2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Gaslighting is a form of psychological violence that makes you doubt yourself, your self-worth and adequacy. It is used by people to dominate relationships, to establish power and control. The manipulator gradually distorts the picture of reality and makes you doubt yourself. The role of a manipulator can be a loved one, friend or girlfriend, parents, colleague, boss.
Even if you are not familiar with the term "gaslighting", you have probably experienced it yourself. For example, they remembered a deed or words spoken the day before to a familiar person. And he stubbornly denies them:
- I couldn't say that, what are you making up ?!
- You take it wrong.
“You're too sensitive. Or suspicious, you take everything to heart.
- You complicate everything, keep it simple!
- Why do you react so violently, calm down, is it okay to cry over such nonsense!
“It was just a joke, you fool.
- Your mother or friend criticizes your clothes, figure, plans and aspirations, and you do not even resist and ask the question "maybe she is right?"
- Your husband flirts with other women in front of you and reacts to your remarks and discontent with ridicule "you thought it was all because of your lack of self-confidence, stop controlling me!"
The manipulator is so active and convincing that it already starts to seem to you: "Maybe it really seemed to me?" And the more often you are persuaded of your own adequacy, the more your confidence and self-esteem is destroyed.
The term "gaslighting" originated as the title of the 1938 play "Gaslight", where the husband of a young woman rearranged small objects and hid things so that his wife had the impression that she was losing her mind. And the concept itself was introduced into everyday life in the United States in the 1960s.
In most cases, people perform such manipulations unconsciously. A person can really forget his words or deeds, especially if he is wrong. And it is important for him to always be right. Or it is unbearable for a person to admit his mistake, guilt, responsibility, and he immediately makes another guilty. The manipulator is trying to confuse you, distorting information so that you begin to doubt the adequacy of your own perception and your memories. He devalues your feelings, taunts, distorts the situation.
- HOW TO DETECT WHAT YOU ARE HANDLING?
This is not easy to do, because in a toxic relationship it is difficult to evaluate a partner critically and objectively. Especially if you are always accustomed to blaming yourself for everything, you often feel shame and fear, your partner seems ideal to you, and your self-esteem is destroyed. But at the initial stage it is quite possible.
I suggest using a special checklist from the book “Hidden Manipulations to Control Your Life. STOP Gaslighting”(The Gaslight Effect, 2007), authored by Robin Stern, psychotherapist, Ph. D., associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence).
20 SIGNS THAT YOU HAVE GASLIGHTING IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP:
1. You constantly doubt your own words, actions and motives.
2. Many times every day you ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive / resentful?"
3. You often feel confused, you may feel like you are crazy.
4. You apologize to your partner all the time.
5. You often think that you are "not good enough" for your partner.
6. You cannot understand why you feel so unhappy when everything seems to be normal in your life.
7. When you buy clothes or other personal items for yourself, you no longer think about your taste or needs, but about your partner - whether he will approve of such a purchase, and what he thinks about it.
eight. You often come up with excuses for your partner's behavior in front of your family or girlfriends.
9. You began to hide information about your relationship from friends and family, only so that you do not have to explain anything or come up with excuses.
10. You feel that something very wrong is happening in your relationship, but it is difficult for you to formulate what exactly, even for yourself.
11. You started lying to your partner only to avoid unpleasant and derogatory remarks or his attempts to distort reality.
12. You are having difficulty making even the simplest decisions.
13. You usually think twice before talking to your partner about some topic, even the most innocent.
14. Before your partner comes home, you make a mental list of what you may have done wrong today.
15. You feel that before you were completely different - more confident, relaxed, cheerful.
16. You leave messages to your husband through his employees because you are afraid to tell him something that will upset him.
17. You feel like you can't do anything right.
18. Your kids started trying to protect you in front of your partner.
19. You began to get very angry and suspect of intrigues by people with whom you previously had a great relationship.
20. You feel hopeless and joyless.
If you recognize yourself in these examples, you should pay extra attention to these situations.
It is extremely difficult to fight gaslighting alone. Every time the victim tries to blame the manipulator, he turns the arrows over and over again and turns the situation upside down, slaying with his confidence and disarming the victim with ridicule and devaluation. If there are no witnesses, then it is almost impossible to prove to the manipulator that you are right! In his psychic reality, only he can be right. The only way out is to stop communicating with such a person. Get the support of a close friend, relative, or psychologist.
Anyone can become a victim of gaslighting. But the most difficult thing to get out of toxic relationships is people who have been subjected to psychological or physical abuse for a long time in their childhood and throughout their lives.
To avoid becoming a victim of gaslighting, you need to develop your memory, awareness and emotional intelligence, be in touch with yourself and trust your feelings, learn to say no, leave relationships in which you feel bad and choose respectful and caring attitude towards yourself.
After getting out of toxic relationships with your parents or loved one, you may need a course of psychotherapy to restore your perception, trust in yourself and in the world, destroyed self-esteem, get rid of toxic shame, fear of relationships. It will take time to regain strength and find support. I work with such requests online and in face-to-face therapy.
ELENA ERMOLENKO - psychologist, psychoanalyst.
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