November 25, 2024 • 34 mins
This week we are deep diving into this term that is popping up everywhere, Gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that attempts to make individuals question their own reality in order to gain power and control over them. And, the scary thing is- it can happen to anyone. There is good news though and Kat is going solo this week to make sure we all know that there is a way to get out of these kinds of tangled webs. Listen this week to gain a better understanding of what Gaslighting actually is, how to spot it, and what to do when you feel like you are being gas lit.
Links for episodes and articles that were talked about:
11 Red Flags of Gaslighting in a Relationship
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Have a question, concern, guest idea, something else? Reach Kat at: Kathryn@youneedtherapyodcast.com
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Produced by: @HoustonTilley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability. It's a real guest. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no Internet.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel like everything
is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a
human first and a licensed therapist second. And right now
I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope encourage you
to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hi, and welcome back to another new episode of You
Need Therapy. My name is Kat and I'm the host Here.
It's another solo episode day here, and this week we're
talking about something that I've talked about a little bit before,
but I've never actually dedicated an entire episode.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
About it on here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And I think it is about time because there's enough
information around it that it could be not only its
own episode, but a series. It could be its own
podcast probably, but.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We're not gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Before we get going, quick reminder that this is not therapy.
This is just me, a therapist talking about, you know,
things that have to do with mental health and things
that have to do with therapy. And also quick reminder
while we're here, if you want to follow me, you
can on Instagram at Kat dot defada, or you can
follow the podcast at You Need Therapy Podcast. Okay, now
(01:50):
let's get into that episode. So we're talking about all
things gaslighting today and I hear this word being said
now more than ever, so I think it's important that
we stop and take some time to figure this out
so we can spot it ourselves and know when this
is actually occurring and when we maybe just might be
(02:12):
using the fancy word right. And we'll get to this later.
But there's a difference in the technique somebody uses when
attempting to create a gaslighting effect on somebody and the
actual experience of being gas lit gas lighted. Not sure
which is correct. So anyway, somebody, like for example, somebody
denying something alone doesn't mean that they're gaslighting you, but
(02:33):
it could be part of it. So we'll get more
into that later, but that's one of the things that
I wanted to talk about. So what is gaslighting? Well,
and the most basic definition, gaslighting is a form of
psychological abuse, and it's where a person tries and successively
usually does make someone question their sanity or perception.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Or their reality.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And when you experience gaslighting, you're gonna feel confused, you'll
probably feel some anxiousness, and you stop being able to
trust yourself. However, when this starts, you don't actually know
that you're being gas lit, so those feelings feel very
like accurate and true. It's not like an anxious I
know I'm right and this person won't agree with you.
(03:14):
It's this anxiousness around, like I really start to question myself.
And this kind of manipulation doesn't just get thrown at you,
so it doesn't work that way. It doesn't start all
of a sudden, It slowly kind of creeps up, and
very often it starts with a love bombing experience, especially
when this happens in romantic relationships. And I didn't say
(03:35):
this up top, but gaslighting can happen in any kind
of relationship. A lot of times we hear stories about
it being in romantic relationships and partnerships, but this can
be friends, this can be a boss, this can be
a parent, it can be a leader of any sort.
There's a power differential there, but there's usually a experience
of this love bombing effect first, and we hear about
(03:57):
love bombing and romantic relationships mostly too, but love bombing
also can happen in any of those other experiences, right,
And I went through in more detail what love bombing
is in the episode that we did on Love Addiction
with Melanie Reese that came out earlier this year, but
we'll talk about it a second here, And it's when
a relationship starts with like big bombs of admiration and attention. Again,
(04:21):
doesn't just have to be in romantic relationships. We see
that a lot though, and it can be kind of similar,
which is confusing with how relationships are portrayed in Hollywood
and movies and stuff, which again it's not very helpful
because we see that all the time and we see
as normal. But it's like that I'm obsessed with you
from day one. Right, anytime that happens, let that be
(04:42):
an important red flag, like when the people are where
that person is like all in and all about you
from the day they met you. You're the greatest person ever.
You're the greatest person I've ever met. You're the best
at this that I've ever experienced. Like all the sudden,
It's like an overwhelming amount of love for someone, and
for someone with an anxious attachment style, this is very
(05:04):
much appreciated, which is super hard. It Also, this love
bombing is like a foreshadowing to being gaslet right. They
win you over with their affection and you begin to
trust them and believe that you have this incredible fairy
tale bond and then done undone, they start to turn
the tables. But they have that backstory for you to
hold onto because how often do we hear ourselves saying
(05:24):
it was so good in the beginning, or they were
so kind of the beginning. I know we can get
back there, but was that real?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Was that really them?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Or was that the beginning of them trying to get
you to where they wanted you to be?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Scary question, hard question. I don't like that question.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Backstory. I find this interesting. But people are like, what
does gasletting come from? Well, it comes from a play
that then got turned into a movie. I've never seen
this movie. It's called Gaslight. And what happens in the
movie is there's a husband and a wife and the
husband manipulates and is turning down this like actual gas light,
(06:00):
dimming the lights and telling her that he's not and
she's like, oh, it's getting darker, and he's like, no,
it's not.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And he's convincing her that she's crazy. Right.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
He wants to convince her that she can't trust her
reality so then he can commit her to a mental institution.
So that's where that comes from. That's where we get
the phrase gaslight. Now, you will hear this as a
common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, like cult leaders. And
when I hear those things, I think that can sound
(06:29):
very extreme, And then I know me, I'm very defensive
towards myself, so I might say something like that would
never happen to me. I would never be an abusive relationship.
I would never let somebody do this. I would never
because those things seem so big and heavy. But again,
this is a form of emotional psychological manipulation which can
be harder to identify and recognize and prove and validate,
(06:54):
and because of that more debilitating at the same time, right,
we minimize this kind of stuff. I started watching the
Netflix show, the new one called Made, and I mean
trigger warning. It's about a woman who has a kid
is in this like domestic abuse situation, and it's her
story of getting free. I only watched two episodes because
(07:16):
I just was crying and I was like, this is
very sad and this is not what I need right now.
I don't know if I'll finish it, but this I
do know. The first couple episodes, it had such a
good and realistic view on how victims of abuse minimize
their abuse, right, like he didn't hit me, so I'm
not abused. Like I don't want to call myself a
(07:37):
victim because that's taking away from people who really are
victims of abuse. And if it's not abuse, then what
would this be. And it becomes this like almost moral
failing on ourselves of like we're the bad people, which
is part of the psychological abuse. It's part of the
cycle like makes us think that we're the bad, wrong
people when really we're not. We're victims of abuse and
(07:58):
we can become survivors if we don't like that word.
We don't have to sit in it forever. You can
become a survivor, but to survive abuse, a lot of
times we have to recognize that we're in that cycle.
So watch that show if you're interested in what that
looks like. But also trigger warning.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It can't.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I mean, I haven't been in a relationship like that,
but it was triggering to me and my feelings, and
my feelings.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Didn't need it that day. Maybe I'll finish later.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I also think that it's important to mention here while
we're on this part, that anyone is susceptible to gaslighting anybody.
It doesn't just happen to weak people or those with
a fragile sense of self or those with insecure attachment styles.
It can happen to anybody. And yes, those things I
just mentioned could be risk factors and could create a
(08:48):
higher likelihood of this happening, But this can happen to anyone.
And also those things aren't bad or wrong things, right, Like,
there's probably a reason there's a fragile sense of self,
there's probably a reason that there's insecure attachment style. So
that doesn't mean you're bad or wrong either if that
does fit with you. But I also don't want people
to demonize themselves, because again, this is what these people
(09:08):
want us to think, that that we're the ones and
the wrong. I don't want you to demonize yourself for
this happening. You don't ask for this. There's nothing that
you do that says, oh, please manipulate me, please psychologically
abuse me. This is there's no your fault in this.
And I think when we start to say, oh, it
was because I had a weak sense of self, or
it's because I am just not confident, it's like, you
(09:30):
can't blame yourself for being abused. That's not fair and
it's not helpful and it's not true. So shall we
talk about what it might look like so you can
spot it. And this is tricky because, like I said,
you often don't know what's happening at first, especially if
you don't know what gaslighting is. So that's one of
the reasons why we're doing this. And this is an
attempt to control someone else by twisting their sense of reality.
(09:54):
So when this is happening, what is happening is somebody
is twisting your sense of reality. You start ground, you
start knowing what's true and what's not true. You start
knowing the sky is blue, and then somebody slowly does
things that allows them to twist your sense of reality
where you might think, oh, the sky is blue. I
know it's blue. It's blue, that's a fact. And then
(10:16):
later down the line you are still seeing the sky
being blue, but you're saying, I bet the sky is
red and I'm seeing blue because I don't see real reality.
I can't trust myself. I have to listen to what
this person in power is telling me. Very confusing. So
back to in the beginning of this conversation when I
said that there's a difference in the techniques and the
(10:37):
gaslighting effect.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right, So we'll get to this.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But denial is a technique or a tactic that's used
in this process. But denial in itself is not gaslighting.
So if somebody denies something that doesn't just automatically like
you're gaslighting me, maybe that could be part of it.
But I think sometimes people just deny things because of
other res and they're not gaslighting you.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It might be.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
A self protection There can be a lot of stuff
in them. They might just be lying to get out
of trouble. Doesn't mean they're gas lighting. So just want
to separate that denial in its own right is not gaslighting.
It might be something that somebody uses to get to
that point. So, like I said, there's techniques that are
used to do this, So let's break them down. I
got a list of we're going to go through two
(11:24):
different things. But I got this first list of techniques,
the actual just like words. I took them from the
National Domestic Violence Hotline, so you can visit that website,
the hotline dot org. So I took the five techniques
from there. They really fit and I think they're helpful.
And then I'm going to talk about each one. But
(11:45):
I didn't make those up, and I just wanted to
make that clear. So let's talk about these five techniques.
So one way or one thing that somebody might do
in order to create this narrative is withholding.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
So means that they refuse to listen to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Information, or pretend like they don't understand the information, or
just like separate themselves from the ability to have the conversation.
So you might hear things like you're not making any
sense or I don't have time for this when you
bring something up that you think is important, or when
you try to talk about a conflict or just anything
in that relationship. They might say things like I'm not
going to go through this again, even if you never
(12:22):
went through it once, or we already talked about this,
and maybe you did talk about it, maybe you didn't,
or maybe you talked about it and they shut you down.
But very much they will just like not allow that
conversation to come to fruition. That's one. Then we have countering.
So this is when somebody's kind of like questioning the person,
as in, if it's you that's being manipulated, they're questioning
(12:45):
your memory or your essential reality of the event. So
this one actually bothers me a lot, Like I think
it might be one of the most frustrating for me
because they take something that actually can be used for
super helpful communication and turn it against you. Like when
we're having conversations and we're having conflict and somebody might
hear something that somebody didn't say, right. So if somebody says,
(13:07):
like I don't have time to go to this event
with you tomorrow, I might hear them say they don't
they don't want to go, But they never said that, right,
They said they didn't have time. And so when you
have a healthy communication you can talk about that and
you can say, like, I heard you say that you
didn't want to go. The person can reply back, oh,
I actually didn't say that. I totally get that that's
(13:27):
what you heard. I actually didn't have time, and I
actually would want to go, but I don't have time.
And so you can have a healthy conversation around like
oh miscommunication. But in this experience, they'll say things like
that's what you heard in your head. It's not what
I said, even though it is what they said. And
that can be so confusing because sometimes we do hear
things wrong. So you can you can say to yourself, well,
(13:50):
maybe I did hear that wrong. Oh, so they'll say
it like, oh, come on, I never said that, or
like that's what you heard, but you know I would
never say something like that, or you're just being overly
sensitive things like that. Then the third technique is blocking
or diverting. So this is like kind of changing the
subject and you start to question your thinking and not
just like changing the subject to like the fight we
(14:13):
had to like where are we going to go to dinner?
They'll say things to like downplay your experience, like you're overreacting.
So the subject moves from this thing that happened, this
conflict you had, to your reaction to the conflict, and
you being an overreactor or too sensitive or something like that,
And so they'll say things like, oh, why would you
let something so stupid come between us? This seems silly,
(14:35):
Like you're being silly. You always blew things out of proportion,
You are always picking fights, you always have to be right,
you always play the victim. And so then now you're
arguing about that rather than talking about what you actually
were trying to talk about. So confusing, okay, And then
number four is trivializing, and so this is just making
the person's feelings seem like really unimportant. Like again, and
(14:58):
some of these fall into similar categor like I don't
know why you're making such a big deal of this.
You're being insecure, you're too sensitive, and that can just
make somebody be like, oh, maybe I am overreacting, Like well,
maybe if I just stop overreacting, then we won't have
this conflict and then everything will be better, Like I
don't want to have conflict, So if it's mean I'm
just overreacting, then maybe I'll stop overreacting and then we
(15:19):
won't have conflict. So then you're looking to the person
or the person in power to kind of be your
meter of like does this experience warrant this kind of reaction?
I don't know, because I overreact, and so things that
I think are a big deal aren't a big deal,
and I just need to get over them because it's me.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
It's all about me. It's me, it's me, it's me.
I'm the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And then the last one is forgetting or like just
straight up denial, which oh my gosh, could be so frustrating.
And this is when the person just straights up straight
up denies something or they forget, they act like they
forget what happened, or they just like deny that they
ever agreed to something or that they ever said something.
They just straight up our line, which is like, again,
(16:01):
these people just are lying, which you cannot argue with
somebody who's lying. And they'll say things like I never
said that, I never did that, or they'll say you
never said that, or you never told me that, or
you never did that. So a question you'll hear a lot,
and something you might wonder yourself, why don't people like
stand up for themselves and or why don't they leave
(16:23):
and all of that, And because most people don't want
to leave and they don't want to threaten the relationship. Right,
And I talk about this all the time. I'm guilty
of wanting to believe the goodness of everyone. And if
you had a love bombing experience, right, you want to
believe in the goodness that this partner or boss or
human has because you've gone through that phase where you
(16:46):
saw it, and you also saw how good and you
heard how good and special the relationship and quotes was
or is. So we go back to this like rosy retrospect.
I'm like, but it was so good and we were
so good and he was so kind and he was
so understanding back then. Okay, but where are we now?
And the more you push right on this, the heavier
the person who's gasling may go in and they can
(17:07):
be ruthless, right, So there's no rationalizing with them. So
if we can get into our heads right that the
agenda they're pushing of the reality that they're trying to
make you believe or understand or adhere to is not true.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
But if you try to stand up to this, they
have this fake agenda, this fake reality they're pushing. If
you try to push against this, what will happen is
they'll escalate. But as they escalate, their manipulation will create
you as the problem. Now, right, So you're being dramatic,
you're being crazy, You're making a big deal about this.
Why don't you just believe me? Why don't you just understand?
(17:43):
Why do you have to be so difficult? Why do
you have to question everything? And then it's like, whoa,
Now I'm deeper in this. Now what did I do?
How did I create such a big deal out of this?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Wow? Few, I'm just getting worked up talking about this. Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Also, I don't know if this fits right here, but
I have to say this because I don't know if
I don't know if I said it. But I often
think that people just think gaslighting is when somebody denies something.
But we already talked about how that's just a tactic.
But a lot of times we think gaslightings when somebody's
denying truth, and that's just it. But it also can
be when they deny something that you did, or they
(18:22):
deny your memory, and it's not just they're denying their behavior.
They might say things like you never said that when
you already did, or denying just a memory of something
of you and it's not just them. So I think
that's important too, because that can be really confusing when
they're like you never said sorry, or you never told
me that you wanted me to be home at this time, and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It's like, yes, I did, I did say that. I
swear I said that.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And we'll move into how we can kind of combat
that later, but I want to just make that point too.
And again, this happens over time. This isn't just like
a snap my fingers has happened. This happens over time.
And there is a great article that I want to share.
This is not my information, I'm taking this from somebody else,
but there's a great article I want to share that
(19:06):
helps make sense of why this can be so hard
to snap out of because it talks about the progression.
There's a woman named Stephanie Sarkis, and she wrote a
book called Gaslighting, Recognize Manipulative and emotionally Abusive People, and
Break Free. And she had an article on psychology today
that went viral, and I think it went viral because
(19:26):
so many people are finally waking up to this stuff
and talking about the stuff and it's interesting. And in
this article she summarizes eleven ways how gas lights typically
use the following techniques, which she details in her book
that I just mentioned, which I will link her book.
I haven't read this book, but I love the article.
So in this article, again she summarizes these eleven ways
(19:48):
how gaslights typically use the techniques I'm going to mention,
and how this progression happened. So how you get from like, oh,
I'm a normal person that knows my reality to what
in the world I'm questioning everything? So here we're gonna
go through all eleven Number one, I'll also link this
article as well, so if you want to just go
back and read it, because I'm just going to read
what she says. So Number one, they tell blatant lies.
(20:11):
You know it's an outright lie, Yet they are telling you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
This lie with a straight face.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Why are they so blatant Because they're 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 kilter is the goal here. Number two, they deny
they ever said something, even though you have proof. You
know they said they would do something. You know you
heard it, but they out and out deny it. It
(20:37):
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 you start accepting theirs.
It's like Chinese water torture. Right. The longer this is
me talking, not the article, but it's like the longer
you do something, the more it starts to set in.
And just like our belief systems about like our core beliefs,
(20:57):
the longer we believe we're not good enough, the longer
where we tell that story, the more we live in
that screen, the more that becomes who we are and
what we think and what our reality is. Number three,
they use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
They know how important your kids are to you, They
know how important your identity is to you, so those
may become the first things they attack. If you have kids,
(21:19):
they tell you that you should not have had those children.
They will tell you that 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. So this is Cadigan.
They go in on you. Number four, They wear you
down over time. This is one of the insidious things
about gas sighting. It's done gradually over time. A lie here,
a lie there, a snide comment every so often, and
(21:41):
then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self
aware people can be sucked into gas sighting. It is
that effective. It's the frog and the frying pan analogy.
The heat is turned up slowly so the frog never
realizes what is happening to it, and then the frog dies.
This is number five. Their actions do not match their
words and dealing with the person or entity that gaslights.
(22:02):
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. I
have to step in here as cat again, because this
is one of the things that's so tough, because you'll
have these conversations and they'll say like I'm sorry, I'll
be better, or they'll have these moments of like goodness
and trueness and care. However, then their actions don't line
(22:25):
up with that. But we go back to well, they
said this, they said this, they said this right. But
to trust and believe and sit with somebody's trueness, their
speech and their actions have to act together. We can't
just pick one. Number six, they throw in positive reinforcement
(22:47):
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 you think, Well,
maybe they aren't so bad.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yes they are.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
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's probably something that served the
gas lighter. Okay, again, so I love the part where
she's saying this is a calculated attempt to keep you
off kilter in questioning realities because it's nothing is all
the time, right, So you have that evidence that's like
(23:18):
they're not all bad. Yes, And this is where we
ask ourselves that percentage question. How much of the percentage
of this relationship do I feel crazy? And how much
do I feel like they are kind?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Number seven. They know confusion weakens people. Gas lighters know
that people have a sense of stability and normalcy. Their
goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything.
And human's natural tendency is to look to the person
or entity that will help you feel more stable, and
that happens to be the gas slider.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Really scary. Number eight.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
They project they are a drug user or a cheater,
yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This has
done so often that you start to defend yourself off
and then you're distracted from their behavior. Oh my gosh,
when you start defending yourself from things that you've this
is catting in. When you start defending yourself from things
that like, actually are so off, that is such a
(24:11):
telltale sign, right, Like, I'm defending myself, But have you
ever had to defend yourself from this before? Number nine,
They try to align people against you. Gas Lighters 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
(24:33):
you're useless too. Keep in mind, it does not mean
that these people actually said these things. A gas lighter
is a constant liar. When the gas lighter uses this tactic,
it makes you feel like you don't know who to
trust or who to turn to, and that leads you
right back to them, and that's exactly what they want.
Isolation gives them more control. I'll get to this, which
(24:53):
is why we need to reality check. And when we
feel like we're in these situations, a lot of times
we don't want to tell anybody about it because it's like, oh,
I don't want to tell people in dirty laundry, or
this is just between us, But that's what they want.
They want it to be between you, so then you
don't have anybody giving you a reality check. Number ten,
they tell you or others that you're crazy. This is
one of the most effective tools of the gas lighter
(25:15):
because it's dismissive. The gas lighter 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. So what's the point If nobody's gonna
believe me, what's the point? And then eleven they tell
you everyone else is a liar. By telling you that
everyone else, your family, the media XYZ is a liar,
(25:37):
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 gas lighter for the
correct information, which actually isn't correct at all, oh Man.
And I think one of the things that's highlighting these
steps is the idea this is cap talking, not the article.
(25:58):
Is the idea that, like, they want you in this isolation,
so you don't have any other information and you're going
to them to get it, and so what they say
and what they do is gold.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
My goodness.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So I have so many feelings right now, and if
you have so many feelings right now, I'm in it
with you. This is so frustrating, and this is the
kind of thing that I talk about this and I'm like,
why are these kind of people in the world, and
why is this something that we have to deal with
and move through? And I don't have an answer for that.
I don't have an answer for why we have to
move through a lot of the tough things in life.
(26:31):
But I do have some helpful tips to help you
kind of get out of it. And I have to
stay in this. So let's kind of just talk about
those as we summarize and close out this conversation. And
also I will link that article in the show notes
for you guys, and I'll link the episode on love addiction,
and I'll link the episode that I did on narcissism
(26:51):
as well, So if you want some more information on
some of this stuff, you can go get that there.
And I'll link her book, even though I want you
guys to know I haven't read it, so I can't
vouch for it. But here's some suggestions of what to
do when you find yourself in a relationship like this,
whether it be parent, friend, spouse, romantic partner, boss, anything. No.
(27:13):
Right now, that you are not weak, bad, or wrong
if you have experienced this, and this is so important.
Abuse of any kind does this thing that makes us
feel bad about ourselves for being found inside of it.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But nobody asks to be abused. It is not a.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Moral failing on you. And I need you guys to
know that you're not weak, bad, or wrong. If you're
in this situation. It's not something to be ashamed about.
And the more we believe that, the more we'll get
stuck inside.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Of it too.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I want you guys to pay attention to red flags.
And this is something that's so frustrating at the same time,
I get it, but there's so much like laughter and
jokiness and just like what's the word like self deprecation
around ignoring red flags these days, and I get some
of it, and some of it the humor. We need
(27:58):
to not make everything so heapy, but we've got to
start paying attention to red flags, especially when they're like this,
because it can really get you into some trouble. And
again that's not your fault, but when we are ignoring
red flags, we do have to take some responsibility for that.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That part.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Perk up the first time you experience one of these techniques,
perk up the first time you are experiencing love bombing.
Just because you are having this like intense reaction in
a relationship early, it doesn't mean it's going to end
up in this, but I at least want you to
pay attention to it so you know if one of
these other things follows, Hey I need to talk about this.
Hey I need to be mindful of this write down.
(28:33):
When you experience these things the first time, it's helpful
to have written accounts of these so when your memory
is questioned later when this gets heavier, you can go
back and say, nope, I'm not crazy, I didn't make
this up. I wrote this down. And also sometimes when
we have that written down, we can go WHOA. This
wasn't just a little small thing. Look at all these accounts.
Number three, do not try and argue. Be willing to
(28:54):
leave these conversations with these people without making your point
or without feeling validated under stood. They very likely will
not validate you. It can be super disorienting to be
in conversations with people who are using techniques to gaslight you,
because what they're doing is trying to knock you off
your stability, knock you off of your reality, and they'll
(29:15):
change the path of the discussion. Like I said, so,
if you're trying to be understood and have a conversation
about A, you might be having a conversation about B
later and then all of a sudden you're blowing things
out of proportion or whatever one of the things that
I said earlier, when you're just trying to share your
feelings and be validated. So do not try to argue.
Do not try to beat a dead horse to get
your feelings validated. Just know that that might ever happen,
(29:39):
and be willing to leave without that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Four.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Don't try to rationalize, don't try to outsmart this person.
Do not try to manipulate the person who's manipulating you
because again they're usually lying, and if I'm going off
of life, I can continue that narrative as far as
I need to go encounter anything you say. And the
more you try to outsmart the person, the more you
will get confused, because then you're not actually sitting in
your reality, right, You're trying to be a step ahead,
(30:03):
but they're not in reality either, So you're essentially letting
go of your truth in order to jump into this
mind game. So being disengaged, like disengaging from this stuff
and being unbothered by them doing these things, that's your
best course of action to again, be willing to walk away.
Do not try to outsmart this person. Master manipulators, right,
(30:24):
and most healthy people are not master manipulators. We don't
have it in us because when you're sitting and rooted
in truth, a manipulation cannot sit there as well. And
then repeat this one needed. This is my fifth little tip.
My feelings are valid. No one else can tell me
how to feel. Again, my feelings are valid. No one
else can tell me how I feel. You can even
(30:45):
add in there, my reality is valid because listen, we're
all walking around with different realities, right, Because we see
things through different screens. So just because your reality doesn't
match up exactly as somebody else's doesn't mean it's even
false to begin with. Right, So my feelings are valid,
my reality is valid. No one else can tell me
(31:06):
how to feel. And then the sixth thing I just
want to drive this home is like, find support. Find
find support, reality check with people you trust. So instead
of hiding, right, instead of hiding when when you start
to notice somebody's trying to keep you small, keep you
in this one on one relationship where I'm only going
to reality check with one person. I can only trust
(31:27):
one person. That one person makes me feel like I'm
wrong all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Red red red red red red red, red, red.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Very very bright red, like neon flag. Always know that
you should be able to reality check with more than
one person. So find support, Go to those people, ask
them questions, talk to them. And when you feel crazy, right,
so when I was like I can't even tell the
story because it's so wild, know that, like, if you
feel crazy, it doesn't mean you are crazy. Ough, I
(31:54):
think that's so important. When you feel crazy, it doesn't
mean you are crazy. That just might be where somebody
wills you to sit and when I feel crazy, sometimes
it's because I'm being manipulated.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I'm actually not crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Makes me think of and I think I'm going to
close it out with this of the book, Girl Interrupted.
It was also a movie with Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy.
It's super good, super dark. I wouldn't recommend watching it
alone at night.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But in the book.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I read the book for a project in grad school,
and I think it was like in the last chapter,
like the very end of it. Long story short, this
girl spent a significant amount of time in a mental
health institution back then. I think they were even called
like a sane asylums things like that, which we don't
call them those. But she talked about how after she
(32:43):
left there she always had this essence of questioning her reality.
Because after somebody tells you enough times you're crazy or
crazy or crazy or crazy, essentially you're going to believe them, right.
And so the longer we stay in these relationships where
people are telling us this, the more we're going to
start to believe them. And she's even after she got
out and there's a part of her that knows she's
not crazy, she would question herself and she would be
(33:05):
walking in the grocery store and wonder, am I seeing
these black and white checkers on the tiles or is
this my imagination? And that just speaks to the power
of what we allow ourselves to hear and what we
allow ourselves to stay in. And so find people who
you feel super safe with and who make you feel
stable and who make you feel like confident. Surround yourself
(33:26):
with people who allow you to know that you're not crazy.
Right when we're around people that make us feel like
we are crazy, and that's never happened before Red Flag
because that doesn't just like pop out of nowhere. I mean,
I guess it can. We can't have psychotic breaks, but
you know what I mean. So with that, I want
to say, if there's stuff that you just love and
(33:46):
you want to know more about, and you have questions about,
or stuff that you've just loved hearing about, or things
we haven't talked about, send me an email, like I'm
so open to like what you guys are interested in,
because as I plan for next year's content, want to
make sure that you guys are continuing to get content
that fuels you and that's helpful. So feel free to
(34:06):
send that to Katherine at unitherapy podcast dot com. You
can follow me kat van Buren on Instagram and at
You Need Therapy Podcast until I talk to you guys
again on Wednesday for couch Dogs, I hope you have
the day you need to have.
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability. It's a real guest. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no Internet.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel like everything
is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a
human first and a licensed therapist second. And right now
I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope encourage you
to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hi, and welcome back to another new episode of You
Need Therapy. My name is Kat and I'm the host Here.
It's another solo episode day here, and this week we're
talking about something that I've talked about a little bit before,
but I've never actually dedicated an entire episode.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
About it on here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And I think it is about time because there's enough
information around it that it could be not only its
own episode, but a series. It could be its own
podcast probably, but.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We're not gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Before we get going, quick reminder that this is not therapy.
This is just me, a therapist talking about, you know,
things that have to do with mental health and things
that have to do with therapy. And also quick reminder
while we're here, if you want to follow me, you
can on Instagram at Kat dot defada, or you can
follow the podcast at You Need Therapy Podcast. Okay, now
(01:50):
let's get into that episode. So we're talking about all
things gaslighting today and I hear this word being said
now more than ever, so I think it's important that
we stop and take some time to figure this out
so we can spot it ourselves and know when this
is actually occurring and when we maybe just might be
(02:12):
using the fancy word right. And we'll get to this later.
But there's a difference in the technique somebody uses when
attempting to create a gaslighting effect on somebody and the
actual experience of being gas lit gas lighted. Not sure
which is correct. So anyway, somebody, like for example, somebody
denying something alone doesn't mean that they're gaslighting you, but
(02:33):
it could be part of it. So we'll get more
into that later, but that's one of the things that
I wanted to talk about. So what is gaslighting? Well,
and the most basic definition, gaslighting is a form of
psychological abuse, and it's where a person tries and successively
usually does make someone question their sanity or perception.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Or their reality.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And when you experience gaslighting, you're gonna feel confused, you'll
probably feel some anxiousness, and you stop being able to
trust yourself. However, when this starts, you don't actually know
that you're being gas lit, so those feelings feel very
like accurate and true. It's not like an anxious I
know I'm right and this person won't agree with you.
(03:14):
It's this anxiousness around, like I really start to question myself.
And this kind of manipulation doesn't just get thrown at you,
so it doesn't work that way. It doesn't start all
of a sudden, It slowly kind of creeps up, and
very often it starts with a love bombing experience, especially
when this happens in romantic relationships. And I didn't say
(03:35):
this up top, but gaslighting can happen in any kind
of relationship. A lot of times we hear stories about
it being in romantic relationships and partnerships, but this can
be friends, this can be a boss, this can be
a parent, it can be a leader of any sort.
There's a power differential there, but there's usually a experience
of this love bombing effect first, and we hear about
(03:57):
love bombing and romantic relationships mostly too, but love bombing
also can happen in any of those other experiences, right,
And I went through in more detail what love bombing
is in the episode that we did on Love Addiction
with Melanie Reese that came out earlier this year, but
we'll talk about it a second here, And it's when
a relationship starts with like big bombs of admiration and attention. Again,
(04:21):
doesn't just have to be in romantic relationships. We see
that a lot though, and it can be kind of similar,
which is confusing with how relationships are portrayed in Hollywood
and movies and stuff, which again it's not very helpful
because we see that all the time and we see
as normal. But it's like that I'm obsessed with you
from day one. Right, anytime that happens, let that be
(04:42):
an important red flag, like when the people are where
that person is like all in and all about you
from the day they met you. You're the greatest person ever.
You're the greatest person I've ever met. You're the best
at this that I've ever experienced. Like all the sudden,
It's like an overwhelming amount of love for someone, and
for someone with an anxious attachment style, this is very
(05:04):
much appreciated, which is super hard. It Also, this love
bombing is like a foreshadowing to being gaslet right. They
win you over with their affection and you begin to
trust them and believe that you have this incredible fairy
tale bond and then done undone, they start to turn
the tables. But they have that backstory for you to
hold onto because how often do we hear ourselves saying
(05:24):
it was so good in the beginning, or they were
so kind of the beginning. I know we can get
back there, but was that real?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Was that really them?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Or was that the beginning of them trying to get
you to where they wanted you to be?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Scary question, hard question. I don't like that question.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Backstory. I find this interesting. But people are like, what
does gasletting come from? Well, it comes from a play
that then got turned into a movie. I've never seen
this movie. It's called Gaslight. And what happens in the
movie is there's a husband and a wife and the
husband manipulates and is turning down this like actual gas light,
(06:00):
dimming the lights and telling her that he's not and
she's like, oh, it's getting darker, and he's like, no,
it's not.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And he's convincing her that she's crazy. Right.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
He wants to convince her that she can't trust her
reality so then he can commit her to a mental institution.
So that's where that comes from. That's where we get
the phrase gaslight. Now, you will hear this as a
common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, like cult leaders. And
when I hear those things, I think that can sound
(06:29):
very extreme, And then I know me, I'm very defensive
towards myself, so I might say something like that would
never happen to me. I would never be an abusive relationship.
I would never let somebody do this. I would never
because those things seem so big and heavy. But again,
this is a form of emotional psychological manipulation which can
be harder to identify and recognize and prove and validate,
(06:54):
and because of that more debilitating at the same time, right,
we minimize this kind of stuff. I started watching the
Netflix show, the new one called Made, and I mean
trigger warning. It's about a woman who has a kid
is in this like domestic abuse situation, and it's her
story of getting free. I only watched two episodes because
(07:16):
I just was crying and I was like, this is
very sad and this is not what I need right now.
I don't know if I'll finish it, but this I
do know. The first couple episodes, it had such a
good and realistic view on how victims of abuse minimize
their abuse, right, like he didn't hit me, so I'm
not abused. Like I don't want to call myself a
(07:37):
victim because that's taking away from people who really are
victims of abuse. And if it's not abuse, then what
would this be. And it becomes this like almost moral
failing on ourselves of like we're the bad people, which
is part of the psychological abuse. It's part of the
cycle like makes us think that we're the bad, wrong
people when really we're not. We're victims of abuse and
(07:58):
we can become survivors if we don't like that word.
We don't have to sit in it forever. You can
become a survivor, but to survive abuse, a lot of
times we have to recognize that we're in that cycle.
So watch that show if you're interested in what that
looks like. But also trigger warning.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It can't.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I mean, I haven't been in a relationship like that,
but it was triggering to me and my feelings, and
my feelings.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Didn't need it that day. Maybe I'll finish later.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I also think that it's important to mention here while
we're on this part, that anyone is susceptible to gaslighting anybody.
It doesn't just happen to weak people or those with
a fragile sense of self or those with insecure attachment styles.
It can happen to anybody. And yes, those things I
just mentioned could be risk factors and could create a
(08:48):
higher likelihood of this happening, But this can happen to anyone.
And also those things aren't bad or wrong things, right, Like,
there's probably a reason there's a fragile sense of self,
there's probably a reason that there's insecure attachment style. So
that doesn't mean you're bad or wrong either if that
does fit with you. But I also don't want people
to demonize themselves, because again, this is what these people
(09:08):
want us to think, that that we're the ones and
the wrong. I don't want you to demonize yourself for
this happening. You don't ask for this. There's nothing that
you do that says, oh, please manipulate me, please psychologically
abuse me. This is there's no your fault in this.
And I think when we start to say, oh, it
was because I had a weak sense of self, or
it's because I am just not confident, it's like, you
(09:30):
can't blame yourself for being abused. That's not fair and
it's not helpful and it's not true. So shall we
talk about what it might look like so you can
spot it. And this is tricky because, like I said,
you often don't know what's happening at first, especially if
you don't know what gaslighting is. So that's one of
the reasons why we're doing this. And this is an
attempt to control someone else by twisting their sense of reality.
(09:54):
So when this is happening, what is happening is somebody
is twisting your sense of reality. You start ground, you
start knowing what's true and what's not true. You start
knowing the sky is blue, and then somebody slowly does
things that allows them to twist your sense of reality
where you might think, oh, the sky is blue. I
know it's blue. It's blue, that's a fact. And then
(10:16):
later down the line you are still seeing the sky
being blue, but you're saying, I bet the sky is
red and I'm seeing blue because I don't see real reality.
I can't trust myself. I have to listen to what
this person in power is telling me. Very confusing. So
back to in the beginning of this conversation when I
said that there's a difference in the techniques and the
(10:37):
gaslighting effect.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right, So we'll get to this.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But denial is a technique or a tactic that's used
in this process. But denial in itself is not gaslighting.
So if somebody denies something that doesn't just automatically like
you're gaslighting me, maybe that could be part of it.
But I think sometimes people just deny things because of
other res and they're not gaslighting you.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It might be.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
A self protection There can be a lot of stuff
in them. They might just be lying to get out
of trouble. Doesn't mean they're gas lighting. So just want
to separate that denial in its own right is not gaslighting.
It might be something that somebody uses to get to
that point. So, like I said, there's techniques that are
used to do this, So let's break them down. I
got a list of we're going to go through two
(11:24):
different things. But I got this first list of techniques,
the actual just like words. I took them from the
National Domestic Violence Hotline, so you can visit that website,
the hotline dot org. So I took the five techniques
from there. They really fit and I think they're helpful.
And then I'm going to talk about each one. But
(11:45):
I didn't make those up, and I just wanted to
make that clear. So let's talk about these five techniques.
So one way or one thing that somebody might do
in order to create this narrative is withholding.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
So means that they refuse to listen to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Information, or pretend like they don't understand the information, or
just like separate themselves from the ability to have the conversation.
So you might hear things like you're not making any
sense or I don't have time for this when you
bring something up that you think is important, or when
you try to talk about a conflict or just anything
in that relationship. They might say things like I'm not
going to go through this again, even if you never
(12:22):
went through it once, or we already talked about this,
and maybe you did talk about it, maybe you didn't,
or maybe you talked about it and they shut you down.
But very much they will just like not allow that
conversation to come to fruition. That's one. Then we have countering.
So this is when somebody's kind of like questioning the person,
as in, if it's you that's being manipulated, they're questioning
(12:45):
your memory or your essential reality of the event. So
this one actually bothers me a lot, Like I think
it might be one of the most frustrating for me
because they take something that actually can be used for
super helpful communication and turn it against you. Like when
we're having conversations and we're having conflict and somebody might
hear something that somebody didn't say, right. So if somebody says,
(13:07):
like I don't have time to go to this event
with you tomorrow, I might hear them say they don't
they don't want to go, But they never said that, right,
They said they didn't have time. And so when you
have a healthy communication you can talk about that and
you can say, like, I heard you say that you
didn't want to go. The person can reply back, oh,
I actually didn't say that. I totally get that that's
(13:27):
what you heard. I actually didn't have time, and I
actually would want to go, but I don't have time.
And so you can have a healthy conversation around like
oh miscommunication. But in this experience, they'll say things like
that's what you heard in your head. It's not what
I said, even though it is what they said. And
that can be so confusing because sometimes we do hear
things wrong. So you can you can say to yourself, well,
(13:50):
maybe I did hear that wrong. Oh, so they'll say
it like, oh, come on, I never said that, or
like that's what you heard, but you know I would
never say something like that, or you're just being overly
sensitive things like that. Then the third technique is blocking
or diverting. So this is like kind of changing the
subject and you start to question your thinking and not
just like changing the subject to like the fight we
(14:13):
had to like where are we going to go to dinner?
They'll say things to like downplay your experience, like you're overreacting.
So the subject moves from this thing that happened, this
conflict you had, to your reaction to the conflict, and
you being an overreactor or too sensitive or something like that,
And so they'll say things like, oh, why would you
let something so stupid come between us? This seems silly,
(14:35):
Like you're being silly. You always blew things out of proportion,
You are always picking fights, you always have to be right,
you always play the victim. And so then now you're
arguing about that rather than talking about what you actually
were trying to talk about. So confusing, okay, And then
number four is trivializing, and so this is just making
the person's feelings seem like really unimportant. Like again, and
(14:58):
some of these fall into similar categor like I don't
know why you're making such a big deal of this.
You're being insecure, you're too sensitive, and that can just
make somebody be like, oh, maybe I am overreacting, Like well,
maybe if I just stop overreacting, then we won't have
this conflict and then everything will be better, Like I
don't want to have conflict, So if it's mean I'm
just overreacting, then maybe I'll stop overreacting and then we
(15:19):
won't have conflict. So then you're looking to the person
or the person in power to kind of be your
meter of like does this experience warrant this kind of reaction?
I don't know, because I overreact, and so things that
I think are a big deal aren't a big deal,
and I just need to get over them because it's me.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
It's all about me. It's me, it's me, it's me.
I'm the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And then the last one is forgetting or like just
straight up denial, which oh my gosh, could be so frustrating.
And this is when the person just straights up straight
up denies something or they forget, they act like they
forget what happened, or they just like deny that they
ever agreed to something or that they ever said something.
They just straight up our line, which is like, again,
(16:01):
these people just are lying, which you cannot argue with
somebody who's lying. And they'll say things like I never
said that, I never did that, or they'll say you
never said that, or you never told me that, or
you never did that. So a question you'll hear a lot,
and something you might wonder yourself, why don't people like
stand up for themselves and or why don't they leave
(16:23):
and all of that, And because most people don't want
to leave and they don't want to threaten the relationship. Right,
And I talk about this all the time. I'm guilty
of wanting to believe the goodness of everyone. And if
you had a love bombing experience, right, you want to
believe in the goodness that this partner or boss or
human has because you've gone through that phase where you
(16:46):
saw it, and you also saw how good and you
heard how good and special the relationship and quotes was
or is. So we go back to this like rosy retrospect.
I'm like, but it was so good and we were
so good and he was so kind and he was
so understanding back then. Okay, but where are we now?
And the more you push right on this, the heavier
the person who's gasling may go in and they can
(17:07):
be ruthless, right, So there's no rationalizing with them. So
if we can get into our heads right that the
agenda they're pushing of the reality that they're trying to
make you believe or understand or adhere to is not true.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
But if you try to stand up to this, they
have this fake agenda, this fake reality they're pushing. If
you try to push against this, what will happen is
they'll escalate. But as they escalate, their manipulation will create
you as the problem. Now, right, So you're being dramatic,
you're being crazy, You're making a big deal about this.
Why don't you just believe me? Why don't you just understand?
(17:43):
Why do you have to be so difficult? Why do
you have to question everything? And then it's like, whoa,
Now I'm deeper in this. Now what did I do?
How did I create such a big deal out of this?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Wow? Few, I'm just getting worked up talking about this. Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Also, I don't know if this fits right here, but
I have to say this because I don't know if
I don't know if I said it. But I often
think that people just think gaslighting is when somebody denies something.
But we already talked about how that's just a tactic.
But a lot of times we think gaslightings when somebody's
denying truth, and that's just it. But it also can
be when they deny something that you did, or they
(18:22):
deny your memory, and it's not just they're denying their behavior.
They might say things like you never said that when
you already did, or denying just a memory of something
of you and it's not just them. So I think
that's important too, because that can be really confusing when
they're like you never said sorry, or you never told
me that you wanted me to be home at this time, and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It's like, yes, I did, I did say that. I
swear I said that.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And we'll move into how we can kind of combat
that later, but I want to just make that point too.
And again, this happens over time. This isn't just like
a snap my fingers has happened. This happens over time.
And there is a great article that I want to share.
This is not my information, I'm taking this from somebody else,
but there's a great article I want to share that
(19:06):
helps make sense of why this can be so hard
to snap out of because it talks about the progression.
There's a woman named Stephanie Sarkis, and she wrote a
book called Gaslighting, Recognize Manipulative and emotionally Abusive People, and
Break Free. And she had an article on psychology today
that went viral, and I think it went viral because
(19:26):
so many people are finally waking up to this stuff
and talking about the stuff and it's interesting. And in
this article she summarizes eleven ways how gas lights typically
use the following techniques, which she details in her book
that I just mentioned, which I will link her book.
I haven't read this book, but I love the article.
So in this article, again she summarizes these eleven ways
(19:48):
how gaslights typically use the techniques I'm going to mention,
and how this progression happened. So how you get from like, oh,
I'm a normal person that knows my reality to what
in the world I'm questioning everything? So here we're gonna
go through all eleven Number one, I'll also link this
article as well, so if you want to just go
back and read it, because I'm just going to read
what she says. So Number one, they tell blatant lies.
(20:11):
You know it's an outright lie, Yet they are telling you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
This lie with a straight face.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Why are they so blatant Because they're 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 kilter is the goal here. Number two, they deny
they ever said something, even though you have proof. You
know they said they would do something. You know you
heard it, but they out and out deny it. It
(20:37):
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 you start accepting theirs.
It's like Chinese water torture. Right. The longer this is
me talking, not the article, but it's like the longer
you do something, the more it starts to set in.
And just like our belief systems about like our core beliefs,
(20:57):
the longer we believe we're not good enough, the longer
where we tell that story, the more we live in
that screen, the more that becomes who we are and
what we think and what our reality is. Number three,
they use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
They know how important your kids are to you, They
know how important your identity is to you, so those
may become the first things they attack. If you have kids,
(21:19):
they tell you that you should not have had those children.
They will tell you that 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. So this is Cadigan.
They go in on you. Number four, They wear you
down over time. This is one of the insidious things
about gas sighting. It's done gradually over time. A lie here,
a lie there, a snide comment every so often, and
(21:41):
then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self
aware people can be sucked into gas sighting. It is
that effective. It's the frog and the frying pan analogy.
The heat is turned up slowly so the frog never
realizes what is happening to it, and then the frog dies.
This is number five. Their actions do not match their
words and dealing with the person or entity that gaslights.
(22:02):
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. I
have to step in here as cat again, because this
is one of the things that's so tough, because you'll
have these conversations and they'll say like I'm sorry, I'll
be better, or they'll have these moments of like goodness
and trueness and care. However, then their actions don't line
(22:25):
up with that. But we go back to well, they
said this, they said this, they said this right. But
to trust and believe and sit with somebody's trueness, their
speech and their actions have to act together. We can't
just pick one. Number six, they throw in positive reinforcement
(22:47):
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 you think, Well,
maybe they aren't so bad.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yes they are.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
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's probably something that served the
gas lighter. Okay, again, so I love the part where
she's saying this is a calculated attempt to keep you
off kilter in questioning realities because it's nothing is all
the time, right, So you have that evidence that's like
(23:18):
they're not all bad. Yes, And this is where we
ask ourselves that percentage question. How much of the percentage
of this relationship do I feel crazy? And how much
do I feel like they are kind?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Number seven. They know confusion weakens people. Gas lighters know
that people have a sense of stability and normalcy. Their
goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything.
And human's natural tendency is to look to the person
or entity that will help you feel more stable, and
that happens to be the gas slider.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Really scary. Number eight.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
They project they are a drug user or a cheater,
yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This has
done so often that you start to defend yourself off
and then you're distracted from their behavior. Oh my gosh,
when you start defending yourself from things that you've this
is catting in. When you start defending yourself from things
that like, actually are so off, that is such a
(24:11):
telltale sign, right, Like, I'm defending myself, But have you
ever had to defend yourself from this before? Number nine,
They try to align people against you. Gas Lighters 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
(24:33):
you're useless too. Keep in mind, it does not mean
that these people actually said these things. A gas lighter
is a constant liar. When the gas lighter uses this tactic,
it makes you feel like you don't know who to
trust or who to turn to, and that leads you
right back to them, and that's exactly what they want.
Isolation gives them more control. I'll get to this, which
(24:53):
is why we need to reality check. And when we
feel like we're in these situations, a lot of times
we don't want to tell anybody about it because it's like, oh,
I don't want to tell people in dirty laundry, or
this is just between us, But that's what they want.
They want it to be between you, so then you
don't have anybody giving you a reality check. Number ten,
they tell you or others that you're crazy. This is
one of the most effective tools of the gas lighter
(25:15):
because it's dismissive. The gas lighter 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. So what's the point If nobody's gonna
believe me, what's the point? And then eleven they tell
you everyone else is a liar. By telling you that
everyone else, your family, the media XYZ is a liar,
(25:37):
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 gas lighter for the
correct information, which actually isn't correct at all, oh Man.
And I think one of the things that's highlighting these
steps is the idea this is cap talking, not the article.
(25:58):
Is the idea that, like, they want you in this isolation,
so you don't have any other information and you're going
to them to get it, and so what they say
and what they do is gold.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
My goodness.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So I have so many feelings right now, and if
you have so many feelings right now, I'm in it
with you. This is so frustrating, and this is the
kind of thing that I talk about this and I'm like,
why are these kind of people in the world, and
why is this something that we have to deal with
and move through? And I don't have an answer for that.
I don't have an answer for why we have to
move through a lot of the tough things in life.
(26:31):
But I do have some helpful tips to help you
kind of get out of it. And I have to
stay in this. So let's kind of just talk about
those as we summarize and close out this conversation. And
also I will link that article in the show notes
for you guys, and I'll link the episode on love addiction,
and I'll link the episode that I did on narcissism
(26:51):
as well, So if you want some more information on
some of this stuff, you can go get that there.
And I'll link her book, even though I want you
guys to know I haven't read it, so I can't
vouch for it. But here's some suggestions of what to
do when you find yourself in a relationship like this,
whether it be parent, friend, spouse, romantic partner, boss, anything. No.
(27:13):
Right now, that you are not weak, bad, or wrong
if you have experienced this, and this is so important.
Abuse of any kind does this thing that makes us
feel bad about ourselves for being found inside of it.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But nobody asks to be abused. It is not a.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Moral failing on you. And I need you guys to
know that you're not weak, bad, or wrong. If you're
in this situation. It's not something to be ashamed about.
And the more we believe that, the more we'll get
stuck inside.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Of it too.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I want you guys to pay attention to red flags.
And this is something that's so frustrating at the same time,
I get it, but there's so much like laughter and
jokiness and just like what's the word like self deprecation
around ignoring red flags these days, and I get some
of it, and some of it the humor. We need
(27:58):
to not make everything so heapy, but we've got to
start paying attention to red flags, especially when they're like this,
because it can really get you into some trouble. And
again that's not your fault, but when we are ignoring
red flags, we do have to take some responsibility for that.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That part.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Perk up the first time you experience one of these techniques,
perk up the first time you are experiencing love bombing.
Just because you are having this like intense reaction in
a relationship early, it doesn't mean it's going to end
up in this, but I at least want you to
pay attention to it so you know if one of
these other things follows, Hey I need to talk about this.
Hey I need to be mindful of this write down.
(28:33):
When you experience these things the first time, it's helpful
to have written accounts of these so when your memory
is questioned later when this gets heavier, you can go
back and say, nope, I'm not crazy, I didn't make
this up. I wrote this down. And also sometimes when
we have that written down, we can go WHOA. This
wasn't just a little small thing. Look at all these accounts.
Number three, do not try and argue. Be willing to
(28:54):
leave these conversations with these people without making your point
or without feeling validated under stood. They very likely will
not validate you. It can be super disorienting to be
in conversations with people who are using techniques to gaslight you,
because what they're doing is trying to knock you off
your stability, knock you off of your reality, and they'll
(29:15):
change the path of the discussion. Like I said, so,
if you're trying to be understood and have a conversation
about A, you might be having a conversation about B
later and then all of a sudden you're blowing things
out of proportion or whatever one of the things that
I said earlier, when you're just trying to share your
feelings and be validated. So do not try to argue.
Do not try to beat a dead horse to get
your feelings validated. Just know that that might ever happen,
(29:39):
and be willing to leave without that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Four.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Don't try to rationalize, don't try to outsmart this person.
Do not try to manipulate the person who's manipulating you
because again they're usually lying, and if I'm going off
of life, I can continue that narrative as far as
I need to go encounter anything you say. And the
more you try to outsmart the person, the more you
will get confused, because then you're not actually sitting in
your reality, right, You're trying to be a step ahead,
(30:03):
but they're not in reality either, So you're essentially letting
go of your truth in order to jump into this
mind game. So being disengaged, like disengaging from this stuff
and being unbothered by them doing these things, that's your
best course of action to again, be willing to walk away.
Do not try to outsmart this person. Master manipulators, right,
(30:24):
and most healthy people are not master manipulators. We don't
have it in us because when you're sitting and rooted
in truth, a manipulation cannot sit there as well. And
then repeat this one needed. This is my fifth little tip.
My feelings are valid. No one else can tell me
how to feel. Again, my feelings are valid. No one
else can tell me how I feel. You can even
(30:45):
add in there, my reality is valid because listen, we're
all walking around with different realities, right, Because we see
things through different screens. So just because your reality doesn't
match up exactly as somebody else's doesn't mean it's even
false to begin with. Right, So my feelings are valid,
my reality is valid. No one else can tell me
(31:06):
how to feel. And then the sixth thing I just
want to drive this home is like, find support. Find
find support, reality check with people you trust. So instead
of hiding, right, instead of hiding when when you start
to notice somebody's trying to keep you small, keep you
in this one on one relationship where I'm only going
to reality check with one person. I can only trust
(31:27):
one person. That one person makes me feel like I'm
wrong all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Red red red red red red red, red, red.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Very very bright red, like neon flag. Always know that
you should be able to reality check with more than
one person. So find support, Go to those people, ask
them questions, talk to them. And when you feel crazy, right,
so when I was like I can't even tell the
story because it's so wild, know that, like, if you
feel crazy, it doesn't mean you are crazy. Ough, I
(31:54):
think that's so important. When you feel crazy, it doesn't
mean you are crazy. That just might be where somebody
wills you to sit and when I feel crazy, sometimes
it's because I'm being manipulated.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I'm actually not crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Makes me think of and I think I'm going to
close it out with this of the book, Girl Interrupted.
It was also a movie with Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy.
It's super good, super dark. I wouldn't recommend watching it
alone at night.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But in the book.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I read the book for a project in grad school,
and I think it was like in the last chapter,
like the very end of it. Long story short, this
girl spent a significant amount of time in a mental
health institution back then. I think they were even called
like a sane asylums things like that, which we don't
call them those. But she talked about how after she
(32:43):
left there she always had this essence of questioning her reality.
Because after somebody tells you enough times you're crazy or
crazy or crazy or crazy, essentially you're going to believe them, right.
And so the longer we stay in these relationships where
people are telling us this, the more we're going to
start to believe them. And she's even after she got
out and there's a part of her that knows she's
not crazy, she would question herself and she would be
(33:05):
walking in the grocery store and wonder, am I seeing
these black and white checkers on the tiles or is
this my imagination? And that just speaks to the power
of what we allow ourselves to hear and what we
allow ourselves to stay in. And so find people who
you feel super safe with and who make you feel
stable and who make you feel like confident. Surround yourself
(33:26):
with people who allow you to know that you're not crazy.
Right when we're around people that make us feel like
we are crazy, and that's never happened before Red Flag
because that doesn't just like pop out of nowhere. I mean,
I guess it can. We can't have psychotic breaks, but
you know what I mean. So with that, I want
to say, if there's stuff that you just love and
(33:46):
you want to know more about, and you have questions about,
or stuff that you've just loved hearing about, or things
we haven't talked about, send me an email, like I'm
so open to like what you guys are interested in,
because as I plan for next year's content, want to
make sure that you guys are continuing to get content
that fuels you and that's helpful. So feel free to
(34:06):
send that to Katherine at unitherapy podcast dot com. You
can follow me kat van Buren on Instagram and at
You Need Therapy Podcast until I talk to you guys
again on Wednesday for couch Dogs, I hope you have
the day you need to have.
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