Taking Personal Responsibility for Being Manipulated

We must be all familiar with instances where certain circumstances push us to become — or pretend, take the role of — someone we are not and most certainly not proud of.

After that happens, we tend to resort to self-flagellation — how could I have done those horrible things I am deeply ashamed of? And perhaps succumb to pitiful anger during certain quiet nights — what a horrible, horrible person I was with, he wrecked my sanity, took away my personhood, caused me to become a pathetic person with pathetic feelings and deeds!

It’s been several months since I last broke up with my narcissistic ex. Yet I still felt awful, this unidentifiable feeling of disgust, disappointment, and anger. Mostly self-directed anger — how could I be so weak as to fall for these subtle manipulations? Was I so pathetic I did not even know my worth? Why did I let someone else’s will override my will?

As I vented these questions to perhaps my one and only friend — I have distanced myself from the rest of my friends during the toxic relationship — he said something I did not expect.

Normally I would expect that in a consolation like this, the confidante says things along the lines of, “You’re not weak for being manipulated, I would have felt and acted the same if I were in your shoes.”

Instead, he said, “No, whatever things you did — the things you regret now — are not from his will, but yours.”

Ironically, I felt much better. But I still did respond with, “I would never have done those things that stain my dignity if I were not with him! He kept on pushing me to do them.”

And he then responded with, “Although you might feel that it was like someone else was taking control of your brain, the feelings that caused you to do those actions were a part of you.”

The important lesson he was trying to tell me was that we all have ‘seeds’ inside of us — seeds of envy, wrath, pride, and so on. But for seeds to grow, they need to be watered. Different circumstances — this includes the people and environment around you — water different seeds.

You cannot control which seeds you own. These seeds can manifest themselves depending on the surroundings. You can neither control the seeds within you nor your external surroundings.

We can use our will, however, to influence our surroundings. For example, you may be heavily influenced by someone toxic to do or say things you otherwise would have not.

However, it is much more useful to acknowledge that this is a part of you, rather than deny it and blame it on someone else.

The first step to overcoming negative tendencies is acknowledging responsibility. Although the fact still stands that the circumstances cause you to act this way, in the end these bad seeds are still your own, and the only thing you can do with your own will is to change the circumstances: run far, far away from him.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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