This was good to read, but also disheartening. It gives a lot of examples of emotional blackmail, and it’s hard to read about how some people can be so incredibly selfish. One example is a man whose wife wants to take a class in the evenings, and he doesn’t want her to. He pouts and makes sarcastic comments until she decides it’s easier to not take the class. I’m feeling angry typing about it. I’ve had people like this in my life before. People who didn’t want me to do things that make me happy or wanted me to do things that didn’t make me happy. People who told me, “You don’t care about me, or you would do X*.”

It’s happened enough that now I do something that the author called self-blackmail. I don’t have any emotional blackmailers in my life right now, but I still expect it to happen, so I anticipate negative reactions from people and try to compensate so I don’t make them upset. It’s awful. I think this will wear off as I get more positive reactions from people, though.

The biggest thing I’m going to take away from this book is the phrase “I can stand it.” If faced with an emotional blackmail situation where I need to stand up for myself, I will tell myself that I can stand the reaction. I *can stand it.