Emotional Blackmail

We all generally know what "emotional blackmail" is, but it's worth thinking about how we do it. I catch myself a dozen times a day pulling it on someone. How I do it is to broadcast a bad feeling, such as anger/irritation until somebody else gets so uncomfortable they do something to make me feel better. Sound familiar?

Babies do this right after they're born, so it obviously comes naturally. Baby gets hungry or and they scream until someone figures out what's the matter and fixes it. We know that magic from birth on, and it's as basic as magic can get. We learn as we get older that sometimes it's quicker and better to fix it ourselves. but when we don't know how to fix it ourselves, or it's something that can't be fixed, we slide back into Baby Communication I.

What it looks like: I get angry at someone because they don't do what I want. Instead of negotiating or discussing the problem, I communicate my anger by voice tone, body language, facial expression and I keep it up until either I get tired of it (it's a lot of work staying mad) or until they are adequately sorry and promise not to do it again. Or I get sad or disappointed or jealous or... I can also discourage certain requests or questions or behaviors by throwing a mini-fit. The hope here is to make it so uncomfortable for the other person that they will be discouraged from doing it again. Much of the interpersonal goal of bad feelings seems to be to make the other party so uncomfortable that they will change and I won't have to.

The problem with this kind of manipulation is that I have to feel pretty badly myself to get any results. The Buddha said that getting angry at someone is like planning to throw a hot burning coal at them. It hurts you worse than it hurts them, and you gotta do it quick. But it's fast and sometimes effective, so it's hard to stop doing it. It means a loss of personal power: I have to turn the power to make me feel better over to you, and I can't feel better until you do something. Every time I pull this I am busy not taking responsibility for how I feel.

Sulking is a different kind of problem It involves emotional blackmail, but requires the sulker to be dishonest or uncommunicative about it. Example: Sulker is mad. Sulkee (the object of the sulk) says something like "What's wrong?" Sulker either says nothing or says "Nothing", knowing that isn't true. It's now up to the Sulkee to figure out the problem AND to solve it. Usually this means the Sulker is gonna feel badly for quite a while.

You know, at my age and having been a shrink for so long, you'd think I'd be more grown up about this stuff. I'm working on it, but sometimes progress seems slow.