I bring it because people have used me many times for their own ends wherever I go and I wanted to clarify how to find people you trust especially if you have autism like me.

  • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.placeMEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    I’m not done ☝️

    Cause I feel like the beast of burden

    Promise or hint at an amazing future

    • They find out your deepest desires, then slowly start implying they will give it to you in the future. When you start pulling away, they start delivering this just a little. Enough to stay, but not enough to feel satisfied. You need to keep wanting more. Otherwise, you might grow as a person and become more self-reliant.

    Lots of implied communication, nothing concrete

    • They hint at a lot of promises and meaning so that you create a false idea in your head, but they will not say it concretely because they could then be held accountable. The point is have the benefits of commitment without the commitment.

    Celebration sabotage

    • When you start feeling good or have an enjoyable event coming up, they can’t let you be happy. They will create some form of disaster, even if apparently not within their control, to sabotage your joy. Every vacation, every birthday, every award, every holiday, etc. All sabotaged.

    Relationship sabotage

    • They will sabotage your relationships with anyone else not under their control. It’s too scary to let you have your own will because if you decided to choose with whom to socialize and converse, you would clearly not pick them or people may point out how unhealthy the relationship is. They may even destroy your relationships with your own family or doctors. Anyone that would have your best interest.

    Rug pulls

    • Just when you need them most, they will abandon you. Oh, you’re sick and need to go to the hospital? Not their problem, but they may do you a favor as long as you recognize their graciousness and effort.

    Smear campaign

    • They destroy your reputation with everyone else so that no one would even want to be associated with you. And if you ever try to talk to someone about your experience with the hijackal, no one would believe you because the hijackal already got to them first.

    Categorizing people and hating

    • They love the macro-social -isms. They categorize people into groups, find or make-up negative characteristics of those groups, then hate everyone within those groups. Examples: racism, sexism (includes homophobia), religious hatred, ageism, etc.

    Focus on minute specifics rather than main message

    • They attempt to find any possible implication of hypocrisy in your words or actions, then magnify that to make it the principle focus. “Oh, hijckals categorize people? Isn’t calling people hijckals categorizing? Who’s the hijackal now?”

    Confusing grand gestures of affection

    • They can tell when you’re about to end the relationship. Then, they make these grand gestures of affection and give you what you had been hoping for all along. This will only last a little while, then it’s back to the enslavement fields, breadcrumbs if you’re good enough.

    The relationship is transactional

    • There’s an underlying economical tab of who owes whom what, and they decide the value of the exchanges, so what they contribute is considered high value and what you contribute is worthless. You’re lucky they even accepted it!

    Arguments are emotional, not logical

    • The arguments are not based on a collective reality. No matter how much logic you use, it will not work. They’re simply saying things to get you to feel hurt.

    Trap you and fight

    • This is one of their favorites. They will wait until there is a situation in which you cannot escape, then fight with you.

    They can’t art

    • They can’t create deep meaningful art because of their shallow emotions and fear of criticism, disapproval, and rejection.

    Hurtful confessions are implied or humorous

    • They confess hurtful things they’ve done in a joking manner or though implications. This makes it so you don’t believe it is what it is. However, when the truth eventually comes out, you can’t get upset with them because technically they told you already and you technically agreed to it.

    There’s a forced personality exchange

    • They see how you react to things. They then copy your reactions in front of others. At the same time, they learn how to make you react like they normally would, then cause you to react that way in front of others.

    Their behaviors are justified; yours are indicative

    • If they did anything hurtful, there was a very good reason that excuses it. Hell, they might still need even more sympathy. If you do anything hurtful, it’s because you’re a bad person.

    Find a way to make you feel eternally guilty

    • Either they will let you make a mistake or illicit an uncharacteristic response from you that will hurt them. After this, they will remind you of this experience for the rest of the relationship to make you feel guilty. The reason the relationship is terrible is because of that one thing you did, sinner! After this, every time you do anything that good for yourself, they will bring up this event to help you associate caring about yourself with feeling guilty like a Pavlovian dog.
    • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.placeMEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      Look, there’s an apple.

      No it's not; it's a peach!

      They punish you

      • If you do something they don’t like or find offensive, they punish you rather than discuss it with you. Punishment could be anything from doing the same thing back to you to giving you the silent treatment. Note: taking time apart to process and regroup is not punishment.

      You get categorized

      • You stop being a complete person with millions of intricacies and now fit a narrow category. From here on out, your mistakes, failures, intent, repairs, gestures, care are all typical of this category, so your efforts and goals don’t matter.

      They use passive insults

      • They insult you but say it was just a joke. Or, they’ll insult another person like you.

      You’re too sensitive

      • When you ask them about passive insults, you get told you’re too sensitive.

      You feel the need to explain yourself

      • Cause they make you feel guilty all the time.

      You’re scared/embarrassed to tell others about them

      • Cause you know others will disapprove and start pulling away. If you were certain, you wouldn’t care if others disapprove because you would be confident in your perspective and arguments.

      You feel the need to hide your strengths

      • Because you’re worried how they will react to you having something to be proud of or they don’t have.

      Stealing

      • Unless they’re in need, they steal because they like the feeling.

      They control your access to your needs

      • Food, shelter, employment, benefits, sleep, etc. If you need to even think about whether they will approve of those, you’re being controlled because those are yours. No one should be controlling your access to those.

      You hide things you value

      • Because you have a suspicion that they will take, damage, or attack them.

      They bring up the past to make you feel bad about yourself

      • More guilt trips. And you can’t even repent. You’re that mistake forever.

      They exaggerate your mistakes

      • If you did made a mistake, they exaggerate the hell out of it. This makes it so you’re constantly on eggshells and so that if they tell others that you did the exaggerated thing, it seems plausible because there’s some truth to it. If you leave the house and forget to lock the door, they will say that you left it wide open so that people can come in and hurt them in order to scare them and show them you don’t care about their safety. From then on out, when you leave the house, it’s a anxiety-provoking event. What if you leave the door unlocked? You may be driving down the road and turn around to see if you accidentally left it unlocked, and you end up late further proving you don’t care about others. If someone ever asks you if you’ve ever left the door unlocked and you answer that yes, the rest of the exaggeration is proven true. If you try to correct the misunderstanding, you are now lying and trying to change reality. Eventually through punishment and gaslighting, you start believing their exaggerations because it’s easier than being true.

      They hold a grudge/can’t forgive

      • More guilt and shame to make you feel scared of and obligated to them.

      They surround themselves with people of lesser faculty

      • They like being around people that they can control, so they find positions in which they can control others without accountability.

      They’re stagnant/don’t grow

      • They’re not doing anything to improve themselves or their lives.

      They insult or share their partner’s/friend’s secrets

      • That’s just messed up.

      They boast about how bad things will never happen to them

      • They’re demonstrating their belief that they’re superior and powerful.

      Antagonizing

      • Frequent fighting, about anything. There is no limit because everything is a competition. Since you don’t like fighting and they love it, you will exhaust yourself and learn. From then on, if you are thinking of doing something that involves them, you will first consider if your behavior may result in a fight. If it does, you will do what they want to avoid the fight. It’s just easier that way.

      Escalation

      • Conflicts are made worse. Simple disagreements turn into major issues and you can’t even figure out why. Things as simple as asking, “Did you say ‘hi’ or ‘hello’?” can turn into a multi-day conflict. Like with antagonizing, it’s not about reaching a joint collaborative solution. It’s about teaching you to not even ask a question or have an opinion. You can’t exist.
    • maryXann@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      A few of those items are only redflags if done in a specific way. For example about “non-reciprocal”: if you are in a wheelchair and your partner is arachnophobic, it makes sense that you are the only one who takes care about dealing with spiders while your partner is the only one who helps you move around. I recommend that you start consulting this kind of list only when something starts to “not feel right”, otherwise you’ll poison all your relations before they even start (because there is no such thing as a perfect relationship). Still I’m no relationship expert, so take my advice for what it’s worth.

      • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.placeMEnglish
        1·
        9 days ago

        I agree! Most people do some of the things on there sometimes. Sometimes someone does something that makes us think they’re a bad person. Sometimes we make a promise and don’t follow through. Sometimes we participate in a competition and try to win. And, sometimes we don’t want to be alone. That’s normal human behavior. However, if most of these are present most of the time, then it’s a sign of a poor situation.