What is gaslighting?! 10 examples to help you identify gaslighting

The term gaslighting actually comes from a 1938 play called “Gaslight”. The story is about a husband that manipulates his wife into thinking she is going crazy by dimming their gas-fueled lights in their house, and telling her the lights aren’t changing. The husband convinces the wife that she is hallucinating due to a mental illness.

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation (can be psychological abuse) where someone makes you question your sanity, perception of reality, and or your own memories. Gaslighting typically happens slowly so it can be hard to spot. People gaslight other people to control them, make people dependent on them and gain power.

Gaslighting is a hard concept to understand just based the definition, the most helpful way to understand what gaslighting is through examples: (disclaimer these examples are used to the extreme and a pattern of behavior for a reason not just a once or twice thing.)

Example one: Doubting your memory. If you tell a story and someone tells you “are you sure it happened that way?” or something along the lines of “you’re remembering that wrong it happened like this…” misremembering does happen and we all have a different perception but if you are positive something happened a certain way and someone is challenging that idea, they are most likely gaslighting you. Another way this could happen would be a person telling you “remember when you did this” and it was something you’ve never done. It could be a simple case of mixing you up with someone else and if you bring up that idea and they insist it was you that person is making you question your own memories which is gaslighting. This can lead to self-doubt and confusion.

Example two: Trivializing your emotions. Someone consistently telling you that you are too sensitive and or overreacting. Sometimes it can be good to have an honest person in your life that can tell you when a situation isn’t as dramatic as you think it is but the key word here is consistently.  When someone consistently tells you that you’re too sensitive and or overreacting they are trying to make you doubt your emotions making you think something is wrong with you.

Example three: Frequently lie and exaggerate. When someone is trying to make you question your own reality they will frequently lie and exaggerate to make you feel sorry for them, question your own memory and or own behavior. This plays a key part in making their victim feel dependent on them. Some people are just liars but someone who is gaslighting will use those lies to their advantage instead of the typical reasons to lie like protecting someone’s feelings or avoiding an awkward conversation.

Example four: They escalate when challenged. People who gaslight use manipulation to control another person and have power over them. Instead of having a normal reaction to be challenged such as asking questions to better understand the other person’s point of view a person who is attempting to gaslight someone will have a strong emotional reaction. This strong emotional reaction can cause their victim to feel bad about questioning them and may cause the victim to avoid questioning in the future to avoid another “fight”.

Example five: Using stereotypes to justify their thinking. An example of this would be a male telling a female that they are overreacting to a situation because “women are so sensitive”. Using common stereotypes makes the victim question their feelings because stereotypes are ingrained in us from an early age. They can also use stereotypes about a person’s race, age, sexuality and or ethnicity.

Example six: They create codependency. The definition of codependency (according to Oxford) is: “excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction.”. Codependency can happen without an illness or addiction. I want to focus on the first half of the definition an excessive emotional/psychological reliance on a partner, People who gaslight often want their victims to feel dependent on them because when someone is dependent on them the victim is easier to isolate from their family/friends and they are more likely to be forgiving because they feel like they need their partner.     

Example seven: They call you names. Names like “stupid” “awkward” etc. I feel like everyone can be guilty of having a weak moment and calling someone names when they are upset or feel attacked. However, a normal person will typically apologize for these actions someone who is gaslighting uses name calling to make their victim feel less than to control them. They can also use name calling to make their victim question their reality/emotions.

Example eight: They deflect blame, in order to gaslight someone their victim has to trust them. A gaslight-er will often deflect blame to build credibility with their victim, keep the victim under their control and or make the victim feel sorry for them.   

Example nine: They give you false hope, like in example eight I said the victim has to trust the gaslight-er. If someone is constantly making you feel bad you will most likely begin to question the relationship with that person, so gaslight-ers will create false hope to make their victim feel positive before ripping them down typically. A gaslight-er can also create false hope when confronted with a problem to give the illusion that they will change for their victim.  

Example ten: They claim to know you better than you know yourself. Claiming to know someone better than they know themselves can be comforting to a victim, they could think “wow this person knows me so well.”. This claim links back to the building codependency example, and the making you doubt your memories example. The gaslight-er uses this claim to make their victim act/think a certain way because this person “knows everything about them”

I found this video that explains gaslighting and some of the signs if you’re interested in learning more about the topic.

Also the articles I used to explain what gaslighting is and the examples can be found here and here.

Overall if you think you are a victim of gaslighting, talk with others and see what they think, follow your gut, if possible, cut that person out of your life, if not possible to cut ties distance yourself and make it harder for that person to control you. You are stronger than you think, you can survive change!