How to break a person’s spirit
In order to break a person’s spirit, you have to start early in their life. Make certain that everything they do is met with a passive aggressive combination of pride and disappointment. For example “B+. That’s good! But you should have gotten an A on that.” Or “A size 8? Well, that’s pretty thin, are you gaining weight?”
Later in life, continue with backhanded compliments, moving slowly into no compliments at all. You’ve conditioned the person into automatically flinching whenever you speak, so the transition will be fairly simple. If the person gets a new job, tell them you hope they keep this one longer than the last one. If the person embarks on a new relationship, be sure to tell them not to screw this one up.
Eventually, you will be rewarded with an adult who is so confused and so lacking in self esteem, all you need to do is look at them and they will literally shrink away from you. When the object of your scorn and disappointment finally finds their niche, their dream, you can piss all over it, with very little effort. This is, after all, the moment for which you have prepared your entire life.
It helps if, as the person was growing up, there was someone else in the relationship who was always more important. It is extremely valuable to you to be able to say “Oh, we can’t make your premiere/recital/opening/birthday because Mom, Sis, Brother, Cousin, Grandma is sick/drunk/not ‘feeling well’/I have to go out of town.” Again, you are telling the person they are not as important as someone else. And this is a feeling that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Now, you have the skills, you have the practice, and you can move into the final phase of destruction. Understand that this phase is critical to the entire plan; if you cannot break them over and over again in adulthood, you have failed. The goal, after all, is to destroy another human being.
Everyone has a dream. Some dream of being an artist, creating works of breathtaking beauty. Some dream of being a CEO, running a multinational corporation and becoming a worldwide financial success. Others dream of writing the next “Ulysses” or being a Tony-award winning playwright. And there are some who feel the pull of the silver screen, their greatest desire being to act. Your job now is to quash that dream.
Again, you have everything you need to do this. Whenever the object of your experiment in destruction achieves something, don’t recognize it. Focus on the negative: color palette was too harsh, stock went down last week, misspelled words or improper syntax, stumbling over a few lines. Do not reward their success, exaggerate their failures.
If you do all this correctly and consistently, eventually you will be rewarded. Many people who have someone bent on their destruction end their own lives or turn to drugs and/or alcohol. And you can sit back, hands clasped behind your head, nodding knowingly and say “I knew they were too weak to really succeed. God knows I tried, but they never listened to me.” You will have to pretend to be sad, after all, this is someone others believe you love. But deep down, you can celebrate your own success and revel in the fact that you destroyed a human spirit.
Remember one thing, one very important thing. For the rest of your pathetic, miserable life on this planet, you will have to live with the fact that you actively and with malice aforethought murdered the soul of someone you claimed to love. Be it your wife, your husband, your child or your best friend, you felt the need to slowly pick away at every ounce of self esteem they had until they were bleeding on the floor. As you step over them to get to your luxury car or your next appointment or front row seats at a Broadway play or your golf game, remember that. Remember that you could have been kind, you could have been supportive and you could have been a good person, but you chose instead to destroy.
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I am in this situation where I can feel my spirit dying especially after my love passed, I no longer have my friend and companion (my little cat) whom I could go home to hug and he made me feel better by just being with me. I found this article because I realize this and it helps me tremendously, I am going to start to pick myself up again and continue my life and keep on walking with love and faith and hope and continue my dream.
Lisa, life is a roller coaster ride, everyone rides it with ups and downs. One thing you can believe and count on is change. Remember, you can control only you, what you do and say.
I’m glad you are a Christian. Go to your church and talk to your minister about your concerns. Ask your minister for help and guidance and how to communicate to your parents.
God is good, it’s people that make mistakes, there’s no blueprint for life.
You don’t say how old you are…Finish school, talk to your counselors, ministers and keep your faith. All things happen in God’s time, not ours. I have personally experienced this. My younger years were hard but I learned from my mistakes.
I now never doubt my faith.
It seems as though my family are doing this to me and for some time now. I can’t trust anyone anymore. The ones I trusted and love the most are involved and when I confront them they act as though they know nothing about what I’m saying but I know better. Why and how can people do this to someone especially the people they say they love and cherish.. All I know is if they break me mentally then that’s the same as murder. May god have mercy on their souls for this. And if this is what Christians are then I don’t want nothing to do with church. I could never do this to anyone. Where is peoples compassion at these days? I’ve had a long string of bad luck in the past couple of years and the more I try to do better the more they try to prevent me from doing it. Anyone that is a true Christian please say a prayer for me because I have noone. Im scared and all alone in this fight.
Hi , i just want to say that I feel exactly the same way as you do. I feel I was the victim of a sick game. All I keep saying is that I need help (to myself) I talk out loud to myself all the time and I keep trying to connect things amongst these 3-4 people. I’m getting nowhere and I’m scared
Thank You so very much this is for me. i feeel that my spirit is being broken thanks.
I’m sorry to hear that Yolanda.
Great text! Very moving.
I am watching the TV Series “Elementary” and the character of Sherlock is a “good” example for a victim of such a procedure.
I found this article, because I wrote an essay on the Second Season and wanted to know if I used the expression “break someone’s spirit” correctly
Now I am sure I did.
So, you know my mother?
Me coming on here and realising my dad does this to me… ouch.
Ouch is right! Sorry about that Ky.
Quite the good post Erin. While there are various ‘reasons’ people give for doing this to others, all are disgusting. Especially those who go around claiming that they did their best for the person and how dare they insult them by distancing themselves from their abuser. As that is what this kind of behavior is, abuse.
Perhaps someone shall read this and start down the path of understanding that they are the victim in all of this, not the failure they have been conditioned to believe themselves to be.
Bran, thank you so much for your comment. My sincere hope is that someone will read this and either stop their own behavior or an abused person will realize it’s really not them at all.
Ouch. Very powerful. I hope whoever you have written this for actually sees it and, more importantly, sees themselves.