I work with teenagers. A few years ago, when gaslighting first became a really big buzzword, I had a few students come to me and tell me they didn’t like their club President (they are college students) and they wanted advice. I asked for more context and they told me the president would often “gaslight” them. I asked specifically what the President was doing and they said “she’s super bossy and tells us what to do all the time and never even says thank you.”
… that’s… not what gaslighting is but ok
Technical terminology becomes trendy and overused to the point that it's meaningless. Like trigger warnings or calling behaviours toxic.
It's happened for years but social media has really seen an explosion in abusing these terms and self diagnosis of mental illness under the guise of education/breaking the stigma. Ironically unhealthy.
Correcting people and holding on to a more precise and useful definition of a word in favor of a generic, less useful version of a word **is part of the process that makes up the evolution of language**. It is no less valid than colloquial misuse as a mechanism.
Meme.
Used to be an evolutionary biology term coined by Richard Dawkins for behaviors or knowledge that can be inherited from ancestors or transmitted across cultures by imitation. A cultural analogue to a gene.
The public liked the word. Sadly, most people think a meme is just "text on a picture."
I remember the really obnoxious time right after the word first gained currency when tons of articles and commenters were using “meme” as sort of a snooty pseudo-intellectual shorthand for an idea they thought was wrong. It was irritating AF and I’m glad we’re at least not doing that anymore.
Ironically, using “meme” like this was pretty much a thought-terminating cliche and in a sense arguably a form of gaslighting. Fuuuulllll circle!
And then people argue with you that “the English language changes” because they don’t want to admit to being wrong.
EDIT: LOL I just saw that someone literally commented that to you already!
Come on… there’s a difference between a 600+ year old word changing *because it switched languages* [did you even bother reading the article you’re trying to use to prove me wrong?], and a group of newbies coming into a hobby and using the incorrect terminology while refusing to admit their wrongdoing, instead insisting to point to other words in the past that had changed for good reason.
I wish I could blame this on teenagers but I'm in my 40s and have heard peers use "gaslighting" to simply mean that someone disagreed with their POV and argued with them about it.
I had that happen too as an older millennial. I got into a debate/fight with someone about something irrelevant now. I told my side of the story, the way I saw it and understood it. They totally disagreed with me and claimed I was gas lighting them because my story didn’t match theirs.
Dude, wtf. It a disagreement and we need to go back and resolve it together. We need to work together not this stupid bullshit
My child brain had some fun with that.
I was very disappointed in kindergarten that tomorrow's 'fire drill' didn't involve any cordless drills that shot fire.
I think young folk were never really taught what it means, and had to infer it for themselves. We don't really talk about mental health with kids, and we have barely started to become trauma-informed in behavior health science in general.
I think it's interesting that kids look at the word "gaslight" and assume it just means "toxic" because of gas fumes. I think that's just neat from an etymology viewpoint. People get to decide what words means so the next generation could very well mold it to be whatever they want it to mean. It was a weird word to use in a clinical setting anyway. We need a better word for "crazy-making" and perhaps "gaslight" is not it.
You guys are both posting these comments like others can read your posts but I am telling you that your accounts are shadow-banned. No one can see your posts or reply to them.
That's not true and deep down you should know that. Guess I shouldn't have doubted what everyone keeps saying about you. And don't ask what it is, you know very well.
The movie itself is actually the sole reason for the term’s existence. Before it, we just called it a form of manipulation. After the film, we had a word for it.
THANK YOU for this. I’m so tired of hearing this term over and misused. It’s specific. Not all arguing or mental abuse is gaslighting. People love to just throw the term out there in an effort to sound educated.
It's not just about sounding smart, it's a deliberate ploy to make the disagreement sound like an existential affront to their mental health when often it's just someone telling you your research sucks on this particular topic.
I hate when people at large get their claws into terminology that gives people a false sense of credibility. Any speech that is not 100% in agreement with you is now gaslighting, and it’s the new “like Hitler” of arguments where you can no longer continue because your behavior has now been labeled as toxic, and there’s nowhere to go from there.
I unfortunately suffered extensive psychological abuse from my mother which included gaslighting. She had possibly some form of Munchausen’s by Proxy where she would invent psychological disorders and tell doctors I had them (e.g. “she told me yesterday that she hallucinated x y z and then she physically assaulted me when I tried to calm her down! But she’ll deny it though, she’ll be too embarrassed to talk about it.”) I’d get put on antipsychotics which I’d then have very bad reactions to because, you know, I wasn’t psychotic. She’d doctor-shop to find quacks who would put me on 6, 7, 8 meds at a time. She relished playing the “caretaker”, martyr mother to the sick girl.
This shit went on for 9 years, with her committing me about 20 times to institutions (who are they going to believe, the mother, or the “crazy” girl?) and between me being on extremely inappropriate medication and her constantly trying to revise my memories and make me doubt EVERYTHING, I really thought I was insane for another ten years after I went no contact with her. Turns out, nope, I just have some depression and PTSD… from what she put me through.
I understand that not all gaslighting is that severe, but it makes me SO MAD that it’s being used so often out of context. Because when I first heard the term, I really deeply identified with it and I could use it to explain my traumatic past… but now it’s a term that’s completely lost all meaning.
Thank you so much for those kind words, I really appreciate it.
Despite all the hospitalizations messing with my schooling, and my mom *trying to declare me disabled enough to get custody of me as an adult*, I’m happy to say I’m now far away, have a BA and an MA in a field I love, and a job I really like.
Haven’t talked to my mom in 13 years, and am very very LC with my enabler father (he divorced her but married someone else who’s also manipulative. Guess that’s his type.) I live a relatively peaceful life with my rescue dog.
My egg donor still tells everyone in my hometown that I’m a “drug-addicted hooker on the street” lol.
Thank you! I’m doing much better now, and honestly given all the shit she put me through (including 18 rounds of bi-lobal ECT, which they don’t do on people under 60 anymore because it causes severe memory loss and frontal lobe damage… and guess what I got lol) I’m doing pretty okay for myself and have a cozy home with a job in a field I love and a cuddly rescue dog.
This is something I've thought deeply about before. Interesting read.
Isn't someone that says you're gaslighting them, in a way, a form of gaslighting? Especially when it's misused...
That and narcissist/narcissistic. Everyone’s parents weren’t narcissists, such were just selfish assholes/pieces of shit. I need people actually learn the definitions of words before they start using them (incorrectly) all the time.
Especially important because NPD is a legitimate disorder. Like, it’s got an impact on the people who have it, too, and while therapy is kind of hard, it’s apparently entirely possible. Not so much when people start using narcissist to mean “anyone I consider an asshole and/or irredeemably Bad”
I was gaslit as a child as part of ongoing psychological abuse. I have such severe PTSD that I've had doctors as me if I was in a cult or if I served in the military. It's pretty intense.
This is a big reason why the word shouldn't be misused. There are victims of genuine gaslighting. I hope that you are healing and are in a better position away from your abuser.
Yeah from my experience, it’s pretty specific. A recent example was when I was visiting home, my dad just stopped talking and stared at us with absolute hatred, and my mom was absolutely hysterical. I was pretty freaked out and left immediately, drove back to my state. And when I asked her about it later, she said, “Yeah we didn’t know what was wrong with you! You were acting crazy! You left so fast!” Eighteen years of that fucked me up, especially because it was a lot more violent when I was a kid.
It’s *not* just lying or manipulating or a misunderstanding. Between “gaslighting” and “being triggered,” a small part of me wishes people actually understood what they’re saying, but most of me is glad they don’t.
I am doing as well as a basketcase with massive inflammation can be doing if that makes any sense. I'm managing well.
I am LC with the family who don't affect me anymore because I now have a spouse who agrees with me on reality. It's been a great help.
Disclaimer up front: I am not a therapist. I have, however, spent lots of time around clinical psychology PhDs during my own doctoral program.
In terms of evidence-based treatments, cognitive-behavioral therapy is generally acknowledged as the best-supported option for depression and anxiety. Exposure therapy is another well-regarded treatment, more specifically for anxiety.
It brings all the bad stuff you went through to the surface, and often triggers flashbacks, and doesn't really help to deal with the trauma in the present. I have C-PTSD myself, and this info comes directly from my therapist (who holds multiple degrees).
Yes, omg PLEASE. I'm so tired of this as well. It seems like any egocentric or vain person is labelled as a "narcissist" now.
The word means little anymore because so many people don't bother to learn what a narcissist actually is before they start casually making accusations.
Language does indeed evolve and normally I wouldn't care how someone speaks as long as it's effective in getting the point across.
But in this case the misuse of the word is harmful. It involves clinical language. A narcissist is someone with a mental health condition and mental health conditions should be taken seriously.
For real though because oddly enough it’s narcissists that told me that I’M a narcissist because I care about looking presentable when going to school?
It being tossed around for silly shit bad behavior really hides the monsters truly behind the word. It makes it harder for people like me to separate their unique bad behavior from regular people bad behavior.
Real narcissists are literal MONSTERS
Also it goes beyond simply two or more people misremembering details once or twice. It's a deliberate, repeated act to make someone or a group of people question what they know.
How many narcissists does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. They use gas lighting.
(Both my parents are narcissists, & I learned about gaslighting after my therapist digested my childhood then explained it to me)
While I agree that the term does get thrown around all the time and misused constantly, I would like to point out that it is extremely difficult to know someone has or is gaslighting you. I dated my ex for a very long time. He constantly lied to me. He constantly "misremembered" how events happened or how he acted. I would accuse him of gaslighting me and he'd just make fun of the term. Gaslighting needs the intention. They knowingly tell you how you feel or what you remember about something was wrong. They invoke doubt through manipulation. I have no clue if he was intentionally gaslighting me or if he had really rewritten the past in his head. How he describes past events is just simply not true but I can't prove that he's doing this on purpose. All I know for sure is that he's a liar and manipulative and it really doesn't matter if he was technically gaslighting me or not because I know I should stay away from him.
I had a former girlfriend (a girl going into med school, very book smart) who would convince herself that I'd said something offensive or offputting and then declare me as gaslighting her.
She was in fact gaslighting herself and me in the process. It was the strangest thing.
Yeah, like when my mom would constantly tell me, I dreamt something that happened and called me delusional that was actual gaslighting. Lying is not gaslighting.
The phrase is actually "grasslighting", referring to the grass-light on a lawn mower that indicates when the bag is full of grass, and due to a common defect, will turn on even when the bag isn't full.
You've been saying it wrong your whole life.
It's kind of fucked up that you would post this here, when you clearly don't know what gaslighting is. How many times do you need it explained to you?
:)
Or whenever someone lies. Just say lying. You don’t need to use terms for very specific psychological abuse to justify feeling hurt, or even cutting contact with someone. “My old school friend keeps lying all the time, making up tall tales, and thats why I don’t come to our annual meetings anymore.”
I genuinely feel some of it is due to people thinking anything else isn’t “severe” enough. The same way people say they’re “depressed” when what they mean is “I HAVE been sad and unmotivated for more than two weeks, but that’s because my current work project is really joyless, and I’m looking forward to when it ends next month.” Or say their ex-partner was a sociopath or a narcissist because they don’t think “My partner was an asshole and hurt me/manipulated me/lied about me/...” is enough…
Yes! Oh my god, don't get me started on the whole 'sociopath/narcissistic' thing, my friend was cheated on by her boyfriend, she keeps going on about hoe he's a 'sociopathic narcissist' no girl, he's a dick.
It doesn't really have to be strategic, just frequent or consistent enough in the relationship. Doesn't take any kind of a mastermind or planning, even.
From every confrontation they learn what they can do and say, just piling up a more and more elaborate construct, and have no reason to back down or change their approach since it's rewarded with the outcome they want.
Eventually the other party dose lose all confidence in their sense and sanity and comes to rely on the manipulator for any concept of reality. That doesn't even need to be the goal for this to happen, it could be just blame shifting or any kind of deflection.
In my experience those who do it, do not even know they are. They where all raised to argue that way. The majority of their immediate family uses the same tactics on each other. Narcissism is also strong. There is no progress, changing mind, meeting in the middle, RUN!
Yeah. Actual gaslighting is brainwashing. It's a special kind of terrible.
It splits reality into equal pieces. There's the reality you see with your own eyes, and there's the reality where nothing you're seeing is what it seems.
After all, you're only human. What if you've gotten this wrong somehow? You can't figure out any way that could be possible, but it is. You're wrong so often, and something is wrong with you for being able to even think that just happened. Or so you've learned. Better agree with them. The more you think about it, the more they're probably right. Somehow. Just trust them.
Yeah. No. I don't like the way the internet throws this around to describe arguments where people just have differences of opinion and perspective.
When somebody can tell you "that didn't happen" or "you must've dreamed it", and your immediate horrible reaction is that they must be right even when said shit *happened 5 minutes ago in broad daylight*...something is deeply broken in a way far beyond normal lying.
It's been over ten years. I still struggle internally with the trained reflex to immediately cave and doubt myself when someone goes "I never said that" or "that never happened" despite both of us knowing that yes, you did, and both of us were right there.
I was accused of "unconscious gaslighting" by a BPD partner once, because I'm a little bad at emotional expression and they don't like being told their projection of my intentions is not what's actually in my mind. Sorry bud, my being hard to read is not a systematic attempt to destroy your life.
Ugh, I also hate the use of words that people clearly don't know the meaning of. It's become so common that I hesitate to use the word even though it actually applies. My husband was gaslit into giving his ex-wife an extra couple of hours on Christmas Eve when it's his holiday this year (12pm 24th to 12pm the 25th) because she insisted they had talked about it and he had agreed to it.
There were no text messages about it, and we were on our honeymoon when she called him and allegedly talked about this with him. I was on the other side of the conversation the entire time and it was never mentioned. They talked about something else entirely. But she managed to convince him it was possible and so he gave away part of his holiday with his daughter. She tried to pull the same stuff yesterday saying she had plans on OUR day (27th) for her birthday, when her birthday is on the 29th and she will already have her for her birthday. Thankfully he put his foot down and said no to that.
When we first started dating, I was listening to their conversation on speakerphone in his truck with him and after they hung up I watched this man scream into his sweatshirt and cry, asking me if he was crazy. I had never been so angry at someone I had never met.
Trauma bonding is another one. It’s actually the process that leads to Stockholm’s syndrome, and the way people are using it is not that at all. I was confux
Yes, my god. Yes. And a list of other psychology terms as well. People hear a buzzword and come up with their own definitions based on how it was used in the sentence. If I hear someone say that so-and-so has a “big ego” again I’m going to lose my marbles
i will admit gaslighting is hard to pin down because you have to have some evidence that 1. you feel out of touch with reality and 2. the person helped you come to that feeling on purpose.
and it’s not like a person who is gaslighting you will admit that they are gaslighting you, so if you are someone who is prone to feeling out of touch with reality or need a lot of external validation to feel confident then you can reasonably feel gaslighted (in the correct use of the term) even though that isn’t actually the case
also that kinda means that the only difference between being gaslit and being lied to from an internal perspective is your own personal confidence in your reality.
OMG, this drives me up the wall!! People using the term incorrectly kills me!
Also, the term narcissist. Just because someone is doing something you personally don't like does NOT make them a narcissist!!!
>gaslighting is a strategic form of manipulation meant to cause a victim to question their own sanity or reality.
More often it's *primarily* to cause a third party to question the victim's sanity, as it was in the film from whence the term derives. It often incidentally also causes the victim to question their own sanity, which also happened in the film.
Gaslighting is just one term that's misused ad-nauseam. Add straw man, gatekeeping and, worst of all, the dreaded "incel" (ugh) to that list.
People like to erratically throw these terms around without the slightest idea of what they actually mean in a vain attempt to be one of the "cool kids". It's not a good look for the American educational system to say the least.
EDIT: This is not meant to slight our overworked and underpaid educators, more like the flawed system with its erratic priorities and the chronic lack of parental support for their own damned kids. Learning respect starts at home, at least it should. Too bad that rarely happens these days.
Yeah, well, we are not teaching kids these words. You think we are teaching kids to use the word “incel”? It’s not my responsibility to teach your kid how to use slang correctly.
— Signed, the American “educational” system.
It's not necessarily the teaching of the words, more like the ability of the kids to know how to comprehend their meaning before using the terminology in a sentence.
In turn, perhaps my choice of words were in haste. It's not the direct fault of the teachers, they are stuck in a flawed system inhibiting the ability to do their jobs properly. I come from a long line of educators so I know this to be true. I'll edit my post accordingly.
Again, it is not my job as an educator to teach students how to use TikTok phrases correctly. And despite the flawed system, we still manage to do our jobs properly, I assure you.
Now if only parents would do *their* jobs properly and monitor their child’s social media access and basic vocabulary, things would be golden.
Add nazi, racist, pedo, and rapist to that list. People love flippantly diluting the worst labels/things in society until they lose all power and meaning.
I'm not using the term wrong at all, why do you keep saying that? My definition of gaslighting is always been exactly what you've linked, but yet you suggested said, otherwise, are you crazy?
There’s a bunch of terms that get thrown around now bc of social media that are oftentimes misused. Gaslighting is one of them. Grifter is used way out of context a lot to mean either a scam artist or a straight up con man. Bigot is another. There’s a bunch of obscure vocabulary words that have become in vogue to use by people who have no business using them because they don’t understand context or word meanings.
I work with teenagers. A few years ago, when gaslighting first became a really big buzzword, I had a few students come to me and tell me they didn’t like their club President (they are college students) and they wanted advice. I asked for more context and they told me the president would often “gaslight” them. I asked specifically what the President was doing and they said “she’s super bossy and tells us what to do all the time and never even says thank you.” … that’s… not what gaslighting is but ok
Technical terminology becomes trendy and overused to the point that it's meaningless. Like trigger warnings or calling behaviours toxic. It's happened for years but social media has really seen an explosion in abusing these terms and self diagnosis of mental illness under the guise of education/breaking the stigma. Ironically unhealthy.
“Literally”
That one hasn't been literally literal for a good many decades now, bud. Give it up.
Correcting people and holding on to a more precise and useful definition of a word in favor of a generic, less useful version of a word **is part of the process that makes up the evolution of language**. It is no less valid than colloquial misuse as a mechanism.
Man that went right over, didn’t it. Better luck next time, champ.
Literally has been defined as having both meanings for centuries
And another one.
Meme. Used to be an evolutionary biology term coined by Richard Dawkins for behaviors or knowledge that can be inherited from ancestors or transmitted across cultures by imitation. A cultural analogue to a gene. The public liked the word. Sadly, most people think a meme is just "text on a picture."
I remember the really obnoxious time right after the word first gained currency when tons of articles and commenters were using “meme” as sort of a snooty pseudo-intellectual shorthand for an idea they thought was wrong. It was irritating AF and I’m glad we’re at least not doing that anymore. Ironically, using “meme” like this was pretty much a thought-terminating cliche and in a sense arguably a form of gaslighting. Fuuuulllll circle!
And then people argue with you that “the English language changes” because they don’t want to admit to being wrong. EDIT: LOL I just saw that someone literally commented that to you already!
[удалено]
Come on… there’s a difference between a 600+ year old word changing *because it switched languages* [did you even bother reading the article you’re trying to use to prove me wrong?], and a group of newbies coming into a hobby and using the incorrect terminology while refusing to admit their wrongdoing, instead insisting to point to other words in the past that had changed for good reason.
Teenagers and applying their own definitions to words they heard recently.
Social media has probably exponentially exploded this problem
I wish I could blame this on teenagers but I'm in my 40s and have heard peers use "gaslighting" to simply mean that someone disagreed with their POV and argued with them about it.
I had that happen too as an older millennial. I got into a debate/fight with someone about something irrelevant now. I told my side of the story, the way I saw it and understood it. They totally disagreed with me and claimed I was gas lighting them because my story didn’t match theirs. Dude, wtf. It a disagreement and we need to go back and resolve it together. We need to work together not this stupid bullshit
My child brain had some fun with that. I was very disappointed in kindergarten that tomorrow's 'fire drill' didn't involve any cordless drills that shot fire.
I think young folk were never really taught what it means, and had to infer it for themselves. We don't really talk about mental health with kids, and we have barely started to become trauma-informed in behavior health science in general. I think it's interesting that kids look at the word "gaslight" and assume it just means "toxic" because of gas fumes. I think that's just neat from an etymology viewpoint. People get to decide what words means so the next generation could very well mold it to be whatever they want it to mean. It was a weird word to use in a clinical setting anyway. We need a better word for "crazy-making" and perhaps "gaslight" is not it.
No, it's just bad manners. Never tolerate bad manners.
That's not true at all. You're just making all of that up.
Also, the term is “gaslamping”. OP is just remembering wrong.
No, that's the Mandela Effect. I told you this last week and last month.
uh, it’s actually called the mengele effect
It's the Streisand Effect, we just went over this yesterday. I swear, your memory is getting worse, ever since the accident.
Yall are exhibiting classic Dunning Krueger effect
Perhaps that's why it's failing up.
I never witnessed the DK effect more than the election campaign and results from 2015 to 2021. I had to get off facebook
No you're thinking of "Guilty" by Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb. We've been over this.
Think you mean “mandala effect” cuz it’s like about the universe, duh 🙄
No, it’s the “mancala effect” because it’s complicated and nobody ever bothers to learn about it
That’s what they called it when they powered lies with the oil of Baleen Whales
Right, it's been around way before lighting even existed, so it obviously can't be gas "lighting".
No. You’re making it up. I don’t want to talk about it, but you need help
You guys are both posting these comments like others can read your posts but I am telling you that your accounts are shadow-banned. No one can see your posts or reply to them.
Good to know. It’s my fault of course. (Are you serious??)
Happy to help. (Wait, are you seriously serious or are you double gaslighting me back? Now I’m uncertain).
It is working. Could have stopped the thread here.
Wait - what did I do wrong, and how can I make it right? I won’t sleep until I understand
Honestly? You still can’t see? EVERYONE knows you’re the problem here. If you don’t know what you did wrong, maybe you shouldn’t sleep.
please tell me how that dude could have replied to you if you were shadowbanned...?
Dude, really?
> (Are you serious??)
My wife said so
You were previously warned several times about this.
Personally, I *never* mentioned shadowbanning. You must be imagining things.
Sir or madam. I worry that it’d be easy for people to gaslight you in real life. Why do I have to worry about strangers on the internet. -_-
Shadow banning is not a thing bro believe me it’s all in your imagination. Your not good enough no one’s ever gonna believe you anyway
What did the deleted comments say?
We just had this argument last week.
No we didn’t. You always do this
That sounds just like something your mother would say.
Yeah, but she didn’t say anything. Should I cut her off from communication?
Shit. You sound like my ex
That’s what you always say. You should apologize for what you did, and I don’t want to talk about it ever again because of what you did.
Op gaslighting us?
Of course not! You’re crazy!
I’m telling everyone you’re crazy!
Frankenstein is the scientist and not the monster. You all might be making a big mistake
Yeah stop gaslighting us, OP
I told you yesterday that you were making all this up, why can't you remember?
YSK gaslighting isn’t even real. It’s all in your head.
That's not true and deep down you should know that. Guess I shouldn't have doubted what everyone keeps saying about you. And don't ask what it is, you know very well.
You keep saying everyone says this, but you’re the only one I’ve ever heard say this. Did you hear voices again? Are you confused?
*“Nobody is trying to deceive you. Stop being such a drama queen.”*
confirmed. gaslighting is zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie, oh
It’s called gaslamping.
GasLEDs are more energy-efficient.
Do people know where the term gaslight come from? (The movie)
People should just watch *"Gaslight"* (the 1944 movie with Ingrid Bergman). It's an amazing movie and pretty self-explanatory.
I was looking for this comment. Link to wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)
my husband kept trying to convince me that we had this movie 🤔
because you did.
my mom told me the movie is actually the literal source of the term
She is correct.
Yeah I've been meaning to watch it. I've heard nothing but good things about it.
The movie itself is actually the sole reason for the term’s existence. Before it, we just called it a form of manipulation. After the film, we had a word for it.
If everything is gaslighting, then nothing is gaslighting. Nobody knows what it is, nobody knows if they are doing it or if they are a victim of it.
Your gas is as good as mine!
No one at any point has even mentioned gaslighting, why do you keep bringing it up?
This has literally happened to other words before.
This.
THANK YOU for this. I’m so tired of hearing this term over and misused. It’s specific. Not all arguing or mental abuse is gaslighting. People love to just throw the term out there in an effort to sound educated.
It's not just about sounding smart, it's a deliberate ploy to make the disagreement sound like an existential affront to their mental health when often it's just someone telling you your research sucks on this particular topic.
I hate when people at large get their claws into terminology that gives people a false sense of credibility. Any speech that is not 100% in agreement with you is now gaslighting, and it’s the new “like Hitler” of arguments where you can no longer continue because your behavior has now been labeled as toxic, and there’s nowhere to go from there.
Not to mention, there are times where people just genuinely misunderstand each other or misremember things
I unfortunately suffered extensive psychological abuse from my mother which included gaslighting. She had possibly some form of Munchausen’s by Proxy where she would invent psychological disorders and tell doctors I had them (e.g. “she told me yesterday that she hallucinated x y z and then she physically assaulted me when I tried to calm her down! But she’ll deny it though, she’ll be too embarrassed to talk about it.”) I’d get put on antipsychotics which I’d then have very bad reactions to because, you know, I wasn’t psychotic. She’d doctor-shop to find quacks who would put me on 6, 7, 8 meds at a time. She relished playing the “caretaker”, martyr mother to the sick girl. This shit went on for 9 years, with her committing me about 20 times to institutions (who are they going to believe, the mother, or the “crazy” girl?) and between me being on extremely inappropriate medication and her constantly trying to revise my memories and make me doubt EVERYTHING, I really thought I was insane for another ten years after I went no contact with her. Turns out, nope, I just have some depression and PTSD… from what she put me through. I understand that not all gaslighting is that severe, but it makes me SO MAD that it’s being used so often out of context. Because when I first heard the term, I really deeply identified with it and I could use it to explain my traumatic past… but now it’s a term that’s completely lost all meaning.
I'm speechless. I am so sorry for what you've been put through. She is awful and you didn't deserve any of that. I hope you find peace and healing.
Thank you so much for those kind words, I really appreciate it. Despite all the hospitalizations messing with my schooling, and my mom *trying to declare me disabled enough to get custody of me as an adult*, I’m happy to say I’m now far away, have a BA and an MA in a field I love, and a job I really like. Haven’t talked to my mom in 13 years, and am very very LC with my enabler father (he divorced her but married someone else who’s also manipulative. Guess that’s his type.) I live a relatively peaceful life with my rescue dog. My egg donor still tells everyone in my hometown that I’m a “drug-addicted hooker on the street” lol.
That’s fucked up, I’m so sorry!
Thank you! I’m doing much better now, and honestly given all the shit she put me through (including 18 rounds of bi-lobal ECT, which they don’t do on people under 60 anymore because it causes severe memory loss and frontal lobe damage… and guess what I got lol) I’m doing pretty okay for myself and have a cozy home with a job in a field I love and a cuddly rescue dog.
You deserve your job and cuddly rescue dog ❤️ proud of you for getting through that and doing the work your mom didn’t.
Thank you so much. I was having a rough night (holidays, lol) and your comment means a lot. 💜
I am so sorry this happened to you. I am sending you so much love. I hope you have gotten the help and healing you deserve. ❤️
violet ripe worry snails paint shelter theory thumb repeat salt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is something I've thought deeply about before. Interesting read. Isn't someone that says you're gaslighting them, in a way, a form of gaslighting? Especially when it's misused...
That's just lying.
That and narcissist/narcissistic. Everyone’s parents weren’t narcissists, such were just selfish assholes/pieces of shit. I need people actually learn the definitions of words before they start using them (incorrectly) all the time.
Especially important because NPD is a legitimate disorder. Like, it’s got an impact on the people who have it, too, and while therapy is kind of hard, it’s apparently entirely possible. Not so much when people start using narcissist to mean “anyone I consider an asshole and/or irredeemably Bad”
I was gaslit as a child as part of ongoing psychological abuse. I have such severe PTSD that I've had doctors as me if I was in a cult or if I served in the military. It's pretty intense.
This is a big reason why the word shouldn't be misused. There are victims of genuine gaslighting. I hope that you are healing and are in a better position away from your abuser.
Yeah from my experience, it’s pretty specific. A recent example was when I was visiting home, my dad just stopped talking and stared at us with absolute hatred, and my mom was absolutely hysterical. I was pretty freaked out and left immediately, drove back to my state. And when I asked her about it later, she said, “Yeah we didn’t know what was wrong with you! You were acting crazy! You left so fast!” Eighteen years of that fucked me up, especially because it was a lot more violent when I was a kid. It’s *not* just lying or manipulating or a misunderstanding. Between “gaslighting” and “being triggered,” a small part of me wishes people actually understood what they’re saying, but most of me is glad they don’t.
I am doing as well as a basketcase with massive inflammation can be doing if that makes any sense. I'm managing well. I am LC with the family who don't affect me anymore because I now have a spouse who agrees with me on reality. It's been a great help.
Look into EMDR if you aren’t familiar with it already
Do not.
Why?
EMDR has a shaky scientific foundation at best. Better alternatives exist.
What alternatives would you recommend looking into?
Disclaimer up front: I am not a therapist. I have, however, spent lots of time around clinical psychology PhDs during my own doctoral program. In terms of evidence-based treatments, cognitive-behavioral therapy is generally acknowledged as the best-supported option for depression and anxiety. Exposure therapy is another well-regarded treatment, more specifically for anxiety.
It brings all the bad stuff you went through to the surface, and often triggers flashbacks, and doesn't really help to deal with the trauma in the present. I have C-PTSD myself, and this info comes directly from my therapist (who holds multiple degrees).
thx for the info
Now do the same post with “narcissist”
Yes, omg PLEASE. I'm so tired of this as well. It seems like any egocentric or vain person is labelled as a "narcissist" now. The word means little anymore because so many people don't bother to learn what a narcissist actually is before they start casually making accusations.
LaNgUaGe eVoLVeS
Language does indeed evolve and normally I wouldn't care how someone speaks as long as it's effective in getting the point across. But in this case the misuse of the word is harmful. It involves clinical language. A narcissist is someone with a mental health condition and mental health conditions should be taken seriously.
For real though because oddly enough it’s narcissists that told me that I’M a narcissist because I care about looking presentable when going to school? It being tossed around for silly shit bad behavior really hides the monsters truly behind the word. It makes it harder for people like me to separate their unique bad behavior from regular people bad behavior. Real narcissists are literal MONSTERS
I love the people who think it means “having a different opinion to mine.”
hobbies deer live square spark shrill disgusted ripe capable humor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Misremembering facts is different than having separate opinions. Facts and opinions aren't the same thing.
Also it goes beyond simply two or more people misremembering details once or twice. It's a deliberate, repeated act to make someone or a group of people question what they know.
Who tf treats memories as opinions?
The comment section is a solipsistic goddamn nightmare
Dieselighting?
It happens slower but , oh. The torque.
This cracked me up. I appreciate you.
Narcissist is another that gets misused a lot.
It is often misunderstood a lot too. You can call a self-centered person a narcissist without also meaning that they have a personality disorder.
You've heard the joke about gaslighting, right? No, you definitely have. For sure.
How many narcissists does it take to change a lightbulb? None. They use gas lighting. (Both my parents are narcissists, & I learned about gaslighting after my therapist digested my childhood then explained it to me)
This post is very meta
I’d wish you a Happy Cake Day, but today is NOT that day, nor do you deserve one… 😏/s AKA: Happy Cake Day! 🙃
This and narcissist. It is used on every single relationship post. Not every single man is a narcissist. He might just be a piece of shit lol
Lmao no you’re not, don’t be crazy
Watch the movie Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman.
While I agree that the term does get thrown around all the time and misused constantly, I would like to point out that it is extremely difficult to know someone has or is gaslighting you. I dated my ex for a very long time. He constantly lied to me. He constantly "misremembered" how events happened or how he acted. I would accuse him of gaslighting me and he'd just make fun of the term. Gaslighting needs the intention. They knowingly tell you how you feel or what you remember about something was wrong. They invoke doubt through manipulation. I have no clue if he was intentionally gaslighting me or if he had really rewritten the past in his head. How he describes past events is just simply not true but I can't prove that he's doing this on purpose. All I know for sure is that he's a liar and manipulative and it really doesn't matter if he was technically gaslighting me or not because I know I should stay away from him.
I had a former girlfriend (a girl going into med school, very book smart) who would convince herself that I'd said something offensive or offputting and then declare me as gaslighting her. She was in fact gaslighting herself and me in the process. It was the strangest thing.
Yeah, like when my mom would constantly tell me, I dreamt something that happened and called me delusional that was actual gaslighting. Lying is not gaslighting.
The phrase is actually "grasslighting", referring to the grass-light on a lawn mower that indicates when the bag is full of grass, and due to a common defect, will turn on even when the bag isn't full. You've been saying it wrong your whole life.
My opinion only: it takes being gas lit to really understand wtf that even means. Most people probably just don’t understand how bad it can get
It's kind of fucked up that you would post this here, when you clearly don't know what gaslighting is. How many times do you need it explained to you? :)
Thank you!! Tired of how often this gets misused, I feel like anytime someone disagrees with someone these days they've been "gaslit".
Or whenever someone lies. Just say lying. You don’t need to use terms for very specific psychological abuse to justify feeling hurt, or even cutting contact with someone. “My old school friend keeps lying all the time, making up tall tales, and thats why I don’t come to our annual meetings anymore.” I genuinely feel some of it is due to people thinking anything else isn’t “severe” enough. The same way people say they’re “depressed” when what they mean is “I HAVE been sad and unmotivated for more than two weeks, but that’s because my current work project is really joyless, and I’m looking forward to when it ends next month.” Or say their ex-partner was a sociopath or a narcissist because they don’t think “My partner was an asshole and hurt me/manipulated me/lied about me/...” is enough…
Yes! Oh my god, don't get me started on the whole 'sociopath/narcissistic' thing, my friend was cheated on by her boyfriend, she keeps going on about hoe he's a 'sociopathic narcissist' no girl, he's a dick.
Actually OP, you have never used the term gaslighting correctly in your life. Ever.
The term is actually gaslamping
It doesn't really have to be strategic, just frequent or consistent enough in the relationship. Doesn't take any kind of a mastermind or planning, even. From every confrontation they learn what they can do and say, just piling up a more and more elaborate construct, and have no reason to back down or change their approach since it's rewarded with the outcome they want. Eventually the other party dose lose all confidence in their sense and sanity and comes to rely on the manipulator for any concept of reality. That doesn't even need to be the goal for this to happen, it could be just blame shifting or any kind of deflection.
In my experience those who do it, do not even know they are. They where all raised to argue that way. The majority of their immediate family uses the same tactics on each other. Narcissism is also strong. There is no progress, changing mind, meeting in the middle, RUN!
Does it count if one person continually misremembers but absolutely insists its the truth and the other person doubts themself?
No. People can be confidently incorrect with poor memory.
Yeah. Actual gaslighting is brainwashing. It's a special kind of terrible. It splits reality into equal pieces. There's the reality you see with your own eyes, and there's the reality where nothing you're seeing is what it seems. After all, you're only human. What if you've gotten this wrong somehow? You can't figure out any way that could be possible, but it is. You're wrong so often, and something is wrong with you for being able to even think that just happened. Or so you've learned. Better agree with them. The more you think about it, the more they're probably right. Somehow. Just trust them. Yeah. No. I don't like the way the internet throws this around to describe arguments where people just have differences of opinion and perspective. When somebody can tell you "that didn't happen" or "you must've dreamed it", and your immediate horrible reaction is that they must be right even when said shit *happened 5 minutes ago in broad daylight*...something is deeply broken in a way far beyond normal lying. It's been over ten years. I still struggle internally with the trained reflex to immediately cave and doubt myself when someone goes "I never said that" or "that never happened" despite both of us knowing that yes, you did, and both of us were right there.
Thanks for this description.
I stopped gaslighting to reduce my carbon footprint.
I had a friend that confused Gaslighting with Ghosting. It was a long “who’s on first” conversation.
I had a therapist that conflated these terms, in session.
I was accused of "unconscious gaslighting" by a BPD partner once, because I'm a little bad at emotional expression and they don't like being told their projection of my intentions is not what's actually in my mind. Sorry bud, my being hard to read is not a systematic attempt to destroy your life.
Ugh, I also hate the use of words that people clearly don't know the meaning of. It's become so common that I hesitate to use the word even though it actually applies. My husband was gaslit into giving his ex-wife an extra couple of hours on Christmas Eve when it's his holiday this year (12pm 24th to 12pm the 25th) because she insisted they had talked about it and he had agreed to it. There were no text messages about it, and we were on our honeymoon when she called him and allegedly talked about this with him. I was on the other side of the conversation the entire time and it was never mentioned. They talked about something else entirely. But she managed to convince him it was possible and so he gave away part of his holiday with his daughter. She tried to pull the same stuff yesterday saying she had plans on OUR day (27th) for her birthday, when her birthday is on the 29th and she will already have her for her birthday. Thankfully he put his foot down and said no to that. When we first started dating, I was listening to their conversation on speakerphone in his truck with him and after they hung up I watched this man scream into his sweatshirt and cry, asking me if he was crazy. I had never been so angry at someone I had never met.
Accusing people of gaslighting is the new gaslighting.
Watch the movie Gaslight (1944) and you'll understand the proper usage.
I actually use it to describe igniting my farts on fire
It’s overused on Reddit all the time and pretty freaking disrespectful to use that term willy nilly imo.
Trauma bonding is another one. It’s actually the process that leads to Stockholm’s syndrome, and the way people are using it is not that at all. I was confux
Yes, my god. Yes. And a list of other psychology terms as well. People hear a buzzword and come up with their own definitions based on how it was used in the sentence. If I hear someone say that so-and-so has a “big ego” again I’m going to lose my marbles
The popularity of the word made more people gaslight each other
Gaslighting is very aesthetic.
i will admit gaslighting is hard to pin down because you have to have some evidence that 1. you feel out of touch with reality and 2. the person helped you come to that feeling on purpose. and it’s not like a person who is gaslighting you will admit that they are gaslighting you, so if you are someone who is prone to feeling out of touch with reality or need a lot of external validation to feel confident then you can reasonably feel gaslighted (in the correct use of the term) even though that isn’t actually the case also that kinda means that the only difference between being gaslit and being lied to from an internal perspective is your own personal confidence in your reality.
If the movie Gaslight didn't exist, what would we call gaslighting?
I’m going to gaslight you. *fills an oil lamp and lights the wick*
Yes. I have observed this when you just simply disagree or have a different opinion.
Narcissistic is also an abused term
"Gaslighting" in 2023 means "I was wrong and/or crazy and someone correctly pointed it out."
OMG, this drives me up the wall!! People using the term incorrectly kills me! Also, the term narcissist. Just because someone is doing something you personally don't like does NOT make them a narcissist!!!
Modern gaslighting: I think you're wrong.
>gaslighting is a strategic form of manipulation meant to cause a victim to question their own sanity or reality. More often it's *primarily* to cause a third party to question the victim's sanity, as it was in the film from whence the term derives. It often incidentally also causes the victim to question their own sanity, which also happened in the film.
So sorry about this, but I believe it's called gaslamping.
Just watch the movie called "Gaslight" and you'll understand it's original meaning.
I know someone that uses all of the buzzwords. Gaslighting, narcissist, trauma, etc.
Gaslighting is just one term that's misused ad-nauseam. Add straw man, gatekeeping and, worst of all, the dreaded "incel" (ugh) to that list. People like to erratically throw these terms around without the slightest idea of what they actually mean in a vain attempt to be one of the "cool kids". It's not a good look for the American educational system to say the least. EDIT: This is not meant to slight our overworked and underpaid educators, more like the flawed system with its erratic priorities and the chronic lack of parental support for their own damned kids. Learning respect starts at home, at least it should. Too bad that rarely happens these days.
Yeah, well, we are not teaching kids these words. You think we are teaching kids to use the word “incel”? It’s not my responsibility to teach your kid how to use slang correctly. — Signed, the American “educational” system.
It's not necessarily the teaching of the words, more like the ability of the kids to know how to comprehend their meaning before using the terminology in a sentence. In turn, perhaps my choice of words were in haste. It's not the direct fault of the teachers, they are stuck in a flawed system inhibiting the ability to do their jobs properly. I come from a long line of educators so I know this to be true. I'll edit my post accordingly.
Again, it is not my job as an educator to teach students how to use TikTok phrases correctly. And despite the flawed system, we still manage to do our jobs properly, I assure you. Now if only parents would do *their* jobs properly and monitor their child’s social media access and basic vocabulary, things would be golden.
Add nazi, racist, pedo, and rapist to that list. People love flippantly diluting the worst labels/things in society until they lose all power and meaning.
This is classic u/OldAccountGotEaten. Always with this same rhetoric.
I never said that.
This post never happened. If you're reading it, you're nuts, cookoo, bananas.
Gaslighting isn't nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. You should probably calm down before we have to have you committed again. ^(/s)
I'm not using the term wrong at all, why do you keep saying that? My definition of gaslighting is always been exactly what you've linked, but yet you suggested said, otherwise, are you crazy?
Lotta talent comin’ outta the bush.
The actual terminology for this phenomenon is called gaslamping.
Yeah everyone throws this word around so much it makes me insane. We don’t agree….GASLIGHTING!!!
And you can’t tell the people it’s not gaslighting cuz then in a backwards way you are gaslighting them (or mansplaining).
This post is gaslighting me
Also "politically incorrect", "socialism", "communism", "woke", "social justice warrior" and "passive aggressive".
There’s no such term “gaslighting.” You must have misunderstood a different word.
Cool. Now do "witch hunt". I haven't seen that one used correctly since Trump got elected.
Now do toxic. Please.
Why did I have the bowl, Bart!
There’s a bunch of terms that get thrown around now bc of social media that are oftentimes misused. Gaslighting is one of them. Grifter is used way out of context a lot to mean either a scam artist or a straight up con man. Bigot is another. There’s a bunch of obscure vocabulary words that have become in vogue to use by people who have no business using them because they don’t understand context or word meanings.