They told me that if I went to college and got a job, I'd be able to afford groceries.

My cat pretends he's starving to death. Every day. Even though I just fed you, Mojo

A former close friend kept me (f) around as a backup plan while she waited for her ex to "stop dating other people" so they could get back together. It fucked me up bad when I learned about it since we were REALLY close otherwise, basically a LTR in all but name. It sent me into a downward spiral that took years to recover.

I cut her out of my life after she showed up unannounced at an address I never gave her to tell me they got engaged.

Oh, my parents take the prize.

To pick just one thing, I remember a disagreement about how to re-arrange the furniture my bedroom. I remember saying (and with regret as the words were leaving my mouth), "well, it is my room." Instant shitshow. She announced that since she wasn't needed she would be Running Away From Home.

Even at 5 or 6, I knew that this was the stupidest thing ever, but that she also wouldn't back down unless I cried and chased her and begged her to stay. She got out the front door and slowly walked towards the street, stopping every few feet to look back. She had nowhere to go, obviously. If this were going to be a battle of wills, I held all the cards. I was also six. If I had been 16, I might have thought to lock the front door behind her. In any case, even at that age I knew that if I somehow won this, things could only get worse.

Yeah, I whipped up some tears and ran after her. But she never tried that one again and I like to think that it was because she got all the way to the street before she got her intended outcome.

One of my former supervisors told me I was not meeting expectations, but he was willing to work through it with me. We made a PDP(Personal Development Plan) on which I worked hard for a couple months, getting good feedback all the time. When the plan was done we had a final meeting to conclude it and see where I stood. He spent almost an hour telling me how happy he was with my progress and how I exceeded the goals we had set, only to then pull the carpet from under me, telling me how he was in talks with another manager and that he was kicking me off the team. It's been over a year now and I still haven't recovered from that.

I’ll chip in. I had dropped out of college due to realizing the program wasn’t for me and had to move back in with my mom.

I had a bad habit of forgetting to lock the door, so to retaliate, she took all of my most expensive electronics and stashed them away, but claimed they were stolen (technically they were by her). This included my laptop with a full year of college work, which was mostly art that I cared a lot about.

I found out a year later from my dad that the whole family knew, but she demanded they keep it a secret. When I confronted her, she told me she had thrown it all in the garbage because at the time, I questioned if it was her that did it. Some totally backwards logic there.

Was going to write about an ex, but I think I'll talk about my parents. I went away to college, first year, first semester. Winter break come around and I'm planning on coming home to spend christmas with my family for a week or two, stay in my bedroom, etc. I arrive home for the first time since the beginning of the semester, and ... my bedroom is gone. My parents remodeled the house while I was away and they extended the living room by knocking out my bedroom. They never even asked me about it, told me anything, I just found out I have no place to come back to once I walked through the front door. That sort of brazen rejection as a teenager... it fucked me up.

First ex would threaten to kill herself everyday if I didn't bend over backwards for her.

Also shit that my parents did but they were young and dumb trying to raise a kid and our relationship is actually very solid now

It's a toss up between

1. R telling me she was on birth control, I guess thinking it'd keep me around if we had a kid, then when our kid was age 4 she said she had cancer and disappeared for several months. Turns out she never had cancer and just said that so I wouldn't think poorly of her for abandoning her child to run off with a guy in another state. ...Her child that she was barely present for anyway.
2. D getting me to empty my 401k to buy a house as an investment property for "our" retirement, only for her to keep it in the divorce. I could have pushed for it to be sold and gotten at least some of my money back, but she would have put up such a fight that I'd have spent in attorney's fees as much as I would have won from the sale, so it wasn't worth the fight to me, and she knew that.

What'd I learn from these? Not a whole lot, it turned out: my next relationship wasn't much better. But at least I figured out to end that one before it got TOO too deep.

My last ex was becoming increasingly verbal and even physically abusive. I broke up with her months ago when she laid her first hands (and a broom) on me. Since then, she tried to contact me throughout all the social media and even email while still running the smear campaign mill. I blocked her everywhere, tried to contact me through a friend (who saw through her bullshit and started spying for me instead - only for any hurtful stuff that may come my way) and even tried to unsuccessfully hack my fb, Yahoo and (even if she didn't know it, maybe from the "Forgot Password" prompt) my Outlook accounts. Even yesterday she sent me a degrading and triggering message from an old account of her that I forgot it existed. I'm going to the psychologist tomorrow to seek more healing support

I had an ex pressure me real hard to get an apartment with her so she could move out of her mom’s house. When I was apprehensive she started tanking her relationship with her mom, starting fights over extremely small issues, and then pointing at those fights as reason that she needed to move out immediately.

When I still didn’t drop everything to cohabitate, she moved to a town an hour away and started pressing me to borrow a car or hitch a ride to go visit her (my vehicle can’t do more then half an hour on the highway without overheating). The first and only time I went I had gotten a ride intending to spend the night. She was at work when I got there so I cleaned up some trash and had dinner delivered.

I don’t have a great memory of what all happened when she got home, but I ended up having a panic attack during which she was very intently pressing me to admit that something was my fault. After what felt like hours she abruptly grabbed her keys and left without saying anything about where or why she was going. I had to call my mom for a ride because no one else was answering.

Ex returned before my mom got there, apparently she was “giving me some space” and was now angry that I didn’t appreciate it. The next day I got a short-story-length text from her asserting that I needed to apologize for “freaking out over nothing”.

I reckon this wasn’t even really the worst thing, per se. But it was the last thing, so it sticks out a lot in my mind. Somewhere I have a folder filled with screenshots of the worst of the emotional abuse/manipulation. It’s easy to forget the unsavory parts of someone you loved once. You have to keep a record so you don’t get used.

My birth mother's constant gaslighting. I'm 4 years free of her shit and no longer working to the bone just to stay away from home.

I'm not going to detail everything but it boiled down to unclear directions, didn't happen the way she wanted yet exactly as she directed, gaslit me into thinking I didn't follow her directions.

Got old like milk as soon as I started writing down and recording what she initially said.

My exfather deliberately cooked food I didn't like to prove I actually like it and just do it for attention. He's a trained chef. It started when I was three and only stopped when I moved out and stopped eating his meals.

Mine is; forcing me to have sex with him twice when I had Norovirus and had JUST stopped the vomiting and diarrhea like 12 hours tops beforehand. His words "Well let me just use you" (to get off being the implication). Then he got Norovirus and made me take him to the ER and acted like an infant.

Don't ever tie your finances to someone who will wreck them and trap yourself forever is all I can say. Not worth it just to not be alone.

I’ve had an extremely physically abusive ex sign up for things under my name, leaving me to fight to have to cancel it. Even had to get a case number with this person.

I’ve had a teacher who tried to fail me for no other reason than they didn’t like my opinion on a project despite I was the only student who finished that project while everyone bailed for no other reason than it was summer.

I’ve had ex friends who would emotionally abuse me for no reason other than they were emotionally fucked up people like: Take off in the middle of the party pretend to be upset.didn’t tell us where she went. Try to call them. They wouldn’t return the call for 4 days leaving everyone worried about them. They were completely fine. They played the ‘im just an introvert’ bullshit. I know it’s bullshit cuz I am introvert and that’s not what introvert does nor is it an excuse. This asshole went on to do more shit like invite people she knew I had issues with expecting us to fight so she could be entertained fucking around with people. Luckily the other person caught on what was going on so we just played nice. We both felt used. She pulled the ‘I’m not picking sides’ which is picking sides. She did this to both of us I’m sure. The last straw was her involvement when I had been seeing a guy which ended badly. he was kind of an asshole and I was fresh out of a long term anyways and figured it was too soon anyways. So we just never called each other again and moved on. He started seeing one of her friends. But then would show up in my neighborhood and it felt like he was following me. Would show up to parties my own friends were having and my own department parties and ask about me, wondering when I’d arrive(we worked at same company but entirely different depts). When I told her I felt uneasy about him and felt a bit stalked she dismissed me. Told me he was not into me. I never spoke again to her after that. She was a wreck herself anyways. Kept hitting on one of my other friends who was feeling a bit creeped out by her. And dated a guy who was cheating on his girlfriend with her. Then he saw yet another woman…whom she got jealous of but..anyways.. glad I just moved away from that shitshow.

I had one ex friend who cried in computer class who was being bullied whom I thought I’d help out. They took the side of the bully and they both turned on me.

I could go on but there isn’t really a point to it. I learned some important stuff from this. Like boundaries. To watch and wait before jumping in to help. To observe other people for longer before trusting. To observe other people and their intent better.

But what was really important for me was to seek out the better people to surround myself with. They are out there. dwelling on this kind of bullshit serves nothing more than to overlook, distract from counting the good people in my life. Con artists are everywhere so don’t give them too much of your time and don’t let them live in your head free of rent. And don’t take up a reservation for resentment. Then all the good people get missed. Focus on the good ones. Don’t take them for granted.it’s real easy to turn into an asshole and not realize it when you start taking that for granted. So remember the good. Make it an intention.

Faked being pregnant. Had that happen twice from 2 different women.

Faked their suicide

Perhaps ironically to the title of this question, the most manipulative thing ever done to me might be to lower the bar of what counts as "manipulative", enough they can accuse me of doing it, and then talk about it as a part of their hate for me for years on end. When I hear the word, I think of a myriad of different parts and pieces that make up the modus operandi of what many might call a manipulative person. I might be unconventional if it helps somehow, but I'd never betray what could be called courtesy. This is in contrast to many people who dislike me and would point to me and say doing so much as going by a different nickname (my full birth name has many variants) depending on the setting I'm in falls under the wholly "manipulative" umbrella, and these are the same people who are known to go so far as reverse an account of what happened when needed, saying that I in turn am not to be trusted with the privilege of making a case for myself in the way courts are designed because they say privately to those who they want to cut off from me that it's me who would do that or would rig the game through aggression or psychology, which becomes more frustrating when I am the side with better proof, proof which, even if undeniable and even if situated right before their eyes, they will deny the existence or validation of, either because of everything I mentioned or because of such a large humanly innate hatred towards some real or perceived aspect about me that they will consider me inherently and irreversibly uncredible. Which in turn forces me to be more unconventional as the conventions have been rigged, which in turn feeds into the perception more that I fall under the "manipulative" umbrella, ad infinitum, with them often saying I am the grand exception to "you all are valid" or "everyone has value" as a result of all of this.

This has been going on for a decade, since before I was even an adult, sometimes in school/society/communicating with others. With me as well with the few people I consider permanently close to me, sometimes by contagion or sometimes because they think they are coordinated or synonymous with me. I have self-reflected a lot as a result, and ironically, in response to this self-reflection, those who criticize me (or those who don't as of then-yet) criticize me more saying I've become cold and calculating because the self-reflection has given what I do more of a mind and less of an intuition. When I seek console, I predominantly either get those in similar issues who nevertheless, or I get those who to my face offer "tough love" words but then are spoken to by the adversaries, right before, almost comically (in a tragic way) on a routine basis, devote undying loyalty to them based on their implied promises, as if they hadn't just told me it was nobody's business and used this as a basis to simply shoo my worries, with me saying to those who say it builds character that, if immorality builds morality, it is any wonder you value morality in the first place. They say trying to be the game changer opens people up, and to be the change I wish to be in the world, but I have tried being the better woman whenever someone is blind to the idea that they might be called to help others such as me in a similar situation to them, and they never open up, with the few individuals who have been by my side falling victim to divide and conquer, with many of them having psychological dilemmas in life that makes them all incompatible with each other. And conversely, when I dismiss them and other forms of the downtrodden, who are accustomed more to tend for themselves, I am accused of being hypocritical, for if I am in a situation similar to theirs, why should I be justified in not being there for them or for saying their own parallel issues are not supported by me? Even apologetically accepting the aura of being looked down upon is perceived as grounds to be criticized, often with it being said "she doesn't even deny it, so she MUST be guilty", let alone asking what makes for good acceptance of responsibility. And so, while awaiting help to arrive that might never come, because common sense has revealed itself to be a greater disease than anything considered neurodivergent, I go it alone, all while being mocked for this, them saying that me going it alone means there must be a reason I have no companions.

TLDR: The most manipulative thing done to me is to cast me into how I imagine public relations in Hell is like, or a living version of it.