articles
China Elevator Stories
When Someone Else Is Steering the Wheel of Your Life
When someone takes over your life, things can quickly get completely out of control.
02/11/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Not hearing with the “correct ear” is a true problem. If you are dealing with codependents, you may face many situations where these codependents see you working on a project alone, and then they simply invite themselves in to work on it with you.
This may occur as you simply telling someone about your private issues, and them going behind your back, researching things or contacting people, and then telling you what you now need to do. Some may also start doing things instead of you, not allowing you to deal with your own issues.
This is a situation where someone hears things with the “wrong ear” (as described in the Four Ears Model by Friedemann Schulz von Thun). You may have simply shared private information and sent the message as “factual content,” but they received it with the “appeal ear,” interpreting it as a request for them to manage your life, even though you didn’t mean that at all. The problem here, by the way, lies with the receiver, not the sender, who wasn’t communicating what the receiver thought they heard. We’re not talking about cases where it’s difficult to discern a person’s intent, but about situations where someone truly gave off no hints, clues, or invitations—and the other person simply took over. In my case, when people do this, it always makes me feel powerless, since they run off with private information I’ve shared and do the wrong thing with it, turning a situation into something completely different from what I intended.
You may be completely shocked, since you didn’t ask for help, input, or to work together with this person, but he immediately sees this as his responsibility and makes you and your life his project.
When a person does so, the subconscious belief is usually that you need their help, that you can’t do it alone, that you are “too small to do it alone,” that “they are better at it than you and that’s why they are going to help now.” And certainly, the boundaries that are common and normal, and that most people would respect, are gone when a person does so. Often, these are controllers, and they will take any sharing of private details as an opportunity to take part in your life and—in the worst case—take over.
I tend to compare living life to driving a car. Ideally, everyone should be driving their own car and doing so in a way that is safe and not a threat to other people. But these people, well, they simply steal your car and drive it away—and they do so recklessly. When this happens, there’s nothing you can do but watch your life getting derailed. Sometimes they drive it away on their own, and all you can do is stand there and wait while someone else drives your car. Other times, they make you sit in the back while they drive it recklessly and crash it into a tree, putting your life in danger when you never would have done so yourself. These, by the way, tend to be people who are completely out of control and who wouldn’t be able to steer the wheel of their own cars safely enough to avoid hurting anyone. They are also usually unable to tell which car is theirs and which is yours—and no amount of talking or asking them to hand back your car, because you are perfectly capable of driving your own car, will make them give it back.
People who do so have no respect for the privacy of another person. They tend to control others and push themselves onto others. While people always say you are responsible for your boundaries, some people are such extreme boundary violators that, in certain instances, there is nothing you can do but watch your car while the thief is driving away with it, breaking your car, endangering other people or you, and your life getting out of control.
Codependents, if severe, often project onto other people that they need their help. They may also project all kinds of other things onto you, such as that you are incompetent (usually when they are narcissists, since they project their own incompetence onto other people). If they are a man who is very controlling, they may believe that you need their help and permission to do even the simplest of things in your life, and for them to manage your whole life. If you insist that they leave you alone after having treated you horrifically and derailed your life to feel better about their unsuccessful life, they may increase their efforts to control you, imprison you, stalk you, and monitor your every move. And if you ever broke things off with a certain kind of narcissist—the kind that fits the description of the rejected stalker (the kind who has severe issues with letting any relationship that doesn’t work go)—you’ll know what drama they’ll create to not allow you to separate from them. This may even happen with stalkers who are erotomanics, who you were never in a relationship with to begin with, who imagine living a life with you and being in a relationship with you, and who then don’t allow you to leave because, in their mind, you are in a relationship and living life together. The embarrassment that comes from having to experience a person who is socially inept at this level is extreme for a normal person, who’ll feel embarrassed when people do things that are, well, embarrassing and make another person lose face.
I have found that in relationships there are two kinds of narcissists: those who want you gone (such as through a divorce, death, or other kind of way), and those who don’t allow you to separate. Sometimes, this may overlap, such as in the case of my ex-husband, who kind of wants me dead, but also wants to stalk me, control me to the extreme (now certainly through my kids, whom he uses as spies, to then control what I can and cannot do at home and in my free time), and still thinks I have no rights and that I need to submit to him. These men tend to see women as being on a lower level than men and treat them like their possessions, their slaves, as having no rights, and as being obligated to follow any of their orders.
When my ex-husband went to court yet again, he did so shortly after I prepared to go to court. He recently sued for sole custody. I had prepared my own custody lawsuit and was collecting evidence on my computer, communicating with lawyers and the court, and writing up a lawsuit. In my case, I had to do this because he keeps our children at his home unsupervised and had sent them to his father’s place, where they were experiencing domestic violence. He is constantly acting as though I don’t have any right to be with my children, and when we make plans, he constantly changes them so I won’t see my children as much as they’d like to. Even when I was around, he would keep them at his place alone, without supervision, for many hours a day. Thus, I had to prepare a lawsuit, because as a parent it is my obligation to keep my children safe.
After the experience I had in Austria, I am not expecting much here either. Nevertheless, it is still my responsibility to take certain measures, as it would be for any caregivers or teachers upon hearing such things happening with regard to my children (at least it is according to Austrian law; I am not fully aware if China has similar regulations, but I think there may be similar stipulations for the protection of minors).
He made sure to file a lawsuit shortly before I could, after having read everything I had on my computer and phone using spyware. About six weeks later, court staff visited me at my home to deliver his lawsuit and evidence, which is the standard procedure in China. I had two weeks to submit my own evidence to the court, and I could also request an extension if I needed more time.
I got a few documents translated and hope that the court will allow the evidence even though I have not managed to get all of the documents notarized.
Now, with regard to people taking over, I have experienced this as an extreme. The advice and input these people give can be truly bad and steer you in the wrong direction. And if you’re in my position, you’ll often know that most people, though they may have their own experiences, make for bad advisors in such a situation and are actually overwhelmed with their own lives or wouldn’t be capable of even dealing with what I am dealing with on a daily basis, but are simply suggesting they are better than you at living life, at dealing with lawsuits, or that they know you better.
People who do so often also take over your complete identity. This is horrific when it happens, and I have had it happen with so many people by now, including in-laws as well as men who wanted to date me, that I know it can happen with anyone—men and women, strangers and romantic partners as well. Beware of malignant narcissists, who often have this kind of mental illness—taking over the identity of another person, living that person’s life as though it were theirs. I don’t know the exact name of this mental disease, but it is truly the worst of all, because your life will get derailed and you’ll be the one who has her self, her life, her identity, her hobbies, and all her time stolen from her. The narcissist will constantly tell you who you are (which isn’t similar to any of what you are), what you need to do and when (which is whenever they feel like you doing something, which isn’t what you’d naturally do and when you’d do it), and when you insist you won’t, they may take such extreme measures, including threatening you with death, to keep their imprisonment going. They will project a whole wrong identity onto you and then force you to live according to it. Narcissists are incapable of seeing individual differences, and when you’re an introvert and not a narcissist, they may force you to live your life as an extroverted narcissist, constantly telling you that you are flawed if you want to act like an introvert, rest, relax, be without other people, or not be put into some kind of life coaching by them that you certainly didn’t agree to.
When a person does so, they may also be so caught up in stalking your every move and monitoring your life that whatever you do is made utterly important and prone to their criticism (they are watching you, but you aren’t allowed to watch them or do the same thing to them, because for certain, the things that apply to you in their mind don’t apply to them—also called a double standard). They will portray themselves as flawless human beings who are so intelligent they have a right to control your life, your every move, and tell you how you need to live your life. When a life is not lived, and not lived in accordance with who you truly are, it is a waste of a life, and this kind of behavior would make anyone physically sick, since no introvert can live life as an extrovert long-term without getting sick. Still, they may escalate things so much that they may not allow you to rest, sleep, be alone without other people talking constantly, not be in their vicinity, and have to constantly tend to their needs. Though they may be caught up “dealing with your issues”—issues that are none of their business—they may also constantly manipulate you with their emotions, blackmail you when you don’t allow them to (mis)manage your life, and blame you all the time and project the most horrific stuff onto you.
It is quite blatantly obvious that a person who stalks your every move and does nothing but stalk you all day long won’t be having a successful, working life and will be pretty bad at living life—not to mention that they aren’t living their own life but are getting caught up in yours instead of living theirs. If someone else starts living your life, it may get so extreme that you won’t be able to live it as yours anymore. If we compare living life to driving a car, everyone who is alive would have their own car and be driving their own if everything were in harmony. But if things are completely out of control, someone else will be steering the wheel of your life, not allowing you to do so. When someone has driven off with your car, you won’t be able to simply drive it yourself, and everything will feel completely out of control because you aren’t allowed to steer your car in a safe, competent manner that will make you feel like things are in control — not out of control, chaotic, or dangerous.
The worst are those that don’t stop once you point out what is happening but increase their managing and control in your life, not allowing you to simply live your life unbothered by anyone else’s control and management.
If you’re a person who naturally shares certain things about life with others (because no one can live life like a stone who has no feelings and needs no mutual sharing and support), some people will take it as an invitation to “fix your life.” They may be suffering from a superiority complex where someone taught them that they are better at living life and managing life than you (since no bad things ever happened in their life, but extremely bad things happened in yours, meaning, in their mind, you aren’t as intelligent as them at living life – rather flawed reasoning, but, oh well, some people can’t discern between what comes from the inside and what comes from the outside).
It may simply be that they haven’t been stalked as much as you have because they weren’t living in the area you lived in, or they weren’t as attractive to men, or due to whatever other reason. But they clearly think they know how to live your life, how to get out of the situation you are finding yourself in easily (which you can’t, if we are honest) …
This is a mixing up of what is internal and external. Internal means a person is, for example, too dumb to not put the boundaries in place that are needed to not get stalked (well, I wouldn’t say most people are that dumb, and I wouldn’t usually blame anyone for being stalked, since it is usually not the fault of the victim). External may be you simply went to a bakery to get some bread and there was a stalker who then stalked you. People who mix up internal with external will blame you for having more stalkers than they do, for not being able to get out of a stalking situation, or for having your children taken from you when they didn’t. Often, there are so many details that matter, and it is shocking, as a victim, to see people mixing up what is internal with what is external and not being able to discern what is within a person’s control and what is out of a person’s control.
Have you ever had someone take over your life?