𝚅𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚞𝚜 on Nostr: I'm not happy that I was abusive in the past, but I'd be lying if I said it isn't a ...

I'm not happy that I was abusive in the past, but I'd be lying if I said it isn't a little amusing to randomly make others realize I *could* fuck with them by suddenly getting inside their head and teasing how I know how to pick them apart. Thing is though, that's a farse. What Im (and probably most other manipulators are) doing is just casting a wide net and hoping the other person ends up revealing more information that helps further narrow down what to say next. I don't need to know anything, if I say "Are you doing alright?" without any reason, and the response to that question is someone being shocked I could tell, I then know that they were attempting to hide it for some reason and can then narrow the search for an insecurity to prey upon. My baseless "observations" end up looking like attentiveness, which can easily be made out to be me either understanding them on a deeper level than I actually do, or caring enough to try. That *really* catches the attention of those who desperately seek attention, approval, and praise. Or are otherwise susceptible to flattery, love bombing.

The manipulation I did wasn't intentional at first, I am autistic, and early on I was sort of just throwing shit at the wall trying to learn how to get other's attention, approval, and praise myself. I wasn't casting a wide net looking for insecurities, I was being socially inept about what was/wasn't appropriate to ask. When others acted surprised that I had "saw right through them", I felt obligated to continue on the path I had set, so I'd keep pretending like I knew more than I actually did, because I didn't want to just outright say they were mistaken and they had just outed themselves on something. Eventually though, I'd have to stop pretending because I couldn't keep it up. Which looked like me flipping switch and not caring at all (again, autistic, didn't quite know how to gently break the news). However, I was so convincing that others frequently refused to believe I had just bummbled my way through getting inside their head. I hurt them, but if they were someone who desperately wanted that kind of attention, they'd beg and plead for me to reconsider leaving when I got bored. THAT'S the point where it became something I considered intentionally doing, because I also wanted attention, and someone (often repeatedly) letting me inevitably hurt them because they couldn't set boundaries, was a helluva thing for a lonely loser (me being a sadist (which was also poorly understood) on top did not help).

The cycle of abuse I was caught in was;
Be friendly and small talk.
Ask a slightly inappropriate but vague question.
Latch onto several potential insecurities (initially out of concern).
Lean into and love bomb (initially as an attempt to cheer them up).
Gradually lose interest because I didn't know what I wanted and that made them start questioning what they're doing wrong.
Lean into that as an insecurity to hear praise about how comforting/unique/chill I was.
Then I'd leave out of total disinterest, because I didn't know how else to end things when I'd just be begged to stay (or sometimes obsessively harassed back by the other person, necessitating being firmly blocked).

At first, I was genuinely distraught over knowing I was being hurtful but not knowing how else to communicate. It made me very sympathetic, but combine with others who were either abusive themselves or just prone to being a victim of my behavior, no one ever learned how to fix it. In some situations, I was being abused back simply because the chemistry was volatile from the start. Initially, there was no bad guy, just miscommunications and unfulfilled social needs brought on by neurodivergency. It became abusive because no one could/wanted to correct my behavior, and eventually I became a little monster who couldn't just be corrected, I needed to face more serious consequences to force me to reconsider putting effort into meeting my social needs another way.