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China Elevator Stories
Experiencing Coercive Control When You're a Blogger
I have experienced repeated attempts at coercive control as a blogger.
01/11/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Coercive control means that another person wants to exert power over you—to silence you, restrict your independence, and control whom you can talk to and what you can talk about. They may also aim to isolate you and cut you off from your support system.
Signs of coercive control as a blogger include:
- Derogatory comments: Someone repeatedly makes negative or belittling remarks about your content, intending to make you insecure and stop you from blogging—whether about certain topics or entirely.
- Intimidation through power: Someone tells you that you shouldn’t post certain content and uses their position of power (or subtle, intimidating behaviors) to make you feel unsafe or hesitant to write what you want. These signs can be very subtle and may take time to recognize.
- Group pressure: Someone cites “other people” who supposedly agree that you shouldn’t blog about certain topics—whether real or imagined—to make you feel intimidated. Sometimes this happens through indirect or manipulative speech (for example, a group telling you your writing could lead to “legal consequences”). The real goal may be to silence you or stop you from sharing your truth.
- Content control: Someone tries to dictate what you can or should blog about. While some readers may simply share topic preferences, a controlling person steers your blog in a direction that suits them—not you. (I experienced this with a sociopathic stalker who made sure I could only write about his stalking and him, leaving me no time to blog about China and the conversations I once enjoyed sharing.)
- Time sabotage: Someone deliberately takes up all your time—demanding attention, creating distractions, or inventing excuses—to prevent you from blogging.
- Manipulative concern: Someone tries to stop you from blogging by saying you “need more rest” or that you’re “blogging too much.”
- Uninvited management: Someone enters your life claiming to be good at managing tasks, or a “manager,” and starts controlling your blog content without your consent. They may insult you, call you “incompetent,” or gaslight you by implying that you weren’t as successful as a blogger as you actually were or that your past blogging success was a mistake. If you resist, they might start a smear campaign, harm your relationships, or even hack your blog to take it down.
- Unauthorized changes: Any attempt to hack your accounts, alter posts, change titles, take down social media accounts, or edit content without your permission is a strong sign of coercive control and an effort to silence you.
- Reputation attacks: Someone tries to discredit or silence you through gossip or a smear campaign, turning others against you. Suddenly, people may no longer see you as capable or rational, treating you like a child who can’t make her own decisions—which is a classic manipulation tactic.
I don’t always have time to blog (after all, there are children to care for, work to do, and dishes and laundry waiting—and now also another court proceeding to deal with!). But when I do want to blog, the topics I choose to write about are my decision—not anyone else’s.
Have you ever experienced coercive control?