One of the emotional manipulator’s weapons of abuse is gaslighting, a form of psychological manipulation that plants seeds of doubt in an individual causing them to question their memory, perception, and reason.
What a gaslighter says may be very different from what they are thinking, or the facts of the situation, so it can be difficult to know for sure when gaslighting is occurring.
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Here are 4 less obvious signs of gaslighting that most people miss:
- They underestimate your value.
Why? Because they need to feel powerful.
What they say: “You don’t know how to manage money. If it weren’t for me, you’d be broke.”
What they mean: “I feel powerful and important when I can blame you and hurt your self-esteem. I resent you and I think you deserve to be treated like trash, and I think I have the right to make you feel like trash. I feel better off hurting you and getting what I want, which is making you Spin because I need to see the power I have over you and your emotional health.
- They accuse you.
Why? So you will work harder to please them.
What they say: “You don’t care about me and you never did. You don’t support me and only think about yourself.”
What they mean: “My goal is to make you feel guilty and worried that I have a bad opinion of you. I know you’ll do everything in your power to convince me how much you care and that makes me feel powerful. I know I’m hooked on you, and I can keep treating you like dirt, because the more I do Every time you try to convince me otherwise.
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- They assassinate your character.
Why? To make themselves feel superior.
What they say: “You’re lazy, selfish, and self-absorbed.”
What they mean: “I have no evidence or facts to support my point of view but that doesn’t matter. The goal is not to prove my point. The goal is to make you spin. If you’re frustrated, tormented, and hysterical by my false talk,” the better you’ll feel about the claims and misinformation. I need to feel omnipotent, omnipotent, like a smiting god taking out his wrath on you, you senseless human. I feel extreme, raw pleasure when I create fantasies and witness your pain. “
- They play the victim.
Why? To keep you hooked.
What they say: “If you had shown me any love at all, I would have given you my heart.”
What they mean: “I’ll never give you anything neat. You don’t deserve that. All you deserve is to be manipulated and have your head messed with. I’m dangling a carrot in front of your nose and you believe I was going to give it to you! Not a chance. You’re only here to serve my need for importance. I’ll take “It’s what I want whether you like it or not. I’m going to dangle that carrot to keep your mind foggy with pain and hope that I’ll give you what you want, which I never will.”
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It is incomprehensible to a compassionate individual to think that anyone could think this way.
Our minds scream: “No! This can’t be true!”
Sadly, deep down in our hearts, we know it’s entirely plausible and frighteningly accurate.
If you’ve ever talked to a narcissist when their true personality showed through the veneer of their false outer mask, you know.
You will see the bubble of ugly inner motivations rising to the surface. You will see the true face of the despised and cruel person inside you. You’ll see the intense anger surrounding every word and you’ll know in that moment, deep in your bones, that this person doesn’t care about you at all.
Unfortunately, even in this case, your compassionate personality may keep you holding on to a thin thread of hope that this is not possible. Over time, this small thread is torn apart with every sarcastic word they speak.
