Are You Wired to Be Emotionally Manipulated? (Part 2)
07 OCTOBER 2025
Are You Avoiding Conflict or Being Controlled by It?
In last week’s article, we talked about the subtle signs of a manipulated personality. I’m not sure if any of those questions stirred something in you, but if they did, that’s not a bad thing.
Discomfort often signals the beginning of self-awareness. And today, we’re continuing right where we left off, with the next part of the test.
A Test Question That Reveals More Than You Think
Let’s say you and your partner just had an argument. They either start crying uncontrollably or fly into a rage, maybe even throwing things around the house.
What would you do?
A. Try to stop them from acting out
B. Stay quiet and ignore them, but feel anxious or scared inside
C. Get angry too and start yelling or throwing things yourself
Take a moment. What’s your honest answer?
If You Chose B, This Might Be Why
If you went with B, you might be someone who’s easily controlled by others, not because you’re weak, but because you’re deeply uncomfortable with conflict, confrontation, or intense emotions.
You’re not alone. In fact, many people experience what cognitive therapist Dr. David D. Burns calls emotophobia, a fear of feeling or expressing strong emotions, especially the negative kind.
When Fear Becomes a Lever
Here’s where things start to get tricky.
If you fear anger, emotional outbursts, or conflict, it becomes much easier for someone, particularly a manipulative person, to use those very emotions to steer your behaviour. The yelling, the crying, the outbursts, they may not even need to happen. The mere possibility of them is enough.
You start walking on eggshells. You shrink. You say less. You ask for less. And worst of all, you begin to preempt their reactions before they even happen, just to avoid setting them off.
Your Anger Doesn’t Disappear. It Turns Inward
While the other person vents their frustration outward, yours has nowhere to go. You feel anxious. Ashamed. Frustrated. But instead of expressing it, you bury it. You blame yourself for not being “easy enough,” “calm enough,” “better.”
And the longer this goes on, the more natural it starts to feel. Peace becomes your goal, but at the cost of your voice, your comfort, and sometimes even your sense of self.
When Avoiding Conflict Becomes a Trigger
Here’s the hard truth: when your number-one goal is to avoid conflict, you become easier to control. That fear of confrontation? It turns into a button that others, consciously or not, can press to get what they want.
But recognising this pattern doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re waking up.
And once you’re aware, you can begin choosing differently, starting with choices that protect your emotional safety, honour your voice, and reflect your self-worth.
The Hidden Cost of Always Saying Yes
Let’s keep going with the next question in our self-awareness test.
Imagine you’re at work, in the middle of a task, and a colleague asks you for help. You’re clearly busy. What would you do?
A. Put aside your own work and help them first
B. Finish your own tasks before helping
C. Politely decline
Take a moment. What’s your honest answer?
If You Chose A, Ask Yourself Why
Choosing B or C typically reflects a healthy sense of self-respect and personal boundaries. You’re able to recognise your own workload and manage your priorities.
But if you chose A, it’s worth pausing and asking: Why?
There’s a good chance the answer lies in something deeper than kindness, it could be a habit of people-pleasing.
People-Pleasing Isn’t Just “Being Nice”
Being helpful is a wonderful trait. But when it becomes your default mode, especially at the cost of your own time, energy, or well-being, it can signal a deeper pattern at play.
We often hear “people-pleaser” used like a compliment:
“She’s just so nice.”
“He’s always willing to help.”
But beneath that label is often something far less peaceful: a deep need for approval. Or a quiet fear of letting others down.
It’s less about generosity, and more about survival.
Where It All Begins
Psychologists often trace people-pleasing back to childhood, when love, attention, or acceptance may have felt conditional. You learned to earn connection by being helpful, easygoing, or agreeable.
And over time, that behaviour becomes automatic.
You anticipate others’ needs before your own even surface. You say yes before considering whether you want to. And eventually, you might lose touch with what you need at all.
The Pattern Manipulators Love
This pattern isn’t just exhausting, it’s exploitable.
The harder you try to please, the more pressure you invite. And the more responsible you feel for keeping others happy, the easier it is for someone, especially a manipulator, to take control.
Your desire to be helpful becomes the lever they pull to steer your decisions. And just like that, you begin making choices not from clarity or intention, but from fear.
You’re Not “Too Nice”, You’re Running on Autopilot
If you chose A, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It means you might be running on autopilot, still trying to earn safety or connection by sacrificing yourself.
And here’s the good news: you don’t have to keep doing that.
Patterns can be rewritten. Your needs matter. And choosing you doesn’t make you selfish, it makes you whole.
When Reciprocity Feels Uncomfortable
Let’s keep going.
Here’s your next question:
You ask someone for help, and they agree, but only if you do something equally difficult in return.
How do you feel about that?
A. You agree, it’s fair to keep things balanced
B. You accept their help, then quietly try to avoid returning the favour
C. Forget it, you’ll just ask someone else instead
Take a moment. What’s your honest reaction?
If You Chose B, This Might Be Why
If you didn’t pick B, you’re probably someone with a fairly clear sense of self, whether it’s a strong belief in fairness (A) or a confident boundary (C).
But B suggests something different. Not deceit or selfishness, but a quiet discomfort. A tug-of-war between what you want to do and what you feel you’re supposed to do.
You may feel obligated to say yes… even when it stretches you. Then afterward, guilt, resentment, or avoidance creeps in, not because you’re trying to cheat the system, but because your internal compass isn’t fully calibrated yet.
Why Unclear Boundaries Are a Manipulator’s Playground
This kind of ambiguity, where you act out of guilt or vague obligation, is exactly what makes someone more vulnerable to manipulation.
When you’re unsure of what you value, what you need, or where your limits are, it becomes easy for others to define it for you.
They decide what’s “reasonable.”
They decide what you “owe.”
They decide what’s “fair.”
And if you don’t feel anchored in your own values, you’ll start believing them.
What Your Work and Gossip Preferences Might Reveal
Here’s another pair of questions.
Be honest. There’s no wrong answer.
Who would you most prefer to work with?
A. Someone with a good personality but limited ability
B. Someone attractive but a little arrogant
C. Someone highly capable but very domineering
And when you overhear a group gossiping, how do you feel?
A. It’s boring, I’d rather spend time on something more meaningful
B. It’s kind of fun, I want to join in
C. I’ll just listen casually
Pause for a second. What did you pick?
What Choosing “C” Might Say About You
If you picked C for both questions, you’re not alone. These answers are incredibly common, but they also reveal something quietly significant.
Preferring a capable but domineering partner may signal that you prioritise strength or results, even at the cost of mutual respect.
And casually listening to gossip might suggest that you’re used to observing from the sidelines, neither jumping in nor speaking out. You’re present, but not fully participating.
When You Don’t Trust Yourself, You Defer to Others
These patterns, of shrinking back, watching quietly, or leaning on others’ decisiveness, often point to one thing: self-doubt.
You might think:
They’re stronger.
They’re smarter.
They’ve got it figured out. Maybe I should just follow their lead.
But when you hand over your judgment too often, you slowly lose the ability to steer your own life.
Real Confidence Starts With Inner Trust
People with healthy self-esteem don’t need to dominate or control. But they do trust themselves, even when they mess up.
They make decisions from a place of alignment. And that trust becomes a kind of inner shield.
Not because they never compromise. But because when they do, it’s a conscious choice, not a fear-driven reaction.
So if you want to be less vulnerable to manipulation, this is where the real work begins:
Learning to trust your own emotions, your thoughts, and your judgment.
The more you do, the more grounded and confident you become.
And confidence?
It doesn’t just make you attractive.
It makes you safe.
When You Don’t Trust Yourself, You Hand Over the Wheel
So here’s the simple truth:
If you don’t take yourself seriously, especially if you’ve never really taken the time to understand who you are, it becomes hard to show up with real independence or self-trust in your relationships.
When that inner clarity is missing, you start leaning too heavily on other people’s opinions, judgments, or decisions. Sometimes, you even trust their perspective more than your own.
The More You Doubt Yourself, the Easier You Are to Control
And the more this pattern repeats, the more visible your emotional “buttons” become, the triggers others can push to get a reaction or steer your behaviour.
It’s not that you’re weak.
It’s not that you’re broken.
It’s that without a solid connection to your own voice, you become vulnerable to someone else’s.
Manipulators, consciously or not, are drawn to this kind of openness. They sense the space where your self-trust should live, and they fill it with their version of reality.
This Isn’t About Shame, It’s About Growth
If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
You’re not flawed, you’re human.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to get to know yourself more deeply. Not through others’ eyes, but through your own.
Because the more anchored you are in your own identity, the harder it becomes for anyone to shake you.
What’s Next?
Today, we explored the kind of person who’s more likely to fall under someone else’s influence, and how patterns like fear of conflict or people-pleasing can quietly open the door to manipulation.
But that’s just one side of the story.
So who becomes the manipulator?
How does manipulation actually work?
And when are we most vulnerable to it?
Most importantly:
How do we protect ourselves, or even break free, when it happens?
We’ll explore all of that another time.
Until then, be kind to yourself. You’re doing the brave work of waking up.
