Lets Try to Understand Gaslighting
Ever Wondered if You’re Questioning Your Own Reality? Imagine being in a constant battle with your own reality, where every question you have is met with doubt and every feeling you express is dismissed. This is the unsettling experience of gaslighting—a manipulative tactic that turns your own perceptions against you.
Gaslighting is a deliberate form of manipulation that makes someone question their reality, often by distorting the truth and undermining their confidence. Gaslighters ignore boundaries, make victims feel guilty, and alter past events to create confusion and gain control. Unlike harmless jokes, gaslighting involves deliberate harm, using emotional tactics to make the victim doubt their feelings and perceptions.
By doing this, the gaslighter shifts the focus away from their own wrongdoings and guilt. The manipulation involved can lead victims to believe they are the ones who are “bad,” “irrational,” or “abusive,” or to doubt truths they once knew. The oxford dictionary defined Gaslighting as “A form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to make a target doubt their own perceptions, memories, or reality.”
“Before it became a widely recognized term in psychology, gaslighting was just the title of a suspenseful play. But the real drama lies in how it reflects the dangerous reality of emotional abuse today.”
The term “gaslighting” originates from a 1938 play called Gas Light, which was later adapted into films, including the popular 1944 version Gaslight starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. In the story, a husband manipulates his wife by making small, subtle changes in their environment, like dimming the gas lamps, while denying that anything is happening. His aim is to make her doubt her own perceptions and believe she is losing her sanity. He isolates her from others and constantly questions her reality, leaving her feeling confused, insecure, and unstable.
The disturbing tactics shown in the film resonated so much with real-life experiences of emotional manipulation that psychologists adopted the term “gaslighting” to describe this specific form of psychological abuse. Gaslighting is all about control, it’s a method used to make someone doubt their own reality, memories, and even their sense of self.
Gaslighting isn’t limited to one particular setting; it can penetrate various aspects of life, affecting individuals in multiple environments.
In parent-child relationships, it might manifest as a parent making a child doubt their own feelings or memories, undermining their sense of reality. For example, a parent might demand that their child achieve top grades and excel in extracurricular activities, while downplaying the child’s stress and telling them that their hard work is necessary for their future success. When the child expresses distress, the parent might dismiss their feelings as a lack of dedication, leading the child to doubt their own emotional responses.
In the workplace, it can appear as a supervisor or colleague manipulating an employee into questioning their competence or recollection of events. For instance, an employee might be consistently assigned excessive tasks with unrealistic deadlines. If they express concerns about being overwhelmed, their manager might accuse them of not handling pressure well, or claim that their complaints are unwarranted, thus undermining their confidence and blaming them for their own stress.
Intimate relationships are also common grounds for gaslighting, where one partner may distort the other’s reality to control or manipulate them. For example, in cases of domestic abuse, a partner might belittle their significant other’s feelings or reactions by saying things like, “You’re too sensitive,” or “You’re imagining things,” when confronted about abusive behavior. This manipulation can make the partner question their reality and feel responsible for the abuse.
Additionally, individuals can engage in self-gaslighting, where they internalise doubts and distortions about their own experiences, further lowering their self-esteem and sense of reality.For example, someone might convince themselves that their feelings of frustration or sadness are overreactions and that they don’t deserve support or kindness. They might repeatedly tell themselves that they are overreacting or that they don’t deserve good things in their life, leading to diminished self-esteem and self-worth.
Gaslighting leaves a lasting impact on those who experience it. It can lead to the following:
- Low Self-Esteem: Continuous questioning of one’s reality leads to diminished self-worth.
- Confusion and Doubt: Victims constantly second-guess their memories and decisions.
- Emotional Instability: Increased anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.
- Isolation: Victims are often cut off from supportive relationships.
- Loss of Confidence: Difficulty in trusting personal judgments and decisions.
- Chronic Stress: Persistent manipulation results in ongoing stress and anxiety.
The impact of gaslighting can be deeply distressing, as it undermines one’s sense of self and reality. Najwa Zebian captures this profound effect perfectly: ‘They do everything to dim your light, and then they ask you why you’re not shining.’ This quote highlights how gaslighters try to weaken someone’s inner strength and then blame them for not being their best.
Gaslighting was such a powerful concept that it became Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year in 2022. Yet, while awareness of emotional abuse has grown, it remains much harder to recognize than physical or sexual abuse, and often more difficult to understand and escape.
However, gaslighting is is increasingly being misused in today’s discourse to label any behavior someone disagrees with, turning it into an attack or shutting down conversations. Gaslighting is a serious form of manipulation not everything uncomfortable or challenging is gaslighting, and it’s crucial to recognize the difference.
What is not gaslighting? Disagreeing with someone, even strongly, isn’t gaslighting—people can hold different views without it being manipulative. For instance, two friends may remember an event differently due to their perspectives. This isn’t an attempt to distort reality; it’s just human nature.
1.Giving feedback is also not gaslighting. For example, a manager providing constructive criticism to help an employee improve is focused on growth, not undermining confidence.
2. Setting healthy boundaries is another misunderstood area. Declining an invite or saying “no” to something uncomfortable isn’t gaslighting; it’s an essential part of self-care.
3. Forgetting a detail or event, like missing an appointment or misremembering a conversation, isn’t gaslighting either, it’s simply an honest mistake. Everyone forgets things sometimes, and that doesn’t mean they’re trying to manipulate or distort reality. Remembering an event differently isn’t gaslighting either. If two people recall a shared experience in varying ways, it’s likely due to different interpretations rather than malicious intent.
4. Harmless jokes or light teasing, as long as they aren’t intended to belittle or demean, are part of everyday interaction, not emotional abuse. For instance, playfully teasing a friend about always being late isn’t gaslighting, but repeatedly insisting they’re unreliable to make them question themselves could be.
5. Lastly, expressing your own feelings, even if they’re negative, isn’t gaslighting. Saying “I’m really hurt by what you said” is sharing an emotion, not trying to manipulate someone’s perception. On the other hand, dismissing someone else’s feelings by saying, “You’re just being dramatic; that never happened,” would fall under gaslighting.
Being gaslit can be profoundly traumatic and often goes unnoticed as it escalates over time. The long-lasting effects on victims can be severe. While being lied to or having your experiences dismissed can be hurtful, it doesn’t necessarily equate to gaslighting.
Trivialising serious cases of gaslighting by applying the term to minor situations can overshadow and diminish the experiences of those genuinely affected by emotional abuse. This misuse of the term not only dilutes its meaning but also complicates the process of addressing and supporting real instances of gaslighting.
Lavanya & Deepali
