Defend yourself from manipulators

The title of this post is quite pretentious, I'm aware of that. I've been thinking of other possible titles that could convey my message and attract your attention, but at the moment of writing this, I couldn't think of any other.

I've been thinking for a while in something I wanted to talk about here. We begin with entitlement and end up with some 101 techniques that manipulators will use against you, to gain control over your emotions. Once that happens, you'll be playing their game, their rules, no matter what you tell yourself, no matter how you justify that someone else now controls you.

If you're reading this, I assume you don't want to be anybody's puppet but your own owner, so please bear with me while I reach to my point.

Let's begin with entitlement.

Different people feel entitled to different things. The more freely you give things (your time, your knowledge, your help...), the more entitled to those things you freely give, others will feel about. It is nice to have someone else solve your problems, do your work... for free. So if you're the kind of person that lives under the world owes me motto, when you find someone kind, you'll abuse from this kindness. If you're the kind one, sooner or later, you'll find people that feel they own you: your time, your knowledge, your help. And if you stand up against this, the little dictator inside them, in the form of manipulator, will attempt to belittle and make you feel awful about yourself.

Story time.

Way time ago, I had a website where I offered free programming tutorials (in Spanish), and in my naivety (I was... 23 year old?), I offered an e-mail to contact me.

Usually, when you publish tutorials on the Internet, you have to expect people who will appreciate your work, thank you for it and give constructive criticism, people that demand things and are rude, and then a lot more that just never say a word, so you can only feel their presence if you check the stats (Back in my days, you had to code the stats yourself. You kids nowadays have no idea of the struggle - and you'll say the same to kids when you're my age.)

From those that give constructive criticism, I met some really nice people, but they were too few compared to the incredible amount of e-mails I received from complete strangers demanding all kinds of things from me: from doing their homework, to their college papers. It's interesting to note that I barely received e-mails asking for clarifications on the material, or pointing at mistakes. The majority were from people demanding that I do their job. For free. And quick, bitch, my final is tomorrow, you don't want me having to repeat course, do you? (True story.)

An historic note is in place here: You may wonder why I didn't just include a form to leave requests, instead of my e-mail address. Well, this happened at a point where PHP was being born and wasn't available in so many servers, so if you wanted to offer a form for comments, instead of your e-mail address, you had to code it yourself - in C language. Also, not many servers allowed you to install this kind of little program. By the time I was able to make this, it was too late: my e-mail was known all around.

I can't say that those demands came in a good moment of my life. So in a bad moment of my life, I did two things. One that I regret, another one that I don't regret at all.

The one that I regret was taking down the whole website, so the entitled bunch wouldn't take any more advantage from me. I regret having done so for this reason: I couldn't see at the moment that by taking down the website, I punished a lot of innocent people because of a few lot of little monsters. By the time I started to recover from something else that was going on in my real life, it was too late to try to bring the site back online. The IT world changes fast, and at the time, I wasn't able to bring back a whole website so it was current in content, in my free time.

The one that I don't regret was using a new e-mail address, so all these people demanding that I did their job, for free, couldn't find me in the new address.

So this is the first point I wanted to reach to: when you do something for free, you owe absolutely nothing to the world. The gift of your knowledge, your help... when you want to, should be enough to everybody else. And if they want more from you? You owe nothing to them. NOTHING.

Nobody but you owns your time. Nobody has the right to make you feel forced to do things you do not want to do, if you haven't signed a contract/committed to it, and particularly in your free time. NO-BO-DY. Repeat that to yourself as many times as you need. Really, start repeating that to yourself: Right now.

Now I'll try to establish the connection that, in my mind, relates entitlement with manipulation.

When you start being serious about not allowing others to make you feel forced to do things you don't want to and have not committed to, some of them aren't going to take this well, particularly if they're used to the contrary from you. They may try to make you feel bad, they may be insulting, abusive...

Do not listen to what they say. No matter what this is. They may say things like "I didn't expect this from you", "You've changed, you're not the nice person I met", "I'll find someone who cares, unlike you"... Do. Not. Listen to that.

You don't owe them your time. They simply have no right to make you feel bad about how you want to use your time, nor they should make you feel that you have to help them. You don't have to.

Little bit of advice, related to this: Do not reply to anything that sounds like the examples I've written. Someone tells you "You've changed, you're not the nice person I met"? Don't reply. It's pretty obvious that they're trying to provoke an emotional response from you, and if you reply, you're playing their game. You don't have to justify yourself if you don't allow others owning your time. You really don't have to.

It also doesn't matter what you tell them, because what they want is that you go back to the place where you do with your time what they want you to do. So, someone tells you "you're not the nice person I met"? That's their problem, not yours.

Realize that they were trying to manipulate you through your feelings, your concern about the image that others have about you, and don't give them the emotional response they're hoping for.

Realize too that if you're being manipulated, you'll not be willing to admit this. But you have to. If you're being manipulated, if you feel that someone is being abusive or attempting to control you through your emotions... Don't close your eyes to it. Admit it to yourself. There's no shame in admitting that someone is manipulating us, or trying to. It happens to everybody (even to manipulators!) The louder you can tell that to yourself, the easier will be for you to escape their control, since you're now aware of the situation.

I haven't even scratched the surface of how to defend yourself from manipulators in this post. But I hope that what I've written here helps you think, and realize, when others are trying to manipulate you through your feelings. There are many other ways (sadly, I've observed too much of this in my life), too often if not always, trying to provoke emotional responses from you that makes you be under their control; being able to recognize even just one way, is a start.

Keep in mind that if someone wants to provoke an emotional response from you, and you respond, they know that they can continue pushing to provoke more emotional responses. Do not play that game, because it's a game you will never win.

"It's a strange game. The only winning move is not to play." (Almost literal quote.)

Recently, I've found few people bringing their sense of entitlement to "upper levels". Because it's related, I want to address the situation here, where it belongs.

If you're reading this post, I don't have to tell you that I write this blog. I write and then publish posts, so other people will read me.

What do I owe to my readers? Weekly posts? More detailed tutorials? Tutorials about this/this other topic? My inworld time, so they can discuss my posts in my IM window?

I'm not afraid to say... That I do not owe my readers any of this. I only owe what I commit to.

Sure, I write in a public place. And there's a form for comments: Use it, if you want to add/comment/call me names. Comments aren't moderated. If I can reply the comments/makes sense that I reply, then I will. Else, I won't. If I want to take on a suggestion, I will. Else, I won't. If you feel shy about publicly leaving comments and prefer to tell me something in IM, if I'm not busy the moment you do, I will reply. But what you're not entitled to, by any means, is to my time. (Generic) You really have nerve if you tell me in my SL IM window that because I write publicly, you have the right of coming to my IM so I should discuss something with you, because you want to, and/or take on your suggestions. (True stories. I kid you not.)

One real world equivalence would be telling me that because I'm an actress, you can call me to my private phone number to talk with me about my part, insisting that you have that right and that I should discuss your feedback and take on your suggestions. In the real world, you may end up with a restraining order. In the virtual world... well, you can figure that out on your own.

I'm not going to make the mistake I did years ago, when I took that website down. I will continue writing publicly, about what I want, when I want, and discussing in comments or in public gatherings. Because I do it in my free time, and I owe you not.

Have a great day! :-)

PHOTO CREDITS

Mesh body: Lara, from Maitreya
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Skin: Lulu 02 C, Jamaica, from Glam Affair
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Skirt: Layla Wrapped Skirt, Sunrise, from Tee*fy

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Landscaping:

• Sim surrounding environment, from Landscapes Unlimited
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• Enakai Wavebreaker (larger), from Trompe Loeil

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