Abusers manipulate their community as much as their victims

Wherever there is abuse there is the underbelly of manipulation.  And manipulation forces a response.  We either see it and it stirs within us a response to that impropriety or we don’t see it and we’re manipulated.  Oftentimes it’s those who are manipulated who go along with the romance while others who see or experience abuse occur call it and face the consequences because they faced the abuser.

The victim of abuse has seen and felt and tasted what the abuser is capable of.  They warn those who remain in the community, but they’re scapegoated in a plethora of ways in the process.

Those who are gated ‘safely’ in the community still have it in their best interests to overlook ‘little issues’ that require further enquiry — especially in a Christian context where integrity should be second to none.  Subconsciously they know which side their bread is buttered on and they’d be loath to rock the boat.  But oh what a price to pay to ignore the truth.

The survivor of abuse looks and feels like a pariah.  They’ve been intimidated, excluded, shunned, and their behaviour to call a challenge on the alleged abuser is highlighted as an act of wicked contempt.

Who is to know the truth when the abuser has the bases loaded?  They know how to play the game, and they’ll always ensure they’re five steps ahead — why?  Because they’re the manipulator!

We always need to be on the lookout for any relationship where another person is always needing to be a few steps ahead, where they need to have the power differential, and where you always feel at a disadvantage.

The beauty of the best relationships is we can just be us, we feel safe, as if we have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, because the other person also has nothing to prove and nothing to gain.  The best relationships feature us being us, them being them; no second-guessing, no manoeuvring, no watching our back (or them watching theirs).

The community is being duped by the abuser just as much as the victim has been; the difference is the manipulation is in play oftentimes with the permission of those who are in active fellowship with the narcissist, but the abused person has since been relegated and is being manipulated from outside.  The abuser retains control.

There are those in the community of the abuser who will scoff at this phenomenon — until that is that they themselves are caught offside as the next scapegoat.  The only way people remain ‘safe’ in a toxic environment is by agreeing wholeheartedly with playing their role in the game that the abuser has chosen to play.

It’s all a game to the narcissistic abuser.  They get their schadenfreude fun out of it, and they get giddy with their grand delusions of conquest.  There is always another narrative being spun.

If you’ve noticed people calling your leader to account and the dissenters have since disappeared, you have to ask yourself, why?

Leaders of integrity love being challenged.  They may not enjoy it, but their vision of leadership extends far beyond themselves.  They trust God.

If your leader has the full support of all their people all the time, there’s cause for concern.  Either they’re incredibly humble and are truly personable (meaning they have NO detractors) or they’ve fitted the environment with yes-men.

The abuser manipulates those within the community as much as they’ve manipulated those they’ve excommunicated.

Abusers feel they’re entitled to exploit people and situations within their control.  They have zero capacity for true empathy, though many of them have weaponised it, and they can feign empathy as if they’re the most empathetic persons alive.

Those in the community find it hard to believe — and don’t want to believe — that someone they need to trust isn’t trustworthy.  It’s easier, therefore, to discount and scapegoat the one ‘over there’ than challenge a person who seems to have so much support.  The thing is, there is usually more than one, and often a number people, ‘over there’.

Photo by kilarov zaneit on Unsplash