^{Author: Brandy Metz, MSN, APRN, AGNP-C}

Gaslighting

“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Gaslighting is one of those terms that is thrown around and misused all the time. The overuse of this term has diluted and minimized its clinical meaning. Gaslighting is not an inflammatory comment that causes upset or an argumentative disposition. Gaslighting is a systematic pattern of behavior. It is real deal psychological manipulation that causes real deal psychological damage. It is insidious mental and emotional abuse. 

Gaslighting is often associated with narcissists and sociopaths who seek to control and dominate others. These abusers maliciously use gaslighting tactics to overpower their targets. Their motives are strategic and sadistic. But gaslighting behavior is not exclusive to people with pathological personality disorders. It is not always a calculated conscious effort. It is often a subconscious and deeply ingrained triggered response. While traditional gaslighting is intentional psychological abuse, unintentional gaslighting is a subconscious defense mechanism. It can be a learned and conditioned pattern of behavior with roots likely developed from childhood trauma. Unintentional gaslighters may have been victims of gaslighting as children, or witnessed it in the home. They may have been guilted and shamed disproportionately and relentlessly for faults and shortcomings. They may have been dominated, belittled, berated, and defenseless stunting their ability to develop mature emotional self-regulation. They may have been conditioned through toxic relationships throughout their lives, and lacked a safe environment to learn to identify, express, and communicate their feelings constructively. 

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift. “ ~ Mary Oliver

An unintentional gaslighter can be completely unaware of their behavior or the impact of their actions on their victims. They may view this type of behavior as a normal way to handle upset and disagreements. Seemingly sane, calm, well-adjusted people can have gaslighting tendencies. People you would never suspect. This makes it all the more confusing when experienced. Gaslighting is selective and occurs almost exclusively in close relationships. It is often expressed in romantic relationships where only an intimate partner is privy to a gaslighter’s behavior. This is because relationships are where our defenses are most triggered. Fundamentally, gaslighting is a form of extreme defensiveness and emotional dysregulation. It manifests as a variety of dysfunctional defensive techniques and control tactics. Whether the cause of gaslighting behavior is pathological or unintentional, the effect is the same. 

Lack of emotional regulation: Gaslighters lack emotional regulation skills. Expect lots of fights. They are full of unmarked landmines that detonate on a hair’s trigger. Any incident can elicit an extreme and disproportionate response. They do not understand their feelings and instinctively express any negative or uncomfortable emotion as anger. They manufacture fights as an outlet to release pent up anger, and direct their rage onto their victim. They use their victim as an emotional punching bag. 

“You cannot build a deep connection with someone who is disconnected from themselves.” ~ Yung Pueblo 

Defensiveness: At their core, unintentional gaslighters have deep rooted insecurities. Gaslighting has become their maladaptive way to protect their fragile sense of self. When their insecurity is triggered, a gaslighter will instinctively respond maliciously and viciously. If their partner expresses a concern, or questions them in any way, this is viewed as a full frontal attack. Any seemingly minor criticism will be regarded as a major assault. If you have to confront a gaslighter about their behavior that hurt you, their defensive tactics can be volatile. Once their defensiveness is triggered, they will unleash any and every tactic in their arsenal to punish you. They will feel entirely justified in doing so. They misinterpret that they are under enemy attack, and you are the enemy combatant. “You started it.” You have bruised their ego, and you will burn for it. They use the classic abuser’s justification. “Look what you made me do.” 

“The insane protect their thought systems but they do so insanely. And all their defenses are as insane as what they are supposed to protect.” ~ A Course in Miracles

This extreme defensiveness severs any chance of communication. The goal of defensiveness is not understanding, or resolution. It is to protect yourself. If a gaslighter is triggered, they can respond like a cornered wild animal. They may interpret that you are trying to inflict hurt, shame, guilt, and punishment on them, instead of attempting to communicate. Their defensiveness overrides any willingness to reason. No matter how much evidence you present in your favor, or how logically you attempt to communicate, you will never reach any understanding. The more you press them, the more cornered they feel, and the more defensive they become. And they will resort to a cascade of manipulative defensive tactics. 

“To be defensive is to react with a war mentality to a non-war issue.” ~ Sharon Ellison

Lack of accountability: A gaslighter will never accept accountability. Never. They will deny responsibility no matter the evidence. An emotionally healthy self regulated person might simply take ownership of their actions, apologize, and learn from their mistakes. The conflict could be resolved without escalation and deeper understanding and trust would be established. Everyone would be better for it. An unintentional gaslighter, however, considers any confrontation a character assassination. If they were conditioned to feel disproportionate guilt, shame, and punishment for wrong-doing as children, or if they have been victim of unfounded accusations against them, to admit any fault may trigger self protective denial. They interpret that if they admit to doing the wrong thing, then they are essentially admitting they are a bad person. It is easy to sympathize with this understanding in mind. But for a partner who confronts a gaslighter saying “You did this, and it hurt me. Here are the facts.” And it is met with “I did not do that. I never did anything wrong.”, it is invalidating and infuriating. No understanding, trust, or communication is accomplished. Just the opposite. 

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love…” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

You will never receive an apology. Not only will they deny accountability for their actions that hurt you, but they will further exalt themselves above reproach. They never did anything wrong. Ever. And how dare you hold them accountable and thereby impugn their character. To attempt to hold a gaslighter accountable for their actions begets an all out war. 

“War does not determine who is right. Only who is left.” ~ Bertrand Russel

Deflection: In order to evade accountability, a gaslighter will deflect. They have no intent of solving the issue at hand. Their only aim is to defend themselves against feeling attacked. And they will launch grenades. They create side arguments that distract from the main argument. Instead of diffusing one fire, they will start several other fires. This creates a dizzying smoke screen. The intent is to turn the attack on you and put you on the defensive end. Anything you say can and will be used against you to start other fights. They will twist your words to fit their end, and their end is to provoke you. They will accuse, distort, lie, and insult you. All of these tactics are designed to be inflammatory. They are designed to provoke you, so that you become the one who’s upset, out of control, and indignified. And once they have enraged you and baited you into their chaos, they have control. They have successfully changed their position from defense to offense. And they advance. 

“He who established his argument by noise and command show that his reason is weak.” ~ Michel de Montaigne

Rewriting history: An effective distortion tactic is rewriting history. A gaslighter will twist truths with lies. This baits you into further engaging in conflict. You will want to correct them, and separate the truth from the lies. But it is to no end. They generate confusion, and confusion has no limits. As soon as you begin to unravel one twisted account, you only become more entangled. They are making a web. The more you fight, the more entrenched you become. They do not care for truth. They will create new narratives, half truths, and false accusations. They will say one thing, and in the next sentence deny saying what they just said. They will say you said or did something you did not say or do. The more you engage, the further away from truth you get. They will attempt to make you doubt your own mind, memory, experiences, and reality. They are playing psychological warfare. 

“To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth.” ~ Unknown 

The term gaslighting comes from a play ‘Gaslight’ written in 1938, in which a husband diabolically creates scenarios and rewrites history in order to manipulate his wife into believing that she is going insane. Rewritting history is a tactic implored to make you doubt your perception of reality and deteriorate your sense of self-trust. It is crazy-making. 

“If you want to kill somebody conquer his heart, then leave slowly, and leave them in between death and madness.” – Nizar Qabbani

Projection: “Gaslighters use a defense called projection. Projection involves denying a negative quality in yourself by seeing it in another person, even when it isn’t really there.” ~ Melanie Greenberg. They will accuse you of what they themselves are perpetrating. If they are being intentionally hurtful, they will project that you are being intentionally hurtful. If they are being untrustworthy, they will accuse you of being untrustworthy. They think you are operating from their same playbook. It’s almost like a glimpse into their psyche via a game of ‘who smelt it dealt it.’ By projecting onto you, they can put you on the defensive and feign control. They will also parrot back and accuse you of whatever you point out in their behavior. It’s an ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ defense strategy. This is all just further deflection from accountability. They have rewritten history and rewritten reality and convinced themselves of their misperceptions and misinterpretations no matter how wild and unfounded. 

“It is well known that those who do not trust themselves never trust others.” ~ Alfred Adler

Blame shifting: Once a gaslighter is upset, you will be blamed for anything and everything. This is an inflammatory strategy used to destabilize you, gain control of the argument, and put you on the defensive. Now you are under attack and trying to defend yourself against nonsense and set the record straight. There is no straight. We are outside of the bounds of sanity. Every event will be twisted every which way to keep you on the defensive. There will be no resolution. The goal is not resolution. This is arson. This is dousing you with gasoline to light you up and watch you burn. As if their initial assault to you wasn’t enough, now not only do you have to deal with them denying accountability, projecting, lying, and deflecting, but they also have the audacity to put the blame on you. Shifting all blame on you is a manipulation tactic designed to provoke you to outrage and bait you into their level of immaturity. They want to infuriate you to the point of acting out of character in anger. This adds fuel to their agenda of shifting focus off of them and onto you, and making you the bad guy. This is your fault and your doing. They have done nothing wrong. You’re the one acting crazy. Look at you. You’re all lit up. And your retaliation gives them permission to lash out further.  

 “Manipulation is when someone blames you for your reaction to their toxic behavior, but never wants to discuss the disrespect that triggered you.” ~ Unknown

Villainizing : They convince themselves that you’re a villain. You attacked them. You’re to blame for everything. Everything you’ve ever done has been twisted into a horrible offense with nefarious intentions. “The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.” ~ Mark Twain. Its amazing how the person you love and trust can devalue and dehumanized you and warp you into a villain. Dehumanizing and villainizing a person makes it much easier to abuse them. Villains are not worthy of respect or consideration. With this perspective, there are no holds barred, and anything you do is wrong. Gaslighters also create double bind scenarios to further twist the narrative and villainize you. No matter how you respond, you are trapped in a lose-lose situation. Everything is booby trapped. If they have successfully baited you into outrage, then this gives them free reign to terrorize you and feel justified. Engaging with them gives them power. The goal was never communication, understanding, or resolution. The goal was control. The goal was submission. 

“You may shoot me with your words. You may cut me with your eyes. You may kill me with your hatefulness. But still, like air, I rise.” ~ Maya Angelou

Victimizing: If they are being attacked by a villain, then naturally, they are the victim. In this new version of reality, you have attacked them, impugned their impeccable character, and did horrible things to them. You’re a villain, and you’ve lost your mind. While they did nothing wrong. Ever. They projected, deflected, blame shifted, and rewrote history to create all of this chaos to twist and distort the narrative to punish you and exonerate themselves. Now apologize and fix it. 

“Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.” ~ Mark Twain

Gaslighting is psychological abuse. It is a pattern of manipulative behavior. All tactics are purposed to confuse you, throw you off balance, disorient you, enrage you, and lure you into insanity, to turn the tables on you, gain control, and pummel you into submission. It can take a long time to identify and figure out what’s happening. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Gaslighting is like one of those “Magic Eye” random dot stereogram images. Once you identify the hidden image, it’s as clear as day. It jumps out at you. It’s no longer random dots. You know exactly what you’re looking at. Other people might not be able to see it. That’s because they are not at your vantage point, where you must be in order to see the hidden picture. 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” ~ Viktor Frankl

Gaslighting is insidious psychological abuse that typically only escalates in intensity and frequency. If they succeed in controlling you, you will be a degraded emotional punching bag. If they cannot, they will sabotage you to leave them, and then play victim. Experts say that gaslighting behavior can be treated. However, it is difficult to treat. In order to address this behavior, the gaslighter has to acknowledge their behavior. Gaslighters do not do accountability. It is very difficult to penetrate such deep rooted ingrained subconscious defense mechanisms. If they refuse to acknowledge their pattern of behavior, they will not address it. People are not motivated to change what they do not see or recognize as a problem. Unfortunately, the prognosis for change is not likely. Try as you might…

“Experience teaches only the teachable.” ~ Aldous Huxley

The best measure for dealing with gaslighters, is not to. Insanity only begets insanity. Life is full of conflict. Relationships are full of conflict. We are all struggling. We all have our wounds, and traumas, and maladaptive coping behaviors and defense mechanisms. We should all seek to have compassion for each other’s weaknesses. We’re all broken, and we are all trying to learn to love again. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for each other is to not accept the unacceptable. “I can do nothing for you but work on myself. You can do nothing for me but work on yourself.” ~ Ram Dass. The stress of allowing continuous gaslighting will exhaust, deteriorate, and diminish you on every level: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Gaslighting has no limits, and there’s no winning. There is only losing. Losing yourself. Do not subject yourself to abuse. Do not engage. There is no relationship worth your sanity and peace.