Guide for knowing if someone truly values you:
We live in a world where many people have a basic understanding of love. They get their philosophy from celebrities, which causes a disconnect because many of those celebrities are shallow at best, and what they’re saying is just some words they’re reading off a teleprompter. Because of that, unless one has really been through some trials in life, one’s understanding of love will be very limited, which leaves them susceptible to the charms of a predator.
‘Breadcrumbing’ is a narcissistic tactic where the abuser puts out very minimal effort to give a false sense of hope to the codependent that better is yet to come if only they put out a little more effort, (or a lot). Breadcrumbing, otherwise known as ‘future faking’ or sending mixed signals, is a nasty, yet effective tactic because it plays on the target’s sense of hope for a future that the abuser, or puppet master has no intention of fulfilling, therefore they lied without making any verbal promises, so they can use plausible deniability to escape accountability, while leaving the target feeling confused on the inside, and looking crazy to the public. But I assure you, you are NOT crazy, they are. Normal people don’t delight in hurting others for their own personal amusement. There’s something deeply broken inside many of these people, but I’ll save it for another article.
What you can do is to seek understanding as to what just happened, and learn from your mistakes. But that requires a lot of soul searching, and it’s actually quite challenging. If you keep attracting people into your life who are sending mixed signals, they must notice something about you that signals to them that they can get away with this shit. In Jamaica we have this saying, “Duppy know who fi frighten!” Translation, “a ghost knows who to scare!” Most narcissists are cowards, and they won’t fight a losing battle, they only target people with weak boundaries.
It’s like the bully on the playground, for example. He’s not going to target the popular kid, he always targets the lonely kid, or the new kid, or the kid with the weird haircut who the bully instinctually knows will be isolated by the group because he’s viewed as “not cool.” The same tactic is used by pedophiles, he’s not going to target the kid with friends, only the lonely kid, the weak kid, the vulnerable kid, the kid neglected by his peers, or even his very parents. Predators don’t approach you the first day they see you, they study first, and sometimes they send out one of their henchmen to heat test you before approaching you themselves. Narcissists have ways of testing your boundaries before you even know they exist, and we all know the narcissist is a cold-blooded, calculating reptilian predator.
It’s true that you may have weak boundaries, but your weak boundaries are not your fault. If you were raised in a broken home with narcissistic parents and relatives, you can bet that they groomed you from a very early age to be a doormat for others. They created a toxic environment that normalized dysfunction so the natural sense of discernment that you were born with would be diminished, and you wouldn’t be able to pick up on the blaring red flags that would be obvious to those who were raised healthy. To top it off, they’d then reinforce that with lies, such as: “What you gonna do, we’re still a family regardless,” or, “family stick together, no matter what,” or, “everybody got their days, and their ways,” or, “oh well, it’s just the way people are.” Basically telling you to shut up, and get over it. What that does is to invalidate your feelings, and make you feel like you’re wrong for being offended, or selfish for not allowing yourself to be abused for the personal amusement of those who are truly selfish. Who died and made them king of the world?
Another thing they’d do is to starve you into submission, and then give you so very little after you done gave up so much of yourself. What this does is to trauma bond you into staying stuck with them believing that if you keep giving more of yourself, they’ll reward you with something of equal value to what you already gave, when what you really should’ve done was to cut your losses, and go no contact from a situation where the only guarantee is that you wouldn’t receive any kind of justice. Then there’s the biggest lie of all, “people change!” No, they don’t! What a load of crock! Humanity is inherently selfish and solipsistic, always has been from the dawn of time. There are entire history books littered with stories of rape and bloodshed. Are you fucking kidding me?
It also gives you false hope that, “I’ll finally prove everybody wrong about me, and get the respect I deserve.” Chances are, they already know your inherent worth, they just want to control the way you see yourself so you’ll always rely on them for validation, because they know that you really are entirely too good for them, and they truly don’t deserve you. This is the kind of gaslighting that they use to train your mind to be a lifelong crumb chaser, which would suggest that you’re in a propaganda bubble. Their motives were very selfish, and rooted in envy. They wanted to cut you off at the knees to make sure you can’t survive in this “big, mean world” without them, and that if you just up and left anyway, you’d fall prey to others who are like them as a form of punishment for deserting them. They’re very sadistic!
What happened to you was not your fault, but it is 100% your responsibility to unlearn all the toxicity that was taught to you, and get your mind right, but you can’t do that by staying around them, when all they will do is keep you further confused as a means of control, so you have to find a safe space, and allow yourself to vent in ways that are healthy. Give yourself as much time, and space as you need, you don’t owe anyone anything. It’s ok to not be ok! I find that writing and podcasting helps, and has been very therapeutic for me this past year, perhaps more so than to lay down on some couch in the office of a shrink. This is how many songs are written. You went through the pain, now you deserve to get paid. Solitude also helps, it brings about clarity, and with clarity comes healing. Don’t forget to fall asleep to the sound of guided meditation. They have some really good ones on YouTube that promises to clear your mind, cleanse your chakras, and raise your vibrations.
Do plenty of research in your spare time, and gather as much intel on the psychology of these kinds of people as possible. Take as much time as you need to heal properly, but there will inevitably come a time when you’re ready to face the world once more, and when you do, you should remember to keep these tips in mind when exercising discernment with the people you meet:
1. Someone who cares enough about you will never leave you guessing, there will be no question as to where you stand in their life.
2. No one is ever too busy for the right person, someone who cares enough about you will always make time for you. I always say, if you want to see if someone is truly too busy, try owing them $10, and see if they don’t move mountains, and make time to hunt you down.
3. The person sending you mixed signals would never send mixed signals to someone they actually respect, and someone they’re really serious about.
4. Therefore, if they’re sending you mixed signals, it must be that they’re taking you entirely too much for granted.
5. Someone who cares about you in the slightest will never use your heart and mind as their own personal plaything, let alone if they actually love you.
6. If someone truly cares about you, you won’t have to trade your time, energy, money, food, sex, or any other resource in exchange for their time and attention, simply showing up as yourself will be enough, and anything you give after that will be reciprocally exchanged.
7. Someone who is of a benevolent nature would rather go without, or find someone else before they’d ever leave you feeling cheated, and it doesn’t require them caring about you in the slightest, they’re just doing what they know to be right.
8. Many people are rushing into relationships without even knowing what love is. Love is best defined in 1st Corinthians 13, 4–8 where it talks about love being patient and kind. Pay keen attention to verses 5 and 6. Verse 5 says, “it does not dishonor others,” and verse 6 says, “love does not delight in evil.” Someone who leads you on with mixed signals is not doing you any honor, in fact, they are rejoicing in evil. And we know that evil spelt backwards is “live” so I think it’s pretty safe to assume that anyone who leads you on is against you having any kind of a fulfilling life. What makes it so evil, though, is that they could’ve so easily set you free to be with someone else, but their ego won’t let you go because then you’d “win the game,” so they’d much rather hijack your life with false promises, and make it all about them with no regard to how your life is affected in the process. Maybe you need to hear someone actually say it, so here goes — breadcrumbers are your ENEMIES.
9. If you focus more on commanding the respect of others, versus chasing love externally, your chances of getting lead on will be next to none, because those who respect you will never send you mixed signals, and those who don’t, will never be granted access to your life in the first place.
10. If you have so much of yourself to give, why not give some of it to other benevolent people much like yourself who will value, and appreciate you, and will reciprocate your gifts with gifts of their own, versus giving it all away to users and takers, who will only leave you so broken, that you won’t even be able to recognize a good person when you meet one, and will actually bleed on those who never cut you, which would be so devastating if that were to happen, but yet it happens oh, so often, it’s the ultimate tragedy. Whatever you do, don’t forget to keep back some for yourself.
11. The best way to command the respect of others is to respect yourself first, and foremost, because, if it shows that you have no self-respect, even the people with the best intentions won’t deal with you past basic social exchanges.
12. You will never know the intentions of a total stranger you literally just met unless you suddenly learn how to read minds. Just because you feel a certain way about a particular subject matter doesn’t mean they feel the same as you do, that’s basically you projecting your feelings unto them, whether, or not you are aware that you’re doing it. Some of you are entirely too trusting, when in fact, you’d be more likely to discover someone’s true intentions by putting them through a thorough, and rigorous vetting process. Character is revealed when pressure is applied.
Meeting other benevolent people is no easy task, especially in the midst of all this madness. Those who are genuinely good people have to play tough to prevent from being made a target, and off course, who could blame them, but at least it gives one an incentive to dig deeper, and really get to know someone, so there is still some good to it. It takes work and time, and requires a lot of patience, and energy, but if you stay the course, what you’ll eventually find will make it all the more worth your while. If nothing else, then you’ll certainly have something to compare your past experiences to, which will make it very apparent to you that you were living in a propaganda bubble all along, and that there are so many genuinely good people out there. Now you could board a flight to someplace far away, and sure that’d be very helpful, but the best part is, you don’t have to do any of that. There’s good people right there in your town, maybe not as much as in other places, but they’re there alright, all you have to do is go out more.
