Gaslighting has become a bit of a mainstream word. Something people might say without fully understanding its meaning or having really experienced it in their lives.
For example, have you heard someone say in passing something like ‘oh, they’re just gaslighting you!’ or ‘I felt like I was being gaslit’?
But behind the cultural familiarity, there’s a darker truth of what it actually means to be gaslit. So, this post will go behind the scenes to provide an understanding of what gaslighting is, the range of its appearance and how it can be both difficult to identify and hard to understand.
What gaslighting actually is
A friend first introduced me to the concept of gaslighting several years ago. Whilst staying with her for a few days, she identified a situation in which I was being gaslit. A situation which was quite central to my life at the time. She sat me down and made me watch a black and white movie from the 1940s called ‘Gas Light’, based on a play of the same name. It’s from the play, the word gaslighting comes from.
In the film, a husband torments his wife by adjusting the brightness of the gas lamps in their home and insisting that nothing has altered. The impact of this behaviour over time is that the wife starts to question her own sense of reality.
Whilst modern day gaslighting no longer involves lamp light, the premise of someone manipulating another person’s sense of the truth over time remains the definition of the term. It’s the deliberate, underhand sowing of self-doubt and confusion which due to its sustained nature can negatively impact a person’s mental wellbeing, understanding of reality and self-esteem.
Gaslighting as a spectrum
Gaslighting can exist on a spectrum based on the level of intensity and the insidious nature of it. What’s important to realise is that this is not an isolated incident as the everyday use of the word might indicate. Instead, this is a deliberate act inflicted with the aim of causing harm to someone’s sense of self.
It’s usually driven from the perpetrator’s need for influence and control of the other. It involves manipulation of facts and events. It’s sneaky, sustained, sometimes relentless and bordering on sinister. There can be an element which is bare faced lying but cleverly shrouded in just the right amount of distortion that the victim is more likely to question themselves than the perpetrator.
Gaslighting is about shoring someone up just enough whilst slowly eroding their foundations.
How gaslighting relates to bullying and scapegoating
It’s worth distinguishing gaslighting from two related patterns, bullying and scapegoating. Both can overlap with it but work differently.
Bullying tends to be more visible, sometimes very public. Someone being undermined or shown up in front of others or having their choices openly dictated. Scapegoating usually involves more than one person, a kind of collective discomfort projected onto a single individual, often because that person is different in some way the group finds hard to sit with. Gaslighting, in contrast, is discreet and more sustained. Its power lies in being hard to identify, even for the person experiencing it.
What connects all three is often something lacking in the person or people doing it. This can be a bully’s low self-esteem externalised, a group’s insecurity about someone else’s difference, a gaslighter’s need for control. But gaslighting specifically works by attacking someone’s grip on their own reality which makes it so distinct and disorienting.
Why some people struggle to see it
I don’t think there’s a typical person that’s vulnerable to gaslighting. The depth of the manipulation and the surrounding set of circumstances are crucial impacting factors. But I do believe that some people can be more vulnerable and less likely to spot it.
The same qualities that can make someone kind and thoughtful can also make them prone to taking on more than their fair share of responsibility for a situation. If someone is highly sensitive, you might expect them to more easily pick up on a gaslighter’s manipulation cues. But being sensitive doesn’t mean you can pick up on sneaky or sinister behaviour, especially if you are a people pleaser or a perfectionist.
Your responsiveness to your environment can ensure you’re constantly alert for issues for you to absorb and troubleshoot. This can mean you’re more, rather than less, likely to take on responsibility for the impact the gaslighting behaviour has on your sense of self.
Why it’s so hard to name from the inside
One of the many challenges with gaslighting is that it’s hard to fully comprehend unless you’ve experienced it. But it’s also hard to identify it as gaslighting when you are experiencing it.
Part of the reason for this is that gaslighting involves manipulation and that by its very nature is deceitful. Also because of its prolonged nature, gaslighting is something deployed by someone you are in some kind of relationship with. This can be in the workplace, your romantic partner, family members or friends.
All of these are people that you typically hope to be able to trust and to be on your side. So the concept that someone in your inner sphere might be misleading you, and trying to cause harm for their gain, can be incredibly hard to comprehend. And if you do get a hint something’s not right or someone else points out things aren’t as they should be, remember the gaslighter wants you to mistrust your own judgement.
All these factors and more can combine to make it difficult to name you are being gaslit in the moment.
Outside support can start the process of recognition
Because gaslighting is so discreet and one-way, it’s not easy to identify and break the pattern without some outside support.
Just as my friend identified the gaslighting I had experienced, so too you might need the guidance and support of a trusted person outside of the situation. With support, you can start to unpack the different elements of what has been taking place.
Reflection and identifying the patterns of behaviour can be the first step in understanding gaslighting and its impact. A starting point for you to take back control of your wellbeing.
