To gaslight12/27/2023 In the vernacular, the phrase “to gaslight” refers to the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings. Anderson Cooper’s nightly news roundup, Anderson Cooper 360, has a special series called “We’ll Leave the Gaslight On,” dedicated to the lies of politicians. It is now part of how we acquire information. The term has been everywhere since Donald Trump’s inauguration, so much so that the Oxford Dictionaries named it one of the most popular words of 2018: gaslighting. This article discussing the meaning and rise of the term was originally published in 2018 and last updated in 2019. If you live in the Aberdeen or Aberdeenshire areas of Scotland, recognise the signs, and believe that you, or someone you know, is in a gaslighting relationship, we can help and support you.Editor’s note, November 28, 2022: Merriam-Webster announced that “gaslighting” is its 2022 word of the year. The sooner the signs are recognised, the sooner the victim can take steps to find help. Gaslighting is a form of mental and emotional abuse. Such action further blurs the victim’s sense of reality and increases their dependence on the gaslighter. The gaslighter may tell the person everyone else is against them and that everyone is lying. Hence, if the victim ever approaches those people for help, they will most likely not be believed. The gaslighter will also tell other people the victim is crazy or mad. Hence, when they call the person crazy, the person believes it. They also know the victim is searching for clarity. The gaslighter knows the person is already questioning their sanity. The person feels that they constantly need to defend themselves for things they have not done. For example, if the gaslighter is a liar and a cheater, they accuse the victim of being a liar and a cheater. ProjectingĪ gaslighter projects their actions on to their victim. As the person searches for clarity from the abuser, the cycle continues and the abuser’s power increases. ConfusionĪ gaslighter instils constant and consistent confusion leading the victim to become desperate for clarity. This abusive pattern becomes reality for the victim and the praise associated with the building back up convinces them to think the abuser isn’t all bad. Love and FlatteryĪ gaslighter will tear a person down, build them back up and tear them right down again. However, their actions will not reflect the words. Words Versus ActionsĪ gaslighter will talk and talk to convince a person of their concern for them. Their reality and being becomes that of the abuser. Self-confidence disappears, and the victim becomes a shadow of their former self. The victim, over time, becomes a different person. The gaslighting continues methodically and continuously over a long period of time. If they have children, the gaslighter will make them believe they should not have had them, that they’re a poor parent. if the person loves their job, the gaslighter will find issues with it. This is a manipulative tactic used by the gaslighter, causing the person to question themselves and things they hold close. Increasingly you question your reality and accept theirs. Perhaps they were right, they never said it. You begin to have self-doubt, question everything and become uncertain of the simplest matters. You know the person is lying, often and with ease, yet they say they do not recognise this in their behaviour. The abuser disproves concerns time and again to the point a person does not recognise the reality of what is happening. Abusers carry out gaslighting behaviours slowly and deliberately so that the person it is happening to does not realise it. The term relates to the 1944 film, Gaslight, which tells a story of a husband systematically brainwashing his wife to the point that she believes she is going insane. The self-doubt and constant questioning slowly cause the individual to question their reality. Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic in which a person, to gain power and control of another individual, plants seeds of uncertainty in another person’s mind. Coercive Control: 10 Signs It's Gaslighting
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