Ohhh totally a mental process, yeah, checking if I had some responsibility, benefit of the doubt towards them etc etc.... It's obviously completely at odds with the reality but when I am in this mindset I just don't seem to be in reality. I totally avoid the actual world when I am in this mindset and I don't do things, even important tasks or anything fun/joy.

So it's like inability to fully take in all the horribleness maybe so I can only do it bit by bit maybe



Is this familiar to you at all?



That's the weird thing because consciously I did not accept it but I think they said things over the years that just started to make me unsure and less oriented and it all accumulated eventually.

Or maybe I accepted it because (let's take the nonromantic relationship for the example) I was like supportive of her and thought she's just depressed or something. Things like that.

With the romantic one, they gave me a sob story near the end when I wanted them to be accountable, and I didn't really buy the story consciously but I think I was already in some disoriented haze or fog by then and subconsciously I probably absorbed it somehow. In fact I know I absorbed it because I responded in a nice way to it and then I responded in an even more nice way that was bordering on codependent even though I am not a codependent type. If that makes sense. And consciously I just didn't buy the story because it didn't really make sense, I didn't even process it rationally and I was more like ignoring it. And so the "codependent" thing/response I just totally blurted out, the most "codependent" one I totally blurted out of the blue. I didn't understand myself about that stuff. I still don't.

Also haze/fog: I know abusers create a kind of fog or mental confusion

But for me it was so subtle manipulation too, I'm starting to realise that he was likely using some mirroring technique almost like a "cold read" technique, does that make sense? Like he took whatever I said and modified it and threw it back at me and manipulate me that way.

And it's like, I was in a very upset state but he made it sound like oh maybe he's going to warm up to me again and then he manufactured my feeling "intimate" "open" and then I would respond in this way (and ignoring my actually very upset state, that's so absurd looking back to it!!) and then he would enjoy responding in a way that was going to hurt me in that state (even if it was manufactured it was somehow also real if that makes any sense). And where he started to look like oh he's maybe going to warm up again it was like an absurdly sudden and intense change too so definitely just like a fairy tale

So yeah I don't think I even discovered all of that, like the mirroring thing I only really realised recently rereading some skype talk we had (we did talk IRL too and I can't reread that other than what I happen to remember, but at least I can look at skype talks and texts). And I only really realised it because I ran into someone else who was utilising the same tactics (much later). And I started getting suspicious reviewing their way of communication with me and then I noticed the same technique with the guy from long ago (3 years).

OK so I don't know if you are familiar with manipulation techniques, I'm not very familiar with them unfortunately. This is in part thinking out loud too.


What I'd particularly like to understand is just exactly what feelings he manufactured in me, like, what I called a "codependent thing" but I'd like to be able to pinpoint it better/label it. Because if I can identify it then maybe I can process it and stop feeling it compulsively and in that intrusive way.