Gaslighting is a manipulation technique that many abusers adopt to illuminate their victims to maintain control in the relationship. Emotional abuse makes you question your reality so much that you can’t trust your judgment.
Are your friends telling you that you’re in a relationship with someone who’s dumping you but you’re not sure if it’s true? Not quite clear about what gaslighting is and how to spot it?
Let me help.
The definition of gaslighting is “the manipulation of a person by psychological means to question their sanity”. In other words, the gasser will do what he needs to do so that you can no longer tell what is right or wrong, what is right or wrong.
People gaslight for a variety of reasons. They may be narcissistic and refuse to take responsibility for anything. They may need to control you. They may want to get something from you and destroy your self-esteem, or even your mind is the best way to get it. Either way, gaslighting is incredibly destructive.
And a lot of people who are in relationships with someone who makes light of them don’t see it, mainly because they’ve been manipulated into thinking they’re too stupid to recognize anything.
Fortunately, there are some things gas workers almost universally say to their targets. Let me share with you 5 of these right now so you can see if you’ve been gaslighted, convinced you’re out of touch, and wondering about every choice you make.
Here are 5 things someone would say
- You are always wrong.
Does your person always tell you that you are wrong? If you go out and notice that the sky is blue, does your person tell you that you were wrong and that the sky is red? If you share your memories of your relationship at a dinner party, will your person later tell you that it never happened and that you made the memory in mind?
That’s the classic thing a gas person would say. Their goal is to make you doubt yourself. To make you question everything you say and everything you do. By doing this, your person can control you, and make you feel like you need them to function in the world.
Related: 13 Signs Of A Toxic Parent
- You have no friends.
It’s a terrible thing to tell someone but that’s exactly what a gaslighting person would say. They will tell you over and over again that you have no friends.
They will tell you that nobody loves you. You are not liked. That people talk behind your back. They are your only friend and they are only because they feel sorry for you.
Even if you have friends who show you, whom you see regularly, the person who highlights you will tell you that these people are pretending to like you, that they are using you for their purposes, and that you should not trust them.
Why do they do that? They do this because they want to separate you from the people who love and support you. They want to be the only person in the world that they depend on and trust. By doing so, they can control you, the ultimate target of the gas lamps.
- You are worthless.
This is the main thing someone trying to gaslight will tell you. They will tell you over and over again that you are worthless.
One of the invader’s goals is to destroy your self-esteem. To do this, they tell you that you are worthless. That you are a bad friend/parent/child/partner. You are unable to successful career. You are not capable of anything.
If you think you’re worthless, you’ll start to believe it. And you will need to rely on your person and he will control you. And if you are under their control, you will lose yourself completely, believing every day that you are more and more worthless.
- You can’t see the truth.
I have a client who has a friend who always tells her she can’t see the truth. He’s been trying to win her back, and she’s, finally, being very careful. He reappears at her door 6 months later, announcing that he loves her and that he wants to move in with her and get married. He was expecting her to jump back into his arms. And she didn’t.
Since then, he swings back and forth between telling her he loves her and blaming her for not getting back together. “I jumped again,” he says. “If you loved me, you would do the same.”
I have to reassure her regularly that the truth of the matter is that she is keen. His declaration of love is something he does to pull her back in and then walks away again. She has let him do it before because she loves him, but she will never do it again.
However, since he is a flirtatious man, she constantly struggles to find out the truth in the situation.
Related: 10 Signs of A Trauma Bond Relationship
- Everything is your fault.
Does your person always tell you that you are in the wrong? If he comes home drunk, does he blame you for making him drink? If she runs the credit card, is she saying it’s because you’re never home? Is dinner burned because you had to do something for them your fault?
Someone who takes the spotlight on you is someone who will take no responsibility for the dynamic between the two of you. Everything will be your fault. Not only does this absolve them of any responsibility, but it will also continue to undermine their belief that you are worthless and unlovable.
Knowing what someone is going to say is key to preventing or stopping it from happening.
If you’re with someone who tells you “you’re always wrong,” tells you that you’re friendless and worthless, and that makes you doubt yourself in every way, then you’re probably with someone who annoys you.
