15 Things Manipulative People Do To Control You

Being on the receiving end of manipulation can feel awful, but if you decode how manipulative people try to control you, it gets easier to deal with them.

Most of us can easily recognize the familiar and unpleasant experience of being emotionally manipulated. The feeling is instantly recognizable, although it’s not always easy to identify how it’s being done. It can even become difficult to rely on one’s own judgment when facts and truths that once seemed easily identifiable are being twisted to work against you.

To help shine a light on how this happens, I’ve compiled a (partial) list of manipulation techniques used by people who treat their partners this way. But even if you recognize some aspect of your own relationship while reading these, don’t get angry; it’s just as important to understand why manipulators do what they do.

First of all, manipulators oversimplify. They may turn simple disagreements into moral judgments, casting themselves on the side of the angels, and you on the other. “I would never be able to live with myself if I did what you did,” you might hear.

Inherent in this statement is the reduction of a complicated situation to black and white, right and wrong; if you don’t agree with the manipulator, you’re automatically unreasonable. No nuance will be acknowledged; no alternate interpretation will be considered.

Related: 7 Common Manipulative Phrases and How To Shut Them Down

Manipulators also refocus the point of an argument in ways that favor themselves. Circumstances may be turned around, even as they are reduced to a formulation that favors their own point of view.

You might hear, “I would never treat you like that,” while any complexity in the situation is ignored. Worse, the words “never” and “always” can highlight the manipulator’s tendency toward overgeneralization, making an incident seem like a rule, which oversimplifies, as well as splitting the argument into “all good” and “all bad.”

Emotionally, the anger or hurt that gets expressed in arguments like these can be overwhelming, to the point where it feels as if you must apologize or quickly concede.

Manipulative vocabulary becomes exaggerated as well—for instance, when a twice-repeated request for a favor is described as “harassment.” And ambiguous events or gestures may be imbued with meaning, in ways that seem impossible to argue with. A casual remark you make, for instance, maybe interpreted by a manipulator as signifying a huge character flaw.

manipulative people

I once worked with someone who told me that he had once held a hand out to touch a girlfriend’s hand as she crossed the room in front of him, only to be scorned for being “less than a man” because of the reaching-out gesture.

Further, when arguing with someone with manipulative qualities, one may also find that their emotional reactions are overstated, such as, “Can’t you see the hurt you’re causing me? I’ve hit rock bottom!”

Events may be construed in ways that emphasize the depth of pain they have caused the manipulator, which allows the manipulator to extract more concessions. Furthermore, this kind of manipulation makes an explicit plea toward feelings of guilt. You might hear, “But I’m feeling so depressed today! Can’t you just do this for me?” And even if you have been trying to talk about a problem of your own, a chronic manipulator may ignore it and use the opportunity to focus on his or her own pain.

Related: 15 Red Flags That You Are Dealing With A Manipulative Person

This kind of behavior suggests that manipulators are projecting their own concerns onto the world, finding evidence in it to support their preconceptions, and interpreting it through the lens of their own inner unhappiness. The defensiveness that emerges often causes them to shirk responsibility for their own behavior—right up to the point of clearly and openly agreeing to something, but later denying it.

And if you ever score a point against someone who’s arguing in a manipulative style, you might find the focus of the argument suddenly changes to another point—one you’ll have more difficulty refuting.

Unrelated concepts may be brought into an argument to support it, in ways that are confusing or destabilizing. Overall, you’ll usually feel like you’re “walking on eggshells” around a person who behaves this way, never knowing what may set them off. It indicates that the manipulator is insecure about taking responsibility, about recognizing that they, too, have some faults.

Once you begin to recognize this, you’ll see that these manipulation techniques do not usually emerge from malicious intent. They occur because of deep emotional dysregulation, coupled with insufficient coping skills. People who manipulate are expressing their internal hurt and confusion in the context of their relationships by attacking instead of reaching out, or insulting instead of apologizing, blaming instead of accepting responsibility. They aren’t able to deal with the unhappiness inside themselves, so they project it onto others.

If you want to know more about the things that manipulative people do to control you, then check this video out below:

This is often true in the case of borderline personality disorder, where the sufferer experiences profound disruptions to his or her sense of self, while his or her close relationships are hit with collateral damage. Persons with borderline personality organizations may feel deep-rooted and extreme needs for love and acceptance, but find that these needs are perpetually stymied by the typical challenges that relationships present.

Related: 9 Tactics People Use To Take Advantage of You

The result is a kind of emotional hypersensitivity and over-reactivity, as well as a reversion to primitive defense mechanisms, like denial. In response to the frustration and anger they feel when they cannot satisfy their powerful internal needs, persons with borderline personality disorder resort to the manipulative behaviors described above.

While not every instance of manipulation is evidence for borderline personality disorder, it is nevertheless important to understand the intrapsychic transformations that elicit this behavior. Manipulative actions and argumentation like the above can cause a great deal of harm, or even ruin a relationship if no one recognizes it as an expression of need rather than an effort to dominate.

Check out Dr. Loren Soeiro’s website for more details. To read more articles written by Dr. Soeiro, click here.

References:

Davenport, B. (2015, February 8). How to recognize the eight signs of emotional manipulation. Retrieved from https://liveboldandbloom.com/02/relationships/emotional-manipulation
Heitler, S. (2014, May 2). Are BPD "drama queens" manipulative, sadistic, and worse? Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201405/are-bpd-drama-queens-manipulative-sadistic-and-worse
Kvarnstrom, E. (2017, October 13), Understanding BPD emotional manipulation techniques and how treatment can help. Retrieved from https://www.bridgestorecovery.com/blog/understanding-bpd-emotional-manipulation-techniques-and-how-treatment-can-help/

Written By Loren Soeiro
Originally Appeared In Psychology Today

Manipulative People Do Try Control You Pin
things manipulative people do pinop
things manipulative people do pin

Published On:

Last updated on:

Loren Soeiro, Ph.D. ABPP

Dr. Soeiro is licensed as a psychologist in New York State and board-certified as an expert by the American Board of Professional Psychologists. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology since 2013. He got his doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University after earning a bachelor’s degree at Harvard. After that, he worked for a long time at Montefiore Medical Center and as an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has also written a little bit about psychotherapy on PsychCentral.com, GoodTherapy.org, and Psychology Today.

Disclaimer: The informational content on The Minds Journal have been created and reviewed by qualified mental health professionals. They are intended solely for educational and self-awareness purposes and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are experiencing emotional distress or have concerns about your mental health, please seek help from a licensed mental health professional or healthcare provider.

Leave a Comment

Today's Horoscope

Accurate Daily Horoscope for 12 Zodiac Signs

Daily Horoscope 16 June 2025: Prediction For Each Zodiac Sign

🌟 Ready to unlock the secrets of 16 June, 2025? Discover your personalized horoscope and see what the stars have in store for you today! ✨🔮

Latest Quizzes

Who Is The Real Father? Only 1% Can Spot - Can You? Fun Quiz

Who Is The Real Father? Only 1% Can Spot The Baby’s Biological Dad In 10 Seconds — Are You One Of Them?

Can you really tell just by looking? Well, here’s your chance to find out.

Latest Quotes

Weekly Horoscope 16 June To 22 June part one

Weekly Horoscope 16 June To 22 June

Weekly Horoscope 16 June To 22 June Aries (March 21 – April 19)Focus sharpens as Mars enters Virgo. Your daily routines get a revamp. Midweek brings a push to act with purpose. By the weekend, mood swings may cloud decisions, rest and reset. Taurus (April 20 – May 20)Creative plans take form through practical effort…

Readers Blog

Caption This Image and Selected Wisepicks – 15 June 2025

Ready to unleash your inner wordsmith? ✨??☺️ Now’s your chance to show off your wit, charm, or sheer genius in just one line! Whether it’s laugh-out-loud funny or surprisingly deep, we want to hear it. Submit your funniest, wittiest, or most thought-provoking caption in the comments. We’ll pick 15+ winners to be featured on our…

Latest Articles

Being on the receiving end of manipulation can feel awful, but if you decode how manipulative people try to control you, it gets easier to deal with them.

Most of us can easily recognize the familiar and unpleasant experience of being emotionally manipulated. The feeling is instantly recognizable, although it’s not always easy to identify how it’s being done. It can even become difficult to rely on one’s own judgment when facts and truths that once seemed easily identifiable are being twisted to work against you.

To help shine a light on how this happens, I’ve compiled a (partial) list of manipulation techniques used by people who treat their partners this way. But even if you recognize some aspect of your own relationship while reading these, don’t get angry; it’s just as important to understand why manipulators do what they do.

First of all, manipulators oversimplify. They may turn simple disagreements into moral judgments, casting themselves on the side of the angels, and you on the other. “I would never be able to live with myself if I did what you did,” you might hear.

Inherent in this statement is the reduction of a complicated situation to black and white, right and wrong; if you don’t agree with the manipulator, you’re automatically unreasonable. No nuance will be acknowledged; no alternate interpretation will be considered.

Related: 7 Common Manipulative Phrases and How To Shut Them Down

Manipulators also refocus the point of an argument in ways that favor themselves. Circumstances may be turned around, even as they are reduced to a formulation that favors their own point of view.

You might hear, “I would never treat you like that,” while any complexity in the situation is ignored. Worse, the words “never” and “always” can highlight the manipulator’s tendency toward overgeneralization, making an incident seem like a rule, which oversimplifies, as well as splitting the argument into “all good” and “all bad.”

Emotionally, the anger or hurt that gets expressed in arguments like these can be overwhelming, to the point where it feels as if you must apologize or quickly concede.

Manipulative vocabulary becomes exaggerated as well—for instance, when a twice-repeated request for a favor is described as “harassment.” And ambiguous events or gestures may be imbued with meaning, in ways that seem impossible to argue with. A casual remark you make, for instance, maybe interpreted by a manipulator as signifying a huge character flaw.

manipulative people

I once worked with someone who told me that he had once held a hand out to touch a girlfriend’s hand as she crossed the room in front of him, only to be scorned for being “less than a man” because of the reaching-out gesture.

Further, when arguing with someone with manipulative qualities, one may also find that their emotional reactions are overstated, such as, “Can’t you see the hurt you’re causing me? I’ve hit rock bottom!”

Events may be construed in ways that emphasize the depth of pain they have caused the manipulator, which allows the manipulator to extract more concessions. Furthermore, this kind of manipulation makes an explicit plea toward feelings of guilt. You might hear, “But I’m feeling so depressed today! Can’t you just do this for me?” And even if you have been trying to talk about a problem of your own, a chronic manipulator may ignore it and use the opportunity to focus on his or her own pain.

Related: 15 Red Flags That You Are Dealing With A Manipulative Person

This kind of behavior suggests that manipulators are projecting their own concerns onto the world, finding evidence in it to support their preconceptions, and interpreting it through the lens of their own inner unhappiness. The defensiveness that emerges often causes them to shirk responsibility for their own behavior—right up to the point of clearly and openly agreeing to something, but later denying it.

And if you ever score a point against someone who’s arguing in a manipulative style, you might find the focus of the argument suddenly changes to another point—one you’ll have more difficulty refuting.

Unrelated concepts may be brought into an argument to support it, in ways that are confusing or destabilizing. Overall, you’ll usually feel like you’re “walking on eggshells” around a person who behaves this way, never knowing what may set them off. It indicates that the manipulator is insecure about taking responsibility, about recognizing that they, too, have some faults.

Once you begin to recognize this, you’ll see that these manipulation techniques do not usually emerge from malicious intent. They occur because of deep emotional dysregulation, coupled with insufficient coping skills. People who manipulate are expressing their internal hurt and confusion in the context of their relationships by attacking instead of reaching out, or insulting instead of apologizing, blaming instead of accepting responsibility. They aren’t able to deal with the unhappiness inside themselves, so they project it onto others.

If you want to know more about the things that manipulative people do to control you, then check this video out below:

This is often true in the case of borderline personality disorder, where the sufferer experiences profound disruptions to his or her sense of self, while his or her close relationships are hit with collateral damage. Persons with borderline personality organizations may feel deep-rooted and extreme needs for love and acceptance, but find that these needs are perpetually stymied by the typical challenges that relationships present.

Related: 9 Tactics People Use To Take Advantage of You

The result is a kind of emotional hypersensitivity and over-reactivity, as well as a reversion to primitive defense mechanisms, like denial. In response to the frustration and anger they feel when they cannot satisfy their powerful internal needs, persons with borderline personality disorder resort to the manipulative behaviors described above.

While not every instance of manipulation is evidence for borderline personality disorder, it is nevertheless important to understand the intrapsychic transformations that elicit this behavior. Manipulative actions and argumentation like the above can cause a great deal of harm, or even ruin a relationship if no one recognizes it as an expression of need rather than an effort to dominate.

Check out Dr. Loren Soeiro’s website for more details. To read more articles written by Dr. Soeiro, click here.

References:

Davenport, B. (2015, February 8). How to recognize the eight signs of emotional manipulation. Retrieved from https://liveboldandbloom.com/02/relationships/emotional-manipulation
Heitler, S. (2014, May 2). Are BPD "drama queens" manipulative, sadistic, and worse? Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201405/are-bpd-drama-queens-manipulative-sadistic-and-worse
Kvarnstrom, E. (2017, October 13), Understanding BPD emotional manipulation techniques and how treatment can help. Retrieved from https://www.bridgestorecovery.com/blog/understanding-bpd-emotional-manipulation-techniques-and-how-treatment-can-help/

Written By Loren Soeiro
Originally Appeared In Psychology Today

Manipulative People Do Try Control You Pin
things manipulative people do pinop
things manipulative people do pin

Published On:

Last updated on:

Loren Soeiro, Ph.D. ABPP

Dr. Soeiro is licensed as a psychologist in New York State and board-certified as an expert by the American Board of Professional Psychologists. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology since 2013. He got his doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University after earning a bachelor’s degree at Harvard. After that, he worked for a long time at Montefiore Medical Center and as an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has also written a little bit about psychotherapy on PsychCentral.com, GoodTherapy.org, and Psychology Today.

Leave a Comment

    Leave a Comment