Gaslighting In DV Relationships
TO DIM YOUR LIGHT
What…I didn’t say that! Are you OK?...Maybe you should see a therapist…and best of all… You’re just too sensitive!
These are all the phrases used by the emotionally abuser, to distort the ideals and perceptions of their targets, in an effort to make them easier to manipulate and ultimately control, so they can receive narcissistic supply from them.
What I am describing is GASLIGHTING, a form of manipulation and emotional abuse, where an abuser seeks to distort the reality of a circumstance by manufacturing faulty narratives, and perceptions within their targets of abuse, that incite them to question their reality as to what is actually happening to them in harmful circumstances.
Likewise, as with all domestically violent relationships, abusers and intimate partners use gaslighting as a means to get and keep power and authority over targets by using underhanded and nefarious means to make them believe that malevolent or otherwise harmful behaviors and actions projected upon them aren’t happing the way the target is experiencing or perceiving them.
Targets might also be made to believe that they are to blame for the harm being inflicted onto them.
Gaslighting is a technique of psycho-emotional manipulation that serves to undermine the target’s perception of reality by using manipulative communicative tactics that confuse and distort the true nature of a circumstance, to force targets to doubt and question their perceptions and observations, self-worth - and even their deservedness of the dysfunctional infractions carried out against them.
HOW THEY DO IT
The Primary Ways Gaslighters Achieve This Aim Is By –
BLATANTLY LYING
Most gaslighters are pathological and compulsory liars, who even when the truth is obviously prevalent, will continue to lie anyway. In fact, most of them are so good at their deceptive techniques of lying so seamlessly, without conscious or remorse, fail or retraction, that their targets might even question what they know to be true, when the truth is self-evident in an effort to equalize the cognitive dissonance stemming from what they know to be true versus what the gaslighter is profusely telling them “the truth” is.
MANUFACTURING DISTORTIONS AND DISTRACTIONS
Your energy goes where your attention flows. This attribute is heavily exploited by the gaslighter, as they purposely try to diffuse and deflect their harmful or abusive behavior to avoid responsibility for their actions, by diverting the attention away from a volatile circumstance to avoid accountability or likewise to divert the attention of the target elsewhere, to engage in some sort of maleficent behavior behind their back or without their awareness.
MINIMIZING AND SHIFTING THE BLAME
Gaslighters will frequently use minimization to diffuse the severity of a circumstance by downplaying the harm or negative effects of some faulty action or deed they’ve committed against you. This serves to enforce the notion that the harm you’re facing isn’t as destructive as you’re perceiving it to be, when it is.
Minimization is frequently coupled with blame shifting – where the gaslighter not only lessens the effects of the harm they’ve caused, but tries to shift the blame onto the target by making them believe that the transgressions leveraged against them is somehow their fault.
They may say things like “I hurt you because you make me so angry.” or “If you just do what I say, then you wouldn’t get hurt”.
It should be noted that Power And Control is always the primary aim with abusers and gaslighters…ALWAYS! So the minimization and blame shifting serves to condition the victim to accept defunct and abusive behavior and to believe they are the cause of it.
SHAME AND GUILT
When we feel uncomfortable to take an action, especially if that action is in our own benefit, such as in procuring our autonomy, striving for financial or economic stability or even in addressing or communicating an infraction that has been waged against us, for fear that we are likely to fall victim to some maleficent action by our intimate partner, not only are we in an abusive relationship, but this is also indicative of the attributes of toxic shame.
Gaslighters seek to use fear and shame to disarm a target from taking protective measures and action against abusive or otherwise dysfunctional behavior. This is how they prevent targets from seeking to address or subvert the infractions being waged against them.
The gaslighter can then use our apprehension to assert our boundaries and values to circumvent accountability from the circumstances, making way for them to procure their narcissistic supply from us.
Shame prevents targets from seeking help and protection from predatory people, when they adopt the faulty perception that they are somehow unworthy of affirmative well-meaning relationships with others, or that seeking healthy communication and balance within a relationship will bring about undesired consequences, keeping them trapped within dysfunction by diminishing self-defensive action through inciting guilt and apprehension.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
A few of the best ways to prevent gaslighting in a relationship is to -
SEEK THE HELP OF SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF THE RELATIONSHIP
This can include close and trusted friends and family, or even a therapist to help you affirm your experiences.
When you have people that you trust to share your experiences with, it can serve as a method of “checks and balances” to help you determine whether a circumstance is as you are perceiving it or whether you are being gaslit by someone.
SPEAK AND COMMUNICATE YOUR FEELINGS
In asserting ourselves when someone has overstepped our boundaries or has committed an infraction against us, without allowing them to overshadow our judgements, feelings and convictions, it serves to empower us by preventing our affirmative attributes, like kindness and compassion from being taken advantage of by exploitative people.
Most gaslighters don’t like self-defining or independent and assertive people, so if your perceptions, values, and opinions are always being challenged or undermined, there is a good chance that you might be involved with a gaslighter.
LEAVE
When someone is constantly criticizing us or in hypervigilance, tries to minimize our feelings and perceptions, it indirectly sends the message that we don’t really matter or that our dispositions relative to a circumstance is subservient to theirs, making way for us to accept all sorts of exploitative and defunct behavior.
If such patterns are recognized in your intimate partner relation…LEAVE!
Walking away from an abusive circumstance is the best way to avoid further harm and entanglement within a volatile relationship, while preserving the best of who you are, as toxic people and circumstances are far more likely to change you, before you change them.
PERSPECTIVES
Since gaslighting is a form of emotional and psycho-social abuse, it almost always precedes all other types of abusive behavior as a means of grooming targets to become complicit in their own demise with the least resistance.
When forthright communication and actions aren’t being observed, there is usually some clandestine motive happening that the victim is unaware of.
This is why gaslighting is so dangerous, as it serves to sow doubt to prevent victim resolve as to what is actually happening to them, making it one of the most debasing and harmful types of intimate partner abuse - by rendering targets completely incapable of determining or deciphering when a circumstance is adverse or benevolent to them.
It is so critical that we not only know the signs of gaslighting, but that we also know that someone else’s faulty behavior towards us is never our fault.
And while we cannot assuage someone to do what we want them to do, we can use our own personal power to protect ourselves from further harm by predatory people, by not allowing them to take advantage of our affirmative attributes.
Holding on to our convictions and preserving our personal truths and values are the best lines of defense in subverting nefarious aim against us.
In healthy relationships there is affirmative communication, truth and accountability to promote benevolence for all involved.
OASISAGAINSTVIOLENCE says…, If something doesn’t seem right about a circumstance, it usually isn’t.