Have you ever had any experience of "Proxy Recruitment"?

[Caramel]

Have you ever had any experience of "Proxy Recruitmen" by your BPD partner?

Would you be able to share you experience please? How did it affected you?


"Proxy Recruitment:

A way of controlling or abusing another person by manipulating other people into unwittingly backing “doing the dirty work.

Sometimes attempts to control someone or abuse them are fairly obvious, with Proxy Recruitment however, manipulation of others is used to achieve the same aim in a highly secretive way.

Friends, colleagues, or family members may be drawn into the perpetrator’s game plan through false accusations of abuse, smear campaigns or distortion campaigns, and these people are then encouraged to take up the perpetrator’s cause against the victim.

Proxy recruitment can be an extremely powerful way of establishing control over another person. It forces the victim into a defensive posture - justifying themselves or denying false claims to friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances and authority figures. It often attempts to reverse roles in the eyes of others - casting the abuser as the victim and portraying the victim as the real abuser. It also deflects attention away from the abuser and provides cover or justification for further abuse to occur."

[goldylamont]

hi, by "proxy recruitment" i think you may be referring to "triangulation" -- i have to say that i may not be 100% correct here. and also they are pretty strict here about making sure people use the word triangulation correctly as many people misconstrue the word for another behavior, which is more of a "love triangle" (i.e. playing you against another or former romantic partner).

[Window]

As a child, I was the pawn in what you describe as "proxy recruitment." My parents were divorced. My mother would threaten me with abandonment or say "if you don't xyz then you don't really love me" in order to force me to do/say horrible things against my father. My mother drug my father to court so many times that the judge (in front of me when I was 8) threatened to terminate both of my parents' rights and place me in foster care.

Needless to say, it sucked. And I felt very guilty--I adored my dad and hurting him, like she forced me to do, was like cutting off one of my own limbs. Fortunately he knew exactly what was going on and how I was being manipulated.

[Deb13]

Caramel,

I feel for ya here... .I really understand this one.  I'm no expert on the definitions for the psychological terms, but; triangulation to me would be just that - between three people.  Proxy Recruitment is exponential triangulation MUCH more painful.  My experience with this is brutal.  An underlying factor is family dysfunction, jealousy, and emotional immaturity.   My sister is a cop with control issues.  She hates any attention directed at other family members other than herself.   My sister pulled every family member, friend, cousin, a/u, into her game of abuse.  She used a death in the family to create more pure hatred and destroy my credibility.  I was called the, "angel of death" and not allowed to visit my dying family member.  She had persuaded other family members that I was selfish Bitxx.  I had LC for ten years and then went nc with ALL family.  I try to find happiness in anything great or small.  My faith and trust is in God alone.  He alone brings me peace. I have NO expectations of anyone on earth anymore.  I also have very few friends.  I struggle to stay alive as the pain she grew is so painful and evil. 

Have you ever had any experience of "Proxy Recruitmen" by your BPD partner?

Would you be able to share you experience please? How did it affected you?

"Proxy Recruitment:

A way of controlling or abusing another person by manipulating other people into unwittingly backing “doing the dirty work.

Sometimes attempts to control someone or abuse them are fairly obvious, with Proxy Recruitment however, manipulation of others is used to achieve the same aim in a highly secretive way.

Friends, colleagues, or family members may be drawn into the perpetrator’s game plan through false accusations of abuse, smear campaigns or distortion campaigns, and these people are then encouraged to take up the perpetrator’s cause against the victim.

Proxy recruitment can be an extremely powerful way of establishing control over another person. It forces the victim into a defensive posture - justifying themselves or denying false claims to friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances and authority figures. It often attempts to reverse roles in the eyes of others - casting the abuser as the victim and portraying the victim as the real abuser. It also deflects attention away from the abuser and provides cover or justification for further abuse to occur."

[enlighten me]

I used to call it divide and conquer.

My ex wife used to say things about others so I would be put off of them. Then she would use the same tactic on them about me.

It worked really well as it meant no-one spoke to anyone else but her so she could do stuff with her friends because I was a bad person in their eyes and I would not be in a situation where her friends might let slip something as neither of us wanted anything to do with each other.

This all fell apart after my divorce when her friends and family decided to talk to me and found out the truth. They then opened up and told me everything she had been getting up to.

[Blimblam]

yes,

my brother pitting my step mom against me.  My step mom pitting my dad against both me and my brother.  My birth mom pitting me against my dad.

While I  for a long time would have anger fits and isolate my self and feel victimized.  At a certain point I rebelled.

[Louise7777]

Im not sure if this is proxy or triangulation (not sure of the terms). I call it divide and conquer, as somebody else mentioned.

I have 3 uBPD relatives, so you can imagine the chaos. I used to see them as jealous and bossy, but of course its a lot more than that. They made people chose sides and managed to destroy the family with such behaviour. Long story short, Im VLC/ NC with all of them.

[heartandwhole]

Hi Caramel,

Proxy recruitment sounds like simple manipulation to me?  I have never heard of that term and haven't found any clinical definition or studies about it. 

What are your experiences with this kind of behavior?

[Linda Maria]

Hi Caramel.  I haven't heard this term before, but I think my sister is doing something similar.  I am largely NC at the moment, trying to sort out my late mother's estate, and as we are joint co-executors she is able to keep jerking me around and delaying everything so it has been a nightmare for over a year.  She has told so many lies about me - some really horrible, and some just plain ridiculous - and in some cases - to close family friends - I can only assume it is to gain sympathy and attention and hope they will turn against me.  But these particular friends would never turn on either of us, and have made that clear, so it seems pointless.  Even more mad lies have been told to neighbours, estate agents, solicitors etc, - but again it's pointless, as firstly - people who aren't involved with her on a personal level can largely see through it - which makes me feel better - but I can't get my head around why she does it - as these people are not important in my life long term anyway - who cares if they like me or not?  She has some good friends I am not close to, and I dread to think what they have been told - I don't hear everything thank goodness.  But I agree that it is a form of manipulation - and in my sister's case I think it is about sympathy, attention, drama, and of course to blacken my character.  The sympathy, attention, and being a victim situation has been going on a very long time - the turning so completely on me is recent - though there were some instances of it very long ago when I still lived with her in my parents' house.  I only started to think she might have BPD quite recently, when I realised just how mad and pointless, and easily disproven most of her lies are.  It is all completely self-defeating and she is stopping her own life moving on just as much, if not more than she is messing mine up.  I will look up proxy recruitment and see if I can find out more and I will let you know.  Good luck with it all.  JB

[HappyChappy]

My BPDm works hard at creating jellousy between her kids. Typical triangulation. I got 5 black eyes before going to High school, due to syblin rivalry/jellousy. Always my fault for apparently annoying her GC. Odd now, that my black eyes from an older brother, where my fault. But bless their cotton socks, they're just little helpes kids at hart. (not).