Dealing with Manipulative People

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Does anyone have any strategies of how to deal with toxic people?

As I have grown up and matured, my characteristics attract certain types of people-- people who want to abuse and take advantage of others.

I have also come to realize that my genuine and comfortableness with who I am and my quirks intimidates people and leads to people bullying, gas lighting and emotionally manipulating me to feel bad about myself-- almost 'putting me in my place' because how can I be weird and love myself?

During these interactions I usually sense something is wrong in the moment and do not know how to verbalize and prevent the behavior or interaction. It is not until I have analyzed and processed it later on that I realize what has happened. This can take hours, to days, to weeks. It doesn't help that sometimes interacting with a person that exhibits this behavior triggers PTSD.

Other times people around me will make a comment to how someone treated me, like 'I cannot believe how so in so was just so condescending to you.' And I do not even recognize the behavior until someone tells me that is what someone did to me.

When I ask others for advice I get the same reaction. Well you just need to tell them how you feel. You need to stand up for yourself.

1. Half the time I cannot even verbalize or recognize what is going on until later
2. Half the time when I attempt to stand up for myself the person comes back at me with another statement to make me doubt myself or make me feel crazy. So at this point I am scared and just don't want to interact with people at all.


My questions are--

What are your strategies or scripts for dealing with these types of people?

Do you know of any videos or training?

What do you do to make yourself feel better? I realize lately that I put myself down often because I am a perfectionist and no matter how hard I try, I cannot prevent or figure out how to deal with these behaviors. How do I prevent blaming myself?

I wish people could be an ally and stand up for me too if they notice this behavior. Too many people are passive and silent about the abuse of others.

I try to avoid anyone I get toxic vibes off. I have dealt with my share of manipulative people. I know one lady who tried to convince me that popular people or "it" people don't exist. That lady discounts my observations about people. She thinks I should trust people more. People have broken my trust too many times. I have always been there for this lady in her time of need, but she was never there when I was in need. I avoid interacting with that lady if I can help it. I have learned to say no much more than I used to. Sometimes I say I have other plans if she wants me for something. I have found that people can't stand it when I can see through their crap. People who are higher on the social pecking order don't like to be seen sticking up for someone who is at the bottom of the pecking order. It threatens their position in the social pecking order.

Elaine, you got the skinny on how these people operate. Probably scares the crap out of them.

Angie Atkinson has some good videos. Here's one:



I also like Sacha Slone ... she self-identifies as autistic, anyways, she's very eccentric:



Hope these help!

I've dealt with these kind of people too. I think autistic people are more trusting and easy to influence. This is how they operate they find a person who trusts them and they then they destroy them. Their only source of self esteem is putting you down so they can be the guide in your life. I bet they are always pointing out your short comings and also how they certainly would never do that thing. Do they sometimes lie with a PASSION? Like you are 100% sure an event happened a certain way and they tell you no it did not it's probably because of your autism you don't understand that.

If you seem like you can call them out their nonsense they will loose interest. They are not looking to work too hard they are looking to seem like the kindest person out there and play mind games with you while their needs are met at the expense of yours.

Personally the person in my life I think is this video. Thankfully I got away from them. Ask yourself if your person is the same.

I've got that exact scenario with a person. When I called her out on it, she said I had a serious problem. But at least she knows I'm on to her. And yes at one I trusted her. She destroyed that trust with her constant undermining me. There wasn't anything she didn't pick at. She thought I needed a helper. Etc. I told her that I was done being her person to batter. Our relationship now is only casual. Nothing more after the stuff she spread around.

When I first met the lady that tried to manipulate me, she thought was mentally ret*d. She assumed that all autistic people are mentally ret*d. She was in shock when she found out that I graduated high school with honors and was going to college. She made the same assumptions about my sister. This woman could not wrap her head around her assumptions being wrong.

I wouldn't want a friend like yours anywhere a child with intellectual disabilities. She would treat them mean.