What is Gaslighting?
Gas-lighting is the attempt of another person to twist your reality. The purpose of gas-lighting is often to force another person to experience or accept an alternate reality. Gas-lighting is used to pass someone’s bad feelings onto another person. Narcissists cannot and do not take responsibility for their behavior. Instead, they seek to shame and blame others to dodge the bad feelings. This is sometimes referred to as projection.
Intentional gas-lighting:
Intentional gas-lighting means that the narcissist is covertly or overtly manipulating, lying, and distorting reality for the victim.
The narcissist omits information or lies and is often bothered and annoyed by conflict. They feel that they are always right. They feel that their opinion is more important than everyone else’s opinions. They feel that the world should revolve around them. They fly into severe tantrums when it does not. The malicious and intentional narcissist feels that the ends justify the means. The narcissist becomes annoyed about things they cannot control. They invalidate the feelings of the people around them and will do anything to get their needs met. The narcissist ceases all communication if it isn’t going according to their plans. They interrupt, ignore, throw tantrums, or cuts off discussions that aren’t ultimately in their favor. They conveniently forget everything that they promised or agreed to. The narcissist distorts and twists the words of the other person. They hear things in their way and process them opposite to how they were intended. They hear what they want to hear, and change the rest. Narcissists conveniently misunderstand and don’t listen to information or requests which are important to another person. Sometimes they clarify too much to be difficult for another person, and other times they can’t be bothered to clarify at all.
Narcissists who delight in gas-lighting, lying, and manipulating others often have a tell-tale sign that they show while they are in the process of gas-lighting another person. They are satisfied with themselves for outsmarting another person, getting away with something, or avoiding punishment for something he has done wrong. It is no different than a child who sneaks a cookie from the cookie jar and lies to avoid being caught. The narcissist is emotionally immature, and thus reacts the same way as a child who is elated at getting away with a lie.
Unintentional gas-lighting:
Some narcissists gas-light because they have cognitive and learning deficits. The narcissist who claims that he never had a conversation with someone might just have a memory deficit. A narcissist doesn’t choose their parents. They generally experience significant neglect or trauma in their childhood to become narcissistic and self-absorbed. Or, experienced a smothering guardian who refuses to allow them to become their person. They spend the rest of their life pushing back against the world so that no one else will smother or suffocate them. If they are still an extension of someone else, his life will be devoted to both rebelling against and protecting the narcissist who seeks to consume them. They will see their world as being hostile, and thus will be defensive at all times. They will see people as being only objects. The narcissist always views life in a negative light.
Signs of Gas-Lighting:
The narcissist doesn’t like anything that is ‘difficult’, and thus he will not waste his efforts on something he deems as ‘unconquerable’. The narcissist never faces reality head-on. If they have responsibilities, they often shirk them and finds excuses to refuse to do nearly anything that drains their low energy reserves. Narcissists spend so much of their time employing maladaptive coping skills that they cannot focus and cannot learn adequately. It takes them a lot of time to process things, and they ‘fake’ understanding to get other people off his back. The narcissist always denies that their behavior needs to be changed. They never seek personal growth unless another person motivates them as they conserve their energy for gathering attention and admiration via the easiest routes possible. Narcissists cannot be bothered to put the real work into something to reap the rewards. Their life is full of shortcuts.
A Cruel Reality
Gas-lighting is always damaging to another person’s psyche. A person who gas-lights another person is abusing them, even when the gas-lighting is unintentional. The people around a narcissist have their words, thoughts, ideas, and opinions twisted and thrown back at them often. They view the outside world as being hostile they see little reason to relate in positive ways to others.
How to prevent gas-lighting:
Gas-lighting can occur for malicious reasons and innocent reasons. Regardless of the reasons for the gas-lighting, it is very detrimental to mental health. Ignore the narcissist’s reality. Look at them for the injured person that they are. Feel sorry for them, but don’t let their distorted reality take over your reality. If other people don’t seem to distort your thoughts, opinions, and words, then spend more time with them to keep being grounded. Some narcissists were emotionally dissociated or isolated in their childhood or adulthood for a variety of reasons. Don’t let them make this isolation a reality for you. Isolated people lose their sense of reality and their place in the world. We need other (healthy) people to ground us in reality.
Conclusion
If you suspect someone is gaslighting you, or if you know someone else who is being gas-lighted, get help as soon as possible. Severe depression, anxiety, PTSD, paranoid personality disorder, "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" and even psychosis have resulted from gas-lighting. To tamper with someone else’s state of mental health is a very severe form of cruelty. Complex PTSD and Developmental Trauma Disorder can result from relationships that are declining due to the presence of gas-lighting.
Ref: 2016. J.B. Snow Publishing. Gaslighting: The Ultimate Narcissistic Mind Control
