DeLeon Spring

There are two paths before you.

Most people don’t choose. They stand still. In never stepping into their power, they become the tools of those that do.

In choosing between the two paths before you, in embarking beyond this fork in the road, you become a sovereign being. You stop being only effected and start affecting your environment.

The first of these two paths is glittering with gold. It promises to give you everything you can imagine: fame, wealth, success, and a never-ending line of adoration. The price of this path is pretty straight forward: your soul. What? You don’t want it badly enough? Don’t you know that success requires sacrifice?

I have a confession to make: I have walked this path of darkness. Driven by a desire for power and the security it promised to provide, I worked for a man who was anything but trustworthy, but who demanded absolute trust from anyone who had the honor of working with him.

The process of grooming me for this manipulation took him over a year. He attended my publicly hosted meetups and positioned himself as an intelligent, business-savy mentor—someone willing to provide guidance to me along my uncertain path as an ambitious 19-year-old without direction.

After one of my first meetups he attended, he pulled me aside, said that he believed in me, and that he wanted to invest thousands of dollars in helping me start a design business.

After a few more conversations, he dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t hear from him for six months. When he eventually re-surfaced, he asked me, “Did you learn your lesson?”


During this grooming process, without evidence of his claims of success, and without even so much as knowing his last name, I found myself becoming more intoxicated with his unpredictable presence. He promised to lead me to all the things I desperately desired—all of those glittery things which would make me finally breathe a sigh of relief and feel good enough.

The disappearing acts taught me the “lesson” that I needed to prioritize his guidance, or more accurately, his demands, over all else in my life. The only way he would agree to giving me the honor of his “mentorship” was if I agreed not to tell anyone about it. Not even my parents. Not even my boyfriend. I agreed.

I have never felt so alone…

I have a confession to make, for I have lied. During the worst six months of my life, a time period that I’ve described previously, I was living a double life. While I was running around at late hours of the night following any commands my manipulative mentor would give me, I lied to my loved ones, saying that I was starting a web design business. Meanwhile, I was transforming into something that I didn’t recognize.

He would give me assignments which I would work on during 12+ hour days sitting at my computer desk in my bedroom. Or the assignment would be to drop everything and visit a local business or event in order to recruit individuals for one of his numerous projects. I would do these things without knowing the next steps in his plans, without payment, without question, for six months. I awaited his instructions daily like an addict waits for his drug dealer.

I thought he was teaching me business, but what I was actually learning was how to manipulate others. This is my confession. This is my guilt. I would inspire other young adults in the community—get them excited about working on seemingly important projects—and then teach them similar “lessons” on why they must value my time and presence above all else like the limited supply and unpredictable drug it was.

The control got to the point where I couldn’t send any email without forwarding it to my manipulative mentor for editing. I could only send an email once it was “approved.” He would coach me before phone calls and tell me the agenda for meetings I would host. He was the invisible puppet master pulling at my strings.

I would record the audio from these conversations and report everything back to my manipulative mentor.

Interesting how the road to power is built by making people dependent on you.

I found myself at a strip club, with my mentor telling me that I need to get more comfortable with alcohol and with the night scene, because it’s where I will be taking my clients and conducting business.

I found myself agreeing to his plans for him to “socially engineer” my fame. To stage constructed stories for the press on how I “transformed” the life of a stripper from one of pole-dancing to one of God. Just one of his many ideas on how to manipulate public opinion on my behalf.

I found myself creating social media accounts under my name and sending him the usernames and passwords so that his “team”—that I never met—could post and communicate to people and build a following on my behalf.

I found myself agreeing to his plans for me to have a book ghost-written for me; a term that means authored by somebody else in secret. People would be so impressed to see that a business book, so profound and practical, was actually written by a teenage girl…

Aren’t I wonderful?
I think I’m going to be sick.

I had no awareness of how horrible this all was as it was happening—that’s the whole point of being manipulated. This man became the most important person in my life, the best thing that ever happened to me, my ticket to success, but no matter how much I bent backwards for him—I could never seem to please him. He was a shadow that flattered me and promised to fill the void within me with everything that I believed was missing. I didn’t need to see who he really was for that transaction to happen, did I?

I thought I was losing my mind and had good reason to believe that. He would repeatedly use my own words against me until it got to the point where I would document everything I did or said into my phone, daily. This process he was doing, I know now, is called gaslighting.

The strongest symptom of being manipulated is always feeling guilty. This individual is the best thing that has ever happened to you, you prioritize them above all else in your life as they have requested, and yet, they are never happy with you. They can do no wrong, only you can, and boy, do they let you know when you do.

The first of the two paths requires giving your power away for the illusion of power. All that glitters is not gold…

One day, I desperately needed for him to proof-read a few emails so I could know my plans for the next day. How could I host meetings if I didn’t know what to say? I needed his words to come out of my mouth.

I heard my heart beating so loudly and rapidly that it was in my ears. I was shaking. I was scared that he was going to abandon me yet again, this time for good, and I would be left alone in the lerch, exposed as a fraud and a fool. I needed to step away and do anything except compulsively checking my email for his responses.

So I went out. I went out to eat with my boyfriend and got a haircut, the whole time with a racing heart, feeling horribly guilty for stepping away from the work and still anxiously checking my email on my phone for any kind of response.

I got home. Still no response.

The next day, no response.

I couldn’t take it. I had messed up again and he had abandoned me, and I would never know why. I was hyperventilating and crying. I had just lost the best thing that had ever happened to me, and now was never going to feel whole. All of the gold before me evaporated like the mirage it always was.

In breaking down, I broke the first rule. I told someone. I cried hysterically apologizing to my boyfriend for having lied this whole time. I was convinced that he was going to leave me for this, but to my relief, he was actually relieved. Finally being let in on what had been happening explained my erratic behavior. He told me that I had been manipulated. I thought I was losing my mind.

The next morning, a feeling of relief washed over me. I didn’t have to sit at my desk all day long until my legs swelled? I didn’t have to live in anxiety wondering what I would be doing from one minute to the next? I didn’t have to live a lie? I didn’t have to do any of it.


This is what the first path looks like. It is incredibly inticing. It promises security, but in walking it, I have never felt more insecure, powerless, or paranoid.

Even from the very first meetup that my mentor attended, our earliest conversations, his words caused me to have a vision. I saw these two paths before me, and two different versions of myself. On one side, a version of me in a black blazer, powerful, wealthy, but cold. On the other side, a version of me that was a free, creative, and loving, a hippy-like artist. I knew that I would have to choose.

I believed that nobody would love me if I wasn’t successful, continuing to the top as I had been as a top student in school. I chose the first path thinking that it would lead to the most acceptance, not knowing that it actually led to the most isolation. In learning to manipulate others, I started viewing people, not as human beings, but as objects. I would catagorize these objects into one of two categories: useful or not.

I have never been so disgusted with myself.

This path of darkness I have described for you, is the path of Fear. Walking it means making fear the primary factor in your decision-making process. It is the path of incalculable sacrifice and isolation. In choosing to harness this ultimate form of resistance, fear, it can lead to incredible power. You don’t have to look very far in positions of power in our society to find people who are operating this way.

The problem with the path of fear is that it’s unsustainable. It’s not authentic and built on the shaky foundation of lies on top of lies. In not generating energy from within, you become a parasite that needs hosts.

My temporary stint as both a manipulatee and a manipulator, left me with a fear of encountering another individual like this ever again. I became a recluse. I renounced my business goals, my voice, and went off the grid.

During that time, I healed my relationship with myself, and learned that all of the things I had been desperately wanting to fill the void within me with would have never made me feel whole: only I could do that for myself. Only I could give myself the acceptance that I needed. Only I could empower myself. I learned how to do that.

In learning how to heal the conflict within myself, I learned what real power actually is. The second path may not be as alluring. It is humble and naked in its honesty, but it’s all you could ever need. It is Love.

Rather than trying to get this infinite power, this endless rejuvenating energy, indirectly through success, fame, and fortune—through feeding off of the approval of others—I learned to tap into it directly.

I empathize with my former mentor and manipulators like him. Manipulation is a coping mechanism you learn when you don’t trust others not to hurt you. In not being vulnerable with people, in not being honest about your intentions, you protect yourself. The people you encounter are simply objects that are either compliant to you using them, or not. If not, you discard them.

It’s nothing personal.

Or so they say.

Eventually, I healed enough to reclaim my voice. I started developing this blog. In an event that was no coincidence, almost exactly one year after the manipulation ended, I ran into the man I hoped I would never see again.

Seeing him at the food court of a mall, of all places, the aura of fear around him had either gotten stronger, or I had become more sensitive to it. Either way, my knees were shaking. He asked to speak for five minutes. I wanted to run away, but I felt that familar powerlessness again and I agreed to talk.

Between smalltalk and pleasantries where he feigned compassion for me in his usual way, he said that he ended up abandoning me the year prior because I kept getting worried about him leaving. He said I had incurred three strikes, and his rule with people is that once that happens, he disappears from them without saying a word. He said that his team was working on my social media accounts at the time, but that I had changed the passwords. In a blatant tactic of intimidation, he said that they could’ve just brute-forced into the accounts anyways…

Seeing the confusion on my face, he changed tactics, saying that he wanted us to be friends. He wanted me to know that he had no ill-will towards me and that he hopes to talk more in the future.

In not giving him any answers into his questions about my recent whereabouts or activities, I saw his demeanor change. He turned to his associate and started talking to him like I didn’t exist. I had been discarded.

What a relief.

I left shaking and upset at how a person that opperates like this could exist. When I calmed down, I realized the signifance of the timing of the meeting. I was just about to come out of hiding and start sharing posts publicly again. I was going to share everything, and I needed courage to do that.

I am not scared anymore.


It has taken a long time to heal from the trauma of being manipulated. The annoying and time consuming habit of recording every detail into my phone every single day stayed with me for almost two years after the manipulation ended.

I’m still processing my guilt from my compliance to compromise my integrity so severely. To have a book written for me in my name? To live a lie? Was I really going to go through with it? How could I have been so naive?

I’m still processing the guilt for the monster I was when my mother needed me the most. I was a raving workaholic that in-between yelling at her to take her medicine, and taking her to the mental hospital against her will, I was yelling at her to stop interrupting my important work. This is my guilt that every now and again threathens to consume me alive… I just wanted her to be proud of me.

It took me a while to be able to go to events and meet people without being paranoid. I eventually started hosting meetups again, but they are private and invite-only. I am never opening myself to routine ambushing ever again. I protect myself, and you should too.


The void within me was where self-acceptance should have been. I grew up prioritizing the desires of teachers over my own for my whole life. I have always depended upon authority for my life direction and self-approval. In the absence of that role of authority, my manipulative mentor filled that void foe me, whereas most of my peers filled that void with colleges and universities.

The signs of manipulation, of varying degrees, runs rampant in our society. I empathize and wonder in horror at the people whose manipulation lasts longer than six months, but for years on end…

In thinking about some of the famous today, I can’t help but wonder how many of them have given up their soul for the honor of a life of illusory significance in the limelight.

I am relieved to say that I no longer view people as objects, but as extensions of myself. This means everyone, even the people that I perceive to have hurt me, even the people I have hurt, they are all a part of me, no exceptions. For my healing process, I can see it as no other way.

My mentor and I might as well have been looking into a mirror, the same fear of abandonment being reflected back to each other. This fear drives a never-ended web of lies around you, shielding your vulnerabilities, until you’re just as stuck in a form of bondage to others as you want them to be to you.

This is what power is. You think you’re holding a leash onto others, but it’s actually a rope with a noose at both ends.

I say that this path requires the cost of your soul, because your connection to your own emotions and your connection to the emotions of others, are both one in the same. Your consciousness is shared with everyone, and vice versa. To accept this is to walk the path of light and Love. It is to step into internal stability and authenticty that can never be shaken, no matter your external circumstances. To renounce this truth is to renouce your very humanity.

The power to choose is within you. How will you relate to yourself and to others? Fear or Love?

The fork in the road is before you and it’s time to move. Which will it be?