 Hey, psyched goers, welcome back to another video. Being kind, compassionate, and empathetic is crucial to your well-being and to those around you. But do you ever start to suspect that someone may be taking advantage of these positive traits you have? If this thought hasn't crossed your mind, it's still better to stay informed and secure with yourself, rather than feeling doubtful of a questionable or unsafe relationship with someone. So with that said, here are six signs your kindness is being taken advantage of. Number one, emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is valid and real. A telling sign of someone being manipulative and taking advantage of you would be if they display emotionally abusive and targeting traits towards you. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, signs of emotional abuse include acting possessive or jealous, refusing to trust you, constantly insulting or being criticizing, invalidating your feelings and needs, gaslighting you or blaming you for their actions and abusive behavior. Unfortunately, the list goes on and such emotional abuse and manipulation can also be hard to detect. Emotionally abusive people feed off power. They may use their controlling behavior and tactics to make you feel insecure. Number two, ignoring your boundaries. Someone who is trying to take advantage of you will most likely ignore your boundaries and values. They refuse to accept any limits you may have set between the two of you and continue to push your generosity for their personal gain or benefit. They relentlessly reach out to you to get their specific needs met. Being in a situation where your personal boundaries are not respected can be tricky. So it's essential to be able to recognize this sign so that you can take the right action and getting away from this person or situation. Number three, selective attention. Selective attention is one of the most notorious traits of a person trying to use your good will against you. This person will ignore you when they don't need anything from you but will reappear when they find that they need your help. This kind of behavior defines what is known as a yo-yo relationship. A yo-yo person will come and go when it's most suitable to their needs and only stick around for selfish reasons. They only have their best interest in mind. Beware of selective attention. If you notice this sign in someone in your life, make sure to remind them of your boundaries and distance yourself from them. Number four, constant judgment or criticism. Are you dealing with someone who is constantly judgmental or critical? Someone who's trying to take advantage of you will have selfish traits and self-centered, narrow-minded views of the world. Professor of Philosophy and author Caroline J. Simon, PhD, explains that judgmental behavior can include having a moral rating system that is skewed in your own favor and making a lot of negative moral evaluations of others as well as jumping to negative moral conclusions about others. People like this are often threatened by your admirable traits and qualities and consistently try to put you down in order to make you doubt yourself. Number five, guilt-baiting. Guilt-baiting is frequently used when someone is trying to convince you to eliminate your boundaries, push your limits and ignore your core values. According to professor and author Preston Nye, guilt-baiting can look like unreasonable blaming and targeting the recipient's soft spot. Their goal is to hold you responsible for their happiness and unhappiness or successes and failures. This gives them the ability to target your vulnerabilities and weaknesses, giving them more power to pressure and persuade you into agreeing to their demands and requests. And number six, victimhood. Similar to guilt-baiting, victimhood also gives a manipulator the opportunity to, as Nye mentions, exploit the recipient's goodwill, guilty conscience, sense of duty and obligation, or protective and nurturing instincts. In order to be effective with this move, this person will deliberately put on an innocent, helpless or weak facade to truly make you believe that they need you for something that seems important. This sign can be very hard to detect at first, but can be a huge giveaway of someone's ill intentions once you recognize it in them. So did you recognize any of these signs? If you ever find yourself in a serious situation where your safety is at risk or you're being threatened or harassed, please reach out for help. In the description, there are links to resources you can access. Did you find this video insightful? Tell us in the comments below. Please like and share it with friends that might find value in this video too. Make sure to subscribe to Psych2Go and hit the notification bell for more content. All the references used are added in the description below. Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.