How gaslighting influences reality?

“GASLIGHTING is mind control to make victims doubt their reality.” ― Tracy Malone

“That never happened.”
“You’re crazy — and other people think so, too.”
“I’m sorry you think that I hurt you.”
“Do you think I’d make that up?”
“You know I’d never intentionally hurt you.”
“I did that because I love you.”

Those are the phrases I’ve heard from people when they share their experiences of how they were manipulated by their ex-partners. A good friend of mine named “Michelle” (not her real name) shared her life experience with her ex-partner and how it affected her mentally and psychologically.

According to her, she lost their identity from the abuse. Sometimes, her ex-partner separates her from the people she loves. It took her years to finally realize what had happened to her and get the courage to leave him. She is finally free and moving toward a happy life but the damage may take a long time to heal from, and she is having trust issues with people. It is not going to be easy on her, may she trust again, or maybe not.

What she experiences is something that is more complex and complicated related to mental health than physical health.

So, what is gaslighting?

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that’s seen in abusive relationships. It’s the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them.

The term “gaslighting” has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone’s perception of reality. This is a term that has been used to describe such behavior in psychoanalytic literature since the 1970s. In a 1980 book on child sexual abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) based on the play and wrote, “Even today the word gaslighting is used to describe an attempt to destroy another’s perception of reality.”

In a stage play by Patrick Hamilton called “Gas Light”. In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes.

The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, to make his wife doubt her perceptions. He further uses the lights in the sealed-off attic to secretly search for jewels belonging to a woman whom he has murdered. He makes loud noises as he searches, including talking to himself. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, noises, and voices, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead, it is she who is going insane. He intends to have her assessed and committed to a mental institution, after which he will be able to gain power of attorney over her and search more effectively.

Sociopaths and narcissists frequently use gaslighting tactics to abuse and undermine their victims. This psychological manipulation may include making the victim question their memory, perception, and sanity. The abuser may invalidate the victim’s experiences using dismissive language, like,

“You’re crazy.
“Don’t be so sensitive.”
“Don’t be paranoid. I was just joking!”
“I’m worried; I think you’re not well.”

Psychologists Jill Rogers and Diane Follingstad said that such dismissals can be detrimental to mental health outcomes. They described psychological abuse as “a range of aversive behaviors that are intended to harm an individual through coercion, control, verbal abuse, monitoring, isolation, threatening, jealousy, humiliation, manipulation, treating one as an inferior, creating a hostile environment, wounding a person regarding their sexuality and/or fidelity, withholding from a partner emotionally and/or physically”.

Sociologist Paige Sweet, in the context of the social inequalities and power-laden intimate relationships of domestic violence, has studied gaslighting tactics that “are gendered in that they rely on the association of femininity with irrationality”. Gaslighting should be also understood as rooted in social inequalities, including gender, and executed in power-laden intimate relationships. The theory developed here argues that gaslighting is consequential when perpetrators mobilize gender-based stereotypes and structural and institutional inequalities against victims to manipulate their realities.

Using domestic violence as a strategic case study to identify the mechanisms via which gaslighting operates, It indicates how abusers mobilize gendered stereotypes; structural vulnerabilities related to race, nationality, and sexuality; and institutional inequalities against victims to erode their realities.

According to philosophy professor Kate Abramson, the act of gaslighting is not specifically tied to being sexist, although women tend to be frequent targets of gaslighting compared to men who more often engage in gaslighting. She also explained this as a result of social conditioning and said “It’s part of the structure of sexism that women are supposed to be less confident, to doubt our views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions, more than men. And gaslighting is aimed at undermining someone’s views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions. The sexist norm of self-doubt, in all its forms, prepares us for just that.” Abramson said that the final “stage” of gaslighting is severe, major, clinical depression.

Gaslight does not just happen to adults but also happens to children at the hands of unloving parents who may become also victims of gaslighting.

Therapist and Author Susan Forward’s “Lying, Gaslighting, and Denial” in her best-seller Mothers Who Can’t Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters. According to her, she describes how a mother’s narcissistic behaviors hurt her daughter.
She wrote, “A severely narcissistic mother’s anger, criticism, and thoughtless dismissal of her daughter’s feelings are painful and destructive. And every daughter clings to the belief that if only her mother could see that behavior and its effects, she’d stop.” She then goes on to describe that “severe narcissists stay true to form, responding to any confrontation with drama followed by deflection and a focus on your shortcomings. When that doesn’t produce the desired results, they turn to what may be their most frustrating and infuriating tool: denial.”

Gaslighting takes place in the situation as parents can “rewrite reality”. As they rewrite reality, it then distorts what is reality to the child affected as the reality being told to them doesn’t match up with what happened.

Psychologically abusive parents often put on a “good parent” face in public yet withhold love and care in private, leading children to question their perceptions of reality and to wonder whether their parent is the good person everyone else sees or the much darker person that comes out when child and parent are alone. Manipulative parents may also “pit children against each other; … play favorites but persuade the unloved child it’s all his or her fault for not being more gifted, prettier, and otherwise more lovable.”

Gaslighting is powerful and can lead to psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and low self-esteem. Just like the case of Michelle, she is been dealing with issues like dealing with her anxiety and trauma with her ex-partner.

So how do we deal with gaslighters? Especially for those who have not encountered them?

First, Identify the warning signs early. Since gaslighters lack self-awareness and empathy, they may not even realize they are being manipulative. The tactics you have to watch out is,

1. Invalidating your feelings
2. Devaluing your worth
3. Denying the truth
   and lastly,
4. Blaming you for their actions.

Second, Speak up and be assertive
Communicate directly with someone about how their behavior affects you. Otherwise, you might end up tolerating their negative behavior towards you.

Third, Setting firm boundaries and letting go.
If someone is unwilling to change despite your persistent efforts, let go of them. This is the only way for you to heal and grow.

Those tips might help you how to detect a gaslighter and how to deal with it.

Remember, You are the captain of your reality. If you are looking at the beams and walls and telling yourself, “Wait, I know this just isn’t true,” then the gaslight might be on.

Think about it.

Sources: 1. https://themighty.com/topic/mental-health/mental-health-repercussions-living-another-dimension/ 2. https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/emotional-psychological-abuse/gaslighting-definition-techniques-and-being-gaslighted