Here is a list of 11 Warning signs of GASLIGHTING, according to author Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, in her book “Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People- and Break Free”;
- “THEY TELL BLATANT LIES. You know it’s an outright lie, yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they are setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you’re not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off balance is the goal.” Back when I was a softball pitcher and wanted to keep hitters off-balance, I’d throw change-ups and offspeed curveballs… Well my ex kept using this strategy in our relationship. I felt off-balance almost the entire marriage!
- “THEY DENY THEY EVER SAID SOMETHING, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE PROOF. You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. They out and out deny it. It makes you start to question your reality-maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.”
- “THEY USE WHAT IS NEAR AND DEAR TO YOU AS AMMUNITION. They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you’d be a worthy person if only you didn’t have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.”
- “THEY WEAR YOU DOWN OVER TIME. This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting-it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often…and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting-it is that effective.” Insert the frog in the pot of water metaphor here!
- “THEIR ACTIONS DO NOT MATCH THEIR WORDS. When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.” This is where you’re going to find the big ‘disconnects’!
- “THEY THROW IN POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT TO CONFUSE YOU. This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don’t have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, “Well maybe they aren’t so bad.” Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter-and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.” Sounds like that darn shell game again-they let you win just enough to keep you playing.
- “THEY KNOW CONFUSION WEAKENS PEOPLE. Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans’ natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable-and that happens to be the gaslighter.” Grrreeeaaattt…Superrrr…
- “THEY PROJECT. They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that . This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter’s own behavior.” So when your “Boo” starts accusing you of cheating…rest assured, that “Goo” most likely is!
- “THEY TRY TO ALIGN PEOPLE AGAINST YOU. Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what-and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, “This person knows that you’re not right,” or “This person knows you’re useless too.” Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant LIAR. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don’t know who to trust or turn to-and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that’s exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.” They like to “divide and conquer”!
- “THEY TELL YOU OR OTHERS THAT YOU ARE CRAZY. This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it’s dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It’s a master technique.” My ex used this pre-emptive ploy with me, telling me, my children, family and friends that I was CRAZY and DELUSIONAL so he could justify his leaving me when I was very sick with an auto-immune disease and mostly bedridden. I’ve seen a few psychiatrists and have never been diagnosed with any type of personality disorder whatsoever but my ex sure was when he had a psych evaluation when he went AWOL in the Airforce and when he spent time in maximum security jail here in Az. for kidnapping an ex girlfriend and now that I think about it, he probably also had at least one back when he was breaking into people’s homes when he was a juvenile. NO, I did not know any of this until after I was too invested into the relationship and thought I could change him. Big Mistake! Turns out he left me because he was actually cheating on me with multiple women and finally settled on his relative, by marriage, that is about 35 years younger than him. I had to remind him that people with his kind of profound personality disorders of the cluster B variety are in fact, the ones that are delusional. He disagreed.
- “THEY TELL YOU EVERYONE ELSE IS A LIAR. By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You’ve never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No, It’s a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the “correct” information-which isn’t correct information at all.”
As you can see, Gaslighting is a very common and effective tool to control and cause some real damage to it”s victims, which involves messing with our sanity and perception of things and situations and can cause serious long term damage.
I encourage you to arm yourself with education regarding this subject so you never have to go what I went through! Peace and love to all!
