I SEE YOU BIG BROTHER…
4 Things that Happen When a Manipulator is Caught Off Guard
Even when they’re slightly sinking, things aren’t over yet.
- The launching of verbal and emotional accusations.
When a manipulator feels cornered, they will attempt to redirect the spectator’s attention to more personal or emotional details. This is done in an effort to flip the tables using convinced spectators to stand for them (to save them from the situation, they may try every trick in the book such as puppy-eyed innocence, crying, etc.). Some tactics may attempt to appeal to the “I’m human too” side to emotionally appeal to the spectator (either through empathy or sympathy) and then make their accusations.
Some of the more amateur manipulators will expose themselves with their grand display of increased desperation, cementing themselves further as “guilty”. This occurs when their logic reasoning no longer matches up to their actions, descriptions, or accusations. Or, where it begins to seem like they are throwing random/unrelated points around just to get out of the situation.
2. Attempting to place blame elsewhere (even if it’s their ally).
Generally, despite manipulators working together, being stuck in a bad situation will usually cause manipulators to attack each other. Each manipulator wants to continue their game to survive. This is no longer about sharing benefits, and each will do anything to get their way; where manipulators do not care to betray or throw their allies under the bus.
Often, temporary spectator allies are the first to go, as they hold enough detail to expose the manipulator. The idea is that the manipulator doesn’t know if the temporary spectator ally will become a whistleblower, turn on them with all that information to give to their enemy, etc.; temporary spectator allies can also switch sides pretty fast when presented with an undesirable situation.
Concerning the manipulator (when all is well), these temporary spectator allies serve the purpose to redirect and distract investigators in whichever way possible — to allow the manipulator enough time to pack their bags without a trace (where the manipulator may offer something in return for doing so).
3. Suddenly become two-faced.
If a manipulator was solely mean before, they will switch gears to formulate a friendly, outgoing impression to other people to dissuade them from suspecting them to be the culprit. However, if the manipulator was solely nice before, they may become mean for the sake of intimidation and may utilize threats to pull the victim into a paralyzing state of fear to give them another chance (then, they may revert back to being nice again when the victim agrees to not expose them, etc.).
The idea of being two faced is to break down the evidence building against them. By acting the exact opposite of what people claim or say they saw them do, people are less likely to believe the claims to be valid and pass off the victim’s testimonies (this is why your evidence against a manipulator should be rock solid and not based off of “I feel” or “I saw”).
For instance, they may pretend or try to convince people that they don’t know what’s happening, why something happened, or what they’re talking about (tries to act casual and innocent). When the claims are passed off as invalid, the manipulator is now open to begin threatening and closing the gap of escape for the victim; since the victim no longer has stronger allies supporting them.
4. Drastic tone of voice changes (a sudden switch)
Common examples include going from talking casually to yelling when the victim does not budge when the manipulator attempts to break through boundaries. Or, a manipulator may switch to having a “victim mentality” or the more dangerous — an explosive, violent temperament.
The idea is to catch the victim off guard by suddenly becoming more serious, intimidating, etc. to induce a “state of paralyzing fear” — where the victim reacts on impulse by default (which is usually making decisions that pacify the fear via agreement with the manipulator). With this, every manipulator is different — as some may choose to give certain facial expressions or utilize specific words to convey to the victim that they are entering into “dangerous territory”. This is usually used to scare the victim from attempting to rebel, to challenge them, or attempting to expose them while planning escape routes. In sum, these tactics are strongly dependent on fear to be effective.
While similar but different, insecurities are usually used at the beginning of the psychological manipulation, unlike fear, because it is more “on the surface”, where victims make decisions consciously to avoid — but are still alert for any red flag behavior. Compared to the victims deepest fears, victims react and make decisions unconsciously and impulsively.
For manipulators that haven’t known the victim for a long time — they will use insecurities to build up their plans and to create fear. For manipulators that know the victim over a long period of time, they are more likely to use deep-rooted fears to maintain and continue building up their plans.
