Gaslighting occurs when someone makes you question your beliefs or sense of reality. Over time, this form of emotional abuse can wear down your self-esteem and make you feel isolated and powerless, leaving you dependent on the person gaslighting you. Due to the abuse, you may experience self-doubt, disorientation and trouble functioning at work, school or home.
If you believe you are being gaslit in your current relationship, know that you are not alone. Mental health professionals can help you feel better and regain control of your life.
How to Know If You’re Being Gaslit
Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that makes you lose trust in your sense of reality. Abusers or bullies might gaslight others by denying facts and their victim’s environment or feelings. Essentially, victims of gaslighting are manipulated into turning against themselves.
Someone who’s gaslighting might:
- Deny your recollection of events.
- Express doubts to others about your feelings, behavior and state of mind.
- Call you overly sensitive when you express your needs or concerns.
- Insist that you did things you know you didn’t do.
- Retell events to shift blame to you.
- Insist they are right and refuse to consider your perspective or the facts of the situation.
Experts believe people gaslight because being right helps them feel validated. When abusers feel threatened, they need to believe and support their reality to maintain control and power.
If you feel like you are in this situation, you might constantly second-guess yourself and feel overwhelmed or uncertain about your ability to make your own decisions.
9 Signs Of Gaslighting in a Relationship
Many of us have been gaslit at some point in our lives, making it essential to learn to spot signs of gaslighting and shut them down. When left unaddressed, gaslighting can have a lasting impact on your emotional, psychological and sometimes physical well-being.
Here are nine signs of gaslighting in a relationship:
1. Blatant Lies
People who engage in gaslighting create a false narrative and make the victim question their judgments and reality. You might know your partner is lying, yet they say they don’t recognize it in their behavior. Being a victim of gaslighting means questioning everything and becoming uncertain of even the simplest matters.
People who gaslight will never back down and may change their stories, even when you call them out or provide proof of their lies.
2. Using What You Love Against You
This is a classic gaslighting technique used by abusers, making their victims question themselves and the things they hold dear. An example of gaslighting is if a couple has children, the gaslighter will make their partner believe they are a terrible parent and should have never had children.
They might also tell your friends or family lies about you and convince you that your loved ones dislike you, even if your friends and family have never said a bad thing about you. This further blurs the line between yourself and your sense of reality, increasing your dependence on the gaslighter.
3. Losing Your Sense of Self
Gaslighting will often reoccur over a long period. The victim, over time, will become a different person, losing their confidence and becoming a shadow of their former self. They might accept their abuser’s reality over their own and question their perception of the world. They might even wonder if they are losing their sanity, and the gaslighter will encourage this line of thinking to gain more power and control.
4. Using Love and Flattery as Weapons
A gaslighter will make a person feel bad and build them back up with kind words, only to tear them down again. This abusive pattern becomes the norm for the person affected, and the praise associated with the buildup will convince the victim to think their abuser isn’t all bad.
Sometimes, when questioned about their actions, they’ll use kind and loving words to try to smooth over the situation. However, their actions will not reflect their kind words. Gaslighters often use this language to escape the responsibilities or consequences of their behavior.
The pattern of behavior associated with gaslighting is reflective of the “reconciliation” phase of a typical abuse cycle. Though all abusive relationships and instances are different — and many circumstances of abuse may not follow a standard cycle — many abusive experiences follow a four-stage cycle:
- Tension builds.
- There is an occurrence of violence or abuse.
- There is rebuilding or reconciliation.
- The parties enter a period of calm.
The length of each cycle and the amount of time between stages may vary between couples and individual occurrences. Eventually, the period of calm may gradually shorten or become nonexistent.
5. Rewriting History
Another classic gaslighting technique is retelling stories in ways that are in the abuser’s favor. For instance, if your partner shoves you and you discuss it later, they may tell you that you only got hurt because you stumbled and they tried to steady you.
You may doubt your memory of what happened, which is precisely the abuser’s intention. Rewriting history encourages confusion and second-guessing. As you search for clarity, the cycle of abuse will continue.
6. Shifting Blame
Gaslighters often twist every discussion to make you feel you are to blame for any issues in the relationship. Even when you discuss how their behavior makes you feel, they’ll turn the conversation on you to make you question if you are the cause of their behavior. For example, they might claim that if you acted differently, they wouldn’t treat you as poorly as they do. This form of manipulation can make it difficult for victims of gaslighting to leave the relationship and heal from the abuse.
7. Everyone Else is A Liar
Gaslighters will tell their victims that everyone is against the victim and that the victim is a liar while also spreading rumors about the victim to others. They might secretly tell friends or family that you are emotionally unstable to create distance between you and your loved ones.
8. You’re Always Making Excuses
When dealing with a gaslighter, they’ll often make you feel like all situations are fights between them and the people closest to you. This type of combative behavior can lead to a lot of conflict in your life, forcing you to apologize on your partner’s behalf or make excuses for them to your friends and family members.
Over time, victims of gaslighting can feel more distant from loved ones, ultimately working to the gaslighter’s benefit.
9. Minimizing Your Thoughts and Feelings
Gaslighters trivialize their partner’s emotions to gain power over them. They might tell you to calm down or that you’re overreacting or being too sensitive when you try to discuss your feelings. When you are with someone who never acknowledges your feelings or beliefs, you might start questioning them yourself. Feeling misunderstood or invalidated in a relationship can be isolating and difficult to cope with.
What to Do If the Signs of Gaslighting Sound Familiar
If the above signs of gaslighting sound familiar, try the following tips to get yourself out of the situation:
- Take notes immediately after bad events happen so you won’t need to second-guess yourself.
- Talk to loved ones and people you trust.
- Hold on to the things that make you who you are to maintain your sense of self.
- Set boundaries to interrupt the gaslighting and create physical and emotional space.
- Encourage your partner to speak with a therapist.
- Talk to a therapist yourself.
Get Support for Gaslighting at Merrimack Valley Psychological Associates in Andover
Gaslighters can shift blame onto you, twist your sense of reality and pit you against friends and family. If you are in this situation, we understand how isolating and overwhelming it can feel. When you need support for gaslighting, Merrimack Valley Psychological Associates can help.
We provide a range of counseling services to help you see reality as it is to that you can heal. We can help you cope with depression, anxiety or gaslighting in your relationship, promoting self-empowerment and confidence to help improve your life.
To schedule an appointment, reach out today.
