Perception of Manipulation

 You've all met that someone who always thinks someone else or everyone else is trying to "manipulate them"

I've worked with special needs children, adults, and aging senior. I've had the same bizzare conversation patterns with seniors suffering from dementia as young people, and I noticed the same memory issue.

1. You cannot remember what you don't perceive to begin with. Sometimes what we blame on memory is actually a lack of perception.

2. There are all sorts of aspects of memory.

I want to talk about episodic memory and feelings of manipulation, or being confused. 

Episodic memory is the circumstances of an event. Context of the event. Some people never remember the context because they don't perceive the context to begin with.

Some people can't remember 5 minutes ago, or can't understand what 5 minutes ago has to do with right now.

Two people walk into a Chinese restaurant. They see a fat Buddha statue.

The man says, "We should put that on our wedding invitation."

They sit down order food, and wait. The woman bluntly says, "So, when are you going to ask me to marry you?"

In shock, the man only remember, "So, when are you going to ask me to marry you?"  because he doesn't perceive what 5 minutes ago has to do with right now.

Cute. But a serious problem when you are 6 months pregnant and your husband doesn't have a clue why you are pregnant again and when the baby got there. Yeah, that's problematic.

Not a joke. 

They feel confused, and explain their confusion as some sort of manipulation by the other party. 

Always remember, their lack of memory, intelligence, or understanding, is not on you.

A perception of manipulation due to their own confusion can be very dangerous with someone in need of constant domination of others.

That being said, once you realize you are dealing with someone with a memory or perception deficiency, you learn how to communicate with them in such a way they can understand to prevent crises.