There are people who make you doubt yourself by constantly questioning your feelings, ideas, beliefs and decisions. These people undermine your confidence to the point where you stop trusting in your abilities. They then “take over” your life, without you even realizing it. This is a phenomenon known as gaslighting.
What is gaslighting?
This term came into fashion in the 1960s to indicate the intention of manipulating a person’s perception of reality. However, its roots are even deeper as it comes from a play called “Gas Light”, which was also made into a film. In the film version, Ingrid Bergman was harassed by her husband, who tried to convince her that she was crazy. To achieve this goal, she manipulated different objects in her environment and when Ingrid Bergman pointed out these variations, he claimed that she was wrong and that she was losing her mind.
Today, this term is still used to indicate a form of mental abuse characterized by selectively handling information to confuse the victim, making them doubt their memory, perception, or even their sanity. Its main objective is to disorient the person, making their sense of reality and self-confidence waver, in order to put them at the mercy of the victim.
In fact, gaslighting is a form of mental abuse that is much more common than we might think, especially in relationships between couples or parents and children. Basically, it occurs every time someone deliberately lies to us with the aim of altering our perception of circumstances and taking advantage of it, even though they know full well that we are right.
However, gaslighting is often difficult to detect because it rarely involves violence. In fact, the person often behaves very kindly and even puts the victim on a pedestal, so that the victim does not doubt his or her intentions. In many cases, the manipulative person proclaims himself or herself as the victim’s defender, when in reality what he or she is trying to do is subjugate the victim.
Gaslighting: A crescendo of manipulation
It is easy to think that we would never fall for such a “crude” manipulation, but when emotions come into play, the improbable becomes probable. In fact, gaslighting is a complex mechanism of projection and introjection of psychic conflicts involving two people:
– Manipulator. On the one hand, we find the manipulative person, who projects his conflicts onto his victim, to keep his own identity intact and feel that he has control.
– Victim. On the other hand, we find the victim, who is normally a person who has an emotional relationship with the manipulator and who accepts the latter’s conflicts as their own.
The victim does not trust their own judgments, idealizes the manipulator and assumes their sense of reality. Normally, this is an insecure person who needs external approval. Although in some cases, when gaslighting extends over years, a person’s security and self-confidence can begin to falter, so that they come to accept the reality imposed on them by the other, especially if they trust that person.
Obviously, such a refined form of emotional manipulation does not happen overnight.
Stage 1: In the first stage, when someone tries to impose another reality on you, you usually resist and fight back. You may argue for hours about the argument, until you feel downright ridiculous, but you can’t come to an agreement because the other person won’t budge. In fact, you’re likely to argue about things that shouldn’t be up for discussion, like your feelings or opinions. However, you argue because someone is trying to tell you how you should feel or think. At this stage, you still believe in yourself, but you’re starting to question your beliefs.
Stage 2: In the second stage, you begin to consider the other person’s point of view and even understand it, so you work hard to make them understand your perspective in turn. However, you are afraid of what their point of view reveals about you, what you think it says about your beliefs and values. At this point, the goal of the argument is no longer to win and prove that you are right, but simply to prove that you are a good person, that you are valuable. This is an important shift in goal because it shows that you have stopped believing in your arguments and are fighting just to prove your worth.
Stage 3: In the third stage you begin to seriously doubt yourself and ask yourself “ what’s wrong with me? ” You begin to consider their point of view as normal and yours as wrong, you lose the ability to judge your own thoughts and feelings because you are using someone else’s yardstick. By this time you have fully embraced the manipulator’s perspective, you doubt yourself and begin to fear their criticism, to the point where you may become obsessed with not making a mistake. By this stage you no longer believe that you are a valuable person, you have given away your decision-making ability and self-esteem.
Why does a person fall into this trap?
There are three characteristics that make a person more likely to be a victim of gaslighting:
- Need to be right. A person who always wants to be right is more prone to this type of manipulation because he or she also tends to get involved in arguments that go off topic and enter the dangerous terrain of subjectivity. In addition, the desire to be right also implies a black and white view of the world, so when his or her arguments lose solidity, he or she will have the tendency to assume those of the other person, without realizing that both arguments are simply different perspectives.
- Need for approval. The constant need for approval reveals an insecure person, a person who easily gives in to the wishes of others just to obtain their approval. Obviously, the manipulator takes advantage of this weakness to his advantage. A person who needs the approval of others will be subject to them, so he will be very vulnerable to manipulation.
- Need for affection. Gaslighting often occurs between people who have a close emotional relationship. In fact, the victim often idealizes the manipulator, seeing him or her as a “savior” or “defender.” Obviously, if that emotional bond did not exist, it would be much easier to break off the relationship or stop the manipulation before it became too big.
How to deal with gaslighting?
The best solution to avoid falling into this type of manipulation is to learn to detect it in time . It is important that you are able to identify this type of person. In fact, when someone makes you feel bad all the time, makes you doubt yourself and diminishes your self-confidence, making your security shake, it is because they are a toxic person and you must remain with all your senses alert when you interact with them.
You should also be aware that a person may not share your feelings and ideas, may not agree with them, and may not even understand them, but you should not doubt their existence – after all, it is not within you to affirm or deny them with certainty. Therefore, if a person frequently doubts your feelings and ideas, it is likely that they do so only to undermine your self-esteem and manipulate you. Do not let anyone doubt what you feel or think .
Finally, consider that it is better not to argue with these people, because their goal is not to understand you but to manipulate you. The person who resorts to gaslighting does not need to be right, they just need you to believe that they are. Therefore, they will do everything possible to manipulate your perception of the facts. The key is to prevent them from doing so, and to do so, it is advisable that you do not get involved in discussions that are not objective.
References:
Dorpat, T. L. (1994) On the double whammy and gaslighting. Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy ; 11(1): 91–96.
Gass, GZ & Nichols, WC (1988) Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome. Journal of Contemporary Family Therapy ; 10 (1): 3–16.
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