Manipulation
I want to keep telling you this as I have: in your mind, in your voice, telling you what to think and know. Do you find this rude? It is, I admit, selfish. When I speak as just myself it’s difficult to feel like part of you. It is lonelier. Please; let me continue just a bit longer. – N. K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate.
She says in character, about the 2nd person narration of the book itself.
I figured out today that I often feel bad when you like things that I do for you. I manipulated you to have that feeling, and even though you like the feeling it was wrong for me to manipulate you with it. Wrong for me to imagine even that I might know what you want.
When I see someone like a thing I did for them it can trigger panic in me. It was not reliably safe to make Mother feel good. Sometimes she would punish me for it later. This happened in lots of ways but one of the more consistent ones was during punishment. If I did something to make her empathize with me and then change how she felt she would often stop or reduce the punishment. But when she triggered herself again let she’d feel slighted by me “interrupting” the punishment and need to hand out more. Plus some for my evil manipulation of her feelings. Enough to finally make her feel the way she hoped to feel.
So I was literally punished for being effectively empathetic with Mother. Even if she liked it when it happened, later it would be proof of my refusal to accept the punishment. Evidence that I needed more and I needed to do it better. I was asked to take punishment, violent or othewise, and not complain about it. I should react so she can be sure it’s hurting me correctly. Failure to react is disrespectful. But so is overt emotional display. Show pain, but only in the degree she expects – she wields it repeatedly in slightly different ways, like a whip on your back, to make sure you are paying attention to her. Scream when she demands it but never force your emotions on her. She shouldn’t have to feel bad about what you’re making her do. And you shouldn’t try to make her feel better because she is in charge here and you need punishment so she can stop feeling so bad.
This is why I imagined that empathy was a childhood disability that for some reason I couldn’t grow out of. I had this disease that made me hurt Mother – made me manipulate her by tricking her with feelings – and I should be sure to keep it hidden and protect her from it. It’s not her fault that I need punishment, and once I finally learn to be a real boy I’ll be able to do punishment the way she wants. To finally give her what she needs to actually feel better.
Mother lied to me about what manipulation is. And play. And love. Not just failed to tell me but used them to hurt me in the hopes it would make her feel better. It made me believe that it’s not safe for me to induce any feelings, not even joy. That when I do so I’m being unfairly manipulative and am likely to be punished for my impure motivations. It will make me a bad person who deserves more pain.
Which is nonsense all around. The idea I should take punishment quietly, that empathy was hurtful, that it’s possible to not be good enough at taking punishment, that the act of begging for your life was too demanding a request for a 4-year-old to make of Mother. The idea that inducing joy is likely to have negative outcomes merely because it’s also good for me. The idea that it was possible for some amount of hitting to make her feel the way she wanted.
But it’s why I can’t believe you when you tell me you like a thing a do. I feel like I have acted unethically and I panic about your eventual bad reaction when you find out about my manipulation. I feel intolerably demanding just for presuming to know what feeling you might like, let alone daring to induce it. And I should, because wanting things makes you a bad person. You can only want things of you have earned it, like Mother has by being old enough and not cursed with empathy like I am. And if I love her enough I would let her fix me. I wouldn’t complain while she tries to fix me with her unknownable wisdom.
So she imagined herself a god – fear me and know that you deserve fear because I love you – and sometimes hated me for being able to do what she actually needed: control her emotions.
Eventually I found ways to take less punishment. To make it less rewarding for her and less terrible for me by just dissociation. To manipulate her not to feel better like I tried at first but to feel sated and powerful. To control how she felt for my own benefit, often outside her perception. I told myself it was so keep her safe from me but I knew that was a selfish lie, and that I was just trying to escape punishment without really learning my lesson. Without really being cured of whatever made me so bad.
American Gods was as good as I hoped, in S02E01. The 11 different brands of narcissism in the gods. The way they all shout their intentions and motivations and no one cares that they’re being hurtful or acts to protect themselves. I think there’s an obvious late-stage capitalism read to be had, even on top of the effort to force you the audience to be a willing, slightly evil henchmen. To accept they you act on behalf of a thing you know is evil but want anyway because it’s the only thing that feels safe. The only thing that gives you belonging. The demand that only by changing your beliefs and choosing to step away from established power can you actually make the world better. This adaptation is really good and carefully understands the book, finding compelling visual language for it’s meaning instead of just showing us what it says.
Manipulating people into feeling things is part of socks too. I trick Mother into not caring about them, then into caring enough to get them. Eventually I can trick her into liking the giving and having many of the good feelings she wants from gifts, even though she isn’t interested in or capable of obtaining them. Sure, she’s happy now, but I’m just simulating love at her. We’re not in a mutual exchange of support, I’m manipulating her into tolerating me. Changing the bad mood I inherently induce in her to something she likes just so I can feel better. Sure, maybe her life is eaiser but who am I to choose what is good for her. To exert my will by choosing things she likes and subvert her control by arranging for her to have particular feelings. Her will can’t be known, I shouldn’t suppose to know god’s will, and she is entitled to have a terrible life and punish me for it if she wants to.
So if you see an opportunity to reassure me that I’m allowed to like it when I do things you appreciate, take it. The tacos (and other fruits) help me ward off the fear that my empathy is the reason people are hurt by my existence, and that I’m immoral for wanting to make you feel good.
Finally got some real time comms with DerbyK. You had big and somewhat scary news. Something I’m confident you’ll find the balance for even though the pieces are all still moving, and you have to temporarily forgo certain plans. It’s a little hard for me to believe I know anyone who is up for such things, but that’s silly because me being an outlier doesn’t forbid me from knowing normal people. And I had some panic at you about my own fears and challenges. My uncertainty about the future and struggle to be patient. To know how much action to take. We were both pressed for time but I’m glad you called today. It helped me find a piece of clam. Your birthday was someplace in here but I didn’t arrange to have advanced warning so I didn’t do anything much about it. Merry birthday though.
Got a moment from M today, and a point of progress on a long-delayed task. Not much info but an exchange that helped me feel less seperate. Thanks for that piece of belonging.
It’s E’s birthday. Merry birthday. Unlike DerbyK I did get you a thing. A couple in fact. You should have one mailed from WI either already or in the next day or so. And the other we’ll discuss when I next see you.
Doing okay with work this week. Plenty busy with SRs but mostly keeping up, and nothing other than SRs with any pressing deadline. There’s another interview on Friday and yet more discussion with no process for making good hiring decisions. Or even legal ones. Lots of whining about how no one is good enough. It still makes me pissy but it should be the last one for a while. And I can do it from home this time.
There’s detail about therapy. And still the love for being skinny and rolled up socks and the costume of survival and the impression of lunch as presented with props by a 1st grader. Maybe something about protecting the peasants at work, even if it makes them hate me. But for today, just some woodworking progress [fig 1], and some sleep.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
