Have you heard the term "gaslighting"? It comes from the 1944 movie "Gaslight" with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. He was a nefarious individual who was intent on making his young wife doubt her sanity so that he could find hidden jewels. The gaslights in the hall would brighten and darken for no apparent reason, and he would claim that nothing was different when she questioned him about it.
Yes, she did start to go crazy. She was sure that she must be the one with the problem; she must be imagining that the lights in the hall were getting brighter and darker; she must be losing things; she must be hearing things. She couldn't imagine that her husband was doing this to her intentionally.
Gaslighting has become a common term for this kind of serious emotional abuse. Someone who is gaslighting another is intentionally lying or misrepresenting things so that the victim starts to doubt his/her experiences and perceptions. It can happen consciously or subconsciously. Here are some examples:
A husband may be telling his normal-weight wife that she is too fat.
A woman might complain that her boyfriend doesn't do enough for her when he refuses to pay one of her bills.
A man tells his girlfriend "Everybody know you are difficult and you complain all of the time" when she asks him not to go out to the bars for the third time that week.
A husband crosses the line in his flirtations with another woman at a dinner party. When his wife confronts him, he tells her to stop being insecure and controlling. After a long argument, she apologizes to him!
A manager backs his employee on a project when he met with her privately in his office, so she started working on the task. But at a large gathering of staff he suddenly changes his tune and publicly criticizes the employee's judgment. When she tells him her concerns about how this will affect her authority, she is told that the project was ill-conceived. Maybe she didn't understand what he told her? Maybe she isn't as competent as she thinks she is?
A mother belittles her young adult daughter's clothes, job, friends, boyfriends. Instead of fighting back, she tells her friends that her mother is often right (even though she's not sure this is true.)
If you think things like this can't happen to you, think again. Gaslighting is when someone wants you to do what you know you shouldn't and to believe the unbelievable.
Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from.
A kind, loving, caring person will begin to question him/herself: Am I really fat? Do I really look that bad? Am I really selfish? Do other people really see me as difficult? Maybe my mother is right! Maybe I am too controlling!
Please check out our interesting discussion on gaslighting, some of which is based on the work of therapist Dr. Robin Stern.
BPDFamily.com provides support, education, tools, and perspective to individuals with a loved one affected by Borderline Personality Disorder. BPFamily is a non-profit, co-op of 30,000 volunteer members and alumni formed in 1996. Learn more in this brief video www.bpdfamily.com
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