Abusive control mechanisms

Control

Pigface had a habit, even before dad died, of applying conditions.  Dad had done this.  It was a power and control technique.  It was a double whammy technique of establishing control; if 1)  he "allowed" anything, any such authorisation, would come with a string of conditions.  These would mean little in themselves, but they were part of forcing the other person to accept his domination. 

Narrative distortion
He made people believe that he had total control and the Power of Attorney that was setup for me didn't apply, or could be stepped round, because he convinced people I wasn't up to it, or I'd left it all to him, or I was mentally ill or autistic or didn't care about mum, was incompetent / dangerous / ill / diseased.  He used whatever he thought at the time would best convince people. 

After dad died, he claimed I was undiagnosed autistic since birth and spoke about me as one of "those people" the way racists see black people: as permanent aberrations or diseased.  In his visible disgust it was plain he thought autists should be gassed or shot or locked up for life at best. 

To use mum's passport as an example: he took that.   That stopped from me to prevent me taking her abroad on a trip.  Why?  Pigface wouldn't have wanted me to have any pleasure in giving mum pleasure, especially if there was money involved. Also, too much independence for "someone like  me". If I could take mum abroad on a trip I might get the idea that I could try to have actual joint power of authority, just as my parents set it up.

Control mechanism 1: consolidating unilateral authority

Mostly, though, having the passport meant it could be used as part of a control mechanism.

Probably if I'd asked him for it, his justification would have been I wasn't "safe" enough to take mum away.  Therefore, he might "allow" it with "conditions".  

There is a clear mechanism at work that is very consistent with his modus operandi:

1.  Take key things / information.  That was the first thing he actually did: took money / access/ information / paperwork. 

2. Control access.

3. Force requests for access.

4. Give reasons why such access is or should probably denied: e.g. simply assert I was unsafe / incompetent, thereby establishing a distorted narrative and power supremacy at one go. 5. Possibly allow X given conditions Y. If X did not inconvenience Pigface, 5. was worth doing simply on the basis that it consolidated the victim and / or other people of his supposed unilateral authority. 

Control mechanism 2: Accusations and discrediting 

These were a huge part of his control strategy. If he made a disparaging assertion, the suspicion was raised in the minds of others.  It puts the burden, not logically, or legally but psychologically on the other person to disprove it.  So he manipulates both ends: the person about whom he wants to raise suspicions and the people in whom he wants to raise them. If I were to try to validate myself I was automatically confirming the suspicions by playing on that pitch. I was automatically defending.

And he knew I wasn't an attacker, for all that he endlessly called me conflict-seeking. It was the same ploy.  Accuse someone of seeking conflict and when they say they're not, use that as evidence.  He just didn't want to be challenged.  It was all strategy.

Control mechanism 3: bossing about

If mum and I went to her house to sort through her enormous wardrobe, an alarm would ring on Pigface's phone, alerting him the door had been opened, and he would then spy on us through the house cameras, knowing we couldn't see him, then mock and manipulate me audibly, through speakers on those same cameras, knowing  that I knew he couldn't hear anything we said.  So I was mute, but visible.  He would ring then ring the house phone to distress mum, abuse me to mum, accuse me of things to mum, who wasn't going to remember but who felt distressed in the moment, leaving me to manage that distress afterwards.  He would also make practical demands to mum about mum, which was his way of bossing me around.  It wasn't that any of the things he said were important.  The primary reason was to make me do what he wanted because if he managed that, it was another way of asserting control and if I didn't do it he could accuse me of neglect of the house or similar.   

Control mechanism 4

The double bind.  There were endless variations of these and they were one of the worst of all the control strategies.  The example at the end of the previous entry is one example of such a double bind.