The effects of gaslighting on the victims are immense, and only a person who has had such an experience knows how it really feels. Today we’ll talk about what gaslighting is, what the purpose of lighting a person is, warning signs of gaslighting, the effects of gaslighting, and much more.
What is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that narcissists use in order to instill in their victims an intense sense of anxiety and confusion to the point where they no longer trust their memory, perception, or judgment.
The methods used in “gaslighting” by narcissists are similar to those used in brainwashing, interrogation, and torture that intelligence agents, law enforcement, and other forces have used in psychological warfare for decades.
Unable to trust their judgment, they begin to question the truth of everything in their lives. They start to find themselves guessing again, and this causes them to become very insecure about their decision-making, even about the smallest of choices.
The effects of Gaslighting are – eventually, the victim becomes depressed and withdrawn, and becomes dependent on the abuser for her sense of reality. Gaslighting turns the victim’s reality upside down.
Where does the term “gaslighting” come from?
The term “Gaslighting” comes from the classic 1944 Hollywood movie Gaslight. The film begins with the murder of famous opera singer Alice Alquist in London.
The perpetrator was after the star’s jewels, but before he could get them, he was interrupted by her young niece Paula (played by Ingrid Bergman); A child who was raised by Alice after her mother’s death.
To help her cope with the trauma of Alice’s death, Paula is sent to live in Italy, where she studies opera with her Aunt Alice’s old teacher for several years.
While in Italy, she meets a charismatic older man named Gregory Anton (played by Charles Boyer), they have a romance, and she soon marries him. He convinces her that they should go back to London to live in the house her aunt bequeathed to her.
When they arrive, hidden in a book, Paula finds a letter addressed to her Aunt Alice, it was from a man named Sergius Bauer. The letter is dated two days before the murder.
Gregory reacts violently to the letter but quickly regains his composure, justifying his anger as annoyance at seeing his beautiful bride relive bad memories.
Once Alice’s things in the attic are removed, Gregory’s demonic, psychopathic behavior becomes very strange indeed.
Almost immediately, he proceeds, systematically and systematically, to deliberately drive Paula insane by secretly psychologically manipulating her environment; For example, when a picture is missing from a wall, Gregory tells her that she took it, but Paula does not remember that she did.
Secretly, Gregory enters the attic and begins fiddling with the gaslight there, causing the rest of the lamps in the house to dim.
When Paula mentions hearing footsteps coming from the attic and seeing the lights dim for no apparent reason, he tells her that it is all in her imagination and that he sees no change in the brightness of the lights.
It doesn’t stop there. He resorts to other means of deception to further confuse his wife.
For example, he fires his wife’s trusted elderly maid, replacing her with a young maid (Nancy) whom he can control seductively.
When Paula complains of feeling hurt and offended by his behavior with Nancy, he tells her that he is only being friendly to her. He states that in Europe no woman would feel offended by such a frivolous act.
Convinced that the wife is crazy, Nancy begins to treat her with contempt, and Paula can feel her contempt, which only adds to her grief. He then takes control of all external influences so that he can gain complete control over Paula, making it easier to manipulate her sense of reality.
Of course, he feigns genuine interest in Paola, but the bottom line is that he is only interested in isolating her.
Having isolated her from those within the house, he precedes her to assume control of all external influences so that he may have complete control over her. He stops all visitors and does not allow her to leave the house.
He implies that he does it for her good because her “kleptomania and fantasies” are caused by her nervous disposition.
On the rare occasion when they go to a meeting at a friend’s house, he shows her his watch chain, which was missing from her. When he searches for her handbag, he finds it in mysterious circumstances.
Horrified, she becomes so hysterical that Gregory has to take her home immediately. She is convinced that something is wrong with her and that it would be best if she did not go out in public.
Gregory’s overall goal is to get Paula out of her mind so he can get an insane and institutional career.
He constantly tells her that she is sick and fragile, until, confused and frightened, Paula begins to act more erratically, and begins to understand that she has become the fragile person he says.
He even starts rearranging things in the house, then accuses her of “always missing things”. He harshly tells her that she is losing her memory. Knowing that her mother is dead insane, he sets out to demoralize her even more by cruelly convincing her that she has inherited her mother’s bad genes.
The more she doubts herself, the more she resents her husband’s approval and love, but he rejects her, insisting that she is crazy.
With a mixture of seduction, deceit, isolation, bullying, and rejection, Paula reluctantly begins to accept that she is losing her mind, and becomes totally dependent on him for her sense of reality.
Unknown to Paula, Gregory is not who she thinks he is, little does she know that he is, in fact, the killer of her aunt, Sergius Bauer. It was no coincidence that it happened to her in Italy.
He deliberately went to search her with the intention of seducing her into marrying him. His main goal was to get into the house in London where he could continue his search for Alice’s jewels.
He was searching the attic for the jewels that Paula had overheard, and it was he who caused the lights (from the attic) to flash when he reduced the gas flow to the downstairs lights.
She had become a hindrance to his search, so he needed an insane and institutional certificate to be able to find his treasure.
He comes very close to achieving his goal, but by chance, Paula meets Inspector Brian Cameron of Scotland Yard (played by Joseph Cotten), who has a passionate crush on her Aunt Alice.
He tells her that they will not be out of her mind, but that they are beings who are slowly and methodically driven out of her mind by her husband.
Together with Paula, and with the support of the old housekeeper (who suspected the Master of causing these events), he opens the “Cold Case”. The drama reaches its conclusion when Gregory is arrested just as he finds his long-lost treasure trove of jewels.
What is the purpose of gaslighting?
As you can see, “Gaslighting Tango” is a form of psychological warfare that is deliberate and progressive between one individual (a gaslighter) and another (a gaslighter).
The Gaslighting Effect involves an insidious set of psychological manipulations performed gradually in stages, repeated over and over again, in order to undermine the mental stability of the victim. It really is an elaborate dance, as an unsuspecting Gaslitz finally thinks they are going crazy.
Anyone can become a victim of these gaslighting maneuvers; Age, intelligence, gender, and creed are no barriers against narcissistic abuse of this kind.
Not only does it happen in romantic relationships (like Paula & Gregory above), it can happen in all different kinds of relationships: between parent and child, siblings, friends, and co-workers.
In fact, it can happen between any two people from any walk of life if the intention is there.
Gaslighting, as a tactic of harassment, begins with a series of subtle mind games that deliberately pray over Gaslightee’s limited ability to tolerate ambiguity or uncertainty. This is done in order to undermine the victim’s confidence in their sense of reality and sense of self, leading to confusion and bewilderment for the victim.
Even when the victim is confused and left to wonder, “What just happened there?” , there is a reluctance to see the invader for what it is, in fact, this denial is the cornerstone of the lighting-gas relationship.
network of deception “puppet master”
Narcissists are puppet masters who manipulate their victims for personal gain. Subtly, they are able to “pull the strings” of their victims without detection, rendering them helpless.
In order to understand how anyone can become a victim of a narcissist in the first place, it is important to know that a narcissist has many faces (the proverbial man or woman of all seasons).
The abuser requires different faces as she leads the relationship through different stages; The idealization stage, the reduction stage, and the neglect stage.
The good news is that gaslighting does not happen all at once, but rather in stages, meaning that if one suspects (in the early stages) that they are being gaslighted, they can protect themselves by walking away (physically or metaphorically).
However, one needs to be aware of what those stages look like, and in this way, one will be able to understand and identify what happens in these different stages.
With this information, one will be able to detect if they are being spotlighted in any personal relationship (be it at home, work, or socially), and protect themselves by keeping the narcissist away from their energy field.
Gas Technologies (3 phases)
- The idealization stage
During the initial “idealization phase,” the narcissist puts on his “best face” to mold his victim into a symbiotic relationship with them as the narcissist’s source. At the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist showers the victim with attention, they are loving, charming, flirtatious, energetic, sexy, and very interesting.
They seem very happy and interested in the relationship, and the unsuspecting victim is enjoying every moment with her charismatic new partner.
They love how beautifully intense the narcissist is and how they get drunk with life, and they also want to drink this elixir with them.
The victim begins to be very attached, innocently, they also believe that the partner feels the same way about them and that the relationship is mutual, but this is the narcissist’s biggest deception.
Under this attractive state of ecstasy, the victim becomes ‘hooked’ by the invader’s ardor and colossal exaggerations.
In this type of relationship, victims are known to experience biochemical changes in the body and structural changes in the brain.
These exciting hooks create a release of chemicals (endorphins) in the brain, and it is these endorphins (or pleasure substances) that make the victim feel high in the initial stage of the relationship.
Like any addict, they become addicted to this high, and soon find themselves emotionally addicted to the narcissistic suitor as well. However, this honeymoon phase is only an illusion, and it is all smoke and mirrors.
After expertly identifying the victim’s strengths and weaknesses, the “idealization phase” is over, and it is time to begin the victim devaluation phase. From now on, the narcissist appears cold, unfeeling, and even stingingly callous.
- Reduction phase
The relationship has now moved into the “devaluation phase,” and it is as if a haze of eccentricity has descended over the relationship. Almost overnight the narcissist becomes cold and uncaring.
The effects of Gaslighting using this technique are that the victim’s fall from grace is difficult, and they don’t seem to be doing anything right anymore; The narcissist’s loving words turn into criticism, everything the victim tries ends up having a negative effect, and they find themselves crushed at every turn.
Completely confused, the victim has no idea what’s going on, and they become increasingly stressed, unhappy, and depressed with the situation. The rollercoaster relationship leaves the victim in a constant state of disarray, as if they were always “walking on eggshells”.
All their energies are directed at defending themselves, and so the narcissist does not get the positive attention he craves; This is likely to be the time when the narcissist starts looking for a new narcissistic supply provider.
Narcissistic gaslighting is now at its peak, and there is no logic with them. Bewildered by the narcissist’s bizarre behavior, the victim works even harder to please the abuser in hopes of returning the relationship to how it was in the beginning when she felt safe.
After being denied the “narcissistic drug,” the victim is suddenly thrown into powerful withdrawal symptoms.
Dazed with anxiety, they are turned inside out with confusion, deprived of what they thought they had, a soul mate.
In order to deal with the pain of this deep wound of abandonment and rejection, they resort to a host of unconscious defense mechanisms (a combination of denial, rationalization, infantile regression patterns, cognitive dissonance, bonding trauma, etc.).
Alone and cut off from the real world, these behaviors become their only way to survive the narcissistic abuse, and the gaslighting effects they are now subjected to.
No matter what they do, they only seem to cause this stranger to developing narcissism, and each time they do so, they inadvertently unleash great rage upon themselves (without knowing how).
Once engaged in these survival tactics, the victim becomes a hostage who is overly dependent on their captive (Stockholm Syndrome), where unpredictability and uncertainty are the order of the day.
As a result, they are now caught in a horrific dance with the great pathological narcissistic self, where hell reigns, and regression into childish regression patterns of behavior (the doomed childhood).
At this point, they are most likely suffering from the effects of Narcissistic Victim Syndrome (NVS), in which they are becoming a shadow of their former selves. Finally, they are at the mercy of the whims and pleasures of their “puppet master”.
The narcissist despises who he has become; They view them as helpless and worthless victims, but at the same time their worthless prey provides them with an ample supply of narcissism.
And herein lies the paradox. The more the victim shows his distress, the more narcissistic he becomes to the abuser, and the more important and powerful the abuser becomes.
The more important and powerful the abuser feels, the more pronounced the verbal and physical violence becomes. This “withdrawal” scenario leaves the narcissist behaving in a way that says, “I hate you, but don’t you dare leave me or I will kill you.”
They will react to any perceived move away from them as a threat to their narcissistic supply, and so any offer of self-determination by the victim will certainly be devalued.
Narcissist is ruthless in the way they devalue the victim. Victim devaluation can be accomplished through many different forms and levels of attack; Through the victims’ attachment needs, intellectual capacities, physical body, sexuality, creativity, etc.
By this time, like Pavlov’s dogs, the victim has been conditioned, and to the outside world they appear to be accomplices in the narcissist’s “twisted dance”.
Even if they manage to escape from this narcissist, they are at great risk of being re-victimized in the future and entrapped with other narcissists, because they are set up in a way that other narcissists can spot.
- Disposal phase
At this point, the game reaches its conclusion. What began as an idealization of the victim by the narcissist, is doomed to end with the idealization of the narcissist through an over-dependence on the victim.
Once this happens, the narcissist’s enthusiasm for the game wanes, in their eyes, they’ve already won the contest, and the fun is over. By this time, the narcissist is completely indifferent to any needs or desires the victim may have that no longer exist in their minds.
Not so for the victim, they are left confused and raw with emotion and eager to find solutions to “fix” the dying relationship.
However, the narcissist will resist all attempts to salvage the relationship, and will bully into silence, or if there is any kind of response, he will be brutally cold.
The victim has become “worthless” from them; They know that they have drained the victim, that they have outlived their usefulness, and now it is time for the narcissist to move on to their next source of supply.
