Manipulation is a Metal Gauntlet Wrapped in a Velvet Glove.
Manipulation by definition means :
to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose or
to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage
It is insipid. Its a slow growing vine that wraps itself around your soul to the point that you don’t know which way is up. You lose sight of yourself, of who you are as a man, a husband a father. Layer that with the fact that y0u are dealing daily with PTSD as a result of what you have experienced.
You become paralyzed. Panicky. Your inner compass is telling you something isn’t right, that what is being said and done to you, whispered to your children and friends is wrong. You didn’t do this to yourself, this was done to you. You had no control, you fight every day for control, you are striving and trying to be a better man – can’t they see that? Don’t they understand?
Yet day after day, you feel constantly judged, misunderstood and misrepresented. You’re being told you are the issue, you are the problem. You live in dread to the response you will get to any word you say, any action you take, any question you ask. You try to be perfect, to get it right, to be who you are supposed to be….yet the monster on your back constantly robs you. You don’t know why they these people do it, you don’t understand what the purpose is behind their desire to break you.
If you had cancer, they would have compassion.
If you had lost a limb, they would be praising you.
Because your scarring is not visible to the naked eye, they call you a liar and a fake. You stand there and you take it, beaten and struck by a metal gauntlet wrapped in a velvet glove worn by the very person who said that they would love you in sickness and in health.
T.A.