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.