How do you be honest and assertive and not manipulative?

[Gs172003]

The trick to finding out where you're manipulative is to look for where you DO want something to happen....

I don't think of that as manipulating. Manipulating to me has negative connotations. I posted the definition. You're a parent. You're teaching. Teaching to me isn't the same as manipulating.

Being taught wise choices to me isnt the same as some jerk manipulating his wife to sleep with him when she clearly doesn't want to.

 

[ms spock]

Anyway maybe start another thread on the definitions of manipulation. I am mostly dealing with I think it is a lot of self hatred and self doubt. I never learnt to trust myself or my reality or that I was real or that I was human who makes mistakes and that is normal.

There are various forms of manipulation - and mine were learnt as survival. I am thinking that mostly I have moved out of a lot of that stuff in many ways. There are still steps to be taken and things to own - and perhaps being human mistakes will be made my me at times, and that is not such as catastrophe.

 

[scout86]

I am mostly dealing with I think it is a lot of self hatred and self doubt.

And I'd bet there's a part of you that assumes if you're doing it it must be wrong. (But that's actually probably not the correct assessment.)

 

[Gs172003]

Anyway maybe start another thread on the definitions of manipulation. I am mostly dealing with I think...

You're doing fine.

 

[aut555]

And the thing was I did some big truth telling in my mid teens. I told the truth what was going on at h...

That was a lot of serious just info there. Sorry to hear you went through all of this. I gave up everything in this stupid divorce but it looks nothing compared to your situation. You are amazing. You lost everything but you are still standing, you are a hero, though nobody told you that.

 

[ms spock]

And I'd bet there's a part of you that assumes if you're doing it it must be wrong. (But that's actually probably not the correct assessment.)

I do feel that I am all wrong.

So if I am doing it, yes I often presume it is wrong. I need to stop doubting and undermining myself.

 

[scout86]

At least maybe you need to work on accurately assessing whether or not you're wrong. And maybe to catch the difference between 'wrong' as in a simple incorrect response, with no judgement attached and "WRONG" as in deeply, truly, and irredeemably WRONG.

For all of us, sometimes the actions we take or the thoughts we think can be inaccurate, less than useful, etc. We still have value as living beings. What we DO might be wrong, be WE aren't wrong. It's sometimes a hard distinction to make if you were raised to believe you have no value as a living being.

 

[ms spock]

Ain't that the truth @scout86! My sister told me the other day that sometimes she doesn't feel real. She also has PTSD as well. It is interesting to see how she does and does not manage! Her triggers are somewhat similar to me but there are some ones that I don't have.

I was brought that I was nothing. I had no right to exist. I had no right to feel. I had no right to talk. I had no right to be. I was there to meet my parent's needs and if I didn't I was corrosively dealth with in quite a poisonous manner. I can see why people go mad. Why they kill their parents. I can really understand that on a deep visercal level. Parents like mine do that to you.

I was so, so, so, so, so wrong. Nothing I did was right. It was to be used against me in a subsequent mindgame - even when I did what was asked to do. I really wish that both my parents were dead, because if they were - the world would be a much nicer and for other human beings a much safer place.

Yes the corrosive self doubt is a thing that is hard to get on top of - and it is really holding my recovery back in some ways. But it is real. It is honest. It is the truth for now. And if it stays I can deal with that. I have lived through just about most of the most terrible things that can happen to a person.

It is now learning how to be alive when not mostly dissociated. And I never learnt to do that as a child or an adolescent or a young adult - so now at nearly 50 I am learning how to be in my body. The physical abuse was so intense I never became embodied - I have a very poor relationship with my physical body.

 

[Gs172003]

Ain't that the truth @scout86! My sister told me the other day that sometimes she do...

You can do this! I'm rooting for you!

 

[scout86]

"Corrosive self doubt" is a good way to express that. Having it might be allowing your recovery. Another way to think about it is that learning to overcome corrosive self doubt is part of your recovery. That self doubt is part of what you got from your corrosive childhood, it's not something you should have gotten.

 

[Suzetig]

For me, this comes down to accepting I really can't control what other people do. I can tell them what I want or need, hope that they're able to give me what I want or need and decide what's open to negotiation. So, I can ask plainly for what I want, accept what the other person can offer me or decide to go elsewhere . It's also about accepting that it's ok if people aren't able to or don't want to meet my needs or give me what I want - I can then decide from there where my limits are.

So, I can tell my hubby I want him to put his laundry in the basket and appreciate it when he does that. When he doesn't do it I can choose to get pissed off with him and pick a fight, do it for him and be gracious, do it for him and be a bitch about it, leave his stuff where it lies etc etc. Manipulation is at play when I respond in a way that tries to trick or manoeuvre him into putting the laundry in the basket rather than plainly saying why it annoys me and asking him to change, and accepting he might not. Ultimately I can decide whether I want to live with someone who is so messy or not.

It's a fairly minor example, and an area I struggle lots with, but it might help?

 

[ms spock]

Accepting you can't control what other people do! That is a great way to go! Radical Acceptance. It would be good if I could tell them what I want or need - and just hope that they can give me what I need or want. I don't know how to define what is open to negotiation. I am so terried at being deprived - yet again - deep childhood pain - and it is coming up.

But asking plainly for what I want or accept what another person can give me or go elsewhere. I need to go elsewhere sometimes or give it to myself. It is hard with my partner - asking for what I need.

The washing example is most helpful to me and I have thought about it abit @Suzetig.