There is going to be someone in all of our lives who will know just the right buttons to press on your skin. The same people know how to work the guilt trip like pros, and if they are supportive, they make us feel somewhere guilty for putting ourselves at the forefront. Maybe it’s going to be one of your parents, your better half, your friend, or another colleague—anyone who likes fiddling with heartstrings to get you to do what’s right, no matter what’s best for you.
Emotional blackmailing is a kind of behavior targeted to move the power balance in any relationship,” says Ashley Peña, LCSW, Executive Director of Mission Connection. “That would include coercive compliance whose means may be stonewalling, guilt-tripping, shaming, threats, or ultimatums.”
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Get to Know Emotional Blackmail
Emotional blackmailing is done in several ways—each one aimed to take control over your choices and actions:
Silent Treatment: This passive aggression, in the form of ignoring or not speaking to you until you give in, is another punch. It may be most frustrating or sometimes hurtful if it is coming from your loved one.
Guilt Trips: The guilt trippers use a case of emotional manipulation where he/she feels obligated or selfish for attending to his own needs at the cost of an occasion. For instance, a member of the family says something like, “After all that we did for you; this is how you pay us back?”
Manipulation: Distortion of fact or the manipulated acting as if he is your victim to win sympathy and influence one’s actions. For example, a fellow colleague might make you to cover up for them by putting the blame on you concerning his workload.
Exaggeration: It might exaggerate the problems or the consequences of activities one is involved in, making a person create feelings of sympathy or guilt. An example would be when one of the parents says, “If you do that again, I’ll lose my job, and we will have nothing.”
Shame: Publicly rebuke or humiliate you as a means to force compliance. That will hurt so much to one’s self-esteem and wear you down in due time until surrendering in doing what they want, just to stop the shaming.
Threats and Ultimatums: He would resort to threats or ultimatums, such as self-injury or abandonment or other such dire consequences, which are bound to leave a bad taste if not complied with.
The Effect of Emotional Blackmail
Yet research confirms it is as dangerous as physical abuse and leaves deep scars in a victim’s mind and thoughts. It then becomes the way to further shame, fear, anxiety, and self-worth issues. Gradually it ends eroding your ability to relate with others and selves. That in the workspace translates to mean stress and bargaining off with mental well-being—hence productivity and job satisfaction.
Emotional Blackmail—How to Handle
Protection measures from emotional blackmail toward one’s well-being are the ability to have sound relationships. Some of the following are:
Red Flags: Be aware of tactics used in emotional manipulation, and watch out for the signals that somebody is using them on you.
Stay Calm and Assertive: One retains control through the use of calm, not emotional, responses. State clearly your limits without giving into feelings of guilt or fear.
Affirm Your Autonomy: Let yourself know that you cannot control somebody else’s feelings or problems. You have the right to choose.
Communicate Efficiently: State your feelings and needs precisely with “I” statements, excluding blame words, as these really can’t do anything but inflame the conflict further.
Know When to Walk Away: This means stepping back from the relationship just for one moment to see whether that is healthy enough and knowing when to pull back from the same if the emotional blackmail is going to affect your well-being.
Seek Support: Right, authentic friends, family members, or professional counseling as a means to get an independent opinion and advice that will help in keeping one grounded during turbulent times.
Take Care of Your Entire Person: One has to take care of his or her physical, emotional, and psychological health. Anything done in keeping one’s health is vital to the war on emotional manipulation.
Boundaries
Setting clear boundaries will keep emotional manipulators at bay, and the following are tips to help one do just that:
Know what your personal boundaries are: One has to consider what behaviors can be borne and what goes beyond into the area of manipulation.
Setting of Boundaries: Clearly letting others know in very clear assertive language, setting it in a way that it becomes easy for the person to know that they have crossed over.
Enforce Consequences: Bring out clearly what constitutes consequences of crossing boundary lines and enforce them in a manner meant to reinforce the message.
Conclusion
Mastering emotional blackmail can be overwhelming, but one has to be firm in preserving autonomy and emotional well-being. Tell yourself that you have a right to make choices which work for your good; never be manipulated or coerced into doing otherwise.
Outsource to your network of trust and professionals who will, no doubt, help guide and empower you the most in even the most difficult of relationships. Your mental health and happiness are worth protecting from all kinds of emotional manipulation.
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