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!
This is such an important topic to talk about as it is so common yet I do not think that many people understand what the term actually means. You examples were amazing, they were so detailed and helpful and so was the video. There is so many things that I need to be educated on (and most of the time do not realize that I do) and this was most definitely one of those things!
ReplyDeleteI would agree that is extremely important to be aware of gaslighting. I really think you did a good job at explaining the 10 examples, and hope others find this post as informative as I did. -Marisa
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has, unfortunately, had a few different relationships that were loaded with gaslighting, I think that it is phenomenally important that people talk about it because it's so easy to miss when you don't know what to look for or aren't expecting it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a surprisingly fun resource to learn more about gaslighting is Cinema Therapy's video analyzing Disney's Tangled on YouTube! (Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efua__7B7j4 ) I had never realized that that movie is full of examples of gaslighting until I watched their video, and I personally found it FASCINATING.
- Libby Houdek
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