4 Techniques To Control and Disarm a Manipulator

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1. 

   Jazlynn

   July 16, 2023

   My name is Jaz. I’m 40 years old and my father has been married to his 3rd wife since I was 14-15 years old. Before that I was an absolute all the way daddy girl. Upon marrying this wife everything changed. Me and my sister were never invited to their wedding. Her kids of course were there. To make matters worse my sister and I were never even told this was happening or that it happened until well after the fact. When he was supposed to pick us up for visitations he’s excuse was my mom refused to let us go with him. Anytime we did get to go we were scrutinized on every move or thing we said. My dad had changed and didn’t show us the love and excitement when he saw us anymore. It got horrendously worse in my teenage years. My dad ended moving two hours from us and he wouldn’t make the drive to come see us or let us come see him. Fast-forward to my adult years. I have my son and try to put the abandoned feeling behind still thinking I was the problem because “I was too much like my mom and had a terrible attitude because I stood up for myself”. While visiting she demanded I pay for their household items, laundry soap, shampoo and everything of the like for them. I refused and was kicked out. Much more than that happened before I was kicked out. My dad took to beating the ever living shit out of her son’s. He never touched her daughter (who is my age as well) except for when she was 16 he made her strip naked while her mom watched. Her son’s repeatedly would steal their trucks to literally run away from them because the beatings were with a belt or 2×4 anything he could grab and it would be for the most insane things, like they were doing homework instead of chores. She seemed to allow this and was ok with it. So back to when they kicked me and my infant son out, they had come over to my grandmothers house, where I was for a get together. Now her daughter is there with her two babies. My dad says something and I defended myself that set her off and again I was a horrible person and everything. So I went back to my mother’s in AZ and didn’t talk to them for awhile. I had my daughter a couple years later. He sent a gift for her. After that we stopped hearing anything from him. Every attempt I made to just hear my dad’s voice, because mentally I was still a little girl waiting for her dad she use to know to come back into her life and make this nightmare go away. He never answered and I gave up as now it being 3 or 4 years of silence and my kids (6 and 4 years old now) and their dad are going through a divorce. I know am a single mom, and have to fend for us. I got work as a corrections officer. I woked horrible shifts so I got to see my kids maybe two hours total of a day. I’m stressed beyound belief. My dad calls out of nowhere asking for money. I ask him why and he says him and my half brother(2nd wife’s son with him) have no food, no money and are losing the house and everything. I asked how that happened and he said he couldn’t keep up because his wife would never work so it was all on him. He’s the worst with money so I’m sure that plays a part in it. But she handles all the financial stuff. I have to broken heartedly say I’m a single mom and have kids at a very expressive age (day-care, school clothes, supplies etc). He’s upset but understands. But I was worried about my baby brother so I called his mom( we were very close still) and asked if she knew what was going on. She didn’t and went to see for herself and she immediately took my brother back with her. By this point my brother was more than willing to go back to the safety of his mom. I thought for sure I’d get the biggest ass chewing known to man, but never heard anything from him about it. He never got mad I did that, thank gawd, he seemed to be relieved his son was now safe with his mom. But he stopped talking to me again. Fast forward a couple of years and I’m getting ready to go to boot camp for the Army. My kids have a summer with their dad and then my mom wanted her time of course so them being a little older I of course let them go. They have a great summer. I haven’t seen my dad since 2003. It’s now around 2010. Besides him seeing my son as an infant for a week, he’s never met my kids, his grand kids, and they are just that kids now. I plan on going to pick my kids up in CO where my family is from and then swing by my dad’s house. I do. My kids are confused as to who he is. It was a truely amazing reunion for him as he cried when he saw them and showed them the love and excitement seeing them that I remember when i was a little girl. I could tell he needed this at this time and I was so excited to see this happening. He’s proud of me and we talk. I have to leave and he cries as we drive off. I think to myself maybe it was all me being a disrespectful brat as a kid and it was all my fault he stayed out of my life. I things are going to change. A couple years in my enlightenment I’m deployed overseas to the middle east a few times. He’s in and out of contact but I’m deployed so I have bigger fish to fry at that time. I get back and I ask if he would come visit me and my kids because I saw they went and visited her kids so I thought sweet, I’d love for him to come see me. He can’t. They never had money or time. I ask how they could for her kids and he said that was the only time they could go and I loved too far away. I’m stationed at fort Bragg, NC. Fine I get it. So we carry on talking every now and then. But I started to notice he would only call me while he was at work. I asked why this was he said it’s just easier. But doesn’t say anything else about it. I think ok, maybe evening time is stressful as all her kids live with them still. I get it. But then I notice if by chance I call him and he’s home, he has to have me on speaker and shes telling him what to answer as I’m trying to have a conversation with him. I notice this but say nothing. Fast-forward from 2016-now my dad would reach out maybe once or twice a year at this point. My kids are grown I’ve got a lot of things going on and have given up on the little girl who never got her father back after keeping hope she would be brought back to him. At this point he’s only met his grand kids once and now they are grown 20 and 18. My granpa, my dad’s dad, dies and the whole family is going out to his memorial. Before we all fly out he calls to tell me that he didn’t want me to come with an attitude. I asked what he was talking about and this is because I never got along with his wife. I’m always cordial with her am still extremely scrutinized on every word and thing I do. I’m now being brought back to that feeling of disdain and anguish because I thought everything was fine. As he’s talking to me about some other stuff he’s face timing and she’s just out of view of the camera, he keeps having to stop and ask why she’s throwing her arms up and making obvious gestures he’s not saying what she is telling him to say. He’s trying to tell her to just let him talk to me and she’s throwing a hissy fit about it. Then a bomb is dropped on me again, just like when they got married, I never saw it coming. He’s adopted her kids. This was done sometime this last year, 2023. He didnt tell anyone at all. They all age range from 36-40 years old. My immediate reaction was of course, why? We’re all adults by this point. Well his wife is now throwing a down right fit because I wasn’t excited or very accepting. He said well that’s why I don’t want you to come down with an attitude. I asked why are you setting that tone before I even get there. They have nothing to do with me at all and have never been in my life or tried to be. Neither has his wife for that matter. Time comes we all get there. And it’s an awkward shit show. Ok I push through with the best smile I can muster. Every conversation was brought on by his wife about how we have to accept them all as brothers and sisters and that I shouldn’t be disrespectful by questioning why. The day comes for the memorial. A lady who dated my grandpa when they were in Jr high had some awesome stories to tell. Me and my sister point out on the giant picture board which grandkids we were. A little bit later, her name is Mrs Betty, Mrs Betty comes to me to get clarification on which one I was. I am my grandpas first born grandchild, my dad is so and so and I’m his oldest child/ daughter and the other little girl with me was my little sister ( I’m pointing in my sister’s direction at this point) and that the guy holding the toddler is my half brother, hes my dad’s youngest child. I state who my mom was and it all clicked on who I was to her.
   Now to set this scene, it was just me and her talking while my daughter was standing right behind me. No one else was around. But all the sudden my dad’s wife comes up pushes between me and Mrs Betty and said “actually that’s his first born daughter over there(she waves) and this is actually his second born daughter. It blew my mind. She had no idea that Mrs Betty already knew my mom. Poor Mrs Betty didn’t know what to say. To ease what I knew my step mother was doing I said, “well this is my step mom those her kids he’s just recently adopted. But by blood….” And I repeat who I was to him and of course who my mom was. So feeling the tension Mrs Betty politely askes
   ” So your his wife now?” To which my step mother piped up with a smirk on her face.
   Mind you no one was near me accept my own daughter, who watched this all go down. So this women, rudely interrupts my conversation about my linage to my granpa, at his memorial because I didn’t say she was my mom and that her kids are my siblings by birth. She immediately goes to my dad and tells him something completely different than what really happened. So that night we go back to ha house, sitting around a fire and talking whatever nonsense. So I lean into my dad and say I’d like to go to bed. He leans in and as quietly he can muster through the rest of the conversations asked what happened. He genuinely wanted to know my side of the story. So I told him exactly what happened. Well her and her daughter had both stopped talking and we’re ease dropping on mine and my dad’s conversation. They both in unison start yelling that I’m lying and that they were standing next to me the whole time and why couldn’t I just say they were my mom and siblings and on and on and wouldn’t let me talk at all. So basically trying to gaslight me. As a kid that’s where I failed. Now as a full grown adult. I promise I will not fall for it anymore. I asked them specific questions if they were standing right there. 1) what did Mrs Betty come up to me and ask in the first place?
   Mind you, I’ve just told my dad my entire side of the story in a whisper so she wouldn’t hear and do exactly what he knew she was going to do and at the end did.
   They’re answer: She asked who I was at all. Not to the linage of my grandpa.
   Nope. Wrong. I stood my ground and asked my daughter who was standing right there what Mrs Betty had asked me. To which she stated out loud verbatim what I had just told my dad. They lose it of course and now are yelling at my daughter, who’s 18 years old for being disrespectful and for saying anything at her age. Apparently she knows nothing at 18 and in no way should be allowed to talk. I asked the rest of my questions through the fit throwing they were both doing trying to over talk me and let me speak at all and yelling at my daughter when she affirms everything I just told my dad in private. Think two massive clucking hens that are about to get their head cut off. During this I can see the wheels turning in my dad’s head but he finally puts a stop to it. It quite now but tensions are high. My step brother starts talking about military stuff and I sense it going to a dark place. I suggested to him let’s me and you talk about the dark stuff we saw while deployed another day in order to calm nerves down more. He laughes and agrees. All the sudden both of them mother and daughter in unison start up clucking like massive hens because I asked to not talk about that stuff in order to have a light hearted or comical conversation.
   Now before I go on, let me tell you a short and to the point back story. Both my youngest step brother are army vets, with combat deployments. I have sever PTSD and could see where he was heading in this nightmare and we’ve all been drinking. He’s a comedian of all of us and completely understood what I was saying.
   So back to the clucking hens. They were yelling at me saying there’s no reason for me to have said that and they should be able to hear the stories too and I explained to them exactly what I said just above. All the sudden my step mother out of nowhere straight up stands up, starts throwing an actual temper tantrum, an actual stomping with both feet screaming at the top of her lungs, crying and wailing full on temper tantrum. Now she’s screaming something how she had things she had to do that were harder than anything I ever had to do and all I’m doing is trying to Psyop her (I’m in pysops in the army). Now, none of us knew what to do. Not even my dad. But it was because I just wasn’t taking it anymore. I wasn’t going to let her gaslight me, disrespect me, humiliate me, and disgrace me anymore. And the more I wouldn’t let her, the more attention she tried to draw to herself and how she had to be right because I was nothing more than a disrespectful, disobedient kid.
   I’d love to get on Dr Phil and let him even try to get my dad to see EVERYTHING they did to us kids. If you read this. And have any questions, have any advice how I should handle this situation please please I beg you to feel free to ask. I left a lot out but as you can see it’s a lot with just what I put. Please reach out. I need help.

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