Have you actually tried gaslighting someone before?
All this pop psychology makes it seem like it is way easier then it really is.
Have you spent your entire life raised to put more weight in others’ comfort, opinions, achievements than your own?
It’s REALLY easy to gaslight someone. Congratulations, you’re not a predator who seeks out/recognizes these qualities in someone for you to take advantage of.
It IS common. It exists in many forms of abusive relationships. The fucking problem is that the internet is stupid as fuck and doesn’t understand what gaslighting is. If you start to question your intelligence, memory, etc because your partner is always contradicting you, just them, yeah that’s gaslighting. Disagreeing or the person is being a jerk and saying those lines doesn’t mean “you’re being gaslit” it’s a process and state of mind and being. You can be gaslit to believe your father never spent months painting himself blue trying to get into the blue man group, but that’s if you are convinced! Someone telling you that your dad never blue himself trying to convince you does NOT mean you were gaslit.
Also lying isn’t gaslighting. The point is someone questioning or changing their reality.
Sorry for the rant. I’m very passionate about abuse awareness and can’t self edit so well.
Can confirm, I used to have a partner that was conditioned to accept gaslighting by their narcissistic father. They had a terrible memory for his abuse. Like he’d say these flagrantly horrible things, and I’d try to talk to them about it later and half the time they just… wouldn’t remember it.
It was really easy to accidentally railroad them too. Like I had to learn to be hyper aware of anything I said that might unconsciously contradict what they wanted, because they would just self-edit to remove the contradiction.
It’s what ended the relationship really, because even though they didn’t always consciously remember the abuse, they did expect it, and it was impossible to have a conversation about a difficult issue without them perceiving abuse and sidestepping it. The conversation would go in circles. When I got good enough at anticipating the ways they would sidestep topics, they had another strategy - just dissociate and blank out, so I’m left standing there going, “Hello? Can you hear me?”
Gaslighting is real, and it does serious damage to people.
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Way too on the nose, this is rookie shit
I’d be very angry with you if you didn’t put that tone indicator in your comment.
No you wouldn’t, you’re delusional.
Have you actually tried gaslighting someone before?
Sus lol.
To your point, gaslighting is often also done unconsciously as a byproduct of other toxic behaviors.
Weirdly I feel like I self-gaslight all the time to the point where I’m not sure if certain things are real.
Some examples…
Am I really having pain in my foot or am I being a hypochondriac? How can I tell if it’s real or if I’m making it up?
Was my boss actually in the wrong in saying that to me or am I just a crazy person?
Are my feelings genuine or am I subconsciously just acting a certain way for attention?
Guess you’ve never had sociopaths in your life.
Yeah, people who have experienced it understand that you don’t “try” gaslighting. People who do it are just constantly doing it, usually without even needing to try - it’s just their natural state to counter the things other people say. It works not by making someone believe a lie, but by wearing them down slowly, showing such confidence in something that the victim sees as being so clearly incorrect that they can’t help but think that maybe they’re the problem.
Nailed it. Had best friends and exes that are like this. Took some therapy to realize the abuse that I endured and internalized. Still work on avoiding these types of relationships, they are gravitational.
