Patricia Evans - Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You

Part I

I n Part I we will examine the problem of control and how, even without intending to, some people may attempt to control us. We will begin to see how a spell seems to come over them and, for the first time, well understand just why some people indulge in oppressive behavior. We will explore the nature of the spell, and we will learn why people who attempt to control us often dont realize how destructive they are. We will also meet a Spellbreakera person capable of breaking the spelland we will find out how any one of us can become, or may already be, a Spellbreaker.

Chapter I

Sense and Nonsense

Ignorance does not
justify oppression. It
only makes it possible.

H ave you ever been puzzled or disturbed by the behavior of a family member, friend, or coworker and found yourself wondering, Whats going on? Why is he acting like that? Or, She doesnt understand what Im saying no matter how I say it. Or, He tells me Im being____, but Im not. It doesnt make sense.

May stepped into the company conference room. Her mind was on a thousand details. She was distracted because she was handling one of several small crises common to a small new business.

Surprise! her employees shouted.

Happy Birthday! resounded through the room.

Oh, my gosh! I completely forgot it was my birthday! May was surprised and thrilled.

Oh, May, you did not forget your birthday, said Dee.

Yes, I did, May replied.

Come on, you remembered. You knew wed have a party for you, said Dee, insistently.

No, honestly, said May.

You knew wed have cake and you were just waiting for it. We know you were, Dee said snidely.

Not at all, said May.

Oh, come on, out with it. Youre just pretending like youre surprised, said Dee.

Lets not argue, lets have the party, someone said.

While everyones attention turned to the cake, May felt frustrated and uneasy.

Why did things like this happen with Dee? It all seems so crazy, May thought. Why did Dee act like that?

May just didnt know. And it didnt seem like anyone else in the room did either.

No one wants to spend party time watching an argument, she thought. But, she also thought, it wasnt an argument.

She had felt assaulted and forced to defend herself. Everyone else felt uncomfortable. She was getting depressed on her birthday.

The whole incident reminded her of other similar ones. Let it roll off your back, people said.

Forgetting ones birthday may seem strange, but the point is that Dee was unable to hear May, she was unable to understand what May was trying to tell her, and that is the behavior of a person who tries to control you.

What is going on? If you have pondered similar incidents in your own life, you have already seen some important pieces of this puzzle. Not only have you brought them into view, but also youve properly identified them as nonsensical. These incidents dont make sense to most people.

In a certain way, the person you encountered couldnt hear you, understand you, or know you, no matter how long he or she had known you, and no matter what you told them about yourself. The person who has defined your experience seems to have failed to grasp that you are a person with your own reality.

When people encounter controlling behavior, they often feel erased, as if, to the perpetrator, they dont exist. In relationships, particularly, this kind of behavior sets the stage for all kinds of abuse. Trying to maintain this kind of relationship leaves one exhausted and subject to intense mental anguish and emotional pain, not to mention the possibility of physical battering.

Not hearing, understanding, or wanting to understand the other is behavior central not only to many of our everyday problems, but also to the violence that affects peoples lives in every part of the world, every second of every day. Acts against otherswhether cold and subtle, such as a contemptuous glance, or hot and explosive, such as a burst of rageare, paradoxically, both senseless and understandable. And they are also attempts to control.

I invite you to unravel the mystery with me, to make sense out of the nonsense, to discover just what is going on. I think the reason we havent yet found out just why people try to control others is because senselessness has become so familiar that it seems to be just the way it is.

This book presents a specific view that, like a lens, sorts out our experiences so that they can be seen clearly, so that everything can be taken into account. I will make this lens as clear as possible, having faith that others will polish it with new insights and new applications.

As we look through the lens, we will see that those who are most harmful to us, even dangerous to us, feel a need to exert control over us. But recognizing oppressive behavior does not in itself solve the problem. To be effective we must ask and answer the question, From whence does this need come?

We will find that, even though childhood upbringing, cultural mores, economic injustices, and erroneous beliefs can all be major influences in perpetuating oppressive and controlling behaviors, they dont fully explain them. Something else does. But what? The answer is hidden in the shadows of ignorance and it is in many ways astonishing. The need to control is driven by a force so compelling that it is almost as if we are under its spell.

Difficulties revolve around our non recognition of this compelling force, a current so deep, so constant, and so unchanging that it is tantamount to evolution itself. It has had a continually increasing impact upon humanity, begging to be recognized, but it has not yet been attended toindeed, it has only begun to be noticed. When we remain unaware of it, our people-problems gain momentum.

To understand this compelling force, we will explore its influence in our daily lives. Once we see its effects, we will know what it is and whether we can align with it rather than ignore or oppose it. If we are aligned with the force, life gets better. If we oppose it, life in general becomes more chaotic.

I invite you to join me in this journey of exploration. But be forewarned. We will meet some strange paradoxes along the way. Our journey will forge a path through a maze of illusory actions woven into our world. If you do join me, I am confident that we will not only come to know the compelling force behind oppressive and controlling behaviors but also come to understand how this very same force, if recognized and understood, compels just the oppositebehaviors that support our individual lives on planet Earth.

Finally, after identifying the compelling force and its effectsboth negative and potentially positivewe will see how best to align with it in order to avoid the negative consequences of moving against it.

Are you ready to take this step? It means that we will cross a threshold together, taking what we discover through time well into the third millennium.

Chapter II

The Problem

A difficult problem is a master
teacher. If you miss one tiny part
of the solution early on, it can call
you to task at any moment.

Nan

T housands of people have shared with me the intimate details of their attempts to free themselves from the influence of people who tried to control them. Others have shared their attempts to stop exerting controlling tactics against others. In those instances in which the Controllers became truly conscious of their behavior, they were shocked at what they discovered about themselves. They were horrified.

The wise words at the beginning of this chapter were spoken by a woman Ill call Nan, a happily married career professional, a mother, and a grandmother. But Nan didnt always have happiness. At one time her life was in chaos. During that time she spent many courageous years trying to understand what was wrong.