Manipulation and conditional love

Hi everyone. My name's Samantha. I think my world just flipped upside down a few days ago, so I'm looking for some guidance, suggestions and love to help me through this.
So for the longest time I've always had a stormy relationship with my parents/family. I noticed that I have very negative feelings towards them and my siblings. Emotions like resentment, anger, frustration, pain, guilt (to the max), bitterness, feeling like I'm never enough, the scape goat, black sheep, and feeling like I'm a bad person. And I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was wrong with our relationship. I knew there was something wrong but I couldn't explain it. I realized that a majority of my interaction with my family is 90% negative, and they usually instigate the negativity, not me. I explained this realization with my parents not to long ago and they completely deny that they say anything negative and that they're the most kind and caring parents ever. (it's not that they're bad parents, don't get me wrong, they usually have the best intentions for me )
So I questioned my version of reality basically and thought "oh okay I guess I'm just imagining all of these comments or hurts." ( cause I'm convinced that I'm crazy and that I blow things out of proportion) but even with that new perspective I noticed that I still felt angry and controlled by them. So I wrote down for a few days, what everyone said to me; the good the bad the neutral. And I was right! 90% of what people said to me in that household was negative, or using my emotions like guilt against me. Now I'm questioning the sanity of the household I was raised up in....that I'm not really the one that's insane, but it's everyone else that is. lol

My mom will play the pity-me and martyr all the time to get you to feel guilty and help her.
My dad will constantly threaten me with anger, and calling me names.
My sister and brother tend to gang up on me and back up my mom and dad in their manipulative behavior.

And I've noticed that I picked up on some of their tactics too and it makes me feel awful! I didn't even realize that I was subconsciously trying to manipulate people! simply because i think manipulation is evil and wrong and I thought that I'd never do it in my life!
but now that I'm more aware of myself.....I realize that I do the same stuff they do.

Our family dynamic is dysfunctional, my parents are completely oblivious to it and deny it. At least my sister is becoming more aware and seeing all of the chaos and contention that comes in our house constantly.

We can't trust each other, (with anything personal or it'll be used against us in the future).
We pick every chance we can to attack someone for not doing something they said they'd do.
We have an awful relationship, we can't even sit at the dinner table without making jabbing remarks, criticizing, saying holier-than-thou crap, judging, yelling, guilt-tripping. etc!!!!!

and THEY think I'M the one that's crazy just because I see this!

I didn't realize that my whole life was created around manipulation, and I am extremely resentful because I believe that a lot of the negative beliefs I have in myself my parents helped instill in me like; I'm a bad person, I'm a bad dog owner, I'm ugly, I'm fat (my parents are embarrassed about this in themselves and push it on us kids not to be fat) I'm not fun, I'm crazy, I'm a freak, I'm over-emotional. I had to go to years of therapy because I thought it was ME who had the issue, when it's really because of my parents!
I am actually starting to see that it's ME who's been more of the adult in this relationship than my parents have! I'm starting to realize that I'm NOT as crazy as my family thinks I am!!!

I always wondered why my friends thought I was quite normal, while my family thought I was freaking crazy and put me in therapy and made me feel like a monster for having negative emotions.
(and my friends are normal people without mental illness, and I do have mental illnesses.....but at this point in my life I've conquered much of my depression and anxiety so I appear and seem pretty normal).
They've even beaten me and completely deny that it happened and make ME feel guilty that I got THEM that angry to have them do that to me. (I deserved it).
They've also said things like "I only love you when you're NOT like this." (implying my mental illness moment i might be having, they do not love me fully they litterally want me out of the house when I'm having a breakdown, i'm crying, or having anxiety).

They've said:
"You're the ugly duckling in our family." (this has been told to me twice, once by my mom and once by my sister.)
My mother even admitted to me that she waits on people hand and foot so that people would do the same because they should be the ones doing that for her, because she deserves it. (so she does it so she can guilt trip people into doing stuff for her).
If i don't go help my mother I'm a bad and evil daughter because I'm selfish. (I'm usually in the middle of something when she has me come do something).
"you're a bad (dog) owner." (dad and brother say this).
"you don't care about your dogs!" (all family member use this against me. Of course I care about my dogs....I care about them more than they do. I feed them and walk them...the family shoved all responsibility of the dogs onto me because they became lazy)
"did you walk your dogs today? go walk them" (my brother uses this sentence to make me feel guilty that I didn't walk my dogs, he is younger than me, bossy and controlling. he uses a cool facade to make it look like if I disagree with him on anything that I'm the nutcase because his logic is so foolproof or crap like that).

"You pick up your crap or I'm throwing you out of the house!!! You do this or that or I'll throw you out! don't you dare do that!" (my dad uses scare tactics, he's even threatened to send me to jail several times, threatens to kick me out....and I do get kicked out of my house "momentarily"....I basically come back later when people calm down and I go hide in my room because they have the upper hand, because I was kicked out and I don't want to deal with their controlling crap. .you know....my dad could just use a normal voice....that would be nice.)

My dad grabbed the back of my neck and shoved my head down and threw me around and threw me out of the house, because I slammed my fist into the wall cause I was angry. I didn't make a dent, I was just fed up with all the garbage that was spewing out of his mouth about me not being a good kid and never listening to him and never doing what he asks! etc etc.
He literally looked like he wanted to kill me he was so angry.

"would you rather me say it this way (guilt tripping/whiney/pleady voice) or WOULD YOU RATHER I YELL AT YOU?!!" (mother yelled this to me when I called her out on whining to guilt trip me into doing something, then my brother joined her side and said that I was the one that was whining when i made doubly sure that I did not whine, and my mother said "yeah you're the one that whined, not me." which made my sense of reality flip leaving me confused).

"why aren't you more like your sister?"
"why don't you wear makeup?"
"You shouldn't be listening to this type of music (it's only for men)" (linkin park music)

These are only like less than one day's worth of crap I hear every day. (there's many other things too) but that's all that makes up our conversations, backbiting, criticising, yelling, blah blah blah.

I'm too emotional, or not emotional enough. I'm NEVER enough for my parents, no matter how much I clean, how much I achieve I NEVER am enough.

I seriously have no idea how to deal with controlling people and so the only way I dealt with it when I was a teenager was hit the people that were being stupid jerks to me, because that's the only way I knew how to retaliate. At the time all I knew is that they were messing with my mind and I just lashed out because I couldn't handle it anymore and wanted them to shut up.
I don't do that anymore (2 years), I do not hurt other people no matter how frustrated i am with them....but now I have all this pent up anger inside for my family and I'm starting to resent them deeply. I need to get rid of this quickly.



HELP! I don't know what to do. I've researched more about manipulation but when I read those articles it's more about people that are bad manipulators, people that don't really care about other people's feelings and they're sociopaths.
My family is not that crazy if that makes sense. We're pretty normal I think.....at least that's what they tell me lol

I'm a victim and a manipulator myself.
I need more information of not being a victim, and not being a guilt-tripper manipulator person. I hate that in myself, but I can't seem to stop it. It's a very bad habit I'm finally seeing that I have.

I'm trying to be more aware of it, is there any tools I can use to become more aware?

THANK YOU!!!!

I'm just so confused right now......my whole reality of my life just seemed to 360.
It's not me who's crazy, it's everyone else.
O___o
I don't know what to do anymore!
help! thanks!

((Samantha))

Alas, it is quite usual for a dysfunctional family to have a scapegoat. It is also quite usual for them to be in denial about it and to make a good showing in public.

The best way I found to figure myself out and what I wanted and how to get along with others was to get out of my family's house on my own. When they are the only "input" it is pretty impossible to change the "output"?

Samantha-

Join the club. You have seen and now know the truth...they probably will not LIKE that you know this. They will deny it all, unfortunately. But you seem to have a good grasp on it and have your depression under control.

I am sorry you are in that situation.

You have provided me w/ an idea for myself...I am going to write down the horrid/bizarre things my mom states/has said to me. She hates me, has stated so several times, and I am an only child.

I guess you are doing the right thing, which is having a correct idea on what's really going on in your family.

You have come to a crucial step where you rejected all their mean words about you, and are starting sending them back: it's not me, it's you. I am not wrong, as a person. It is how you behave that is wrong.

Next step is the obvious: get out of there as soon as you can. If you can't right now, start planning it right now, start building life, job etc in order to get far far away from there.

Your parents and siblings seem to be not aware of the manipulative drive in the family. Maybe Mom and Dad are manipulating one another and they are happy that way or, I should say, they don't know how else to behave.
Maybe, as a family, the rest of them belong together. You don't. Being born in a family doesn't mean we are really kindred spirits.

Start your own road, as far from your family as you can. I did the same and I built myself up too: I knew that I was not like them, so I unlearned all the bad options I had taken in that house and slowly learned to do what I wanted to do and to say.
Big shift, big big shift, I promise.
Oh of course I had one psychotherapist to help me out first and an analyst, then. Transactional analysis did great.

Keep up the good work, you are on the right path: you don't want to be like them, even if they mean good for you. Of course they do, but they can only teach you what they know. They cannot teach non-manipulative behavior, is what they do on a daily basis is to manipulate the whole world.

By the way, you are correct. Manipulate is dishonest and shouldn't be acted out. If only one knew how to avoid it.

Samantha, there are many reasons why you may not be able to get away from your manipulative and controlling parents...

(trust me, I do not know your parents at all, but their behaviour in your words also suggests that you may not be able to have complete freedom in your life i.e. to do what you want including go somewhere/spend on something/see friends etc.)

I read your post, and want to let you know you are not a bad person. your family needs some kind of family counseling, but i think your parents would probably never go for it. could you go to school counseling? or through a community counseling center.? That is what happened to me i had been treated negatively by my family and they were the ones who put me in the pshyc ward, i can't go into all the details here but it did help even though i fought the docs and t's. They neded it themselves, but i figured being anywhere else besides home was heaven to me, nd i learned alot about the mental health system and the people in it. Alot of us are practically saints with the crap we put up with and had to deal with on our own.

First of all WOW! I unfortunately know what you are going through. Only my problem was my husband was the controlling and manipulative one not my family. But it really isn't much different control is control. It is evil, wrong and more important selfish. All they care about is themselves and what they want. They don't care how they have to hurt people to get it. You are not crazy or a bad person!! This is what they do to get you to think like they do and do the things they want you do to. Otherwise again they will not get what they want. I don't know if I am making sense my mind is spinning because so much of what you are saying was my marriage! I know you can't divorce your family obviously but you can separate and distance yourself. You have to take a stand for yourself and it is going to be very difficult to be strong. You can do it though because you know what is right and wrong. You just have to figure it out for yourself what it is you are comfortable with.

Basic truths:

- they probably don't do it on purpose, they just have their own **** to deal with. Don't try to explain their behavior in terms of intentions. They just are like that.
- you won't be able to change your family, specially your parents.
- you'll need 'vacation' from your family, at a place where they can't contact you. You'll need a separate group of friends, that can't be contacted by your family.
- since you are the one who is aware, you'll survive this, you are already working on your problems.

I think we have the same family!

I admire you so much for recognizing what is truly going on and doing something about it. You have your whole life ahead of you now to be free from all of that.

- You are definitely a step ahead because you really see what is happening there. Therefore, you do not have to participate in the disfunction any longer. Just knowing you are ok hopefully will give you the courage to take next steps.

- Getting away from the environment is the best, healthiest thing for you. Once you remove yourself from the equation, you will be able to focus on you.

- Is it possible to move to a new environment? Do you have friends, other family members you can stay with or the resources to get your own place? Surely, if you were able to recognize there is a problem, people that are on the outside definitely know there is a problem.

- Once you get settled, go to a T to talk about what has being going on, as well as gaining tools so you can break free if feeling you are a manipulator (I have a feeling you are being hard on yourself).

-

would this be manipulation?
My mom spilled some seeds on the kitchen floor and I was putting some soup into the microwave. She asked if I would go get the broom and sweep it up.
I said "kay, just let me put this in the microwave" and I put some salt, and garlic powder into my soup. Stirred, and then she suddenly got really mad at me.
While I was putting my soup into the microwave she threw a hissy fit, and went to get the broom herself.
"Fine, I'll get it." she said
Apparently she stepped onto the seeds and she didn't like it.
She gave me the death glare and silent treatment when she came back.
"I was going to get it after I put my soup in the microwave." i said
"well you know what? I'm making food for EVERYONE not just myself and when I need things picked up I need it now."
Now I get a bit offended, first she gets impatient with how I do things, second she says I'm selfish in some way because I don't make food for everyone, and third she's giving me this guilt trip treatment.
"I was just putting my soup in the microwave...you could have waited" >
she gives me more of that "you know you're wrong, and that you're selfish" look.
>:/
grrr
"Okay, I'll try to react faster next time sorry." i said
and then she finally calmed down from her anger, seemed collected and I think it's exactly what she wanted to hear.
(she was fine for the first few seconds while I put my soup into my bowl, and seemed to understand and respect that I was doing that, but then she got really impatient, freaked and did this whole thing.)

oh and if the manipulative person is losing power over the other person....do they become even worse as people? Do they become more dark? more manipulative? more yucky to be around?
what is a manipulative person like when they lose power over an assertive person?