For the toxic person, gaslighting is their number one tool for gaining control over their victim. Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser uses psychological manipulation to alter another person’s sense of reality. Basically, when you confront them about anything they don’t like, they will attempt to convince you that the facts of a situation or even your own feelings about it are not true. Their goal is to make you doubt your own reality and experience by invaliding you and deflecting any kind of accountability or responsibility for themselves or their role in a situation.
In a Psychology Today article, Robin Stearn, Ph.D., gives us a great list of signs that we are being gaslit:
- You are constantly second-guessing yourself.
- You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day.
- You often feel confused and even crazy at work.
- You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss.
- You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier.
- You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family.
- You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.
- You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
- You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.
- You have trouble making simple decisions.
- You have the sense that you used to be a very different person — more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
- You feel hopeless and joyless.
- You feel as though you can’t do anything right.
- You wonder if you are a “good enough” girlfriend/wife/employee/ friend/daughter.
- You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.
Gaslighting is literally crazymaking in a relationship. It’s a psychological assault that is meant to break you down. Earlier this year, I wrote extensively about crazymaking and gaslighting tactics, and how you can navigate the dangerous waters of it when dealing with an emotional abuser. You can read it in full here.
When I was on my own journey of healing from being gaslight and dealing with crazymaking, I found Lisa A. Romano, a life coach who specializes in healing from codependency and narcissistic abuse. For me, watching her videos helped me restore my sanity – and provided some serious validation that I wasn’t crazy. Below is a video where she talks all about what gaslighting and crazymaking is:
