How some friendships can evolve
✨Manipulative Friendship and the Psychology of Emotional
Disorganisation✨
🌸Abstract🌸
This paper explores the dynamics of a friendship that became manipulative and
emotionally damaging. It focuses on how lying, irresponsibility and victim performance can
grow out of emotional immaturity and psychological disorganisation. Drawing on theories
of relational aggression, the Dark Triad, emotional dysregulation and family systems, it
argues that when people cannot regulate their inner world, they often project that chaos
outward. The study views deceit and avoidance not simply as moral flaws but as defences
used to protect fragile self-esteem.
🩷Introduction🩷
Friendship is usually described as a relationship built on trust, empathy and shared
understanding. When that trust is broken, friendship can become a form of exploitation
rather than support. Being misrepresented by someone close, and hearing false versions
of your own actions, challenges your sense of truth and identity. Fehr (2004) writes that
friendship depends on an unspoken agreement of honesty and validation. When one
person violates that agreement, the relationship starts to tilt. This paper looks at a case
where a friend’s behaviour turned deceitful and unstable. It considers how disorganisation
in a person’s daily life often mirrors their emotional state and how manipulation can
become a way of maintaining control when self-control is missing.
🎀Relational Aggression and the Need for Control🎀
Crick and Grotpeter (1995) use the term relational aggression to describe indirect harm,
such as damaging someone’s reputation. Paulhus and Williams (2002) found that people
with narcissistic, Machiavellian and psychopathic traits, known as the Dark Triad, use
deception as a tool for power and influence. Lies help them control how they are seen and
protect their self-image. In this case, the manipulative friend often changed details or told
stories that placed herself in the role of the misunderstood victim. This shows the
narcissistic need to be seen as special and wronged rather than responsible. The need to
control the story becomes a substitute for genuine emotional control.
🧸Disorganisation as a Reflection of Inner Instability🧸
Roberts et al. (2009) connect chronic mess, poor planning and job loss with low
conscientiousness and poor impulse control. In psychology, this kind of disorder in the
outside world often reflects disorganisation within. When people cannot manage their own
environment, they usually cannot manage their emotions either. The subject of this study
often refused to help with household tasks, slept excessively and relied on others to keep
things going. The same pattern appeared in her emotional life. Just as the physical space
was chaotic, her relationships were unstable and inconsistent.
🎭Emotional Immaturity and Victim Performance🎭
Gibson (2015) describes emotional immaturity as the habit of avoiding inner discomfort by
shifting it onto others. This process, known as projection, allows someone to accuse
others of the very flaws they fear in themselves. The friend in this case regularly
exaggerated or even invented events, turning ordinary disagreements into moral dramas.
Linehan (1993) calls this pattern emotional dysregulation, which combines intense
sensitivity with poor coping skills. The person feels hurt easily and then redefines the
situation so that everyone else becomes the problem. Gibson (2015) also writes that
emotionally immature people often “use vulnerability as leverage.” The show of fragility
becomes a way to control others rather than connect with them. This can be seen in how
quickly new stories of being wronged appeared whenever attention began to fade.
👫Dyadic Compensation and Displaced Conflict👫
The manipulative friend also struggled in her romantic relationship. Bowen (1978) called
this kind of pattern emotional fusion, where one partner over-functions while the other
avoids responsibility. Kerr and Bowen (1988) note that when tension rises, the
under-functioning partner may pull in a third person as a release valve. In this case, the
friend projected her frustration with her partner onto someone else. By inventing
grievances about her friend, she was able to bond with her partner over a shared “enemy”.
Minuchin (1974) pointed out that couples sometimes strengthen their unity by focusing on
an outside threat. Yet when the partner finally grows tired of carrying all the responsibility,
the conflict returns home and the relationship faces the truth it was trying to avoid. The
behaviour, then, is not random cruelty. It is an attempt to manage anxiety and delay
collapse in an already fragile relationship.
Boundary Reconstruction and Recovery
For the person on the receiving end, the difference between what really happened and
what is being said publicly creates deep confusion. Herman (1992) argues that healing
from distortion requires reclaiming your own story. Choosing not to engage with lies or
gossip is not avoidance but a healthy boundary. Rebuilding boundaries is an act of
self-respect. It stops the cycle of manipulation by denying it the reaction it depends on. In
this light, detachment is not coldness; it is a calm refusal to participate in dishonesty.
🌈Lessons for Discernment🌈
The simplest lesson is to listen to how people talk about others. The way someone
describes their friends or ex-partners reveals how they see the world. When every story
they tell ends with them being betrayed or misunderstood, it is usually a sign that conflict
follows them because they create it. Bruner (1990) wrote that people “construct reality”
through narrative. If someone’s stories always revolve around being wronged, it shows a
self-image that depends on opposition. It is almost certain that one day they will tell similar
stories about you. Listening, therefore, becomes a form of quiet self-protection.
Discernment begins not in confrontation but in attention. Gossip is often a kind of
emotional autobiography. Every complaint is, in its own way, a confession.
🧘🏼♀️Addendum: Repetition of the Victim Narrative🧘🏼♀️
A final observation concerns the repetitive nature of the subject’s victim narratives. She
frequently described her former partner as “insanely abusive”, and yet similar language
began to appear in reference to friends and colleagues. This pattern raises questions
about the reliability of her accounts and the psychological purpose of such repetition. In
clinical literature, the use of highly polarised narratives, where one person is wholly good
and another wholly bad, is known as splitting (Kernberg 1975; Linehan 1993). It is a
defence mechanism that protects fragile self-esteem by simplifying complex emotional
experiences into binaries of innocence and blame. When this becomes habitual, each new
relationship provides the material for a familiar story in which the narrator is always the
victim and others are re-cast as aggressors. This repetition can also be understood
through the concept of narrative identity (Bruner 1990). People shape their sense of self
through the stories they tell. For some, victimhood becomes central to that identity;
suffering confers both moral and social significance. The problem is that this form of
meaning-making traps them in conflict. Any challenge to their self-image, such as
constructive criticism or accountability, feels like another episode of “abuse”, ensuring the
cycle continues. Recognising this pattern allows observers to step back before becoming
part of the script. When someone’s entire history is filled with villains, it is almost inevitable
that you will eventually be written as one too.
🍭Conclusion🍭
Manipulative friendships show how emotional immaturity, disorganisation and anxiety can
turn intimacy into control. Lies and self-pity are used to manage shame and avoid
responsibility. When someone cannot bring order to their inner life, they spread that
disorder into the lives of others. For the person who experiences this, recovery begins with
clear boundaries and self-understanding. Walking away is not defeat; it is a decision to
protect peace instead of chasing explanation. The final piece of wisdom is gentle rather
than hard. You do not need to become cynical to stay safe. You can keep your kindness
and curiosity, but you now know that trust must be earned through consistency, not words.
☄️References☄️
Bowen, M. (1978) Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Jason Aronson. Bruner,
J. (1990) Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Crick, N.R. and
Grotpeter, J.K. (1995) ‘Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological
adjustment’, Child Development, 66 (3), pp. 710–722. Fehr, B. (2004) ‘Intimacy
expectations in same-sex friendships: A prototype interaction-pattern model’, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 86 (2), pp. 265–284. Gibson, L.C. (2015) Adult
Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Herman, J.L.
(1992) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books. Kerr, M.E. and Bowen, M. (1988)
Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory. New York: W.W. Norton.
Kernberg, O.F. (1975) Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism. New York:
Jason Aronson. Linehan, M.M. (1993) Cognitive Behavioural Treatment of Borderline
Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Press. Minuchin, S. (1974) Families and Family
Therapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Paulhus, D.L. and Williams, K.M.
(2002) ‘The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy’,
Journal of Research in Personality, 36 (6), pp. 556–563. Roberts, B.W., Jackson, J.J.,
Fayard, J.V., Edmonds, G. and Meints, J. (2009) ‘Conscientiousness and its
consequences’, Annual Review of Psychology, 60, pp. 575–600. #PsychologyInsights #RelationshipPsychology #HumanBehaviour #SocialPsychology #BehaviouralScience London