Unveiling Gaslighting: Exploring the Impact and Road to Healing
Permission to feel: Confusion
‘Why did that happen?’
‘How did they think that was ok?’
’When we are confused, we can feel out of control and we want to get back to a sure footing.
One way that we can do that is to ask why, to become curious in an attempt to gain an understanding of the situation.
If we know why or how, then maybe we can do something about it.
That’s true.
If we understand the context of why someone is behaving the way they are, it may lead to us having more compassion OR we may disagree, which can lead to further dialogue.
Either way there is a sense of understanding further and that understanding helps us to feel more in control.
Confusion + curiosity = learning
Confusion + fear = frustration
YET, there is a time when confusion + curiosity can be harmful and this is when someone is being gaslit. In this case trying to understand why someone is doing what they are doing can be a harmful thing to do for yourself.
The term ‘gaslighting’ gets bandied about like billy-o, so I want to break down what it is and what it feels like. There’s no better way to do that than…
with a poem!
Tales by gaslight
I’m flicking through,
Looking for that picture.
You know the one,
Where I know that you love me with that adoring smile.
‘Cos you told me, right?
You told me...
But I can’t find it.
Can’t find that picture.
When I felt...
What did it feel like?
I can’t seem to remember,
Where I know that you love me with that adoring smile.
'Cos you told me right?
You told me…
But I can’t find it.
Can’t find that picture.
Gaslighting involves a pattern of behaviour from someone else (a person or institution) which denies your reality or experience to the point where you doubt yourself. This is done in order to protect something that they value (money, reputation, behaviours) at the expense of your truth.
I wrote this poem to try and get across what the feeling of being gaslit is like.,
The term comes from the 1944 film ‘Gaslight’ where a man tricks and controls his wife so that she really believes she is losing her mind. When we are gaslit we no longer believe ourselves, but believe the gaslighter instead.
There’s a weird sense of certainty mixed with doubt (confusion).
We all doubt what someone says from time to time, but someone who gaslights has a persistent pattern in their behaviour.
Some of the common things they may say are:
You’re being too sensitive.
It was just a joke.
You’re overreacting.
Just calm down.
If you call out their behaviour it will be met with
What are you talking about?
I never said that!
I’m sorry if you feel that way.
Gaslighting is a way of gaining and maintaining power and control. That power differential may already be there if it is a parent or some other authority figure that is gaslighting you, OR if the person subconsciously REMINDS you of an authority figure - which you have no conscious way of knowing unless you do the therapeutic work to uncover this!
If we are gaslit in our childhood and this is not recognised or addressed then it sets us up for it happening in our adulthood. We may end up in relationships which are impressions of the blueprint we received when we did not have the cognitive development to discern and assess what we were being told. Even though the relationship may feel painful, it’s familiar and familiarity is a potent force.
Too sensitive
When I was a little girl, I was too sensitive.
I was toooooooo sensitive.
I didn’t know what it meant,
But anything toooooooo is probably not good, right?
It is tooooooooo hot.
It is tooooooooo yummy.
See what I mean?
I didn’t know anyone else who was tooooooooo sensitive.
When I was upset that Jinny at school wouldn’t sit next to me
and told everyone else not to sit next to me,
I was ‘tooooooooo sensitive’.
When I tried to work out why Jinny would not sit next to me,
I thought ‘tooooooooo much’.
Other people?
Other people were soooooooooo...
Bert was ‘soooooooooo clever’
Mark was ‘soooooooooo good’
Floss was ‘soooooooooo kind’.
But I was tooooooooo...
Well, you know what?
Maybe Jinny was soooooooooo mean
Maybe they got it soooooooooo wrong
Maybe they were toooooooooo insensitive.
Ha!
This can lead to people pleasing and perfectionism and attracting - and being attracted to - people who were extremely hard to please and who are always finding fault. Aaah, the perfect feedback loop.
Relationships become an unsafe place and this feeling of confusion which gaslighting produces may lead to:
Self gaslighting - we doubt our experience, tell ourselves we are too something selfish for thinking the way we do or that we ‘shouldn’t’ feel that way.
We internalise the shame, we feel flawed, wrong, and inadequate.
We tell ourselves that we deserved it, ‘I was a tearaway as a kid’.
Compulsive harmful behaviour like workaholism, working for people and organisations that are never pleased and are geared around finding fault in the name of ‘progress’. The reason for this is that those who have been gaslit have been groomed to look outside of themselves for validation, but it’s a validation that can never be satisfied.
Often, this type of harm begins in childhood with our parents. That is an uncomfortable reality. Yet, if we are to break intergenerational trauma then we have to be unafraid to look our pain in the eye and honestly trace back its origins. Otherwise we just pass it down to our children. It’s not to blame or to shame, but to be able to take account of the impact of previous generations’ defences against trauma is necessary for healing to occur.