Dog- Whistling How manipulators abuse you on the sly in front of others

Today I want to talk about Dog-Whistling: How narcissists and other manipulators will abuse you in front of other people.

We recently put up this old video that was talking about reactive abuse. That’s where the person abuses you and then you emotionally react and then they blame you for emotionally reacting. They accuse you of being the abusive person, they get to play the victim.

And so in among those tactics of reactive abuse is “dog-whistling”.

People had asked me if I could talk more about that. So I said “alright let me just make a whole video on that to help you guys understand this.”

But first a quick announcement. I am so excited to let you know that we launched the Inner Integration Podcast. We’ve been working really hard to get the first few episodes ready for your bingeing pleasure. There’s three episodes up there now. You can go ahead and watch them all through. You’ll find it on iTunes.

The links are posted on the Inner Integration Facebook page with little teaser clips of the episodes. We will be releasing new episodes on Fridays.

So what is dog-whistling?

This is a political term actually. Technically “dog-whistling politics” is the term. I adopted this term into the vocabulary around narcissistic abuse because manipulators do this on a personal level too.

A dog whistle is a frequency that dogs can hear but humans can’t. So that’s the idea behind this term.

Wikipedia describes dog whistle politics as a political messaging implying coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.

So what does that mean? Essentially the dog whistle message has an understandable meaning for the general audience. They are regular words that mean something to the group present in the moment. However, what sounds like normal words to them actually has a secret meaning for only certain people of that group. Maybe one person, maybe more who are in the know, so to speak. So it’s very covert. Politicians, for example, will do this. You’ll see them speaking to other racists and bigots. They’ll use specific catch phrases and other racists and bigots will pick that up and they didn’t have to openly admit that they’re racist or a bigot but they connected with their target audience.

They’ll use dog whistle politics to insult minorities and other oppressed groups, they will use it to stoke the war machine, to stoke the war on terror, especially. That’s been huge in the last two decades. Sometimes they’ll use it to give a wink to Big Banks or Big Pharma or the Oil Cartel, letting them know that they’ll be taken care of and policies will be favorable if they’re elected.

So it’s very covert way to deliver a message. They’re not straight up expressing racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration, misogyny, or misandry. Essentially it is bigotry in the form of coded language so that only the person or persons targeted is or are insulted by it.

Narcissists and other manipulators can be very meticulous with their word choice. You might have noticed that. Especially when they’re lying or deceiving or trying to go around the topic and not tell you the truth. This is how they get away with dog whistling too on personal and societal levels.

The political level, that’s the societal level. They’re talking on the news or on TV. They’re talking in public. But they’ll do this on a personal level as well in their family, with their friends, at the office.

So dog whistling involves an the audience, a group of people. That can be any kind of social group, a work meeting, an interview, a family gathering like holidays with the families, or even social media. If you grew up with a narcissist in the family, you’ll surely remember that stuff happening at the dinner table because you couldn’t escape it.

So dog-whistling is something only between the manipulator and the target. It’s like an inside joke but it’s not funny. Only the target hears it because it’s based on something directed personally and specifically toward something that happened in the past, some kind of experience or event that you guys had together, something you did, something that you said, something that was going on, something about who you are, or something about who they’re trying to tell you that you are, like you’re not good enough in some way.

Someone had commented about how she didn’t complete her Ph.D. because she decided to save up money working in order to get the heck out of her situation. I think it may have been a family narcissist situation. She wanted to get out of there so she dropped out of school to make money to get out. And then I think it was her mom who would, at family events, shame her in front of people but very covertly talking about so-and-so who had a Ph.D. and how amazing that is and blah blah blah. Obviously making her feel horrible but nobody else can really get that at the table. Nobody’s putting that together. They think she’s just talking nice about this other person. The only person that feels it is the target, her daughter. So the target feels triggered, yet everyone else hears regular words and conversation. So you might even give the manipulator the plausible deniability, the benefit of the doubt. Or you might recognize the manipulation but if you speak up in front of the group you look mad, you look crazy, paranoid. They heard something else and they’re thinking “oh no there’s no way that had to do with it” because they just weren’t involved in that inside knowledge.

So the manipulator uses certain language words and topics to get under your skin while making the appearance of nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to see here.

So maybe for example you’re taking a car ride with your cousin your uncle and your aunt and your aunt says to her husband, “tell them about that crazy conspiracy theorist you met on the golf course.” So he starts laughing and he said this guy that he met was talking about how plane contrails are actually chemtrails and that they’re purposely spraying chemicals in the atmosphere. And everybody just cracks up, cackling, laughing and you’re just sitting there stewing. Because you know that your aunt knows that you’ve been talking about chemtrails for years but she refuses to notice that NASA actually disclosed that they’re doing geoengineering and spraying the skies. Your aunt knows that you’ve been talking about this for years and she staged this performance in the car in front of other people as a punishment for you because a couple of days before you didn’t give her what she wanted. She tried to gaslight you, manipulate you and take control of your time but you didn’t let her. So she took it out in this way to abuse you in front of other people.

Or maybe you’re at the holiday dinner. There’s lots of family there and your mom knows that you just broke up with your boyfriend or your girlfriend who hurt you or maybe a husband or wife. She starts the conversation across the table with your cousin about how he or she met the love of his or her life and how wonderful it is and how she deserves it and how true love always comes to those who deserve it. She just looks like a cheerleader for true love and for their love to the rest of the table. But you’re dying inside.

So this is how they dog whistle. This is how they trigger you in front of groups of people by saying specific things that will make you upset.

So what do you do in this situation?

You don’t react. You play dumb. Pretend to be like the others. Act like it went right over your head, it didn’t bother you, it didn’t mean anything to you. You weren’t even thinking about that. You didn’t even notice the correlation. Breathe because you’re going to be upset. Breathe and watch your face. Don’t give away your hand with emotional expressions on your face. If you’re looking really angry or if you’re sitting there with contempt on your face or disgust then they know they got you. So you’ve got to work on your poker face to not reveal that.

Then after, you want to go work out the anger and the other emotions when you’re safe at home or wherever it is that’s far away from that abusive person.

So that’s what dog whistling is. I’m sure now that you’re hearing this you’re thinking, “oh I can think of a whole bunch of examples where this happened with various different abusers”.

Just be very careful. It’s a form of gaslighting and it’s a form of manipulation. It’s how they can make you feel like you’re going crazy. It’s how they can make you look crazy in front of other people if you react. That’s why it’s so important that you don’t react and give them that.