Are You Being Gaslighted? What It Is…and What to Do About It
The word “gaslighting” is on a lot of people’s lips lately, and it’s an accusation easily thrown around—“You’re gaslighting me!”
But what is gaslighting, and why is it called gaslighting? Our Bottom Line expert psychologist Judy Kuriansky, PhD, explains all about it here…
The term comes from a 1930s play and two 1940s films, all titled Gaslight, that tell the story of a man who undermines his wife’s grip on reality by blatantly lying about what she sees, hears and does so that he can have her committed to an asylum and steal her fortune. How “gaslighting” got its name: In the plays and the movie, when the downstairs gas lamps repeatedly dim because the husband has turned on the lights in the attic to search for hidden riches, he tells his wife that it’s all in her head.
The word gaslighting has become popular recently for describing situations in which someone demands that the victim disbelieve something and accept a version of reality that is advantageous to the “gaslighter.” True gaslighting contains these elements…
Manipulation and control: Gaslighting’s purpose isn’t simply to win an argument. It’s to wear down the victim’s confidence in his/her own judgment…and to make her question her own competence so that the manipulator—the gaslighter—can control her.
Uneven dynamic: Gaslighting usually occurs when one person in the relationship—the gaslighter—is perceived as smarter or more powerful. The victim—the “gaslightee”—typically has low self-esteem and defers to the gaslighter by default. While anyone of either sex can be a gaslighter, more often men do the manipulating, particularly common in abusive relationships.
Pattern: If someone lies to you once, it’s just a lie. But if he does it repeatedly, causing you to question your discernment, judgment and autonomy, it’s a gaslighting campaign designed to doubt yourself and break your will.
Gaslighting exists along a continuum, with cases ranging from mild to profoundly abusive.
What gaslighting doesn’t mean: It does not simply describe mere differences of opinion or denying another person’s experience or point of view. Gaslighting doesn’t just happen in interpersonal relationships…it’s even evident in political discourse. While we’re often blatantly lied to by politicians, misplaced accusations of gaslighting (often referred to as “misinformation” or “disinformation”) pollute our public discourse.
Imagine that a couple attends a dinner party. The wife greets another man there with a prolonged hug and slides her chair closer to his than to her husband’s. Throughout the meal, she laughs coquettishly at the man’s jokes, frequently touching his arm and hand, and ignoring her husband. On the way home, the husband finds the courage to say, “I didn’t like the way you were flirting with that man tonight.”
“Flirting?” she scoffs, as if the very notion were absurd. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I barely spoke to the guy.”
“But you were almost in his lap.”
“What? That’s so wrong. I was almost in your lap.”
And so on.
If the husband has lived within this dynamic long enough…and if his self-doubt is sufficient…at least part of him will come to believe his wife’s version of events. Over time, each new version of reality she defines that he accepts diminishes him until he constantly questions himself and becomes unable to defend or advocate for himself.
Gaslighters cleverly set up their power plays. They don’t just deny things that have happened. They also insist on things that never were, skillfully devising lies that could be true. Imagine a husband saying to his wife, who has in the past confessed embarrassment about her protruding stomach, “I guess you should’ve worn a looser dress today. Did you see those other women staring at your midsection?” This further erodes her self-esteem and makes her even more susceptible to his control.
Ideally, the gaslightee would challenge the gaslighter’s version of events, but because victims may have low self-worth, they rarely push back.
One helpful technique: Reality-testing, in which the gaslightee seeks verification from a trusted friend, loved one or therapist that his/her senses and perceptions haven’t been deceived. Examples: The man with the flirting wife could ask other people who were at the dinner party if they noticed. The stomach-conscious woman could ask a trusted friend if her tummy truly does draw attention. Once you recognize that you’ve been gaslit, tell the gaslighter how it makes you feel and insist that it stop.
If you believe a friend or loved one is being gaslit: Consider carefully whether to intervene. You must be certain of what you’ve observed. If you choose to step in, confirm your friend’s reality using specific observations. Instead of, “I don’t think she’s good for you,” say, “I saw the way your wife behaved with that man at the dinner party. It struck me as being very disrespectful to you.” Make clear that the gaslighter’s inappropriate behavior shouldn’t be tolerated. Once you’ve opened the conversation, it will be up to the gaslightee to address the issue in the relationship.
