Healing from emotional blackmail

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This month we have been discussing how to define emotional blackmail and how culture plays a role in parenting tendencies to use this manipulation tactic.

We also have some great discussions going on about learning how to spot emotional blackmail and tools that can be useful when you experience compassion fatigue due to emotional blackmail.

Today, let’s discuss the impact and side effects of emotional blackmail

Susan Forward, author of Emotional Blackmail, discussed what is called a FOG state that someone who is experiencing emotional blackmail endures. This can look like a “fear of losing the relationship, showing obligation to it, and feeling guilty if not doing what is required and asked by the blackmailer.”

I appreciate this acronym because it can also indicate the lack of clarity and lack of stability people can feel within relationships where emotional blackmail is common.

Researchers also explain, “When an individual is scared, his/, her brain uses stress response, fight, flight, freeze to help them assess and act accordingly. When this response is triggered, the amygdala sounds the alarm, which causes the prefrontal cortex to go offline. Therefore the individual is more reactive, impulsive, and can be really bad at making decisions. Therefore, when an individual is in that state, he/she can be, ore malleable or easily manipulated.”

Other side effects of experiencing emotional blackmail:

• Loneliness and a baseline of relational tension and anxiety

• Feelings of failure and incompetence which can lead to lower self-esteem and struggles with confidence

• Anticipatory grief that something bad is going to happen to your loved one before you attain a level of validation we seek

• Indecision paralysis because you may be convinced that a wrong decision (even in the most benign circumstances) will have a greater consequence than it actually does/will

• People-pleasing, and excessive self-blame for not being perfect, because you’ve learned to believe that you are solely responsible for other people’s well-being, lives, and for maintaining the peace

• Chronic feelings of guilt and shame

• General avoidance or repression of your own feelings because you've learned to believe they are not important (or as important as others') and that your needs are not worthy of being met.

• For some, anger may become an issue as it’s never been worked through and can become volatile and extreme

If emotional manipulation was a part of your childhood/family dynamics, you may be prone to these specific relationship issues, too:

• Because you have been made to believe — through historical emotional blackmail — that you have power to hurt others, you may feel full responsibility on ever relational issue, interaction, or dynamic.

• You struggle with conflict and asserting your needs in current relationships

• Anxiety or a need for urgency in communication in order to resolve something as quick as possible. It can cause an inability to take time or space (or let another person take time/space) to process before resolving said conflict appropriately

• Attaching quickly in relationships or actively seeking out and relying on external emotional validation to feel good enough. As researchers have found, controlling parenting may frustrate universal psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Tips, tools, and reflections for healing from emotional blackmail

Recognize the cycle in order to break the cycle: Emotional blackmail occurs through systemic steps, best described as follows: