Manufactured Emotions

Serial provokers are experts at seeking out flexible, easy-going people. They exploit this quality by constantly provoking their target with covert jabs, minimization, veiled humor, and patronization. The target will attempt to avoid conflict by remaining pleasant, choosing to forgive and excuse this behavior in favor of maintaining harmony. But the serial provoker will continue to aggravate the target until they finally snap. Once this occurs, the provoker will sit back, feign surprise, and marvel at how passive-aggressive, angry, and volatile the target is. The target will immediately feel bad, apologize, and absorb the blame. They are essentially shamed for rightfully losing their patience and behaving the way the serial provoker behaves every single day. The difference is, the target feels remorse—the serial provoker does not. The target is expected to remain calm and peaceful no matter what, while the serial provoker feels entitled to do whatever they please.
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During a relationship with a psychopath, you are likely to experience a range of emotions that you’ve never felt before: extreme jealousy, neediness, rage, anxiety, and paranoia. After every outburst, you constantly think to yourself, “If only I hadn’t behaved that way, then maybe they’d be happier with me.”

Think again.

Those were not your emotions. I repeat: those were not your emotions. They were carefully manufactured by the psychopath in order to make you question your own good nature. Victims are often of the mentality that they can forgive, understand and absorb all of the problems in a relationship. Essentially, they checkmate themselves by constantly trying to rationalize the abuser’s completely irrational behavior.

For example, you probably didn’t consider yourself to be a jealous person before you met the psychopath. You might have even taken pride in being remarkably relaxed and open-minded. The psychopath recognizes this and seeks to exploit it. During the grooming phase, they draw you in by flattering those traits—they just can’t believe how perfect you are. The two of you never fight. There’s never any drama. You’re so easy-going compared to their crazy, evil ex.

But behind the scenes, something else is going on. Psychopaths become bored very easily, and the idealization is only fun until they have you hooked. Once that happens, these strengths of yours become vulnerabilities that they use against you. They begin to inject as much drama into the relationship as they possibly can, throwing you into impossible situations and then judging you for reacting to them.

Most people would agree that jealousy is toxic in a relationship. But there’s a huge difference between true jealousy and the psychopath’s manufactured jealousy.

Take the following two (exaggerated) conversations:

Case 1:

Boyfriend: Hey, my old high-school friend is coming into town if you’d like to meet her!

Girlfriend: No! Why do you need other female friends? You have me.

In this case, the girlfriend truly seems to have some jealousy issues that need to be addressed. Assuming the boyfriend hasn’t abused her in the past, this is an inappropriate display of jealousy.

Case 2:

Boyfriend: My ex is coming into town. You know, the crazy abusive one who’s still completely obsessed with me.

Girlfriend: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!

Boyfriend: We’re probably going to meet up later for drinks. She always hits on me when she drinks.

Girlfriend: I’m confused. Could we talk about this in person?

Boyfriend: You have a problem with it?

Girlfriend: Nope! No problem. I guess I was just a little confused since you said she abused you. But I hope things go well! It’s nice when exes are able to be friends.

Boyfriend: Wow, you’re so jealous sometimes.

Girlfriend: I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be jealous. I was just confused at first.

Boyfriend: Your jealousy is ruining our relationship and creating so much unnecessary drama.

Girlfriend: I’m sorry! We don’t have to talk about it in person. I really didn’t mean to come across that way.

Boyfriend: It’s fine, I forgive you. We’ll just have to work through your jealousy issues.

In this case, the psychopath did three things:

1. Put you in an impossible situation that would make any human being jealous, especially after talking about how much their ex loves them.

2. Accused you of being jealous, even though you tried to respond reasonably.

3. Played “good cop” by offering to forgive you for a problem that they created in the first place. This places them in their favorite role of teacher vs. student.

The longer this abuse occurs, the more you begin to wonder if you actually have a jealousy problem.

And it’s not just limited to jealousy. To offer another example, you may have begun to feel needy and clingy during the relationships with the psychopath. But again, it’s all manufactured. Who was the one responsible for initiating constant conversation and attention in the first place? It was them. Once they’re bored, they will start to lash out at you for trying to continue practices that they initiated.

Again, most people would agree that neediness is toxic in a relationship. But there’s a huge difference between true neediness and the psychopath’s manufactured neediness.

Case 1:

Girlfriend: Hey, I won’t be around tonight because my grandmother wants to get dinner. Sorry!

Boyfriend: Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in three hours. This is getting ridiculous. You better text me the entire time.

In this case, the boyfriend truly seems to have some neediness issues that need to be addressed. Assuming the girlfriend hasn’t abused him in the past, this is an inappropriate display of neediness.

Case 2:

Boyfriend: Hi, I haven’t heard from you in three days. Just want to make sure you’re doing okay.

Girlfriend: God, I have a life outside of you, you know.

Boyfriend: I know, I was just sort of confused because I’m used to hearing from you each morning.

Girlfriend: You’re so needy. I have important things to do and I can’t just drop everything to text you.

Boyfriend: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound needy. It was the first text I’ve sent in three days.

Girlfriend: I can’t deal with this. I’ve never met someone so needy in my life.

Boyfriend: I’m really sorry! I won’t bother you again.

Girlfriend: It’s fine, I forgive you. We’ll just have to work through your neediness issues.

Once again, the psychopath did three things:

1. Put you in an impossible situation that would make any human being needy, especially after the constant attention in the idealize phase.

2. Accused you of being needy, even though you tried to respond reasonably.

3. Played “good cop” by offering to forgive you for a problem that they created in the first place. This places them in their favorite role of teacher vs. student.

The longer this abuse occurs, the more you begin to wonder if you’re actually a needy person. I could go on like this for paranoia, anger, hysteria—and every other nasty emotion you felt around them.

You must understand that in loving, healthy relationships, no one would ever put you in these situations in the first place. Your boundaries were put to the test, and you did the absolute best you could, given the circumstances. In the future, you should never allow someone to tell you who you are or how you feel.

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