People with controlling personality often have codependency issues. They solely rely on their ability to control others, to make themselves feel more confident and happy. Once managing people have you under their apron, It can be challenging to get out.
However, by doing this, they end up making you feel like you have lost your personality, your independence. Thereby, the control freaks destroy your self-esteem.
Below are eight things people with controlling personality do to keep you under them.
They Continuously Criticize All You Do.
One of the controlling behavior patterns is criticism. They use this as a potent tool in keeping you under them.
People with controlling personalities are chronic criticizers.
They find a way to slide in criticism in everything you do, be it good or bad. Their criticism can keep one in awe of how unbelievable it is. Maybe you get a promotion in the office; they will ask you why the development just came, why it didn’t come three years ago.
They criticize the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the music you play, e.t.c. There is nothing you do that is pleasing to controlling personalities, and this makes you feel inferior to them and afraid to even be around them. Once they have succeeded in doing this, it will be challenging to break the colt of being under them.
Controlling Personalities Get angry With Your Questions.
For instance, a controlling woman would want to make you follow her blindly, even when you don’t have an idea of why you should oblige.
This is another skill being used to make you feel bad about yourself, when you ask a simple question for clarity, controlling personalities end up getting upset at your question even when the issue is very reasonable.
Anyway, the truth is that they might not just have an answer for you; they want you to follow them or go with their opinion(s). In essence, their words are to be regarded as laws that cannot be questioned.
They Manipulate With Guilt.
Ever noticed that they are mostly people you love and care for?
That is why they can manipulate you using your emotions. They use words like “you say you love me, respect me or care,” but you are …….. This sends a signal to you that you are disrespectful. Nevertheless, this is just a controlling girlfriend capitalizing on your love and respect towards her to get you under control.
Controlling Personality Have No Interest In Your Opinion.
One of the unique signs of controlling personality is being close-minded.
Just as I wrote above, they want their words, opinions, and ideas to be seen as a law. They do not need your suggestion in whatsoever, even when they lack a good idea and you have the way out, they do not want to know.
In this scenario, how do you feel?
You feel like you are daft, you are worthless, this makes you think so low of yourself, and you feel inferior, and that is just what they want to achieve. And this leads to you being silent at all times since you know what you are going to say is to be defeated. By feeling this way, they have just pocketed you.
Control Freaks Make Rules About Other People’s Lives.
Another thing peculiar to people with controlling personalities is that they try to make the rules for your life. They do this by being all around you.
At every point in time, they want to know where you are. Who you are with. What you are doing, and so on.
Read also: 9 Delusions of the Codependent Person
If your action or company is not pleasing to them, they try to force you to stop doing so or to stop associating with people they do not like simply because they want to take charge of your life and boss over you.
They Show You Love, Then Create A Distance.
A very crafty way for controlling personalities to get you under control.
They start off showing you love, care, and intense closeness, but this does not come from the depth of their hearts. Instead, it is to gain your trust, respect, and attention. They do it in such a way that you get buried into the feelings you have for them. Once they noticed they have succeeded in capturing your attention, they deliberately create a distance that will make you long to be with them.
The compliments, calls, affection all disappear into the air like smoke. This makes your mind uneasy, and it gets you bothered, at this juncture, you start looking out for them while they sit back and determine how they want to talk with you or relate with you.
Read also: The Secret Struggles Of Being A Perfectionist
Sometimes they even avoid your calls and rejects your invitation.
Control Freaks Try To Make You Feel Bad For Being Yourself.
If you’ve come to the point where you cannot take any more of the manipulations and try to be yourself, a controlling man would still make you feel bad by telling you how much you have changed.
He tries to paint himself a saint and how he has been there for you all the while. If you are not tenacious about what you have decided to do, he will meander your decision and guess what, at this time when he gains control over you after you have tried to escape, it becomes worse than ever.
Control Personalities Try To Make Fun of You.
The center of everything being discussed is just one person trying to make the other feel he or she is inferior. And this is an expressway of obtaining their so desired aim.
They try to make jest of you, especially if there is a little defect you have. This act makes you have low self-esteem, and this is the overall goal of every controlling personality.
Borderline Personality Disorder is the most mystifying disorder. It takes shape as an overly caring person while like a bird pretending to have a broken wing. Once they draw you in with their unabridged attention, they slowly infiltrate into your personality, your family, and friends as your new translator in life. They, of course, are willing to give whatever of their own soul and lustfulness as needed to win your ultimate affections.
Then they carefully trim off all interactions between you and other people, so even your closet family members or friends become isolated from you. They even use the blame of trivial excuses in demanding that you reciprocate their need to exclude these other relationships one at a time with the basis of choosing between sides. Even your own mother must be disowned in proving your loyalty. This can take shape over many years, not unusual to last ten years or more, you are their property and worth the time it takes to own you, and to make sure you are properly trained.
The only reason I am able to write this as a survivor of my last marriage to a BPD wife, is that I had a mother who was mildly BPD and had already worked out the methods in keeping her from controlling my life and had moved out at seventeen to control my own world.
Now, I must admit, I may have been just as much at fault in having such a relationship since I was prepared for the initial “give it all” phase and participated eagerly during the “give whatever of their own soul and lustfulness” stage which was really quite rewarding, but now I’m the enemy (no longer controllable by reward alone) and must tread lightly as I expose the strength and demure of own personality which has survived happily. I am now the rock in moving forward for her and my children by accomplishing goals and caring financially without credit, through constant mockery, and her childish attempts at manipulation and control. For I cannot be brought down and I’m no longer in need of negotiations as I tread through the rest of my life as a survivor and champion.