Gaslighting

[Aspychata]

Sometimes l think it is used by men to keep a distance from you emotionally. Like you are screwed up and therefore don't ask me to validate your feelings about me and that you care for me.

I did stand up for myself and said no, what you are saying isn't correct for these reasons. And that shut it done.

 

[Nitro]

Sometimes l think it is used by men to keep a distance from you emotionally. Like you are screwed up and therefore don't ask me to validate your feelings about me and that you care for me.

I did stand up for myself and said no, what you are saying isn't correct for these reasons. And that shut it done.

I don't think it is confined to a gender issue, why do you?

 

[Aspychata]

Sometimes l think it is used by men to keep a distance from you emotionally. Like you are screwed up and therefore don't ask me to validate your feelings about me and that you care for me.

I did stand up for myself and said no, what you are saying isn't correct for these reasons. And that shut it down.

The gaslighting I was being subjected to was really bad. I was constantly being told by my abuser about how much she hated me for ruining her life (which was basically using me as a scapegoat for her own mistakes and choices in life) and at the same time tell me how much she “loved” me and that I was the only thing that made her want to get out of bed in the morning. She was also working at a school for autistic kids when I cut off ties with her and the messed up thing is she made me meet one of the students at his home to make me “appreciate” my own life because he “couldn’t do anything for himself” which is really messed up on so many levels. First off she basically dehumanized the kid. She also would make me clean her entire house and everything had to be perfect and if I missed a spot, she’d scream at me, throw everything down and make me do it over again from the start. And don’t even get me started on the spots the dishwasher kept leaving on her wine glasses or how she would steal my money and use it to buy bottles of wine right 8n front of me.

She dehumanized you also. That seems to be how she deals with everyone. I keep to myself a lot, because people can appear easy going, but they aren't. I stay friends with very few people in my life because of this.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I only stood up to the woman that was abusing me once and she played the victim by pretending to cry and calling my dad to come get me from her house because she “was afraid” of me because I “was being mean and might hurt” her. All I wanted was my DS Lite and games that she had taken away from me and I was just being assertive and telling her that I was willing to make a deal with her if she hated me so much and didn’t want me in her life anymore. I told her that if she just gave back my DS and games and I would leave her alone and never contact her again in return. She took away other things from me including an XBox 360 with games an old roommate gave me and some fashion dolls but I was willing to let them go if I could get my DS and games back. She never did give them back and I was willing to give up a lot just for one thing. I stopped trying to be assertive at that point because there was no point if she would pretend to cry and play the victim every time.

 

[Aspychata]

I have been gaslighted by a lot of men so l don't go out with men. Yes, l understand woman do it.But this is my perspective.

One person tried to put me down, and l corrected him. It felt good. I feel he only does it because he didn't wish to validate my feelings for him or his feelings for me. I think he is now more comfortable talking about feelings, l am happy to say. It's okay to talk about feelings without making either person feel bad.

Gaslighting only affects if you are insecure about yourself. Once you start standing up for yourself, gaslighting doesn't work and recognize it quicker.

 

[watersprite]

It's okay to talk about feelings without making either person feel bad.

This is what I’ve said to a person who was under the impression it was just fine for him to “discuss” feelings while indulging in the bad habit of non-constructive criticism and invalidation.

 

[Suzette]

Gaslighting only affects if you are insecure about yourself. Once you start standing up for yourself, gaslighting doesn't work and recognize it quicker.

Yes! This is exactly why I brought the topic up. Being confident is dang near impossible if you grew up with gaslighting as a norm. And that is something I suspect many autistic folk experience, if not from family, then from the larger population.

A lot of gaslighting isn't conscious manipulation, it is seemingly benign and even appears kind. "You are better at this than I am", "Let me do that dear, you know how much you hate that". These are inobvious statements that appear to honor you in a positive way but can actually be manipulations to get you to behave in a way that allow the gaslighter to maintain control.

 

[Suzette]

@Captain Jigglypuff, I am sorry you experienced that. I am glad you can see it for what it was.

 

[Aspychata]

I still tend to be disappointed with people who use it in their suitcase of behaviors. Some people like my mom gaslight, and they really think it is the correct way to do things. Other people gaslight to cover their weakness of feelings for you. And there are those who gaslight for pure control and manipulation because to rule is the total bain of their existence. Some are just passive aggressive and truly know no other way to ask for things. Then we turn to the sociopath or the psychopath which is defintely a more dangerous personality who gaslights with severe consquences.

I encounter this in many workplaces in this state. I encounter less of it with female bosses. I also had a male boss on the spectrum who didn't gaslight. Very nice to work for.

 

[Matthias]

Gaslighting is a term used by overly sensitive people when they wrongly perceive people are mistreating them due to living in a world of their own and thinking with their emotions.

This sounds like gaslighting to me.

That statement is gaslighting.

Just to be clear, if I was laughing at jokes with friends and an overly sensitive stranger walked by and felt we were laughing at him, would correcting his misunderstanding be an example of gaslighting?

Would telling a paranoid schizophrenic who feels everyone is out to get him that he is misunderstanding people because what his emotions are telling him aren't true be an example of gaslighting?

 

[watersprite]

Just to be clear, if I was laughing at jokes with friends and an overly sensitive stranger walked by and felt we were laughing at him, would correcting his misunderstanding be an example of gaslighting?

Would telling a paranoid schizophrenic who feels everyone is out to get him that he is misunderstanding people because what his emotions are telling him aren't true be an example of gaslighting?

Behaving aggressively unkind and gaslighting are not one and the same.

 

[Suzette]

Just to be clear, if I was laughing at jokes with friends and an overly sensitive stranger walked by and felt we were laughing at him, would correcting his misunderstanding be an example of gaslighting?

Would telling a paranoid schizophrenic who feels everyone is out to get him that he is misunderstanding people because what his emotions are telling him aren't true be an example of gaslighting?

Neither example is gaslighting. Gaslighting is to manipulate a person to doubt themselves.

 

[Progster]

Just to be clear, if I was laughing at jokes with friends and an overly sensitive stranger walked by and felt we were laughing at him, would correcting his misunderstanding be an example of gaslighting?

No, this wouldn't be gaslighting.

The way you phrased it, it sounded like you were giving a (wrong) definition of gaslighting. Perhaps "Gaslighting is a term which can sometimes be used by overly sensitive people when they wrongly perceive people are mistreating them due to living in a world of their own and thinking with their emotions." would be a more accurate statement.

 

[Aspychata]

Gaslighting is found in many employment places. Whether we call it gaslighting or bullying, they are from the same family. They defintely over lap each other. A bully does gaslight or intimidate and can easily switch between the two. I feel the term gaslight has expanded more which is the case for a lot of words in the English language. In bigger employment places,you find a lot of people do it. Or they bully others.

 

[Matthias]

No, this wouldn't be gaslighting.

The way you phrased it, it sounded like you were giving a (wrong) definition of gaslighting. Perhaps "Gaslighting is a term which can sometimes be used by overly sensitive people when they wrongly perceive people are mistreating them due to living in a world of their own and thinking with their emotions." would be a more accurate statement.

I've read several accounts from people who claimed they were gaslighted and it seemed to me that all of them misinterpreted other people's actions. I also noticed they were all very sensitive which made me wonder whether their emotions led them to misunderstand the situation.

Emotional reasoning (thinking with your emotions and believing your emotions are always correct) is a common cognitive distortion. I've noticed people who report being gaslighted often claim it occurs frequently, have negative perceptions of people in general that would bias their interpretations, and seem to think their emotions are always valid.

 

[watersprite]

I think I’m finally begimning to recover from the damage he did. It’s our anniversary tomorrow, & I will be up on the mountains, despite the cold lol, hiking, with a new friend.
Plus. From now on I look after myself.

This helped me a lot:

link

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I was gaslighted into believing that I had a nonexistent addiction and the messed up thing is I was forced to join this forum to “cure” me which is where I slowly discovered that I never had an addiction to begin with and that my abuser was the real problem. I had to keep making up symptoms and relapses with details and lie to all these people who actually did have an addiction and they believed the false info about my life I was giving them. I really felt guilty about doing this and desperately wanted to write out a cry for help to escape from this woman who was clearly abusing me and stealing my money to fuel her drinking habits but couldn’t because A) she would occasionally look over my shoulder to see what I was looking at on the computer and would actually read what I wrote and if she didn’t like what I had said, she’d make me write a new message saying that I lied again and had me say what she wanted me to say and B) I had no idea if anyone would actually believe me and not say it was the nonexistent addiction playing tricks with me and I need to fight the addiction. Even worse is she bought this workbook for fighting the addiction and made me fill out the pages where I saw even more how far from having a problem I was and I only did it to avoid her slapping me again for disobeying her. She even made me show this to my therapist who was shocked at how insane my abuser was getting over all of this and making me do all these exercises that were obviously not going to do anything since there was no addiction problem to begin with. My therapist was the first person to tell me that I was being gaslighted by my abuser and this was starting to really cross the line. I was gaslighted into believing that all of the abuse was okay because I did stuff to deserve getting slapped and that I kept making excuses for my abuser’s behavior especially when she hit me.

 

[Judge]

I wasn`t sure what gaslighting was but as I read this thread I realized something, I think this is what the STASI used in Germany a few decades ago. They called it "Zersetzung", they messed with peoples minds.

Somewhat similar... though in the case of the Stasi's "Zersetzung", it left thousands of victims permanently damaged psychologically. Highly personalized psychological attacks designed to break a person's political will. Taking "gaslighting" to a new low.

With the former Soviet Union, in their last decade rather than summarily execute state enemies, they preferred to indefinitely condemn them to mental institutions accomplishing similar results with the same intent.