Emotional Manipulation Tactics You Should Never Tolerate!

Five absolutely out of bounds, off limits emotional manipulation tactics that you should never ever tolerate. These are harmful, toxic and very problematic. That's what we're going to cover in this video. And this one is going to be a very action packed. I don't know if it's action packed or information pack, but I got a lot for you today, so. So you may want to grab a pen and piece of paper because I'm going to give you a ton of information. Let me tell you what it's going to be. I'm going to tell you the five tactics. I'm also going to tell you sort of the way emotional manipulation is used by all of us in some ways, kind of what's in the normal okay realm and what's in the absolutely out of bounds realm. I'm going to talk to you about some of the toxic ways that we can find ourselves responding, responding to this emotional manipulation, using more emotional manipulation. It's kind of like fighting fire with fire and how that can be super problematic. So make sure you stay and listen to that part because that's talking about your part. How are you playing into this? What could you be doing that's maybe making the situation worse or at least not helping things? And then lastly, I'm going to give you some additional resources if you feel like this is a very problematic situation for you or someone you know, I'm going to give you some more resources on how to explore this issue just a little bit further. Okie dokie. Let's start with kind of what I would call the normal amount of emotional manipulation. Because some of these things that I'm going to tell you really happen sort of on, I would say a continuum. You know, we all use a little bit of emotional manipulation and in a lot of regards, I just call that skillful, right? You got to have a little skills to navigate the world. So there's this sort of like okay realm and then there's this not okay realm. Let's start with some of the okay examples. Now let's say your husband comes home and he wants to have some fun alone time with you tonight. And when he gets home, he's like, man, you look great. Dinner was awesome. And he tells you a bunch of nice things. Now for me, you might call that emotional reinflation, but I call that just smart, just good common sense. Hey Sandy, good to see you. To me. And when that happens, there's usually almost like this, like both of you kind of realize what's happening and it's kind of fun or kind of playful. And it's not meant to be malicious or damaging or controlling. It doesn't have any sort of ill intent. It's how to set the stage for getting what he wants, but not in, like a bad, unhealthy, harmful way. You can see the difference. A way that another sort of way this might show up is, you know, right or wrong, whatever you want to think. I always say in my house, there are some jobs. That's just a man job, taking the trash down, you know, dealing with something on the car, something like that. I'm like, yeah, it's a man job. I might break a nail. I can't do that, or something like that. And I might say to my husband, oh, I don't know, you're such a big, strong guy. I'm going to need you to do that for me. And you might call that emotional manipulation. But it's kind of the same, sort of the same as that other example where both of you sort of really know what's going on. It's almost like a fun little inside thing. Like I said, there's no malicious or ill intent. Could I take the trash down? Yes. Do I take the trash down? Plenty. You know, could I probably fix the thing on my car? Yes. You know, it's not. It's not this bad or evil thing. And so I say everyone does it a little bit. And so I don't want these examples I'm going to give you for you to be like, oh, my gosh, you know, my brother does that, or my girlfriend does that and totally freak out. You got to have some good common sense here with what's okay and what's not okay. Donnie says, don't think you'd fall for that. For those of you who don't know, Donnie's my husband. Oh, we would definitely fall for that. All right, so let's get into the tactics that are maybe not so good. I'm going to give you five of them. Obviously, there's more than five, but I tried to narrow it down to these five that I really see happening just all the time that can be so problematic. And I'm actually going to try to give them to you in the order, sort of like, I hate to say least, problematic, because if they're on the list, they're really up there. But all the way down to the most problematic, the first one, and this is one that you probably are least likely to recognize. This is a problematic behavior that's called display of inadequacy. And a lot of Times this happens between children and parents. And all kids do this to some degree. Like I said, there's like the normal amount and then the not okay amount. Display of inadequacy is when you act like, oh, I'm helpless. I can't do that. And so you're eliciting someone else to come in and rescue you and do something for you. Like your kid might say to you, something like, oh, mom, will you make my sandwich? You know, you make it just right. You cut the crust off just right. Just the way I like it. Okay, whatever. That's. That's probably in the normal realm. It doesn't mean you have to do it. But I'm just saying I wouldn't freak out about it, but this, like, I can't do it. Like, I. I can't pay my electric bill if I'm an adult child and I'm trying to force my parent to pay my electric bill or something like that. And I'm like, this terrible thing is going to happen to me, you know, and we're just playing, like, victim, or I can't, or I'm not capable. That's what I mean when I say that can sort of fall into that unhealthy realm. Now, all of these examples of manipulation or emotional manipulation that I'm going to give you really have to do with what makes them in that harmful realm is it's, I'm trying to force someone to do what I want them to do, particularly when they don't want to do it. And so you're going to know you're being emotionally manipulated when you find that you're all the time doing things that you really don't want to do and that you're building up resentment about and that you feel held hostage, you feel like you don't have any other choice or that you're stuck in this really crappy situation. Another example of how you might know you're getting stuck in it is when you see this person's phone number come up on your caller ID on your phone, and you feel sort of sick at your stomach because you know whatever's about to happen, you're going to be forced into some kind of bad situation. This used to happen to me all the time when my. I have a. A sister, a stepsister, an older stepsister who's always struggled with addiction. And when she would call my phone, I would see her name come up. I literally couldn't even answer it. The first time she called. I would have to call back because I would just Feel just almost paralyzed, just sick at my stomach when I would see her name come up. Because I knew she was gonna ask me to do something that I didn't want to do. And either which way that phone call went, I was gonna feel really crappy at the end of it because either I was gonna have to cave in and do what she wanted me to do and feel really upset about doing it when I didn't want to, or I was gonna have to play this really, you know, hardball bad guy and say, no, I'm not gonna do it. And then me feel guilty for leaving her in some kind of bad situation. That's the kind of situation I mean, when I'm talking about where you feel like you are in this trap. That's what I mean. We're not talking about, you know, being. You know, there's like this sort of like social appropriate kind of emotional manipulation which I cause just good social skill or good common sense versus this other kind, which is this forceful, I'm trying to get my way. And it kind of comes from this real, like immat standpoint of an inability to not be able to tolerate getting your way or a just flat out refusal to not get your way. So that first one is display of inadequacy. The second one is, I gotta look at my little cheat sheet. Here is gaslighting. And I have a few videos on gaslighting if you want to know more about this. This is kind of like a hot topic these days. But it's basically when one person makes another person feel like they're crazy. Like literally, it's like you make them think that they're not seeing what they saw or they didn't hear what they thought they heard. And this can become really toxic because you can do this to the point that the other person feels like they just question their judgment on everything. Like, I've had people literally that thought they were losing their mind. Like they thought they had Alzheimer's. Like they were, like. Because when it's done to you sort of over and over and over on this consistent basis, it really does make you start to question everything. Hey, Lisa, thanks for joining us. Most of the time when you're dealing with people that have substance abuse problems, this will come into play when you catch them doing something that they shouldn't be doing, or you find a piece of evidence that they tell you been there the whole time or is not there. You've just plain imagined this. You're not even looking at it. Whatever. You can find it like that or when they end up doing something that they said they wouldn't, or not doing something that they said they would, they may tell you something like, I never said that. What are you talking about? Like, we didn't agree on that. Like you're making it up or I said this, not that, you know, they'll sort of make you feel confused. And you're probably more vulnerable to gaslighting if you are a fairly sort of self reflective person. If you have the tendency to, when there's a problem in your life, to stop and think, okay, am I adding to this? Was it me? You know, if you got a little humility, you might be more vulnerable to being gaslighted. But let me tell you, everyone is vulnerable to this. So don't think, oh, that couldn't happen to me. Because it could, you know, I guess it maybe it couldn't. If you didn't have any humility, you just would never question yourself. But we should question ourselves a little bit, right? So if you have that inside of you, you're a little bit more vulnerable to gaslighting. I'm not going to talk too much more about that one because I do more videos on that topic. Number three, sort of form of emotional manipulation. This might be another one that you haven't thought of or you haven't thought of in a while. And I've seen this in family sessions so many times. And a lot of you know that in my practice there's a team of us. And typically how we work is one of us sees the person with the addiction problem and one of us sees the family member. We call it lawyering. So we say, everybody gets a lawyer. Well, I'm usually the one that sees the person with the subs abuse problem. So I always say like, I'm like a defense attorney. That's what I tell my clients. I said, but don't worry, I'm a good one. And so I feel like it's always my clients that are doing this and I, I hate it because even when it's my clients to do this in a session, I gotta call them out. Even when it's my client, like, oh my God, why are you doing this? But this is a tactic I call. It's like some kind of combination of like distraction, guilt, let's call it like guilt traction or something. I don't know. We'll make up a name. But here's how it works. Someone's been confronted with something or a topic's been brought up that they don't want to hear. About they don't want to have anything to do with it. I'm gonna listen. Hey, Joy. And what the person will do, like I said, I've seen my own clients do this so many times is they will bring up something totally non related that you did or that happened in their past that you either feel guilty about or you have empathy for them about. And it's like throwing this curveball in this conversation that throws you off track. So let me give you an example. I had a client who had, I mean, this was a real thing for the client. He had like a resentment about the way his parents got divorced and some things that went down. Okay, that was true. It wasn't so much that he made it up and it wasn't so much that it wasn't a hurtful or problematic thing. But the thing of it is, is it would never come up until he was in trouble and then he would throw that sort of ace card out there and that would then throw the whole family system into this spiral conversation. Now the conversations moved off what was being talked about into well, you did this 10 years ago. And I'm going to come back to these and talk to you a little bit about how to handle each one of these. So don't worry. But when you see that happening, the thing about it that makes it inappropriate is the timing. I was going to tell you this one second. The way I handle this with my clients is I say, you know what, that's a good point, that's valid. And obviously that's something on your heart and we need to talk about it. Let's come back to that because right now we're talking about this. Because the thing of it is, if that's really something that they really are trying to address, then yeah, let's come back and address it. But if it's just like a curveball that they're throwing out there to try to take the conversation off of them or get out of something that they've been caught with or whatever, then it kind of does away with it. It sort of disarms it. And that's my way of dealing with some of these tactics. Disarming. And I'll give you a few more examples on how to do different kinds of disarming. The next tactic is a tactic that, for lack of a better word, I'm going to call it pestering. Because when I say that word, you know what I mean? Right. It's like when someone wants something that they want and they just relentlessly go at you, it's like the wear you down until you're exhausted and you just give in and say yes tactic. And I know you're thinking like, well, this is something kids do. Absolutely. I've seen kids and teenagers do this a million times, but I've also seen adults do this. It's like they'll just keep coming at you with the why or the why not, or they'll just keep asking it to you, or they'll complain or like, they'll just keep on and on and on until you're just like, fine, do whatever you want and you just get wore down and you throw your hands up in the air out of, like, sheer exhaustion. You guys, let me know in the comments or the chat if you've experienced any of these forms of emotional manipulation. And if you're really brave, let me know in the comments if you've actually done any of these forms of manipulation. Come on, we've all done it a time or two, some of these things. But when you're dealing with someone who pathologically does these things, it's just completely out of bounds. It's going to make the relationship toxic and something's going to have to be done. Okay, so moving on to my fifth one. And this is probably in my mind the most completely out of bounds form of it. I call it emotional blackmail. This is really, in my mind, just completely forceful. And it's this version of I call it. It's like threatening, basically, is what it is. If you don't do this, I'll do this. Or if you don't do this, this bad thing will happen. Or if you don't do this, I won't do this. You know, if you don't. If you don't do this, I'll never let you see your kids again. If you don't give me this money, then I'm going to go out and have to like, you know, be on the streets and get it in some kind of, like, really unhealthy way. It's this. I'm going to take this person's sort of like, worst fear and the thing that I know that means the most to them, and I'm going to use that as leverage to force that person into doing what I want them to do. It's a threat. It's an emotional blackmail. And I see this in all kinds of relationships. But you can see this a lot in romantic relationships, even when it comes to things like jealousy. You know, if you don't do this, then I'm just gonna go to that Party by myself or, you know, I'm just gonna go call up my ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend or something like that. It's just like I'm gonna force you into doing what I want you to do. These five things, when you see them on a repetitive basis, you're gonna have to stop and deal with them. The very worst thing you can do is let it work. So I gave you kind of an example of a disarming technique that you can do when someone's throwing out the. That one I told you about with the guilt straction, where they're throwing up something from a long time ago to throw you off course or to win the argument or whatever. But a real simple thing you can do, and this is how you can deal with this in a healthy way. Because in a minute I'm going to talk to you about ways that you can get drawn into it in an unhealthy way, which we're probably all a little guilty of, and we need to. We need to stop doing that. Hey, Kathy, glad to have you in here and thank you for your honesty. Look, Kathy says she has experienced number five. That's the worst. So one of the best things you can do is just really calmly, collectively, without a lot of emotion, call out exactly what's happening. You can say, you know, if someone's doing this threatening thing, you can say, you know what? I feel like you're emotionally blackmailing me. I feel like that's out of bounds. I'm gonna have to. I'll have to. No, go on that. Because I feel like that's. That's not okay, you know? Or if it's like, I feel like you're just trying to pester me to death and wear me down. And I think I might even would let you do that. But since you're just pestering me, you won't let me go. I feel like it would just be wrong of me to do it at this point, be validating bad beh behavior. You know, just call out in a really calm, matter of fact kind of way, what's happening. You guys know I say this all the time. Like, addiction can only live in the darkness. Think about. Think about that. Same same thing. Same saying for this particular issue, if you'll just turn the light on what's happening? And it says basically like, I see you, I got your number. I know what your strategy is. You better get something else, because it's not working anymore. And you can say it funny depending on the situation. Sometimes when my clients are trying to tell Me something I still believe. I'm like, dude, that was good. Like, that was a good one. I'm gonna give you five points for that one. That's pretty good. You almost got me. And then I'll just sort of laugh and move on. That's appropriate if it's that kind of situation or if you have that kind of relationship with someone. But even if you can't use humor with it, just be like, oh, I don't like that. I feel like you back me in a corner. You're trying to force me to do something, call it out. Whatever the thing is that's happening, just say it out loud. It somehow turns the light on the situation in a really healthy way. And that makes it. It's not like I'm saying that they won't argue back, but it makes it a whole lot harder for them to argue because you just turn the light on it. You just uncovered their big tactic or secret, and it loses, like, all its power when you do that. So that's the healthy thing that you can do. Some unhealthy things, especially when all of these emotional tactics, these emotional manipulation tactics, if they're happening and they're coming from a person that's addicted, these are the ways that I see families respond to that emotional manipulation in a really unhealthy way. Now, all those five tactics that I just told you about, those go for anything that does not have to do with addiction. That can be. Those things can be there any kind of situation, but they're almost always there when you're dealing with addiction. The good news about addiction is if someone's doing that because they're addicted, a lot of times when they get better, they won't do that anymore. If someone's just doing that and they're not even addicted, that's just kind of who they are. And that might even be worse, to be honest with you, because that might mean that those behaviors probably will not go away ever. So that's just a little something to think about. But a lot of times when you're this family member and your loved one is addicted and they're doing this. These kind of tactics to you to force you and control the situation all the time, you're going to want to. You're going to have this inclination to try to get control back. And just like they're doing what they're doing because they're desperate, you know, they have this desperation need to keep doing what they're doing to throw you off track. And most of the time, it's not so much that they want to control you most of the time, it's their addiction talking that they just. They're just trying to keep the addiction alive. But you're also, as the family member, you're coming from a desperate position of you're also trying to control the addiction, and you're trying to make the addiction go away, or you're trying to prove that you're right, or you're trying to back them into a corner. And so most of the time, family members start using a lot of emotional manipulation tactics, too. All right, it's time for some real talk here. Let's get honest with ourselves. You know, that you get out of bounds with your response to some of the things that they're trying, you know, you start lying, you know, you start using money to control or the children to control, or threatening, you know, that, you know, the college and all that kind of stuff. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't set healthy boundaries around money and college, what you'll pay for, and keeping your children safe. But sometimes you're doing that as a purposeful way just to try to control the person into what you want them to do. And when you're doing it for that reason, because you're trying to control their addiction. Probably not healthy if you're setting limits on money and whether or not you're paying for college and, you know, like, custody issues or something like that because of your own boundaries. And if you don't understand the difference in the control and the boundary issue, I have some videos. In fact, I have a whole playlist about boundaries with people who have addictions. But it's really important to separate. Are you trying to control or are you setting healthy boundaries for yourself? And you got to be really careful to stay out of this control issue with parents. They almost always pull the money card, right? And it's. I'm trying to force you to do what I want you to do by controlling the money. It's like the parent ace card of all, you know, cards, that kind of thing. So, you know, there may be, like, if you don't do this, I'm gonna tell your work, I'm gonna do this or do that. You can fall into that threatening, emotional manipulation place, too, because you are also coming from a desperate place. And you may normally never do things like that, but when we're desperate, we do desperate things. So we got to be super careful about that. All right, guys, I'm going to go back through. I'm going to try to take Some of your questions and comments here. So if you have any, go ahead and put them in the chat. There's a little delay, so it takes a little bit longer for them to come up before we end our session today because I really appreciate you guys who joined me live. You guys are awesome. You're the best. Always here at Thursdays at 1 o' clock Eastern. And if you are new here and you're new to this channel, let me know that in the comments because we want to welcome you to our little community. This channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction. And so if that's something that you're interested in, we hope you hang around and check out some of our other videos because if you do, we will make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. All right, let's get some of those comments. See here. Elizabeth says thank you for all you're doing for everyone. Hey, thank you for listening and for your support. I learned so much. You helped me understand my 26 year old daughter who is four months sober from alcohol. Appreciate your great advice. Hey, congrats Elizabeth. That's awesome that four months over you're, you're probably getting to that little place of oh my gosh, maybe something good's going to happen here. And we're hopeful and we're excited for you. Let's see. Sandy says no such word is can't. That is my belief. One has to try and do oneself. Totally agree with that. You must be saying that, Sandy, in response to when someone says I can't do this or that, that sort of display of inadequacy thing. Lisa. Hey Lisa, I'm glad you're here. 41 year old asked me to pick her out something to wear from my closet because she doesn't know what to wear. No, no fix or something to eat. No. And all that kind of stuff. Now if your bestie comes over and you're like, oh, help me pick out something to wear for my day, that's one thing. But you know when it's that versus when someone's like literally trying to make you function for them because you don't want to do it, you feel held hostage. That's a good way to know is because you really don't want to do it and you resent being forced into it. That's a good example. Lisa. Joy says, how do we address this and not end up in conflict? How do I actually talk to the person doing this? Can you give an example of how to actually set the boundary Joy, I think the first thing to do, and I know I mentioned this a little bit earlier, is just to sort of call it out and say, hey, if you're trying to pester me to death, this isn't working. Or, you know, if they throw out that like, distraction comment, you can say, you know what, that's important, we're gonna come back to that. But right now, talking about this, you're gonna get out of, I call it the content. So you stop talking about whatever it is they're talking to you about and make a comment about the process. It's kind of this meta thing where you're talking about what's happening between you and I. So if you're arguing about trash, stop arguing about trash. Don't talk about the trash. Argue about, talk about. Why do we always end up in arguments about the trash? You know, like, get a level higher and call that out. And a lot of times that turns the light on it and it either makes the conversation more appropriate or at least makes the person kind of back down and do something a little more appropriate to get their way or try to get their way. Kendra. Hey, Kendra. Kendra said guilt traction is very common for my 23 year old daughter, especially when expected to do a few things we ask of her to do around the house. Yes, I really see this a lot in this like parent child interaction. We're not talking about a seven year old. We're talking about like a teenager or college kid or a young adult or something like that. But I can't do it, or you're expecting too much of me or I got to do my studying or whatever. No, that's definitely what's happening. You, if you call out guilt traction, they may not know what you're talking about, so you might have to explain it. Flapjack says I have experience at all times. 10. Well, flapjack, you can be our expert witness. Barb, thank you so much for these videos. I'm amazed at the insight you have. Your topics are so relevant to my situation. I swear, sometimes you're watching me. I appreciate that. Barb, you are so sweet. The comp, the positive feedback, it really helps keep me motivated to keep making these videos. And the questions you guys ask in the comments that you make is what gives me the inspiration especially to make these Thursday videos. In fact, the inspiration for this video today came to me from someone who left a comment about someone who can get really mean or out of bounds when they're using. And they were asking me what to do, and it kind of made Me think about, oh, what are these out of bound behaviors that we shouldn't tolerate? Kim says, I feel like number five can be used but covertly, not straight out saying, if you do this, but they'll allude to it. That's their only other option. They just don't say, oh, that's a really good point, Kim, and I'm glad you said that because sometimes they don't say like, exactly, if you don't, or if you do, I will. But they can say it in this real subtle, subtle threatening way. A lot of times it's like a threat to themselves or a threat to you, but you know exactly what they're saying. And if they're doing that, Kim, then say it out loud. Not mean, not threatening, not fight starting. But say, are you saying this? Because this is what I think you're saying. Ask, it's called it. And counseling is called a clarifying question. Ask a little clarifying question. And so if they're going to use that tactic on you, make them say it. Right? It's like, are you trying to threaten me? Just wanna, just wanna make sure, you know, and that that might make them sort of backpedal a little bit and back down with that. Because you can say, I think this is what's happening. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think you're trying to force me by saying this. Let's see, Joy says, calling it out, but my son keeps escalating the situation and gets more agitated. That's a good point. Sometimes because you shine the light on people. Don't like that, right. Don't like to be called out. If you're doing it and you're doing it in, you know, like a calm, rational, appropriate way, but they're still escalating, then the escalation itself is the next manipulation tactic. I have a whole video about fight starting as a manipulation tactic. And it's like, I call it the puffer fish. It's like where I can get mean and nasty enough and I can make you walk on eggshells so you don't bring up things I don't want you to bring up or say things I don't want you to say. That's a tactic in and of its. And you can call that out and you can just step away from the situation. Say, yeah, we're not, we're not going to have a conversation that's this heated and just step away from it. Angela May says, my sister's my best friend when she's sober, but the instant she uses no One likes me. If she dies, it's all my fault. Something I said was icing on the cake for why she used. And it's an awful feeling. It's that I hate that for you, Angela May. But it's that like making you the bad guy. Like, almost like I wouldn't have to do this if you didn't do that. Or you make me feel so terrible about myself. That's why I use and I actually see that sometimes in the comments on my videos, like I only drink because I'm in this situation or that. And I can see even in comments sometimes people leave the, the blaming the bad guy. And sometimes it's just, sometimes it's hard for me to resist. I call it that little fish hook. I want to argue with them too, so I understand where you come from. I have to step back from that just to not argue with it. Even in the comments. Debbie says, I literally listen to every one of your videos, some of them multiple times. I share them with anyone who I can think use the info. Thank you for sharing. Hey, thanks for sharing my videos, Debbie. That helps a super time get the message out there because not everyone goes to YouTube or Facebook to figure out what to do about this problem. They don't even think to do that. So you really are helping to get the information from people who, who may need it and who otherwise couldn't find it. Lisa says it. Her 41 year old also says that it's her fault. All right, Lisa. I put up boundaries about Christmas this year for my 28 year old addicted son. Holidays bring up a lot of fear and anxiety to me most of the time because he's drinking and I feel like our celebrations are a bit of a lie. I feel incredibly sad cutting him out of our celebrations. But this has been going on for 10 years and to be honest, as a mom, I do better with my family when he's not there. I know that's heartbreaking to you, Lisa, but anyone who's lived in an addictive family can understand exactly what you're saying because it always gets worse at the special occasion, you know, at the wedding, the birthday, the holidays, the family dinner. It seems like that's when the crap always hits the fan. Because if you're dealing with someone, especially someone that drinks, they drink a lot, every day. But on holiday they're going to drink more than that and something's going to blow up. And people that live in addictive families grow to almost dread or hate special occasions or holidays because it's almost like you have this sinking feeling inside, like, what's gonna happen? You know, who's gonna get in a fight? The shoe's gonna drop, you know what? Ugliness is gonna ruin the whole thing. And. And if you. If you don't believe me on that, talk to an adult child of an alcoholic or adult child of an addict. They'll tell you that for whatever reason, things always blow up on the holiday. So if you need to set a healthy boundary on that, Lisa, you should definitely do that, because you're definitely right on track. All right, here we go. I've questioned myself in finding something, and he tells me that it's all from a long time ago. I don't care where it came from. No, I don't question myself anymore. That's a really common one. In fact, people say that one's so common, I'm just like, really? That's all you got? It's the. It's old excuse that I was holding it for my friend. And that. That's old. That's like. That's practically lame. That's what I say. I'm like, come on, you can do better than that. So what I say is, I say, well, you know what? You better make sure you have all of it out of here, because if I find anything, I'm gonna assume it's current. Plus, you know, it's current because, you know, you done searched and you know, you know it wasn't there before. Because if your family member, someone with an addiction, you're just so keenly aware of these things, you know it wasn't there before. So if they've got it in their possession, it's theirs. That's the way I say it. That's the rule. All right? Sarah says, can you speak to the fear that grips us sometimes when they are so resistant? But we have to step up and say these things. Not want to rock the boat, probably. Sarah, if you're saying this to me, what you're telling me is that when you try to bring up things from your perspective or hold a boundary, they get really nasty and ugly, and it makes you. They do something that makes you feel horrible, which is that sort of pufferfish method of making you back off. And like I said, you can call that out. You can say, look, you know, this is, like, totally unfair, because when I bring up my side things, you want to make me feel guilty about it, or you want to make me feel shameful about it, or you want to make. You want to get so angry and make me back off. And you could say, you know, that's out of bounds. Just call it out of bounds. You can sort of set the rules to the game. Set the rules. What's it called? The rules of engagement there. Melanie says, I would have never dreamed that someone I know would. Would have an addiction. This person has estranged from the family. When they come around, it's chaos. At one time, it was totally the opposite. Very close. In the past. I can't even have a conversation without an experience explosion. How do I inquire with them if they have an addiction? I would love some help. That's a really big question, Melanie. It's a really good question, but there's so many aspects. I'm not sure exactly what to say. The first thing comes to mind is that if they're really nasty and mean, you don't want to be around them. Don't want to be around them. And it's really hard because you remember who they were and that in their old self. And it makes it really hard to let go of because you can still see glimpses of that in there. In fact, next week, my video that's coming out on Tuesday is called. I think it's called why is it so freaking hard to detach from someone with an Addiction? And that's one of the reasons, because you can still see that who they were or memories, good memories. But if you want to bring up the addiction, a lot of times, initially, if they're really reluctant, you want to kind of go through the side door to bring that up, and you don't want to go directly at it, because a lot of times when you do that, you hit that button. And I actually have a whole list about motivating someone to get better and a lot of videos about talking to someone about their addiction. So I encourage you to check those out, Melanie, and that may help you if you decide you do want to have these conversations. That's all the time we have for today. Thank you, everyone, for hanging out with us. And I have. If you're watching on YouTube, I think on Facebook, too, I put the link in the description for the video series about manipulation, where I take a lot of these tactics and break them down one by one and give you a lot more examples. So if this is something you're struggling with, definitely be sure to check that out. And I will see you guys next Thursday. Thanks, everyone.