

In order to know if you are in an abusive relationship, one must first be aware of these warning signs.

Stages of an Abusive Relationship

1) The honeymoon stage- you experience limerence which lasts 3 months to a few years. In this stage you are obsessed and infatuated by your partner.

2) The obsessively controlling stage- the BPD will cut you off from family, friends and hobbies (anything you enjoy on your own). This is because the BPD’s biggest fear is being left. She/he will see all your friends and interests as competition for your attention and love.

3) The BPD will become more desperate to control you and will make threats, both to commit suicide or to harm you or your family members, if you threaten to leave.

Abusive Relationship Recovery for the partner

Treatment for partner recovery is best initiated by trauma work. I use EMDR which is very effective to get the victim connected to their resources again.

The partner of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder is traumatized from living with the behavior and manipulation techniques used to attempt to control them and keep them form leaving.

Emotional abuse is like brainwashing- it systematically wears away the victim’s sense of self worth, and trust in their perceptions. If this feels like your relationship, please get the help of a therapist or life coach who is experienced in dealing with an abusive relationship.

There is Hope for moving forward

Many people rind themselves involved with a BPD because they are very charming and make you feel very desired and loved …at first. It is natural and healthy to want to be loved. They have an acute ability to tune in on the very things a person is most vulnerable about. They use this in the beginning to get close to you and then later to threaten and control you.

In the Meantime the best thing to do:

In order to protect yourself from abuse you must set and maintain clear boundaries. Tell your BPD partner that you will not tolerate a particular behavior and that the next time they try it you will leave the house . The leaves the BPD with 2 choices, either loose you or get help. If you are afraid of inciting violence when you do this, then you need to have a heart to heart talk with yourself asking yourself why you are there.

Another effective approach is DBT…

There is now a therapy modality that is very effective in helping a person heal from BPD. It is called DBT and I work with several therapists who get excellent results in healing a person with BPD if the person is willing to make a commitment and do the work in therapy that is involved.

If a person is willing to make a sincere commitment to therapy and stick with it for at least a year, there is a very good chance that healing can happen. I have a colleague who specializes in DBT and has had much success working with BPD. Let me know if I can help in this way.

Common questions people ask me are:

Am I crazy or sick to be with a BPD? The answer is NO. You are probably just a nice and trusting person (maybe co dependent). BPD’s are drawn to trusting people because they know that they can be more easily manipulated.
Although you are not the sick one you do need to learn to nurture your inner child self so that you are not so vulnerable to flattery. When you have a strong inner self you can more easily see and resist manipulation and flattery. You are also able to be objective about other people because you don’t need them to be a certain way. You will start to notice when people lie or have no empathy for other human beings. These are the major signs of a BPD.

As part of your recovery you will discover why you attracted this type of person. You will then be able to start to heal yourself fo that you can have the healthy relationships that you deserve.

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