Deconstructing Mind Games
Understanding why alienators behave the way they do and what they are really after - STRT March 2026
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Whiplash
One of the best depictions of psychological abuse I have found in recent media shows up in the film Whiplash, starring J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller.
The film is about an abusive and volatile Jazz instructor named Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) who takes on a new drummer, Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller). Neiman quickly learns that to succeed in Fletcher’s band, he must perform at a high caliber. However, Fletcher does more than just set a standard of excellence. He plays mind games with the band, leaving them always doubting their ability, so they will grovel at his feet and go to extreme lengths for his approval. Essentially, Neiman, as the new band member, is being trained to attach his sense of self-worth to Fletcher’s evaluation of Neiman’s performance.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Below is a clip of one of the film's most iconic scenes, in which Neiman learns what it really means to be in Fletcher’s band.
In less than 5 minutes, you have seen examples of:
Gaslighting (Trained musicians have pointed out that the tempo was fine at first until Fletcher singles him out and makes him doubt his performance. And as someone who was in concert band for 7 years, you cannot adequately experience tempo in 2 seconds. This was a mind game.)
Building someone up to tear them down. (We got Buddy Rich (a famous Jazz drummer) over here.)
Physical violence to establish authority and power. (Invasion of personal space, throwing the chair, and slapping)
Public humiliation. (Insults in front of the band, yelling in his face, forcing him to say I’m upset in front of everyone)
Punitive modeling (singling out one person to keep the group in check. Notice no one stood up to Fletcher when he threw the chair or slapped him. Everyone was looking away or straight.)
Twisting emotions to fit a specific narrative (Are you upset? No? Because you don’t give a shit about this? Say you’re upset. Say it so the whole band can hear it.)
Deliberate attacks on Neiman’s sense of competency. (Count me a 215 beat. Can you even read music?)
Unpredictability (quiet to suddenly yelling, throwing the chair, and slapping, constantly changing the starting point for the music)
Now, alienation and abuse operate on a spectrum, so I cannot say for certain that every child will or has experienced this level of harm. Still, I can say that in my own life, I have experienced moments like these at least three to six times each month while living with my alienator. They have happened so many times that I don’t remember 95% of them because they felt mundane. The ones I do remember are fragments of the worst ones.
There was no way to predict when these outbursts would happen, nor what they would be about.
I remember as a child (around 7 - 8 years old), I was being scolded for something trivial about school, and my stepmother (the alienator) suddenly changed topics and asked me, “What is your name?”
I replied, “Andrew.”
She slapped me across the face before yelling louder, “What is your name!?”
I choked out again, “Andrew.”
Smack.
She moved up close so that her nose was almost touching mine before growling, “If someone asks you your name, you say ‘my name is…’”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Andrew?”
Smack.
“Are you a mouse? Say it louder so I can hear you! WHAT IS YOUR NAME!?”
My name is Andrew.
There was no lesson in what she was saying. No hidden wisdom or revelation to be had after pondering over it. The randomness of that moment had nothing to do with my character or whatever trivial school matter I was in trouble for. It was purely for the act of destabilizing me as a child so that I would be afraid of what she might do next. She wasn’t teaching me etiquette.
Even if you removed the physical violence from my story or Whiplash, these power games would still be highly effective. Most of the time, this involves behaviors like grandiosity, overstepping boundaries, shaming, and degradation.
Games People Play
In game theory, you have two or more players who are making decisions to maximize their own outcomes, knowing that the results depend not only on their own choices but also on the choices of others. So each person must think ahead, anticipate how others might act, and adjust their strategy accordingly. Much like a chess game or a negotiation, you don’t just plan your next move. You plan the next 5 to 10 moves based on what the other player might do. Every move changes the situation for everyone involved.
In Eric Berne’s book, Games People Play, he takes this logic beyond economics and politics (which is where you often see game theory applied) and into everyday life, arguing that many of our conflicts, relationships, and repeated frustrations aren’t random or accidental, but follow predictable psychological ‘games’ that people unconsciously play to get attention, control, validation, or a sense of safety.
You might think, “Why play mind games when a person can get love, affection, and countless other benefits just by being genuine, kind, and empathetic?”
And that is where most people are mistaken.
The premise of the question assumes that an abusive person is seeking love and community, when in fact, they are looking for something different altogether.
I will explain this further shortly.
We can all speculate why love and community were never the goal of an abusive person… perhaps they don’t understand the concept of love, past traumas have led them to develop mental illnesses or pathogenic disorders, or they learned at an early age that relationships are places of leverage.
What matters more than why they arrived there is what they are actually optimizing for. An abusive person is not playing the same game as someone seeking connection. They are playing for control, emotional regulation, identity reinforcement, or psychological survival. Where a healthy person is trying to build something with another human being, an abusive person is trying to extract something from them.
This is why turning the other cheek doesn’t work as a counter-strategy with abusive people.
Kindness, transparency, and empathy are practical tools only when both people are engaged in reciprocity. In a psychological game, those traits become exploitable to an abusive person. For example, vulnerability becomes information that can be used against you later, and forgiveness is perceived as permission to keep crossing boundaries.
Seen through this lens, abusive behavior stops looking irrational or self-defeating. It is internally coherent to the abuser. The behavior reliably produces the payoff or reward that the abuser is seeking—namely, attention, dominance, emotional discharge, reassurance of power, or relief from their inner chaos. The cost (damaged relationships, erosion of trust, even isolation) is acceptable because chances are, connection and love were never the objective in the first place.
The confusion actually lies in the person seeking love, kindness, and affection. They are the ones completely bewildered, asking themselves, “Why do they keep doing this?”
It boils down to trust and expectations. Most people trust others because they hope the other person will act in alignment with their own values. They only stop trusting someone after the other person crosses an arbitrary threshold for breaking their trust. Since this is a subjective benchmark, we often see people repeatedly entering a cycle of being with someone who takes advantage of them, only to defend that person to justify staying with them.
When it comes to trust, I have a personal maxim I stand by:
“You can only trust a person to act in accordance with their nature, and it is in a person’s nature to preserve their safety and secondarily, their identity, at all costs.”
If necessary, a person will sacrifice their identity to ensure their physical safety. You see this with alienated kids and abuse victims in general. For the abuser, their identity is rooted in the ecstasy that comes from feeling powerful, in control, and being the center of attention. And you can always trust they will behave in ways that feed that excitement.
And I do not say that lightly. There are times when people misbehave because they are tired, hungry, lonely, or emotionally distraught, and that is normal. We all have had those moments. And we have the capacity to do better next time. There are times when our own habits and fears get in the way of our growth. Sometimes, it takes a while for a person to grow and shed bad habits. That is part of being human.
But if there is a consistent pattern of behavior, a refusal to take accountability for those actions, and an absence of a desire to grow, then the behavior is rooted in their identity. Can a hurtful person change their identity? Yes, it happens all the time, but it's not your job to transform them.
You can only trust a person to act in accordance with their nature, and if their nature is to behave in a hurtful way, you need to act accordingly.
I remember a short (fictional) story about a hiker who was trekking along a trail when a snake suddenly lunged from its hiding spot and bit the hiker in the leg. Then, the snake slithers away. The hiker, upset that he was bitten, goes deeper into the woods trying to find the snake so he could ask it why it bit him. Unfortunately, the venom spreads throughout his body, and he dies while searching for the snake.
A snake will bite you because that is what snakes do when they are afraid. An abusive person will abuse you because they are getting exactly what they want out of you. To ask them why is the same as walking into the woods with snake venom in your leg.
I won’t say that Berne’s book, Games People Play, is a must-read, as it is pretty technical to the point where I have to read and process it slowly. That said, if you like reading about psychology, it can be enlightening.
What I will do here is take three psychological games from the book and share them below. If this article is helpful, let me know in the comments, and I can write a Part II article featuring other games worth knowing about.
Note: The author is quite cheeky with the names of his games. They will be represented as they are seen in the book.
Alcoholic
Alcoholic isn’t always about drinking, but it helps frame the game really well.
In the game Alcoholic, there is a recurring cycle where an emotional crisis takes place again and again. The alcoholic says, I will be better next time, only for them to relapse again and instigate another cycle. In the context of this game, the alcoholic is not trying to get better because the emotional drama feeds into their desires for getting attention, experiencing the emotional intensity, attaining a sense of power, or relief from inner tension.
Here is a play-by-play description of the game so you can see what I mean.
There are 5 roles in the game:
The Alcoholic: The person who instigates the conflict or crisis.
The Persecutor: This is the person who punishes/scolds the alcoholic for relapsing.
The Rescuer: This is the person who sweeps in to comfort and encourage the alcoholic. This person often offers advice, words of hope and optimism, and sometimes protection from the persecutor.
The Patsy: This person is the enabler. Using alcohol as an example, this is the friend who says, “Come on, it’s just one beer.”
The Connexion: This person represents the direct connection to the source of the conflict—whether it is alcohol, drugs, or emotional attention.
You don’t always need five people. You can have multiple people play one role or one person play multiple roles.
The Alcoholic begins by doing something that initiates conflict. With the alcohol example, it would be the breaking of their sobriety. This is the setup for the game, but it is not actually the start. The start of the game is the reaction that follows afterward.
The game starts with the people around the Alcoholic, reacting to the break of sobriety.
The Persecutor argues and yells that the Alcoholic is destroying their life. The Rescuer comforts the Alcoholic, saying mistakes happen, and tells the Persecutor to back off. The Patsy may enable the behavior by offering money, helping the Alcoholic by covering up with a lie, or providing access to whatever fuels the crisis (like more alcohol), often under the guise of compassion or understanding. The Connexion provides the actual means, like a liquor store or a bar. Each role believes they are responding appropriately, but together they form a self-reinforcing system.
As the conflict unfolds, the focus shifts away from the original action and onto the emotional reactions surrounding it. Arguments intensify among the different roles, and emotions reach an all-time high. Everyone becomes preoccupied with managing the situation.
And the Alcoholic is now the center of attention.
Eventually, the crisis peaks and begins to burn itself out. This is when the Alcoholic enters what Berne called the “morning after.” They express guilt, shame, regret, or self-loathing. They may talk about how awful they feel, how disappointed they are in themselves, or how they “hate being like this.” This moment often takes the form of insight or remorse, but it also delivers the emotional payoff the game is built around, which is getting attention, manipulating people’s emotions, and getting emotional relief.
The thing is that sobriety was never the goal. Consciously, the alcoholic might wish for it, but subliminally, they are addicted to the emotional conflict. Seeing other people argue over the alcoholic, chastise each other (or the alcoholic), and offer comfort gives the alcoholic a sense of control over others and their emotions. It also validates their sense of importance because everyone is showering the alcoholic with some form of attention.
The game does not end because there will be a temporary moment of sobriety before the alcoholic relapses, and then the game restarts with compounding intensity.
Not every situation involving alcohol may play out like this, but this is the game's framing. For example, you see this same game play out in affairs. The alcoholic is the cheater, and they have an affair. The partner finds out, playing the role of the prosecutor, and says we will never get back together. The cheater says that after some time, they realized the truth was their original partner had always been there for them, and they feel terribly sorry for hurting them. They grovel until their partner switches to the role of patsy/enabler and takes them back. After a brief pause from the drama, the cheater has another affair. Shocker.
In alienation, you may see a variation of this game play out without alcohol at all.
Instead of a bottle, the trigger might be a variety of things, including but not limited to:
An emotional outburst
A false accusation
A claim that the child is unsafe, traumatized, or being harmed
Refusal of allowing visitation.
Demanding child support or alimony
Taking you back to court
The structure is the same. A destabilizing event is introduced, and the people around it react in predictable ways.
The alienator takes on the role of the Alcoholic and they initiate the crisis. Just like breaking sobriety, the action itself is only the spark.
The game starts when the surrounding system responds.
The targeted parent becomes the Persecutor, who is framed as attacking the alienator, even though their accusations might be justified.
At the same time, there is another layer to this role that is easy to miss. In many alienation cases, the targeted parent is not only cast in the role of the Persecutor, but also functions as a primary Connexion. Their emotional reactions, attempts to reason, legal pushback, and visible distress become part of the fuel that keeps the game alive. Even while being attacked, the targeted parent’s engagement supplies attention, intensity, and meaning to the alienator. Simply put, your emotional distress is akin to alcohol for the alienator. This is what is commonly referred to as “negative narcissistic supply.”
Another person close to the alienator becomes the Rescuer, rushing in to “protect” the child or comfort the alienator. They tell you, the prosecutor, to back off and call you the source of the problem.
Others (school staff, friends, family, etc.) take on the role of Patsy, believing the alienator’s story and offering sympathy, resources, or unquestioning support. Positive narcissistic supply.
Other Connexions (police officers, lawyers, therapists, etc) will legitimize the crisis and raise the stakes, usually providing more attention, authority, validation, legal pressure, or a receptive audience.
As the conflict reaches its peak, the focus is less about the alienator’s actions and more about your reaction. The entire structure of the game is designed to provoke you into defending yourself, explaining, pleading, or exploding. Once that happens, the alienator no longer needs to justify anything. The negative spotlight has moved to you.
This is why alienation conflicts so often feel upside down. The person who initiated the crisis fades into the background, while the targeted parent is scrutinized for tone, emotional regulation, and response. The original behavior becomes secondary to how “reasonably” or “calmly” the targeted parent reacts under pressure.
From the alienator’s perspective, this is a success.
They are not simply trying to “win” an argument or do what is best for the kid. They regulate their internal state by controlling others' emotional states. When people argue, panic, rush in to rescue, or accuse, the alienator experiences a sense of stability and familiarity.
Chaos on the outside helps them forget the chaos on the inside, and that is why the conflict keeps repeating.
As a parent, you may see yourself playing other roles in this game in the past with the alienator. Maybe at one point, you played the Patsy or the Rescuer when they instigated drama.
Alcoholic is a complex game, but once you see the pattern behind it, you will see it in the alienator’s behavior everywhere.
See What You Made Me Do
See What You Made Me Do is a much simpler game than Alcoholic, but it is just as destructive.
Unlike Alcoholic, which relies on a recurring emotional crisis, See What You Made Me Do revolves around blame displacement.
See What You Made Me Do has a trigger event and is followed by a disproportionate action.
Then the person says something to the effect of, “Look what you did…”
At first glance, this can appear to be anger, stress, or poor emotional regulation. But when it happens repeatedly, it becomes clear that this is not about losing control. It is about avoiding accountability while still retaining the right to harm, punish, or intimidate another person. In this game, the abusive action is framed as a reaction rather than a choice.
There are fewer roles in this game, and they are easier to spot.
There is the Actor, the person who commits the harmful behavior, and there is the Trigger, the person(s) who is blamed for “causing” it.
A classic example is a person says, “Do not disturb me when I am working in my office.”
Later, another person opens the office door, disregarding this warning, and interrupts them. The person in the office jumps up, startled, spilling their coffee on their computer.
See What You Made Me Do!
Now accidents are bound to happen, and it is possible to be genuinely startled and make a mess. But sometimes the subconscious takes over, leading to an overreaction, allowing the person to justify their actions by blaming the person who triggered the game. Consciously, they did not intend to spill their coffee, but they did anyway so that they could have a situational reason to justify their outrage.
What keeps this game alive is not just the avoidance of blame, but the preservation of moral innocence, in which the person causing harm feels justified, righteous, or even virtuous while framing their actions as reactions.
Over time, this game teaches that responsibility does not belong to the person who acts, but to the person who supposedly “caused” the action, a belief that is especially damaging when absorbed by children.
In extreme examples, this can look like the typical domestic violence story where the victim says something that triggers the game. The abuser hits the victim and says, “I had to hurt you because you were being bad.”
I distinctly remember reading a handwritten letter from my stepmother (the alienator) a day after receiving a beating, where it started off with, “Andrew, I love you to pieces, but when you misbehave like this, I have to punish you. And it hurts Mommy so much.”
On another occasion, my alienator was going through chemotherapy as a result of breast cancer, where she said to me, “Andrew, I spoke to one of your teachers who said you were not behaving in class. When you act like this, it makes Mommy’s cancer worse.”
If you watched the video from Whiplash, you would see two instances of See What You Made Me Do.
The chair was thrown when Fletcher wasn’t happy with the tempo.
Since Neiman couldn’t tell if he was rushing or dragging, Fletcher asked him to count to 4 to show, and then slapped him just before the 4th beat.
See What You Made Me Do can happen very quickly and often can serve as a trigger for other games.
For example, an alienator could see that you have a new romantic partner and feel angry and jealous. They tell everyone that your partner would be dangerous for your child. The alienator warns your child that your partner is a drug addict and then withholds visitation. This kicks off See What You Made Me Do.
When you confront the alienator, you tell them that they need to stop violating the court order and keeping your child away from you, or else there will be consequences. You defend your romantic partner’s reputation and try to explain that they are not dangerous to your child. Other people hear about the confrontation and rush in to support the alienator. Now you are in the game Alcoholic.
Now I Got You Son of a Bitch
Now I Got You, Son of a Bitch is a game in which a person waits for someone else to make a mistake so they can finally unleash anger, punishment, or moral outrage with full justification. It is similar to "See What You Made Me Do," but instead of someone else being the trigger for an event, a trap is intentionally set for that person to walk into.
The core move of this game is not the wrongdoing itself, but the moment of catching them in the act. The player is not primarily interested in resolving the issue, correcting the behavior, or restoring trust. They are interested in the emotional payoff of catching someone in the wrong and punishing them for it.
There are only two main roles in this game.
There is the Captor, the person who has been waiting for the slip, and there is the Captured, the person who made the mistake and is now at the captor’s mercy. Sometimes the captor might lay a trap. They might ask the other party to make a promise they cannot keep or set a standard so high that the other person is bound to fail to meet it.
Once the mistake happens, the Captor moves in for the kill.
It is like leaving the cookie jar open and telling your kid, “Don’t touch the cookies,” and then waiting behind the corner for them to stick their hands in the cookie jar.
Or imagine your boss walks to your desk at 4:30 PM and says, “Hey, I need you to create a report for tomorrow’s meeting at 9.” The work day ends in 30 minutes, and this report will take you 4-6 hours to do. An abuse victim will likely stay up all night getting it done, but let’s say the report has some mistakes in it.
Now I Got You, Son of a Bitch!
They tell you how your behavior is wrong and may go into extreme detail about how harmful your behavior is to them.
The Captured is confused by the disproportionate level of criticism and chastising. They may engage in JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain), but they only end up playing into the game. The whole point was for the Captor to justify their outburst. Resolving the mistake was never the point. It is also not about setting a high standard.
What makes this game particularly destructive is that it feels righteous. The Captor can point to evidence and frame their reaction as reasonable and restrained, even though they could have been angrier.
Internally, the payoff is immense. The Captor experiences a sense of moral superiority, release of long-held resentment, and confirmation of a deeply held belief that people cannot be trusted.
The mistake doesn’t have to be legitimate. As long as it looks like a grievance was committed, that is enough. In the office example, if your boss was looking for a reason to fire you, then they basically fabricated a scenario to justify it on paper.
In Whiplash, the tempo was the trigger event for Fletcher to attack Neiman disproportionately. Whether or not the tempo was off was never the point of the exchange. Fletcher is not interested in the perfection of the music at that moment. The entire scene demonstrates that Fletcher sought to establish clear power dynamics within Neiman and reinforce his authority over the rest of the band through loud displays of anger and intimidation. The band has to be willing to grovel to Fletcher so that he can drive them to perform well on stage. In doing so, he gets all the credit.
In alienation, Now I Got You, Son of a Bitch often shows up as a constant surveillance of the targeted parent. The alienator, sometimes with the child’s help, waits for a moment that can be interpreted as proof of wrongdoing. When it happens, the response is immediate and disproportionate, with you facing accusations, outrage, punishment, or the withdrawal of access to your child. The original issue may be trivial or ambiguous, but once it can be labeled a “mistake,” it becomes an excuse to unleash long-held resentment.
What makes this game especially effective at alienating the child is that it recruits the child into the role of the Captor. Children learn that safety, approval, or alignment comes from noticing and reporting the targeted parent’s “mistakes.” Over time, they may become hypervigilant, interpreting neutral behavior as dangerous or wrong. When the child confronts the targeted parent—sometimes repeating adult language or legal accusations—the dynamic feels shocking and surreal. The targeted parent is left confused, apologizing for things they never intended or didn’t actually do, while the alienator frames the entire exchange as evidence of concern, protection, or moral responsibility.
Just like in Whiplash, the alleged wrongdoing is never the point. The point is to establish dominance, reinforce authority, and confirm the belief that the targeted parent is fundamentally untrustworthy.
Winning Unwinnable Games
The worst part about all these games is that you cannot win. There is no way you can logically argue the facts, explain your side, justify your innocence, or defend your position. And apologizing only makes it worse.
It always fails because the game was never about the triggering event in the first place. The game follows a strict script that cannot be changed. The whole point of the game is to gain a combination of the following:
Absolving the alienator of guilt, shame, or blame.
Receiving comfort, support, and affection from others.
Maintaining a sense of moral superiority
Regulating inner chaos by controlling external emotions.
Reinforcing an identity such as victim, protector, martyr, or authority.
The game follows a specific pattern, and the more you fight it, the bigger the payoff or emotional high they experience.
So many parents find themselves absolutely baffled because they cannot fathom why the alienator behaves the way they do. It was never about love, affection, and building a thriving family. The reason why nothing works with them is that you are trying to fix a problem while they are feeding off of your emotional distress.
And if you don’t see the game they are playing, you unwittingly get baited into a pattern of behaviors that serve their needs.
So, how do you win an unwinnable game?
You don’t play.
Now you might think, “Andrew, I have to do something because my child is with someone who is abusing them.”
If you are:
Being falsely accused of harming your child,
Blocked from seeing your child during your own custody time,
Pulled back into court again and again,
Reported to CPS, the police, or school staff without cause,
Financially strained through legal fees, delays, or sudden demands,
Blamed for your child’s distress while being denied access to them,
Pressured to respond immediately, emotionally, or publicly,
Then yes, “don’t play the game” can sound insulting or unrealistic.
But again, I am not saying roll over and give up, nor am I saying accept the accusations. I am saying, do not give them the emotional payoff they are looking for. Because that is what the game is all about.
Alienation thrives on panic and reaction. Your emotional responses get twisted, screenshot, repeated, and reframed as evidence that you are unstable, dangerous, or untrustworthy. The more distressed you become, the easier it is for others to believe something must be wrong.
You can still defend yourself in court, stand up for your rights, and focus on reconnecting with your child, while still avoiding the game. The objective of the game is to get an emotional reaction out of you. Deny the alienator that, and you suddenly become less interesting to them.
Instead, you focus your efforts solely on your child and your reunification. In severe alienation cases, you can follow the suggestions I mention in my article, Lighting Paper Lanterns.”
Most importantly, you want to adopt the grey rock strategy with your alienator so that they stop trying to bait you into a psychological game. Become so neutral and boring to them that they do not derive any emotional satisfaction from you. Eventually, they will turn to others to get their high.
Their behavior feels personal because it is related to you and your history together. But the truth is, if it wasn’t you, the alienator would have done this to someone else.
Now that still leaves the child.
A child who grows up surrounded by these games does not simply experience them as isolated incidents. Over time, the games become the child’s map for relationships. They learn that love is conditional, safety depends on pleasing the most volatile person in the room, and that conflict is resolved through emotional coercion rather than communication.
Children raised in these environments often learn to play the games themselves. Some grow into adults who unconsciously reenact them. Others go the opposite direction, repeatedly finding themselves in relationships with people who keep the games going for them, mistaking chaos for intimacy and control for love.
This is why not playing matters so much.
When you refuse to engage in the alienator’s psychological games, you are doing something profoundly important for your child—you are modeling a different way of being. You are showing them that emotional regulation is possible, that boundaries can exist without punishment, and that love does not require submission, panic, or self-betrayal.
Your child may not recognize this immediately. In the short term, they may appear distant, confused, or even aligned with the alienator. That does not mean your efforts are wasted. It means the child is surviving in the only way available to them in that moment.
By staying calm, consistent, and non-reactive, you become a stable reference point. You are the parent who does not escalate. The parent who does not collapse. The parent who does not demand loyalty through fear or guilt. Over time—sometimes much later—this contrast will arouse their curiosity and will serve as a guiding post for them.
Not playing also preserves your capacity to act wisely when real opportunities arise. When you are no longer drained by constant emotional battles, you can think more clearly, document patterns more accurately, and respond strategically rather than reactively. You protect your own mental health so that you can remain present for your child in the ways that actually matter.
That is how you beat an alienator in their own game.
Concluding Thoughts
There are quite a few games in Eric Berne’s book Games People Play, and they are just as prevalent as these three are in alienation. If you found this article helpful and would like to see more, let me know, and I would be happy to write Part II, featuring other common mind games people play.
Keep in mind, it is not just abusive people who play these games. Sometimes, a person might get so frustrated that they feel a game like See What You Made Me Do will get the message across.
No one is perfect, and we all have moments where we fall short of what is responsible behavior. At the same time, we have to recognize when someone is playing a psychological game, especially if they do it repeatedly.
With just these three games, you may already start to see patterns in your own life where someone was playing a game instead of genuinely trying to solve a problem. Perhaps, after some introspection, you might catch yourself playing a role in these games too. I know I have made the mistake of getting caught up in these games. I recently found myself playing the role of prosecutor in someone’s game of Alcholic.
When the dots connected in my head, all I could do was smack my head and say, “Ahhhh, I should have known better…”
All you can do is realize it and step away to protect your time and energy.
Being human is not about being perfect, but choosing to grow, love one another, and stand on our integrity. Spend the time with the people who enrich your life.
One of the best decisions I have ever made in my life was leaving my alienator. Only then did I have the space and freedom to take on challenges and become someone I wanted to be. I didn’t need to get permission or assess how the alienator would take it. That was only possible because I stopped playing into her game.
Playing a psychological game is like playing catch. The abuser throws the baseball at you. You catch it and throw it back. But imagine for a moment, you just don’t catch the ball. Instead, you watch the ball fly past you, and you just walk away. The abuser waits for you to run, retrieve the ball, and throw it back, but you don’t. Now they have to run all the way to get their ball and throw it to someone else. Doesn’t sound very fun for them right?
There is no greater punishment for a toxic person than to have no one to play their psychological games on.
Checkmate.
Until next time,
Andrew Folkler
Are you a writer on Substack?
If you write articles on alienation or estrangement let me know! I would be happy to exchange recommendations to better support our readers.
If you are a general reader who writes about other topics on Substack, please consider recommending Shortening the Red Thread, as that helps other parents find this newsletter so they can get the support they need to reunite.
As always, I deeply appreciate all your support, and I am grateful for your feedback as I develop these articles.