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Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
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This episode has been on my list for a while as something to discuss on the podcast, but it's kind of always been pushed down by other more relevant topics, despite being, I think, something really valuable to discuss on a podcast that relates to our 20s and obviously the psychology behind our experiences.
It was something in the media recently that has really motivated me to finally sit down and do some deep thinking and research on the topic of gaslighting and also kind of revisit my own knowledge and kind of understanding of the concept.
Last week, this incredible pro surfer called Sarah Brady shared this series of DMs from an ex -boyfriend of hers who was quite famous and I would say well -known.
And they were genuinely gut churning and awful, a very intimate, I would say brave look at how gaslighting kind of occurs in an intimate relationship.
And it really sparked a lot of online debate and discussion around this idea and its validity and how the term and how the concept of gaslighting is used by people to leverage psychological control over others.
It feels like a good time to talk about it and really cover the psychology, the evidence, the research behind what this behavior really means.
I think that when terms like these, terms that are very much part of the psychobabble have a bit of a surge in their use in the media, it's also important to clarify what they actually mean.
Often their interpretation can be misused and extrapolated to kind of undermine survivors, but I've also found that when they're used frequently in the media, sometimes they lose a bit of sensitivity and they become quite generalized to describe a whole range of behaviors that may not actually fall
into this concept and could perhaps be better explained by a different term.
I think the example that I gave earlier of this amazing woman, her situation is gaslighting.
And yet there has been all this rhetoric around, oh, is that term too used?
Have we lost an understanding of what it means?
I think having the proper language to explain our experiences is so empowering, but also having a strong knowledge base to relate those experience to is also really important.
So today we're going to talk about the psychology of gaslighting.
We're going to examine where the concept and the term actually originated and how its meaning has really shifted quite a bit in the last 50 years from its initial use to kind of describe a fairly common practice of convincing women they were going insane to institutionalize them to nowadays a much more
nuanced understanding of what emotional abuse and psychological abuse really is.
So we're going to dive into what it looks like, how to identify gaslighting, what tactics gaslighters use and the links to narcissism, the links to manipulation, Machiavellianism.
Beyond that, how do people learn to gaslight others?
Do they actually consciously know what they're doing?
And how does it kind of link to things like groupthink and stereotypes in really unexpected ways?
There is so much more to this than what we have been told.
It's a super serious matter and behavior.
And I think especially in our 20s when reality and our self -concept already feel quite shaky, being exposed to this kind of manipulation can be really impactful and life altering, not just in romantic situations, but within our families, between friends, even in our workplaces.
When we really sit down and examine what gaslighting is, we suddenly become conscious of it in so many types of interactions and relationships.
It's so much more than just lying or dishonesty.
It's a very systematic pattern of behavior used to convince someone that their reality, their perspective, their sanity is all something that needs to be questioned.
And I think that it's important we all know about it and understand it from a psychological perspective.
And also that we know what to do in the face of gaslighting.
It's something that we may be exposed to.
So how do we detach from these people?
I think this episode is so fascinating, such important general knowledge.
And we have so many studies and theories to cover.
I'm really keen to get into it and really sink our teeth into what it truly means.
So without further ado, let's jump into the episode.
Terms like gaslighting have become a massive part of our shared language and dialogue in recent years.
And we've really seen a spike in usage and popularity, not just in self -help communities or amongst therapists, but also in the media and in everyday conversations.
Some people find that problematic and they link it to the adoption of so -called therapy speak, whereby we use psychological language in terms to describe everyday behaviors.
But I think personally and therapy speak aside, I do believe that having an accurate knowledge and understanding of terms like gaslighting is really important because it's not like the behavior is new.
It's existed for centuries, but unlike previous generations, our generation now has the language to identify the specifics and to know what this means and to put a word to it.
I think that that really improves the conversations we have around mental health, but also around things like coercive control and abusive relationships and power imbalances.
Let's quickly talk through the history of this term before we get into some of the specifics.
Contrary to popular belief or maybe general understanding, gaslighting was not a term created by psychologists or anyone in the medical profession.
It actually originated as a pop culture reference from a movie released in the 1940s.
And in this movie, it's kind of like the pivotal plot point is this husband who secretly dims and brightens the light in their home to convince his wife that she's going quote unquote crazy for the purpose of being able to put her in a medical institution and basically steal from her.
From there, it slowly become part of our lexicon before being adopted by amateur psychology kind of in like the 1970s and 80s.
And it was used almost like as a colloquial reference or a synonym for things like brainwashing in intimate relationships.
Similar to its initial depiction in that movie, it was exclusively kind of used to describe instances in which a partner, usually the husband, manipulates their spouse and the spouse's reality or their physical environment to convince them and those around them that they are experiencing some form of psychosis or a mental
health condition, the goal of which was to get rid of them essentially for some personal gain.
It was describing the manipulation of kind of a broader misunderstanding of mental health and a manipulation of a person's reality to exploit this individual.
It obviously, I think, means a lot more than that now.
But I do also want to stipulate that when it comes to its use in psychology and psychiatry, although the behavior and the behavioral pattern is very much real and explored in the field, the term gaslighting is still somewhat seen as a bit of a colloquialism.
And there's been this debate around its overuse and how that has potentially minimized the actual effects of the abuse that it's used to describe.
I think some people find it quite frustrating, specifically online, to see very serious terms like gaslighting used to describe behavior that maybe doesn't actually fit the clinical profile, like an argument with a friend or a disagreement.
But that doesn't mean that the term isn't still really important.
It still has immense value and it's regularly discussed in psychological fields.
Additionally, we've seen genuine legal change around recognition of gaslighting as a form of emotional abuse or even domestic violence.
I actually didn't know this until I was researching this episode, but in countries like the UK, you can be charged with gaslighting as part of criminal domestic violence laws.
And they've charged some 600 people with this offense.
So although there is some disciplinary disagreement, I think there's no denying that gaslighting and its impact and its contextual relevance is very much real.
And I wanted to just quickly say that because I know that debate does kind of come up around it.
But quick history lesson aside, I think it's valuable to explore what gaslighting is and what gaslighting isn't.
Psychologists, they use the term gaslighting to refer to a specific behavioral profile or type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else, normally an intimate partner or someone close to them, to question their own reality, to question their memory or perceptions in order to
exert control over them for their own benefit.
It's a lot more complex than just lying or a disagreement.
It is a systematic form of what we would call coercive control that is performed over an extended period of time in a way that really attempts to undermine our sense of sanity and the validity of our experiences.
Another way that it's described is kind of as an attempt by the gaslighter to replace our reality with their own version, a version that they control in which we cannot trust our own judgment.
So we begin to rely on them for validation of our circumstances, to validate our emotions, to validate our interpretation of reality.
Most of the time it occurs in quite personal or intimate relationships, often romantic but sometimes with family, friends, even co -workers.
And the reason why this form of manipulation occurs on such a personal relational level is because of the nature of the abuse.
The main purpose and goal of gaslighting is to manipulate your sense of what is true, and inherent to that is kind of a necessary level of trust in the other person.
For example, if a stranger was to say, you know, that's not what I did, you're crazy, you're remembering things wrong, we have no reason to trust them.
We don't have past experiences with them, we don't have memories with them, so we don't always believe that what they're saying is truthful.
That's why it's so insidious, because it takes what is so pure about our close relationship with someone, that bond, that willingness to trust them, that sense of security, and it distorts it.
It weaponizes it against us.
Additionally, I think it's worth saying it doesn't, you know, start on day one.
Often this person, particularly if they're a romantic partner, will build up our bond over time and they make you feel as if you've never known someone as well as you know them, that you guys are soulmates, this relationship is deeply spiritual and supernatural, and that they are the only one that you
can trust. So what does it actually look like?
I want to return to Sarah's case here, that woman who shared those messages between herself and her ex, that really kind of inspired this episode.
In those messages, I don't know if you've read them, I would really advise, go and read up on this, it's super fascinating, but he would repeatedly say things like that she was overreacting in response to his demands, he would ask that she not wear certain clothing despite that being an insanely excessive
demand, he would shift the blame for his reactions onto her, saying that her response were the reason he was acting that way, saying that she was too sensitive, and when she would call out his behaviours, he would repeatedly kind of say that she'd remembered it wrong, that her interpretation wasn't
true. And a lot of that fits the profile of how we see gaslighting manifest in relationships.
It may start out with seemingly small offences, statements like, yeah, I don't remember it that way, or you know, you're confusing me, or you know, you always overreact, you're so sensitive, things that I think feel quite easy to overlook.
However, once the gaslighter can identify that you are questioning your own judgment, that you are questioning reality thanks to their actions, these statements and even their behaviour becomes a lot more deliberate and far reaching.
The whole purpose is to detach you from your instincts, from your sense of self, from your ability to trust yourself by creating kind of a barrier between your rational mind, your logical mind, and your emotive mind and making sure that they control both.
Conflict in any kind of relationship is normal, but when something causes conflict or causes you to be unhappy or upset, in this situation, the other person uses this range of tactics to kind of win.
They may claim that it simply never happened, you know, an outright denial of reality as we know it.
That can be really scary, really terrifying to feel like you are not in control of your mind or you're creating these scenarios that feel real because they are real but they're telling you that they're not and that is so horrific.
That belief that you cannot tell what is real and what is false because someone you love is convincing you otherwise.
I think another typical response is kind of convincing you that you're crazy, I don't like that word but for lack of a better word, or that you're experiencing some kind of mental health crisis or you're quote -unquote hysterical or overreacting, this is particularly common in male, female, romantic
relationships where the male party is gaslighting the woman.
There is this really fascinating paper titled The Sociology of Gaslighting, it was published in 2019, I'm gonna leave it in the episode description because it's super fascinating and it highlights how gaslighting is particularly powerful in dynamics where gender has already kind of created an initial
power imbalance. That's because historically women have always been depicted as irrational and less in control of their emotions.
So male partners who happen to be gaslighters are able to leverage these stereotypes for their own gain.
You know, we cannot discuss gaslighting without also discussing gender because as we all know, we live in a society in which gender creates social inequality and abuse is more commonly initiated by a male partner, not always but most of the time.
And that same kind of trend goes for gaslighting because it is a form of coercion, it's a form of psychological abuse.
But also we can even see how gender played a role in the initial conceptualization of this phrase, you know husbands using tactics to essentially manipulate their wives and have them locked up.
The very emergence of the term is rooted in gender inequality.
When perpetrators mobilize gender -based stereotypes, structural inequalities, institutional vulnerabilities as well against someone else in an intimate relationship, that's when gaslighting is particularly devastating, especially when they combine that with these kind of made -up concerns about someone's
psychological trustworthiness or emotional state.
I think beyond this weaponization of mental health concerns, a gaslighter can also take steps to physically alter our reality and our surroundings to further invalidate our reality and our memory.
I was reading through some case studies of this and I thought these were examples were really interesting to share.
One of them was someone, a partner who would hide their spouse's keys or their wallet or their possessions in a different place to where they left them and then berate them that you know you can't find them because you're so disorganized, because your memory is so terrible.
The other one that I saw was sending text messages from your phone and then deleting them but using them as so -called evidence later on to confirm that your interpretation of reality is wrong and that you must be insane for not remembering previous comments.
I also read this one case study which I, like I read this, it made my, it literally made me sick to my stomach.
It was from a psychologist and she was recounting her client and how her client's husband would steal her birth control pills and convince her that she'd already taken them for the day, effectively undermining her control over her fertility by using gaslighting to convince her that she couldn't trust
her own memory and therefore she had to rely on him to confirm things.
These individual specific examples are quite well documented and there are so many that we could speak on but generally the typical pattern of gaslighting follows six behavioral profiles or patterns and these behaviors, knowing what these behaviors are, can help us identify if we're being gaslit, if there
is some sign of this in a relationship that we have.
These six profiles or six behaviors are withholding, countering, trivializing, denial, diverting, and stereotyping.
So let's step through each of these one by one.
Firstly, withholding covers both insidious and blatant lying but also pretending that they don't understand you when you try and bring up your concerns.
They refuse to listen, they make you doubt yourself.
For example, they might say, oh you know you're so confused, or I don't know what you're talking about, or withholding important information that would allow you to validate your emotions or your experiences.
Secondly, we have countering.
This is when someone questions your memory.
They say things like, are you sure about that, you have such a bad memory, you always forget things, you always forget what happened, or they add additional incorrect details as a way to almost plant false memories.
False memories are one of my favorite topics, theories in psychology.
They're actually really valuable to understand when we discuss gaslighting.
So this idea of false memories, it's essentially that our recollection or our memory of an event is distorted or fabricated due to someone else's influence.
So this was first examined by Elizabeth Loftus in regard to witness testimonies about a crime scene.
And what she found is that depending on the questions asked by the investigator, even what words they were used, you know, kind of leading questions, guiding them to a specific answer, people could remember an event entirely differently.
In a sense, new details are planted without our conscious knowledge.
And we don't even realize that feels real to us if someone, particularly someone in a position of authority, such as a partner who we trust and who we admire, is the one telling us that.
So if a gaslighter repeatedly reinforces a specific fake detail of an event that maybe we don't remember because it didn't happen, if that is repeated enough, we can kind of begin to believe it, and our initial recollection is contaminated by their manipulation.
We begin to think that they know better, that they're helping us by reminding us.
That is absolutely not our fault.
It's entirely through their manipulation that it occurs.
And it's why even those really benign statements or questions of, you know, is that what really happened?
That's not how I remember it, can be so insidious in these situations.
Trivializing is the third sign to look out for.
This occurs when someone kind of littles or disregards how we feel and attempts to undermine the sincerity of our emotions.
They don't respect our reaction.
They may even accuse us of, you know, being too sensitive or overreacting in response to a very valid and reasonable concern, because this means that they don't have to take you seriously.
And your emotions are a personal fault, rather than something that they should be concerned about.
This can also have the run -on effect of making you feel like you can't express your feelings to them and you're essentially being silenced, because you're worried that you'll only reinforce their perception of you as overly sensitive or hyper -reactive.
They make you feel like you're going to be judged for simply expressing how you feel.
Here's the thing though, someone who loves you, someone who cares about you will care about your emotions regardless of how they're expressed.
They will understand that your emotions are subjective.
They will understand that you are reacting in the best way you can.
They don't care if you're sensitive.
They will respect them even if it's inconvenient.
There is no question that if you have a problem, if this is something that is worrying you, it's something that should be important to them.
I think also when someone trivializes your emotions, they make you feel really silly and embarrassed.
And what that also means is that you're unlikely to share your experiences with other people because you don't want them to think you're overreacting.
That's actually a really solid and I think one of the main pillars of any kind of emotional or psychological abuse, it's isolating you from other people.
And in this instance they don't need to physically isolate you.
They can psychologically isolate you by making you feel like others are going to react unfavorably, that others aren't going to believe you either.
The fourth kind of behavioral profile pattern symptom sign is denial and a refusal to take responsibility, blaming it on someone else or how stressful their job is or that it was just a moment of weakness and of course blaming it on you, saying that you're not respecting their boundaries, that this is your
fault that they have to act that way.
None of those are valid reasons to behave in a way that gaslights will hurt someone.
None of them. That you know is part of the explanation, maybe, but it does not constitute an apology or an outright excuse, not in the slightest.
Denial, when they use it this way, absolves them of a sense of responsibility and without them taking responsibility, without them even acknowledging it, we once again feel like it's our fault.
We are the problem here.
It's our reality that needs to be questioned.
It's our thoughts and our experiences that are wrong.
The fifth is diverting and using this technique they will attempt to avoid and re -route the conversation.
For example, say you approach someone you say, I can see that you've been undermining my emotions and you're making me question my reality, that's gaslighting, I'm leaving you, probably something a bit more nuanced than that, but you kind of get the picture.
They might say, oh, you want to talk about gaslighting?
Well, what about the other day when you did x or y or you hurt my feelings when you did this?
That is diverting. It's smoke and mirrors trying to put the guilt and the blame back on you, but also finding ways to not allow you to say your peace, not allow you to confront them, not give you the opportunity to clarify your reality.
Once again, they are in control.
They want you to feel guilt rather than having to take responsibility for it themselves.
And finally, we have stereotyping.
Now, this is not one that I think we typically think of, but we spoke about it before in regards to the manipulation of gender stereotyping to make women feel hysterical, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
Studies have repeatedly shown how abusers can use stereotypes about people based on gender, based on race, based on sexuality or nationality to gaslight them and those around them.
For example, if our legal system or our justice system or our society in general already stereotypes someone and sees them as untrustworthy or overreactive or as a liar based on some group characteristic that is untrue, the abuser knows that and they will leverage that.
And that's especially the case when someone tries to speak out, we see this time and time again, a woman or a person of color or a member of the queer community comes forward and suddenly there are all these articles victim shaming them or painting them in a certain light because of their identity,
not because of what this other person has done.
And I think sometimes we fail to recognize that, not fail to recognize, I don't think it's our fault, but I think abusers and people who gaslight take advantage of the fact that they know our society.
They understand stereotypes and they understand how social and cultural pressure can keep us quiet.
I think it also demonstrates how gaslighting doesn't just occur in a relational context, but it's also aided by groupthink and in group settings whereby our society or powerful narratives around certain groups begin to convince us that maybe this person is right.
Maybe we are wrong.
Maybe we are this kind of person.
Maybe we cannot trust ourselves.
All of these practices, all of these techniques, the broader context, they work in tandem.
The abuser takes advantage of all of them.
The gaslighter takes advantage of all of them to create an environment where you feel like you'll never be believed, that you can't even believe yourself or figure out your reality, that you are in the wrong because someone has kind of consistently convinced you that you can't even believe yourself.
And the psychological impacts of that are incredibly profound and incredibly detrimental.
That constant self -doubt and confusion, that sense of blame, can really lead to a lot of anxiety and even isolation because you no longer really trust your own version of reality and you feel embarrassed to maybe behave a certain way in front of people.
You're convinced that maybe you're going crazy or that you can't appropriately respond to things that have happened.
You can't remember how things actually occur.
It can also in some instances lead to PTSD.
So there was a study conducted a while ago looking at institutional gaslighting.
So gaslighting that occurs in kind of like a workplace and they specifically looked at the medical community, they looked at hospitals, and they found that nurses and medical staff who had been gaslit by employers often experienced symptoms of PTSD for months, even years after they'd actually left that workplace,
after they'd left that position.
And in severe cases, we can see things like codependency or even a version of Stockholm syndrome kind of arise.
And in this instance, Stockholm syndrome is where we develop a psychological bond and a dependency on the person who is actually manipulating us.
This person, this gasliner, has created a psychological environment whereby you rely on them to affirm your reality and to tell you what emotions are appropriate and real.
And therefore, they know that you'll come to rely on them because they have broken down your trust in yourself.
Obviously, this is in very severe cases.
I will say that, but I think exposure to this pattern of behavior can leave us with a lot of trauma that can't be discredited.
So what I want to explore next is why.
Why would someone that we love, someone that we trust, whether that's a partner, a family member, whoever, why do they engage in this kind of habitual pattern of behavior?
I really want to explore that, but also, further to that, how to detach from these kinds of people and identify signs early on.
All of that and more after this short break.
You know, I love having a cheeky drink with friends post -work or a beer with dinner, but this year I have committed to completing Dry January to start the new year off fresh and to really kind of kickstart the lifestyle I want to have for the next 12 months.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for this journey because it has 0 .0 % alcohol so I can still socialize, enjoy myself, get out there without feeling like I'm missing out.
Plus, it genuinely actually tastes very, very delicious.
My fridge is now stocked with Heineken 00 and friends of mine will even join me for an evening or for an afternoon going alcohol free.
If you are also taking part in Dry January this year or just looking for your new favourite drink, Heineken 00 is it.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with Dry January.
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There is obviously no excuse for gaslighting.
Even if someone doesn't know they're doing it, whatever the origins of their behavior, even if they aren't trying to be actively malicious, they still have a responsibility to hold themselves accountable, to do the work, to figure out the why, the cause, the internal tendencies that unconsciously or consciously
create this pattern or way of treating others.
I really want to say that before we look into the psychological origins because I don't want any of these reasons to sound like excuses.
I want to examine this from a very scientific perspective and look at the why.
Why are some people like this and not others?
How can we use this understanding to identify a potential gaslighter before they actually begin to employ these gaslighting techniques?
You know like I said, especially in a romantic context, most of the time this person isn't going to start gaslighting you from the first date.
They're not going to outwardly tell you that this is what they plan to do.
They're pretty smart, sometimes they don't even know, and they also know that they need to build that foundation of trust and slowly kind of introduce this confusion into our minds.
So what comes before the gaslighting begins?
What kind of person does this?
Who should we be looking out for?
One of the biggest determinants is personality.
Personality, I think, can really be drawn on for a lot of explanations in psychology.
Whatever we're looking at, it's kind of a black box with all of the information for how we turn out the way that we do.
But narcissism and gaslighting are very closely linked and sometimes I've seen it like used interchangeably.
So narcissism is actually a personality disorder.
It's characterized by a lack of empathy, by an excessive need for admiration and a sense of superiority or entitlement over others.
This behavioral profile allows someone to initiate gaslighting with a lot less guilt and also ease.
If we also examine the intentions of gaslighting behavior, that is to maintain control, that's something that narcissists inherently crave and therefore they're often drawn to gaslighting as a way to manipulate, as a way to control, as a way to ensure their needs are the first ones being met before
yours, that their version of reality is always right.
And I think additionally to that, because they can't feel empathy the way that most people can, they're not going to have any guilt in doing this.
They're not going to feel bad for making you feel crazy.
They're not going to feel bad for lying.
In the same vein, I think pathological liars are also more prone to have gaslighting tendencies.
One of the main reasons people lie is to avoid accountability.
There's this really fascinating study on this and it found that a lot of people who we would diagnose as compulsive or pathological liars, they report that one of the main reasons they lie when they're asked why, why do you lie?
Is there a reason you do this?
What they say is because at some stage they learned that lying can get them what they want with little consequences.
It has some personal utility or value and when lies can be used to control others, they get what they want from the people around them.
In that way, I think pathological lying and gaslighting, they very naturally kind of operate in tandem.
There have been some other explanations as to why this emerges.
Some actually believe that all gaslighting or manipulative behavior is actually learned.
So for children who grow up with parents who gaslight, their behavior becomes normalized.
We also know from Bandura's experiments on social learning that children primarily learn through observations and they may not even realize what they're doing.
Their parents have set up this kind of blueprint as children, the only way we can learn to survive, the only way we learn what is normal is by what our caregivers are doing or what people around us are doing.
On the other hand, they may also learn through trial and error, I guess, that in order to get what they want, they have to manipulate, they have to gaslight other people.
Maybe that was due to a strict upbringing or emulating older siblings.
That's just one of the explanations that it is a learnt behavior.
I think manipulation can also be used for status.
A lot of people call people like Putin or Donald Trump gaslighters, they use lies and create a false reality for political power.
And at the very end of the spectrum of explanations is that gaslighting is utilized for sadistic pleasure.
So there are some people out there who just like other people to hurt, they get pleasure from seeing others suffering.
And although I think that is extremely rare, very, very rare, it does just kind of go to show how nuanced this behavior and the origins of this behavior are, how much they have to do with personality and something internally that's gone wrong.
Some part of our temperament, some part of other people's temperament that just never fully developed.
But looking at these explanations and these origins, I hope that the one thing that is most clear is that none of them have to do with us.
It is not our fault.
We have not done anything to deserve to be gaslit.
We're not asking for it.
We don't have some personal vulnerability.
Nothing about this has to do with personal blame.
Gaslighting is entirely the gaslighters problem from personality disorders to maybe even genetics, observational learning.
None of that is something that we are responsible for.
However, the question still remains, what do we do if we've identified that we are in a situation where someone is trying to alter our reality or manipulate us for their gain?
How do we detach from this person?
I think firstly, talk to other people you trust about your experience.
This person is betting on your unconditional trust in them and their reality and their coercive tactics.
So when we begin to outsource and get advice from others who have a more objective perspective, it begins to undermine the ways that they're manipulating us.
This incredible article put it this way.
One of the primary goals of the gaslighter is psychological isolation and emotional dependence, especially if they have narcissistic personality disorder or something of the sort.
So when we reach out to our support system to share with them our reality, to tell them what is happening, what we know, what we've seen and experienced, we are further integrating our truth in our minds.
We are sharing our narrative.
Further to that, I would say keep track of your experiences either in a journal or a notes app.
Reaffirm your truth.
Reaffirm the truth as it is happening to you so you can kind of push back against their lies and manipulation with what really happened.
Not just externally, but also internally.
How did you respond to this?
How did you feel when they made you feel that way?
That doesn't mean that you need to sit down and confront them with all your evidence and get them to admit everything because I think it's highly unlikely that they will.
We know that one of the biggest tactics used by people who gaslight is denial and that determination to deny runs steep.
Additionally, when we try to confront people like this and get them to accept our reality, our perspective, in some ways we're still asking for their approval over our experiences.
We don't need their approval.
They don't deserve access to that.
You know your reality.
You know what happened.
Whether they confirm or deny, whether they just dig their heels in deeper, that should not change anything about what you went through or are going through and what that means for you.
It also provides them with an opportunity to learn and change tactics, to know us better and therefore get better at manipulating us.
I think a person who is gaslighting will blatantly lie.
They will shift the narrative.
They will minimize how you feel.
So look out for those common phrases.
You know, they're just being so dramatic.
You're making things up.
That never happened.
You're blowing things out of proportion.
If you want to have a conversation with them, keep it super simple.
You're not there to argue or convince them that your feelings matter.
You know that they matter.
And if they begin to deny or minimize, you have every right to leave that conversation.
You know, I don't usually believe in ghosting or icing someone out, but in some situations it is called for.
And if you need to distance yourself, they don't they don't need an explanation from you.
You have every right to set your boundaries and do what's best for yourself.
They've been doing what's best for them all along.
So you are very much in your right to do that as well by distancing yourself, by putting the issue to bed, by really being like, I'm going to focus on how I can move forward.
And if that doesn't include you, that's your loss.
That's your loss. I also think be gentle with yourself in the aftermath.
And notice when you start to engage in negative self -talk or self -blame.
It's fairly common, I would say, to still feel some of the remnants of their actions and its impact on you, to sometimes question your reality because we have been conditioned or indoctrinated by this person's actions.
We may also experience what we would call an emotional hangover, which is kind of that energetic residue left over from a particularly traumatic or intense interaction or event.
I promise you, you did the best you could.
You're a good person, a trusting person.
You are kind. You are forgiving.
These are beautiful qualities that you do not have to erase just because of someone else.
Finally, professional help is so, so important here.
There is nothing I could ever say on this podcast that is going to help as much as a therapist or a psychologist could.
Someone who knows you personally, who you can go to in confidence, who has to kind of give you an objective opinion and specific skills.
They've seen it before.
They can speak to you and speak you through exactly what needs to be done based on your situation.
I think it's a complicated thing.
It's a very nuanced, a nuanced experience for sure.
But having the proper understanding and the proper skills and the proper language around what it is can really help us overcome it and really help us identify that it's not our fault.
It's really not our fault.
It's someone else's intentions, someone else's problematic behavior that they need to figure out.
They need to work through that.
They need to go back to their childhood or go back to their roots or really go back to their personality and examine what kind of issue is this really stemming from?
What kind of vulnerability or insecurity or problematic behavior am I masking by doing this to someone else?
I really hope that this episode helped you out.
I hope it gave you some further information and some kind of better evidence -based understanding of what this term means.
I see it used so often on social media platforms and I think if that's the only place that you receive psychoeducation, sometimes our interpretation can become quite ambiguous and not specific enough.
So if there's someone in your life who needs to hear this episode, please feel free to share it along.
I really think it is an important topic.
It's something we all need to be cognizant of and aware of and be able to use as part of our language and psychological toolkit.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now.
And if you want to support the show, if you want to support me, please do check out our Patreon.
It is attached in the episode description.
It's really quite ridiculously cheap.
It's like a dollar a month, it's like the cheapest version.
And every kind of small bit of support really does go a long way.
I really appreciate all of you who have already decided to join along in that community.
So thank you so much.
And as always, we will be back next week with another episode.
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Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
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