Brainwashing and scaremongering

Post Reply New Topic

Who else seems to often be in the situation that they make friends who turn out to be brainwashing them, or using a lot of scare tactics or scaremongering on them?

Is it just me?

I've had a horrible realisation that a friend of mine might be like this. And it's far from being the first time.

i'm not sure i know what you mean without any examples of 'friends' doing those things but i do get the impression some people who turned out to be total users think i'm piss-easy to manipulate. I don't want to descend into a monologue about my own experiences, but the guy I lost my virginity to asked me, "Why were you willing to do this behing [his gf's] back?"

I of course retorted that I wasn't seeing his gf. But how he could even think I would just roll over in response to such an outrageously sexist remark! And in the year he pursued me for prior to that night, he used friendship as route into my knickers and even though I'd always known what a smarmy womaniser he was, I gave him the benefit of the doubt until he said that because I would have liked to make a friend out of the whole experience. But he clearly had no interest in any aspect of me but my reproductive organs.

There was this girl from college who I allowed to latch onto me because I needed any form of distraction from things going on in my head at that time. She did little but whinge about her relationship with this monstrously fat, thick as pigshit guy who stole money from her and demanded that she cut her hair and throw away clothes she'd just bought or her mother had bought her because they reminded him of her ex. He also demanded that she cancel arrangements with me on a regular basis, and she apparently thought herself entitled to beg me to go on nights out with her when he'd just dumped her or threatened to, and then spend half of them locked in toilets crying on the phone to him, and actually disappearing out of places and down dark alleyways because he'd instructed her to make the conversation private. She would get weirdly bitchy with me sometimes too - when we started university, she said people i knew were probably only texting me or inviting me out with them because 'they probably just want someone to know at the start', and she claimed to have 'a lot more qualifications than you' as she kindly put it, although I strongly suspect she was lying.

Is this the kinda thing you mean?

Yes, that's quite close to the kind of thing I mean.

People who just colonise your mind. People who try to make you believe dire things will happen to you. People with whom, after a period of brainwashing, you have a sudden moment of revelation that it IS brainwashing.

A moment where you realise perhaps your life is not as dire as the person is trying to brainwash you it is.

But, I'm so non-intuitive that it takes me a while, sometimes months, to realise I might be getting brainwashed.

My sister is in a relationship with people like this. Her boyfriends parents are terribly controlling, and clearly brainwashing (literally, it caused my sister physical pain to talk about them... just one example out of hundreds), and the BF does lots of scary things too.


Unfortunately, there's a difference between immoral and illegal. Guess which one this is?

The sad thing is, I don't think this will ever stop. She's been living with him and his parents for over 10 years, and they live about two thousand miles drive away from my parents. Not once in these 10 years have the boyfriend and his parents ever permitted anyone in my family to talk to them... not even once.

If you have any doubts that this friend is bad news, I'd suggest getting a second opinion.

Then when I'm decided I either just stop contacting them or if that doesn't work, just tell them I'm done with them.

Dunno whether you're seeking advice on what to do about it but that's my advice if you are.