July 31, 2025 • 48 mins
A new look at a listener-favourite topic! Can gaslighting be accidental? In short, yes.
Gaslighting occurs when someone tries to make you deny what you've seen, heard or experienced in favour of their versions. Sounds pretty deliberate, right? Not always.
Liana takes us through how to tell the difference between intentional and accidental gaslighting, whether you are the one sending or receiving, and what to do about it.
Gaslighting occurs when someone tries to make you deny what you've seen, heard or experienced in favour of their versions. Sounds pretty deliberate, right? Not always.
Liana takes us through how to tell the difference between intentional and accidental gaslighting, whether you are the one sending or receiving, and what to do about it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kersner, and I am
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
(00:31):
the madness of mental health using my top ten things
were going good crazy. This week we're talking about accidental
gas lighting, and I know what you're thinking, gaslighting is
always deliberate, right, I'd like to rethink that assumption, because
the impacts of gas lighting are just as damaging to
(00:52):
the person being gas lit if they're accidental, then if
they're deliberate. And yet I've found that men many cases
where someone is self gaslighting to the point they don't
realize what they're doing is in fact gaslighting other people,
and so they have a period of you know, rather
(01:13):
unstable relationships. People are getting upset around them or at them,
and they don't know why. And a lot of the
behaviors are very, very, very very the dreaded word normal.
More on that in a bit. What is gaslighting? At first?
Gaslighting involves making someone doubt their own thoughts, feelings, and
perceptions of events. The gaslighter might deny something happen, distort
(01:37):
the situation, or try to convince the gas lit that
the reaction was unreasonable. And this is when I start going,
is it gaslighting? Gas lit? Gaslighted? It's from the movie
gas Lights, So I guess gaslighted is more accurate than
gas lit? Can you tell I was an English major? Yeah? Now,
(01:57):
it's hard to believe that someone could make someone doubt
their own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of events accidentally. So
let me give you an example. Right, say someone has
spent their entire life hearing that they're too sensitive, too emotional,
they're overreacting, eh just me. Yeah, Now, they may believe,
(02:20):
as I did, that this is just the way people
talk when they're trying to help. Because the people that
told me I was too sensitive, too emotional and overreacting, well,
they were trying to help me. No one wants to
just keep overreacting do they now? The problem with this
thinking is it telling someone they're overreacting or that they're
(02:41):
too sensitive isn't really helping them as much as it
is judging them you're having a strong reaction, or this
seems to hit a sore point. Is a mirror observation
that can be helpful. Anything that involves telling someone they
are doing too much or not enough of something is
(03:03):
a criticism, and telling someone that they're overreacting is telling
them that they're displaying too much emotion, not just a lot.
Now who gets to determine that? Who gets to determine
too much not enough? Right? Why is it overreacting instead
of just a big reaction? Well, the difference between a
(03:27):
big reaction and an overreaction is it a big reaction
maybe reasonable, right, whereas overreacting is unreasonable. And this is
why reasonable is one of those words I use with
extreme caution, along with logical and appropriate. These are all
(03:48):
highly subjective concepts that end up putting you in a
position of authority over the person you're talking to. So
only use things like reasonable, logical, appropriate if you're actually
in a position of authority over the person you're talking to.
Otherwise you risk coming across as condescending or like you're
(04:11):
gaslighting them. You know, a judge has the right to
say what it is appropriate for their court. A kindergarten
teacher has the right to tell a four year old
their behavior is inappropriate. But in a conversation of equals,
you gotta watch it. This is a really simple thing
(04:32):
that a lot of people get wrong. If you're telling
someone they're too sensitive or they're overreacting, They're not going
to feel like you care about why they had such
a strong reaction, will they And they're not going to
feel like you care that they had a bad reaction. Accordingly,
(04:54):
I've been hearing from a lot of women lately that
their former partners gaslet them heter our sex partners gaslight
them that way, And then I hear from men that
women who have these complaints are just liars. And I
don't think anyone's lying here. I do think the men
in question think that they couldn't possibly be gaslighting because
(05:16):
gaslighting is intentional, So they accidentally gaslight by calling the
women involved your liars, even though these women are completely
telling the truth about the impacts that the comments had
on them. Comment like you're overreacting causes someone to doubt
(05:38):
their own reactions to a situation. And if you can't
trust your gut, what can you trust the importance of
intense the perceived importance of intents is a major difference
in gendered socialization. So it's worth taking some time on
(06:00):
this stuff in context, even though you know most people
would rather slide down a razor blade into a pool
of eoedine than talk about gender. Right here we go, Men,
generally speaking broad strokes, are taught that intentions matter far
more than women are taught that intentions matter. Women are
(06:22):
often taught that outcomes matter, not intentions. If a woman
upsets someone, it doesn't matter if she means to. She's
taught from childhood, from as long as she has memories
that if she upsets someone and she doesn't apologize and change,
(06:44):
the likelihood that it will be held against her in
a meaningful way is very, very high. And you know, frankly,
the best way to show that you didn't mean to
do something is to care about the impact it had.
If you skip the I care step, I didn't mean
to comes across like I don't care that it had
(07:05):
that effect. Of course, men are supposed to deny things,
bother them, even to themselves. Right, So, among groups of men,
I didn't mean to can often be sufficient to diffuse
the conflict, at least on a surface level. Among women, however,
I didn't mean to tends to read more like you're
(07:26):
not allowed to be upset with me, or you're being
mean for not dropping this, and oh, being mean that
is the worst thing a woman can do in groups
of women, right the movies called mean girls. Either way,
if I didn't mean to, is your entire communication. That's
not being accountable to the other person's feelings. I didn't
(07:50):
mean to upset you, but I'm sorry that I did.
Is you know, approaching a complete statement if you did
make a mistake, for God's sakes, own it. Don't just
focus on the feelings. It's not the end of the world.
You know, I didn't mean to upset you, but I
see now that I spoke thoughtlessly. That's much better. I
(08:11):
didn't say that is another big instance of accidental gaslighting.
It's not that it's inherently wrong. You know, sometimes you
actually didn't say what the person claimed, but if you
think about what it said, you're calling a person diluted
or a liar when you just flat out say nothing
remotely like what they claimed came out of your mouth
(08:35):
actually came out of your mouth. Well, everyone gets defensive sometimes, sure,
I know, I do habitually shutting conversations down cold with
I didn't say that, I didn't do that. We have
different memories. That will damage the relationship because it starts
to look like you don't care about the other person's
(08:55):
perspective because you're flat out dismissing it. And eventually that
starts to look like you don't care about the other person,
even if you're one hundred percent right that you didn't
say it. We're going to be exploring this conundrum a
lot this episode. Many people have trauma surrounding not being believed.
(09:16):
I know, I do. They therefore, and I speak from
a reformed person in this way, need to control the
flow of the conversation more than is healthy. No two
people will have the same memory of even simple exchanges.
It could only be a word or two different, but
(09:37):
sometimes that word or two is extremely significant to the meaning.
When it comes right down to it, everyone has to
ask themselves if being right is worth damaging the relationship
because gaslighting, even of the unintentional variety can cause significant
emotional distress in the person on the receiving end of it. Anxiety, depression,
(09:59):
loss of self esteem, and giving control over decision making
to the gaslighter are all potential damaging effects. Even of
accidental gaslighting, there are detrimental effects for the accidental gaslighter,
though too repetitive gaslighters, even of the accidental kind, become
(10:21):
known for always needing to be right. They're known as
too controlling, even dishonest, unaccountable, immature, and difficult to deal with. Again,
this is all even if you don't intend to gaslight.
You're just standing up for yourself, for defending yourself or
telling your truth. Right. The challenge with identifying when you're
(10:45):
being gaslighted or whether you're gaslighting yourself is that so
many hurtful and harmful behaviors are completely normal these days.
And I'll get to that after the break. Right, do
you have a story you think be good for the show?
Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Nottherapyshow
dot com is my email. Not Therapyshow dot com is
(11:07):
the website at not Therapy Show. On social media, gaslighting,
are you accidentally doing it even if it's totally normal.
On It's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's a therapy. I'm still the n occurageon I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking about accidental gaslighting.
(11:47):
And this is a sensitive subject because many people know
gaslighting is a bad thing, and because it's a bad thing,
they're unwilling to admit that they themselves do it. So
ask yourself. Have you ever claimed someone was overreacting, overly emotional,
or too sensitive like we did before the break, deflected,
(12:10):
or through blame around instead of just figuring out how
to solve a problem. Have you ever denied responsibility for
something you knew you actually did. Have you ever lied
to someone or withheld important information. Have you ever used
guilt or shame tactics? Have you ever deliberately humiliated someone?
(12:31):
Have you ever refused to accept another person's earnest version
of an event? Have you ever trivialized or invalidated someone's
feelings or concerns. You're making it too big a deal
out of it, right, if you've done any of these things,
you've gaslighted someone. But oh, come on, everyone does this stuff, right, Yeah,
(12:54):
but that doesn't make it right. A lot of normal
behaviors caused damage, which is why I'm not big on
the concept of normal. Clients ask me all the time,
is this normal? I said, You've come to the wrong
place to ask about normal. I am not normal. I
am good, crazy, But normal people get very upset at
(13:19):
the idea that they can't accurately interpret reality. So normal
cuts both ways on the accidental gaslighting behaviors. Plenty of
things that are normal are also hurtful and even harmful.
Bullying as normal, binge drinking as normal, smoking weed is
increasingly normal. None of these things are overall healthy. I know,
(13:46):
you know THHC is used in a like you know, appetite, simulation,
all that stuff. But right, most of the time, if
you're just doing it recreationally, it may be fun, it's
not exactly good for you. The element of accidental gas
lights I get the absolute biggest pushback on is the
idea that rejection of someone else's recollection of events is
(14:09):
gaslighting because I don't remember it that way? Am I
supposed to lie? Hear me out here. Human memory is
a complex thing. Human memory is subjective. It's subjective filters
based on our past experiences, personalities, the way we chain
things together. It's a combination of what happened, bald facts,
(14:33):
and our feelings connected to what happened, as well as
the narratives we create in our own heads about what
the event means. So, even without actual false memories, which
sometimes do happen, two people can have profoundly different recollections,
and that is not permission to go around. Go you're
(14:55):
having a false memory this time? No, no, no, that is
not the most likely thing that's going on. A powerful
filter on our memories is the compassion that each of
us has for ourself. For example, if you're late to
pick someone up and they point that out you were
late to pick me up, you might think, ah, they're right,
(15:16):
I always do this, you know, and exercise in beating
yourself up. Now if you do that, if you think, oh,
I always do this, you're more likely to remember what
the person said, not as you were late to pick
me up. But you're always late to pick me up
(15:36):
because that was the message you gave yourself, and that
single word always changes the statement from one of fact
you were late to a valu r character judgment of
larger ramifications. You're always late, right. So if you want
(15:58):
to have more accurate memories as well as better self esteem, overall,
practice self compassion. That's why my top ten phrase is
self esteem cannot exist with that self compassion. Our tendency
to judge and criticize ourselves and others is something that
our upbringing and social groups train us into. Our willingness
(16:21):
to just take people's word that we've done something wrong,
even if it doesn't feel right to us. That's something
we're trained. It takes some work, sometimes a lot of work,
to retrain this instinct to something that works better. We
might beat ourselves up as a misguided form of conscientiousness,
(16:43):
but it's worth considering if we're overdoing it. We all
engage in social comparisons as well, so not just whether
we think we made a mistake or we think, you know,
go Homer Simpson right. Our brains love to agonize over
where we fit in the world. Some of us tend
(17:07):
to compare ourselves to people who are doing better than us.
That's why scrolling Facebook makes us feel kind of depressed.
Others seek out people who are doing less well than
us so we can feel superior. A lot of us
do a combination of both, and if this judgment machine
(17:29):
gets overactive, we end up struggling to compromise or back
down over pretty silly things because everything is a game
of who has higher rank in the group. No one
likes to feel weak or powerless. Oh there's a reason
I say healthy goals are based on things you can control,
(17:50):
a top ten phrase. But this feeling of powerlessness based
on these social comparisons, based on our lack of self compact.
This is something we can reframe so we don't have
to be right every time. You know, I get that
(18:11):
being right makes us feel useful, But think about it.
Do you like being around someone who has to be
right all of the time? If you don't. If you
don't like that, don't be that guy. If the detail
you're fighting over isn't essential, there's no reason to cling
(18:32):
to it, and you'd be surprised that once you start
looking at is this really important? You'll find out a
lot of things really aren't. In fact, you'll be seen
as more likable, more compassionate to other people you know,
and you'll figure out who the bullies are and who
the bullies aren't if you yourself compromise more. For instance,
(18:55):
if you're on the receiving end of that person who
misremembered you saying they were always late, and you're pretty
sure that you didn't say always, because that's something you've
been actively avoiding, but the other person is adamant, incorrectly,
that you said always. It sucks to be falsely accused.
(19:16):
These sorts of arguments are among my least favorite because well,
first of all, they're pointless, but if the other person
digs in, then I have to cave, and then I
do feel bullied. But see, that's my emotional frame. That's
why it's very important to separate I think from I feel.
It's the pressure for me of being in the public
(19:37):
eye and people demanding that i'd be letter perfect on
all things connected to mental health and communication or else.
They pronounce rather loudly and very publicly that I am
terrible at my job. Some people even say that I'm
dangerous to people's mental health. And it takes some work
to remind myself that that's a crock. You know, I
(20:02):
do feel this, this surge of panic of anxiety when
people say this, because oh my god, what if all
these bad things happen? Right? What if people believed this?
That'd be terrible for my business? Right? But I know
I take every possible step to be responsible, including calling
this show. It's not therapy. So the people that are
(20:27):
aware that I'm not attempting, in the slightest to be
an authority over them or their life. I'm just giving
people alternatives that I find work better again good crazy
instead of normal bad crazy. So I usually end up
backing down in these arguments of who said what, because
even when there are text records of something, two people
(20:51):
can look at a sentence and see two completely different things.
There can be video recordings of something, and people will
read different things into facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.
What's dramatic in my eyes may seem vulnerable to someone else.
Something I think is incredibly phony might seem totally authentic
(21:15):
to someone else. These are all subjective judgments, and subjective
judgments are what make us individuals. So if someone keeps
accusing me of saying always when I know I didn't
and I don't want to cut ties with that person
because oh my god, you can only have that fight
so many times. I'll say something like, look, in my frustration,
(21:37):
I was clearly too harsh, and I'm sorry about that.
The person will often then apologize for being late, and
they had apologized previously for that, so you said always
and you're not supposed to say. Oh. They immediately get
defensive about being late because they were beating theirselves up,
and the minute look, I'm sorry, I was too harsh,
(22:00):
I'm sorry, I was like. And this drives me.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Because at that point I'm thinking they totally knew they'd
men stop, but they weren't gonna apologize until I did
it first.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
They were standing on ceremony and woo. That tells me
that person is insecure. And the problem is that kind
of insecurity is infectious. I don't like being around it.
That is poopoo for me, okay it. I have to
be humble enough to listen to people for a living
(22:40):
and laugh at myself when I start saying it is
poop poo for me, and things like that, and being
able to laugh at yourself, especially in public when you're
winging it the way I do on this show. That
requires a quiet confidence, and that quiet confidence gets eroded
by being around you know, more than a critical mass
(23:01):
of insecurity. And that assessment, that logic process helps me
avoid having a panic response in that moment with a
person just was clearly insying, oh you just oh you
wouldn't apologize until I did at first, Right. A big
(23:24):
trauma trigger for me is people putting blame on me
for things I didn't do, holding my feet to the
fire unfairly. I tend to catastrophize quite badly, especially in
these situations where someone is putting words in my mouth
that I did not say. I did mean, you know, alarm, alarm, alarm, alarm, danger, danger,
(23:48):
exterminate that threat, right. That was a whole bunch of
sci fi things in rapid succession apologies all right, And
it's especially bad when I can prove it's not what
I actually said. This is what I know. That doesn't
matter because people just go, oh, well, even if you
didn't say it, come on, you meant it. Everybody would
(24:10):
mean it if they said that. No, no, I am
not normal.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
This is when I tell myself my top ten phrase,
don't let problems that aren't your fault lead to mistakes
that are because accidental gaslighters usually self gaslight like in
that scenario. I know I have to watch the self
gaslighting in part because I'm so frequently backing down in
(24:36):
these fights about who said what to who right it
gets it wears on you after a bit, being always
the one who has to back down first, or frequently
the one that has to back down first. See I
caught myself on the always. But it's not just that.
It's the sheer abuse you take online and in person,
(24:58):
when you're in the media, even in you know, radio
station like me podcast. Yeah, some people are just obsessed
with making me out to be some sort of monster
when I'm minding my own business or I offer what
I think is a fairly milk toast opinion. So after
(25:18):
this break, we're gonna talk about how to avoid self
gaslighting so we can avoid accidentally gaslighting other people when
our negative self talk slips out in the direction of
others questions, comments, concerns. Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com is
my email. Not Therapyshow dot com is the website at
(25:39):
not Therapy Show on socials How to tell if you're
self gaslighting and how to stop after this break And
it's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot We're back in. It's
not therapy. I'm still the Ina cursoner. I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking about accidental gas lighting. How
(26:18):
do you know if you're doing it and we're at
the park. We talk about self gaslighting a major precursor
to accidentally gaslighting other people. Now, self gaslighting is deliberately
feeding yourself messages that make you doubt their own thoughts,
your own feelings, your own perception of events. If you're
(26:42):
constantly telling yourself when you feel a feeling and it's nothing,
it's nothing, I shouldn't bother it, don't let it get
to me. Don't let them get under this under your skin. Right.
You know, you may have heard these things as motivational
pep talk framing, but they're really not. By the time
you're telling your don't let them get to you, surprise,
they've already gotten to you, and making yourself feel like
(27:07):
you did something wrong for having feelings is a form
of self gaslighting. If you're telling yourself you're too sensitive,
you're too emotional, you're overreacting, it's nothing, they didn't mean it.
You're just too or not enough right, you are self gaslighting.
(27:31):
And the big problem with that is that you're not
one validating your own feelings. And if you can't validate
your own feelings, nobody else can do it for you,
because even when people do offer you validating messages, they
don't feel honest, they don't feel real because they don't
(27:52):
reflect your own self concept. And also, let's face it,
being too hard on ourselves leads us less resilient for
the other emotional tasks we have to do in life.
So how do we stop doing it? Well? First of all,
your feelings are your feelings. It's not too much, it's
(28:14):
not not enough. Are they having a negative impact? Right?
Is it you can see where you got there from
the actual facts of the present or is there something
coming up from the past. Do you feel you know,
(28:37):
like you're not in the present in certain moments, do
you feel like a little kid instead of an adult
who has some control over their life. If you experience this,
the best thing you can do for yourself is go
get some sort of counseling, some therapy so you can
(29:01):
get a trauma diagnosis, find out what type of PTSD
you have, and actually start learning how to adapt to
that reality. PTSD is not so much a mental illness.
You are still aware of reality. It's an emotional injury.
(29:21):
So you can walk, it just hurts like heck, cause
your leg hasn't healed right now, Say you do start
to think, you know these emotions I'm having there, they're
really big. They knock me flat. If you can't get
out of bed, you know, okay, there's every so often
(29:44):
we can't so tired cat get out of bed. That
was me last week. But you know, if that's if
that's happening more than infrequently, you deserve better. My cat's agreeing.
If you have periods where you're you're staying up all
(30:05):
night and you just can't rev down, and you feel
like you're flying and can absolutely do anything, you are
a god straddling the world. You know that might be mania.
You know, if you tend to you have a tendency
to fly high and then crash. This may be a
chemical imbalance. It may feel great during the manias, but
(30:27):
the the you know, they're not long term good for
your health. You can really wreck your life in those
manic phases. But also the crashes are usually pretty terrible.
And again, you deserve better. Do you notice. I don't
say you have a problem, I say you deserve better.
(30:51):
And for the people out there concerned, they might have
a very serious mental illness, including personality this. I work
with numerous clients with personality disorders. They are wonderful people.
That is not an indication of your character. You deserve better.
(31:13):
There are treatments out there that really do lead to
better quality of life. I'm living proof, and the first
step is reframing that I've got a problem, something's wrong
with me, I'm broken to I deserve better than this.
(31:35):
Happiness is real and you can have it like not
all the time. Everybody has some lousy periods. But if
you don't see hope, if you don't see you know
future in your own life, this is the time where
(31:57):
you deserve better. Things are going to have to change.
But everybody deserves better than misery, even the worst person
in the world, they won't be so awful if they're
not absolutely miserable and so talking to yourself the way
you talk to a good friend. That is the art
(32:20):
of self compassion. Now, if you're one of those people
who tell your friends you're stupid, what's wrong with you?
Well you may not be the best friend, but you
know what I mean. Otherwise, we're usually gentler to those
around us than we are to ourselves. Well, a lot
of people let the people around them off, maybe too easy,
(32:47):
definitely a lot easier than then we let ourselves off,
and too easy in this case, I know too much
not enough judgments, Right, this is a judgment you can
make because if the people around you are violating your boundaries,
(33:08):
you're not setting proper boundaries, you are letting them off
too easy, and you are being too hard on yourself.
You are the only person qualified to make that decision
for yourself, because you are the only one who truly
knows what your emotional state is at any given time. Now,
(33:30):
if you don't know what you're feeling, if you're not
feeling your feelings, well that's a sign that you've probably
been chronically gaslit your entire life in that you're too sensitive,
you're overreacting sort of way. If having feelings tends to
create a negative feedback loop while we just ignore them,
it's nothing, it's nothing, never mind, I'm fine. You know
(33:55):
that way some people say I'm fine when they're really
not fine. Drives you out bonkers, doesn't it. But it
takes a lot to not fake fine, not fake well,
and we all have to do it sometimes when you
know you don't trust the environment, you don't let them,
you know, you don't want to let them see a sweat.
(34:16):
But around people who obstensibly care about us, if you're
faking well, if you're faking happy, something's really wrong. And
a lot of us it goes back to that gendered
hierarchy I was talking about that really kicks in in
(34:38):
earnest during the teenage years, Like starting around the seventh grade,
we we see something pretty profound start to happen to
girls around the age of thirteen. You know, academic achievement
starts decline, mood starts, you know, being not great. Ah,
(35:02):
that's just teenagers, right, It's not just the hormonal changes.
It's that the teenage years are a hell scape. They
always have been. But with social media amplifying everything, now,
it's a tough time to be a teen, but there's
(35:25):
never been a good time to be a teen. And
girls we start seeing it at around the age of fourteen.
By the time it kicks in, and boys around the
age of fifteen, girls are starting to kind of sorta
begin to climb out of it. It might take until
you know they're seventeen eighteen, but boys empathy just goes
(35:50):
at the age of fifteen. They get into those monkey
see monkey doo dynamics that we dismiss as boys will
be boys, And so boys get into situations that they
feel awful about for the rest of their lives. And
I know that because I work with men as adults
(36:13):
who are still coming to terms with things that happen
to them in middle school, in high school. And these
women who are profoundly damaged by something that happened to
me eighth grade, These boys who are still carrying around
the shame of rejection from either peers or the opposite
(36:35):
sex twenty thirty forty years later. All of you deserve better.
You deserve to stop self gaslighting. Rejection does not mean
you are bad. You being bullied does not mean you
did anything wrong, and you know what, even if you did,
(36:59):
there's correction, and then there's cruelty. And because of these
nasty junior high and high school higher keys that extend
far into the gendered socialization of adulthood, you know, the
weird pack mentality that surrounds team sports. And yes, team
(37:21):
sports are great to learn cooperative skills, but it shouldn't
mean you've sacrificed your entire individual identity learning things like
makeup and fashion. That's great if you're doing it to
feel your best be your best self. Right if it's
(37:42):
causing you to be acutely aware of all your you
know your flaws so to speak, though, that's highly subjective.
That's gonna hamsterring you throughout your entire life. And I
speak as someone who struggle with this quite badly, to
the point that I don't even know what's supposed to
(38:04):
be attractive anymore. It just seems to come and go
like the blink and wind, and social media is not
a great place to determine that your appeal to other people.
Real life isn't a great place to determine your appeal
(38:26):
to other people because everyone is so riddled with anxiety
that very few people have the capacity to truly appreciate
another person because they're afraid that if they give an
honest compliment, they will come across as creepy or desperate
or crazy. Now I am good crazy, so maybe that's
(38:48):
why it bothers me less. But there's are all the
ways we self gosslight. We set the thing we compare
ourselves to of some kind of ideal or perceived perfection,
and no one can hit that, certainly not on a
(39:08):
regular basis. We have one great day where everything sings,
but if that's what you need to be happy, you're
not going to achieve sustained happiness. You have to figure
out what's good enough, and you're the only person that
(39:29):
can set that standard for yourself. I will say, though,
that being around other people who have achieved the ability
to complement and affirm others, sincerely, I'm not talking about flattery, right.
Healthy goals are based on things you can control. Top
ten phrase. Right. If somebody's going, oh, you're the most
(39:51):
beautiful person in the world, and you know that, yeah, objectively,
that's not true. This is what I mean about. No
matter how much someone validates you, if you don't believe it.
It's not gonna feel good. It's gonna feel like someone's
got an agenda, right, and maybe they don't. Maybe you're
(40:11):
just self gaslighting. So we gotta take one more break.
When we come back, I'm gonna give you some alternatives
to self gaslighting and gaslighting others based on some of
the examples we've been talking about the whole show. Questions, comments, concerns,
any feedback whatsoever, suggestions for other topics. Hey, you know,
I like your show a lot. Uh Leanna at not
(40:33):
Therapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow dot com is the website
at Not Therapy Show on socials. We'll be back how
to Stop Accidentally Gaslighting yourself and others on It's Not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health CANDI. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot CA. We're back in
It's Not Therapy. I'm still Ana Cursoner, I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking accidental gaslighting. And now we
get to the end of the show. I talked about
(41:17):
how to fix it, how to stop all right now,
some of these things that people accidentally gaslight, things like
you know, reactive lying, denying responsibility, not admitting fault, those
are long term things that are going to come from
improving your self concept, improving your self esteem through self compassion.
(41:42):
Having self compassion does not mean denying you did anything wrong.
It's separating did a bad thing from am a bad thing,
And it's separating tactical mistakes from something morally wrong. I'm
glad when somebody tells me, you know this, this comment
(42:04):
hit me the wrong way. It happens to videos all
the time that I do on my YouTube channel, because
you know, then I have the opportunity I do every Friday,
I do feedback, and I can use that awareness to go, Okay, look,
if anybody else thought that way, no, I absolutely did
not mean that right. But I don't think I did
anything wrong there, certainly not morally. It's just everybody, like
(42:29):
I've said in this show season, heres thinks through their
own filter. And if I'm hearing about somebody's filter, okay,
we can further the conversation. More communication is always better.
That's a win win. You know, I can correct the
perception in people who may have thought it and didn't
(42:50):
say it. But that person that told me that was
brave enough to tell me also feels hurt. Right, win win, right.
And I don't even have to admit I made a
mistake on that one. It's just clarification. But we all
do make mistakes sometimes, and if we are really hard
on ourselves, it's harder to admit those mistakes to ourself
(43:14):
as well as to others. So talking like I made
a mistake, It's okay, we all do it, how do
we fix it? Is much better than stupid, stupid, stupid, worthless,
waste of you know, so and so forth. Anytime you
catch yourself sounding like anything Donald Trump says, you are
being cruel to yourself. Good good rule. You know he
(43:37):
loves the worthless and soul, worthless, weak, stupid. You know
he's an idiot. Don't sound like Trump. It is just
to me. Every time Trump speaks it's like his abusive
probably father. Maybe both parents are echoing through him. I
(43:59):
don't know if this is so. I'm just telling you
what it sounds like to me. Because happy people do
not feel the need to chronically mock, humiliate, trivialize and
shame people. That's not the mark of a healthy person
(44:19):
who talks to themselves well, because usually the way people
talk to others is the way they talk to themselves.
And if there's that big a difference between how they
talk to themselves and how they talk to other people, well,
well you might be dealing with a narcissists there. I
just assume that the people being really cruel their biggest
(44:42):
victim of that cruelty is themselves. But what about those
things that are just you know, things that are bad
habits communication style, Right, I didn't mean to or I
didn't say that, or you're overreacting. Well there, it's all
about taking either the judgment out of it or replacing
(45:07):
the dead stop to the conversation with something that allows
the conversation to continue flowing forward. So in the case
of I didn't say that, well, the other person goes, well,
yes you did, well, no I didn't, well, yes you
did well, no I didn't, well yes you did. See
how the conversation can't go forward unless someone blinks. Think
(45:28):
about it as improv yes and right, it's hard to
see yes I said that when you didn't. But it's
you know I don't remember saying that, is fine, or
I didn't mean to say that, But okay, you know
(45:49):
clearly I came across too harshly, and I'm sorry for that.
That takes nothing from you. You're not admitting to something
you didn't do. There, You're just continuing the conversation to
flow forward. Even if you don't want to admit that
you actually said something wrong. It might be too sore
(46:11):
a point, all right, fine, but something as simple as
I don't remember saying that, I believe that's how it
came across. So what do we do about that. That's
a way to keep the conversation flowing right. Same thing
with your overreacting or you're too sensitive, You're this is
(46:35):
a sensitive subject for you. Is better than you're too sensitive.
You're reacting strongly to this. What's going on is better
than your overreacting. One is an observation, the other is
a dismissal, and the I didn't mean to Again, the
best way to show you didn't mean to is to
(46:58):
put the focus on the other person's feelings and show
that you care. Try to understand. You don't have to
agree that what you did naturally would create the result
it did in the other person, But showing compassion for
others helps you learn how to be compassionate with yourself,
(47:19):
going back to that principle of we're usually kinder and
gentler to other people than we are with ourselves. So
if we can be kind, lear and gentler while still
maintaining our boundaries with other people, we learn how to
talk to ourselves in a better way as well. So
it's a win win. All right, that's my time. I
(47:41):
have to win before I'm overtime. Do you have a
story think would be good for the show? Are you
interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Notthapyshow dot com
is my direct email. Not therapyshow dot com is the
website with the contact form. If it's too hard to remember,
Leanna at not Therapy Show, Not Therapy Show on social
media is a way to get in contact with me
(48:03):
as well. I hope you enjoyed this show on accidental gaslighting. Again,
it's tough to speak in generalities on this topic. Top
ten phrase listen twice before you talk once. Listening is
two thirds of communication. Talking is one third, So make
sure you are listening more than you speak. Other than that,
(48:25):
remember You're crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you.
See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kersner, and I am
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
(00:31):
the madness of mental health using my top ten things
were going good crazy. This week we're talking about accidental
gas lighting, and I know what you're thinking, gaslighting is
always deliberate, right, I'd like to rethink that assumption, because
the impacts of gas lighting are just as damaging to
(00:52):
the person being gas lit if they're accidental, then if
they're deliberate. And yet I've found that men many cases
where someone is self gaslighting to the point they don't
realize what they're doing is in fact gaslighting other people,
and so they have a period of you know, rather
(01:13):
unstable relationships. People are getting upset around them or at them,
and they don't know why. And a lot of the
behaviors are very, very, very very the dreaded word normal.
More on that in a bit. What is gaslighting? At first?
Gaslighting involves making someone doubt their own thoughts, feelings, and
perceptions of events. The gaslighter might deny something happen, distort
(01:37):
the situation, or try to convince the gas lit that
the reaction was unreasonable. And this is when I start going,
is it gaslighting? Gas lit? Gaslighted? It's from the movie
gas Lights, So I guess gaslighted is more accurate than
gas lit? Can you tell I was an English major? Yeah? Now,
(01:57):
it's hard to believe that someone could make someone doubt
their own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of events accidentally. So
let me give you an example. Right, say someone has
spent their entire life hearing that they're too sensitive, too emotional,
they're overreacting, eh just me. Yeah, Now, they may believe,
(02:20):
as I did, that this is just the way people
talk when they're trying to help. Because the people that
told me I was too sensitive, too emotional and overreacting, well,
they were trying to help me. No one wants to
just keep overreacting do they now? The problem with this
thinking is it telling someone they're overreacting or that they're
(02:41):
too sensitive isn't really helping them as much as it
is judging them you're having a strong reaction, or this
seems to hit a sore point. Is a mirror observation
that can be helpful. Anything that involves telling someone they
are doing too much or not enough of something is
(03:03):
a criticism, and telling someone that they're overreacting is telling
them that they're displaying too much emotion, not just a lot.
Now who gets to determine that? Who gets to determine
too much not enough? Right? Why is it overreacting instead
of just a big reaction? Well, the difference between a
(03:27):
big reaction and an overreaction is it a big reaction
maybe reasonable, right, whereas overreacting is unreasonable. And this is
why reasonable is one of those words I use with
extreme caution, along with logical and appropriate. These are all
(03:48):
highly subjective concepts that end up putting you in a
position of authority over the person you're talking to. So
only use things like reasonable, logical, appropriate if you're actually
in a position of authority over the person you're talking to.
Otherwise you risk coming across as condescending or like you're
(04:11):
gaslighting them. You know, a judge has the right to
say what it is appropriate for their court. A kindergarten
teacher has the right to tell a four year old
their behavior is inappropriate. But in a conversation of equals,
you gotta watch it. This is a really simple thing
(04:32):
that a lot of people get wrong. If you're telling
someone they're too sensitive or they're overreacting, They're not going
to feel like you care about why they had such
a strong reaction, will they And they're not going to
feel like you care that they had a bad reaction. Accordingly,
(04:54):
I've been hearing from a lot of women lately that
their former partners gaslet them heter our sex partners gaslight
them that way, And then I hear from men that
women who have these complaints are just liars. And I
don't think anyone's lying here. I do think the men
in question think that they couldn't possibly be gaslighting because
(05:16):
gaslighting is intentional, So they accidentally gaslight by calling the
women involved your liars, even though these women are completely
telling the truth about the impacts that the comments had
on them. Comment like you're overreacting causes someone to doubt
(05:38):
their own reactions to a situation. And if you can't
trust your gut, what can you trust the importance of
intense the perceived importance of intents is a major difference
in gendered socialization. So it's worth taking some time on
(06:00):
this stuff in context, even though you know most people
would rather slide down a razor blade into a pool
of eoedine than talk about gender. Right here we go, Men,
generally speaking broad strokes, are taught that intentions matter far
more than women are taught that intentions matter. Women are
(06:22):
often taught that outcomes matter, not intentions. If a woman
upsets someone, it doesn't matter if she means to. She's
taught from childhood, from as long as she has memories
that if she upsets someone and she doesn't apologize and change,
(06:44):
the likelihood that it will be held against her in
a meaningful way is very, very high. And you know, frankly,
the best way to show that you didn't mean to
do something is to care about the impact it had.
If you skip the I care step, I didn't mean
to comes across like I don't care that it had
(07:05):
that effect. Of course, men are supposed to deny things,
bother them, even to themselves. Right, So, among groups of men,
I didn't mean to can often be sufficient to diffuse
the conflict, at least on a surface level. Among women, however,
I didn't mean to tends to read more like you're
(07:26):
not allowed to be upset with me, or you're being
mean for not dropping this, and oh, being mean that
is the worst thing a woman can do in groups
of women, right the movies called mean girls. Either way,
if I didn't mean to, is your entire communication. That's
not being accountable to the other person's feelings. I didn't
(07:50):
mean to upset you, but I'm sorry that I did.
Is you know, approaching a complete statement if you did
make a mistake, for God's sakes, own it. Don't just
focus on the feelings. It's not the end of the world.
You know, I didn't mean to upset you, but I
see now that I spoke thoughtlessly. That's much better. I
(08:11):
didn't say that is another big instance of accidental gaslighting.
It's not that it's inherently wrong. You know, sometimes you
actually didn't say what the person claimed, but if you
think about what it said, you're calling a person diluted
or a liar when you just flat out say nothing
remotely like what they claimed came out of your mouth
(08:35):
actually came out of your mouth. Well, everyone gets defensive sometimes, sure,
I know, I do habitually shutting conversations down cold with
I didn't say that, I didn't do that. We have
different memories. That will damage the relationship because it starts
to look like you don't care about the other person's
(08:55):
perspective because you're flat out dismissing it. And eventually that
starts to look like you don't care about the other person,
even if you're one hundred percent right that you didn't
say it. We're going to be exploring this conundrum a
lot this episode. Many people have trauma surrounding not being believed.
(09:16):
I know, I do. They therefore, and I speak from
a reformed person in this way, need to control the
flow of the conversation more than is healthy. No two
people will have the same memory of even simple exchanges.
It could only be a word or two different, but
(09:37):
sometimes that word or two is extremely significant to the meaning.
When it comes right down to it, everyone has to
ask themselves if being right is worth damaging the relationship
because gaslighting, even of the unintentional variety can cause significant
emotional distress in the person on the receiving end of it. Anxiety, depression,
(09:59):
loss of self esteem, and giving control over decision making
to the gaslighter are all potential damaging effects. Even of
accidental gaslighting, there are detrimental effects for the accidental gaslighter,
though too repetitive gaslighters, even of the accidental kind, become
(10:21):
known for always needing to be right. They're known as
too controlling, even dishonest, unaccountable, immature, and difficult to deal with. Again,
this is all even if you don't intend to gaslight.
You're just standing up for yourself, for defending yourself or
telling your truth. Right. The challenge with identifying when you're
(10:45):
being gaslighted or whether you're gaslighting yourself is that so
many hurtful and harmful behaviors are completely normal these days.
And I'll get to that after the break. Right, do
you have a story you think be good for the show?
Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Nottherapyshow
dot com is my email. Not Therapyshow dot com is
(11:07):
the website at not Therapy Show. On social media, gaslighting,
are you accidentally doing it even if it's totally normal.
On It's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's a therapy. I'm still the n occurageon I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking about accidental gaslighting.
(11:47):
And this is a sensitive subject because many people know
gaslighting is a bad thing, and because it's a bad thing,
they're unwilling to admit that they themselves do it. So
ask yourself. Have you ever claimed someone was overreacting, overly emotional,
or too sensitive like we did before the break, deflected,
(12:10):
or through blame around instead of just figuring out how
to solve a problem. Have you ever denied responsibility for
something you knew you actually did. Have you ever lied
to someone or withheld important information. Have you ever used
guilt or shame tactics? Have you ever deliberately humiliated someone?
(12:31):
Have you ever refused to accept another person's earnest version
of an event? Have you ever trivialized or invalidated someone's
feelings or concerns. You're making it too big a deal
out of it, right, if you've done any of these things,
you've gaslighted someone. But oh, come on, everyone does this stuff, right, Yeah,
(12:54):
but that doesn't make it right. A lot of normal
behaviors caused damage, which is why I'm not big on
the concept of normal. Clients ask me all the time,
is this normal? I said, You've come to the wrong
place to ask about normal. I am not normal. I
am good, crazy, But normal people get very upset at
(13:19):
the idea that they can't accurately interpret reality. So normal
cuts both ways on the accidental gaslighting behaviors. Plenty of
things that are normal are also hurtful and even harmful.
Bullying as normal, binge drinking as normal, smoking weed is
increasingly normal. None of these things are overall healthy. I know,
(13:46):
you know THHC is used in a like you know, appetite, simulation,
all that stuff. But right, most of the time, if
you're just doing it recreationally, it may be fun, it's
not exactly good for you. The element of accidental gas
lights I get the absolute biggest pushback on is the
idea that rejection of someone else's recollection of events is
(14:09):
gaslighting because I don't remember it that way? Am I
supposed to lie? Hear me out here. Human memory is
a complex thing. Human memory is subjective. It's subjective filters
based on our past experiences, personalities, the way we chain
things together. It's a combination of what happened, bald facts,
(14:33):
and our feelings connected to what happened, as well as
the narratives we create in our own heads about what
the event means. So, even without actual false memories, which
sometimes do happen, two people can have profoundly different recollections,
and that is not permission to go around. Go you're
(14:55):
having a false memory this time? No, no, no, that is
not the most likely thing that's going on. A powerful
filter on our memories is the compassion that each of
us has for ourself. For example, if you're late to
pick someone up and they point that out you were
late to pick me up, you might think, ah, they're right,
(15:16):
I always do this, you know, and exercise in beating
yourself up. Now if you do that, if you think, oh,
I always do this, you're more likely to remember what
the person said, not as you were late to pick
me up. But you're always late to pick me up
(15:36):
because that was the message you gave yourself, and that
single word always changes the statement from one of fact
you were late to a valu r character judgment of
larger ramifications. You're always late, right. So if you want
(15:58):
to have more accurate memories as well as better self esteem, overall,
practice self compassion. That's why my top ten phrase is
self esteem cannot exist with that self compassion. Our tendency
to judge and criticize ourselves and others is something that
our upbringing and social groups train us into. Our willingness
(16:21):
to just take people's word that we've done something wrong,
even if it doesn't feel right to us. That's something
we're trained. It takes some work, sometimes a lot of work,
to retrain this instinct to something that works better. We
might beat ourselves up as a misguided form of conscientiousness,
(16:43):
but it's worth considering if we're overdoing it. We all
engage in social comparisons as well, so not just whether
we think we made a mistake or we think, you know,
go Homer Simpson right. Our brains love to agonize over
where we fit in the world. Some of us tend
(17:07):
to compare ourselves to people who are doing better than us.
That's why scrolling Facebook makes us feel kind of depressed.
Others seek out people who are doing less well than
us so we can feel superior. A lot of us
do a combination of both, and if this judgment machine
(17:29):
gets overactive, we end up struggling to compromise or back
down over pretty silly things because everything is a game
of who has higher rank in the group. No one
likes to feel weak or powerless. Oh there's a reason
I say healthy goals are based on things you can control,
(17:50):
a top ten phrase. But this feeling of powerlessness based
on these social comparisons, based on our lack of self compact.
This is something we can reframe so we don't have
to be right every time. You know, I get that
(18:11):
being right makes us feel useful, But think about it.
Do you like being around someone who has to be
right all of the time? If you don't. If you
don't like that, don't be that guy. If the detail
you're fighting over isn't essential, there's no reason to cling
(18:32):
to it, and you'd be surprised that once you start
looking at is this really important? You'll find out a
lot of things really aren't. In fact, you'll be seen
as more likable, more compassionate to other people you know,
and you'll figure out who the bullies are and who
the bullies aren't if you yourself compromise more. For instance,
(18:55):
if you're on the receiving end of that person who
misremembered you saying they were always late, and you're pretty
sure that you didn't say always, because that's something you've
been actively avoiding, but the other person is adamant, incorrectly,
that you said always. It sucks to be falsely accused.
(19:16):
These sorts of arguments are among my least favorite because well,
first of all, they're pointless, but if the other person
digs in, then I have to cave, and then I
do feel bullied. But see, that's my emotional frame. That's
why it's very important to separate I think from I feel.
It's the pressure for me of being in the public
(19:37):
eye and people demanding that i'd be letter perfect on
all things connected to mental health and communication or else.
They pronounce rather loudly and very publicly that I am
terrible at my job. Some people even say that I'm
dangerous to people's mental health. And it takes some work
to remind myself that that's a crock. You know, I
(20:02):
do feel this, this surge of panic of anxiety when
people say this, because oh my god, what if all
these bad things happen? Right? What if people believed this?
That'd be terrible for my business? Right? But I know
I take every possible step to be responsible, including calling
this show. It's not therapy. So the people that are
(20:27):
aware that I'm not attempting, in the slightest to be
an authority over them or their life. I'm just giving
people alternatives that I find work better again good crazy
instead of normal bad crazy. So I usually end up
backing down in these arguments of who said what, because
even when there are text records of something, two people
(20:51):
can look at a sentence and see two completely different things.
There can be video recordings of something, and people will
read different things into facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.
What's dramatic in my eyes may seem vulnerable to someone else.
Something I think is incredibly phony might seem totally authentic
(21:15):
to someone else. These are all subjective judgments, and subjective
judgments are what make us individuals. So if someone keeps
accusing me of saying always when I know I didn't
and I don't want to cut ties with that person
because oh my god, you can only have that fight
so many times. I'll say something like, look, in my frustration,
(21:37):
I was clearly too harsh, and I'm sorry about that.
The person will often then apologize for being late, and
they had apologized previously for that, so you said always
and you're not supposed to say. Oh. They immediately get
defensive about being late because they were beating theirselves up,
and the minute look, I'm sorry, I was too harsh,
(22:00):
I'm sorry, I was like. And this drives me.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Because at that point I'm thinking they totally knew they'd
men stop, but they weren't gonna apologize until I did
it first.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
They were standing on ceremony and woo. That tells me
that person is insecure. And the problem is that kind
of insecurity is infectious. I don't like being around it.
That is poopoo for me, okay it. I have to
be humble enough to listen to people for a living
(22:40):
and laugh at myself when I start saying it is
poop poo for me, and things like that, and being
able to laugh at yourself, especially in public when you're
winging it the way I do on this show. That
requires a quiet confidence, and that quiet confidence gets eroded
by being around you know, more than a critical mass
(23:01):
of insecurity. And that assessment, that logic process helps me
avoid having a panic response in that moment with a
person just was clearly insying, oh you just oh you
wouldn't apologize until I did at first, Right. A big
(23:24):
trauma trigger for me is people putting blame on me
for things I didn't do, holding my feet to the
fire unfairly. I tend to catastrophize quite badly, especially in
these situations where someone is putting words in my mouth
that I did not say. I did mean, you know, alarm, alarm, alarm, alarm, danger, danger,
(23:48):
exterminate that threat, right. That was a whole bunch of
sci fi things in rapid succession apologies all right, And
it's especially bad when I can prove it's not what
I actually said. This is what I know. That doesn't
matter because people just go, oh, well, even if you
didn't say it, come on, you meant it. Everybody would
(24:10):
mean it if they said that. No, no, I am
not normal.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
This is when I tell myself my top ten phrase,
don't let problems that aren't your fault lead to mistakes
that are because accidental gaslighters usually self gaslight like in
that scenario. I know I have to watch the self
gaslighting in part because I'm so frequently backing down in
(24:36):
these fights about who said what to who right it
gets it wears on you after a bit, being always
the one who has to back down first, or frequently
the one that has to back down first. See I
caught myself on the always. But it's not just that.
It's the sheer abuse you take online and in person,
(24:58):
when you're in the media, even in you know, radio
station like me podcast. Yeah, some people are just obsessed
with making me out to be some sort of monster
when I'm minding my own business or I offer what
I think is a fairly milk toast opinion. So after
(25:18):
this break, we're gonna talk about how to avoid self
gaslighting so we can avoid accidentally gaslighting other people when
our negative self talk slips out in the direction of
others questions, comments, concerns. Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com is
my email. Not Therapyshow dot com is the website at
(25:39):
not Therapy Show on socials How to tell if you're
self gaslighting and how to stop after this break And
it's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot We're back in. It's
not therapy. I'm still the Ina cursoner. I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking about accidental gas lighting. How
(26:18):
do you know if you're doing it and we're at
the park. We talk about self gaslighting a major precursor
to accidentally gaslighting other people. Now, self gaslighting is deliberately
feeding yourself messages that make you doubt their own thoughts,
your own feelings, your own perception of events. If you're
(26:42):
constantly telling yourself when you feel a feeling and it's nothing,
it's nothing, I shouldn't bother it, don't let it get
to me. Don't let them get under this under your skin. Right.
You know, you may have heard these things as motivational
pep talk framing, but they're really not. By the time
you're telling your don't let them get to you, surprise,
they've already gotten to you, and making yourself feel like
(27:07):
you did something wrong for having feelings is a form
of self gaslighting. If you're telling yourself you're too sensitive,
you're too emotional, you're overreacting, it's nothing, they didn't mean it.
You're just too or not enough right, you are self gaslighting.
(27:31):
And the big problem with that is that you're not
one validating your own feelings. And if you can't validate
your own feelings, nobody else can do it for you,
because even when people do offer you validating messages, they
don't feel honest, they don't feel real because they don't
(27:52):
reflect your own self concept. And also, let's face it,
being too hard on ourselves leads us less resilient for
the other emotional tasks we have to do in life.
So how do we stop doing it? Well? First of all,
your feelings are your feelings. It's not too much, it's
(28:14):
not not enough. Are they having a negative impact? Right?
Is it you can see where you got there from
the actual facts of the present or is there something
coming up from the past. Do you feel you know,
(28:37):
like you're not in the present in certain moments, do
you feel like a little kid instead of an adult
who has some control over their life. If you experience this,
the best thing you can do for yourself is go
get some sort of counseling, some therapy so you can
(29:01):
get a trauma diagnosis, find out what type of PTSD
you have, and actually start learning how to adapt to
that reality. PTSD is not so much a mental illness.
You are still aware of reality. It's an emotional injury.
(29:21):
So you can walk, it just hurts like heck, cause
your leg hasn't healed right now, Say you do start
to think, you know these emotions I'm having there, they're
really big. They knock me flat. If you can't get
out of bed, you know, okay, there's every so often
(29:44):
we can't so tired cat get out of bed. That
was me last week. But you know, if that's if
that's happening more than infrequently, you deserve better. My cat's agreeing.
If you have periods where you're you're staying up all
(30:05):
night and you just can't rev down, and you feel
like you're flying and can absolutely do anything, you are
a god straddling the world. You know that might be mania.
You know, if you tend to you have a tendency
to fly high and then crash. This may be a
chemical imbalance. It may feel great during the manias, but
(30:27):
the the you know, they're not long term good for
your health. You can really wreck your life in those
manic phases. But also the crashes are usually pretty terrible.
And again, you deserve better. Do you notice. I don't
say you have a problem, I say you deserve better.
(30:51):
And for the people out there concerned, they might have
a very serious mental illness, including personality this. I work
with numerous clients with personality disorders. They are wonderful people.
That is not an indication of your character. You deserve better.
(31:13):
There are treatments out there that really do lead to
better quality of life. I'm living proof, and the first
step is reframing that I've got a problem, something's wrong
with me, I'm broken to I deserve better than this.
(31:35):
Happiness is real and you can have it like not
all the time. Everybody has some lousy periods. But if
you don't see hope, if you don't see you know
future in your own life, this is the time where
(31:57):
you deserve better. Things are going to have to change.
But everybody deserves better than misery, even the worst person
in the world, they won't be so awful if they're
not absolutely miserable and so talking to yourself the way
you talk to a good friend. That is the art
(32:20):
of self compassion. Now, if you're one of those people
who tell your friends you're stupid, what's wrong with you?
Well you may not be the best friend, but you
know what I mean. Otherwise, we're usually gentler to those
around us than we are to ourselves. Well, a lot
of people let the people around them off, maybe too easy,
(32:47):
definitely a lot easier than then we let ourselves off,
and too easy in this case, I know too much
not enough judgments, Right, this is a judgment you can
make because if the people around you are violating your boundaries,
(33:08):
you're not setting proper boundaries, you are letting them off
too easy, and you are being too hard on yourself.
You are the only person qualified to make that decision
for yourself, because you are the only one who truly
knows what your emotional state is at any given time. Now,
(33:30):
if you don't know what you're feeling, if you're not
feeling your feelings, well that's a sign that you've probably
been chronically gaslit your entire life in that you're too sensitive,
you're overreacting sort of way. If having feelings tends to
create a negative feedback loop while we just ignore them,
it's nothing, it's nothing, never mind, I'm fine. You know
(33:55):
that way some people say I'm fine when they're really
not fine. Drives you out bonkers, doesn't it. But it
takes a lot to not fake fine, not fake well,
and we all have to do it sometimes when you
know you don't trust the environment, you don't let them,
you know, you don't want to let them see a sweat.
(34:16):
But around people who obstensibly care about us, if you're
faking well, if you're faking happy, something's really wrong. And
a lot of us it goes back to that gendered
hierarchy I was talking about that really kicks in in
(34:38):
earnest during the teenage years, Like starting around the seventh grade,
we we see something pretty profound start to happen to
girls around the age of thirteen. You know, academic achievement
starts decline, mood starts, you know, being not great. Ah,
(35:02):
that's just teenagers, right, It's not just the hormonal changes.
It's that the teenage years are a hell scape. They
always have been. But with social media amplifying everything, now,
it's a tough time to be a teen, but there's
(35:25):
never been a good time to be a teen. And
girls we start seeing it at around the age of fourteen.
By the time it kicks in, and boys around the
age of fifteen, girls are starting to kind of sorta
begin to climb out of it. It might take until
you know they're seventeen eighteen, but boys empathy just goes
(35:50):
at the age of fifteen. They get into those monkey
see monkey doo dynamics that we dismiss as boys will
be boys, And so boys get into situations that they
feel awful about for the rest of their lives. And
I know that because I work with men as adults
(36:13):
who are still coming to terms with things that happen
to them in middle school, in high school. And these
women who are profoundly damaged by something that happened to
me eighth grade, These boys who are still carrying around
the shame of rejection from either peers or the opposite
(36:35):
sex twenty thirty forty years later. All of you deserve better.
You deserve to stop self gaslighting. Rejection does not mean
you are bad. You being bullied does not mean you
did anything wrong, and you know what, even if you did,
(36:59):
there's correction, and then there's cruelty. And because of these
nasty junior high and high school higher keys that extend
far into the gendered socialization of adulthood, you know, the
weird pack mentality that surrounds team sports. And yes, team
(37:21):
sports are great to learn cooperative skills, but it shouldn't
mean you've sacrificed your entire individual identity learning things like
makeup and fashion. That's great if you're doing it to
feel your best be your best self. Right if it's
(37:42):
causing you to be acutely aware of all your you
know your flaws so to speak, though, that's highly subjective.
That's gonna hamsterring you throughout your entire life. And I
speak as someone who struggle with this quite badly, to
the point that I don't even know what's supposed to
(38:04):
be attractive anymore. It just seems to come and go
like the blink and wind, and social media is not
a great place to determine that your appeal to other people.
Real life isn't a great place to determine your appeal
(38:26):
to other people because everyone is so riddled with anxiety
that very few people have the capacity to truly appreciate
another person because they're afraid that if they give an
honest compliment, they will come across as creepy or desperate
or crazy. Now I am good crazy, so maybe that's
(38:48):
why it bothers me less. But there's are all the
ways we self gosslight. We set the thing we compare
ourselves to of some kind of ideal or perceived perfection,
and no one can hit that, certainly not on a
(39:08):
regular basis. We have one great day where everything sings,
but if that's what you need to be happy, you're
not going to achieve sustained happiness. You have to figure
out what's good enough, and you're the only person that
(39:29):
can set that standard for yourself. I will say, though,
that being around other people who have achieved the ability
to complement and affirm others, sincerely, I'm not talking about flattery, right.
Healthy goals are based on things you can control. Top
ten phrase. Right. If somebody's going, oh, you're the most
(39:51):
beautiful person in the world, and you know that, yeah, objectively,
that's not true. This is what I mean about. No
matter how much someone validates you, if you don't believe it.
It's not gonna feel good. It's gonna feel like someone's
got an agenda, right, and maybe they don't. Maybe you're
(40:11):
just self gaslighting. So we gotta take one more break.
When we come back, I'm gonna give you some alternatives
to self gaslighting and gaslighting others based on some of
the examples we've been talking about the whole show. Questions, comments, concerns,
any feedback whatsoever, suggestions for other topics. Hey, you know,
I like your show a lot. Uh Leanna at not
(40:33):
Therapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow dot com is the website
at Not Therapy Show on socials. We'll be back how
to Stop Accidentally Gaslighting yourself and others on It's Not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health CANDI. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot CA. We're back in
It's Not Therapy. I'm still Ana Cursoner, I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking accidental gaslighting. And now we
get to the end of the show. I talked about
(41:17):
how to fix it, how to stop all right now,
some of these things that people accidentally gaslight, things like
you know, reactive lying, denying responsibility, not admitting fault, those
are long term things that are going to come from
improving your self concept, improving your self esteem through self compassion.
(41:42):
Having self compassion does not mean denying you did anything wrong.
It's separating did a bad thing from am a bad thing,
And it's separating tactical mistakes from something morally wrong. I'm
glad when somebody tells me, you know this, this comment
(42:04):
hit me the wrong way. It happens to videos all
the time that I do on my YouTube channel, because
you know, then I have the opportunity I do every Friday,
I do feedback, and I can use that awareness to go, Okay, look,
if anybody else thought that way, no, I absolutely did
not mean that right. But I don't think I did
anything wrong there, certainly not morally. It's just everybody, like
(42:29):
I've said in this show season, heres thinks through their
own filter. And if I'm hearing about somebody's filter, okay,
we can further the conversation. More communication is always better.
That's a win win. You know, I can correct the
perception in people who may have thought it and didn't
(42:50):
say it. But that person that told me that was
brave enough to tell me also feels hurt. Right, win win, right.
And I don't even have to admit I made a
mistake on that one. It's just clarification. But we all
do make mistakes sometimes, and if we are really hard
on ourselves, it's harder to admit those mistakes to ourself
(43:14):
as well as to others. So talking like I made
a mistake, It's okay, we all do it, how do
we fix it? Is much better than stupid, stupid, stupid, worthless,
waste of you know, so and so forth. Anytime you
catch yourself sounding like anything Donald Trump says, you are
being cruel to yourself. Good good rule. You know he
(43:37):
loves the worthless and soul, worthless, weak, stupid. You know
he's an idiot. Don't sound like Trump. It is just
to me. Every time Trump speaks it's like his abusive
probably father. Maybe both parents are echoing through him. I
(43:59):
don't know if this is so. I'm just telling you
what it sounds like to me. Because happy people do
not feel the need to chronically mock, humiliate, trivialize and
shame people. That's not the mark of a healthy person
(44:19):
who talks to themselves well, because usually the way people
talk to others is the way they talk to themselves.
And if there's that big a difference between how they
talk to themselves and how they talk to other people, well,
well you might be dealing with a narcissists there. I
just assume that the people being really cruel their biggest
(44:42):
victim of that cruelty is themselves. But what about those
things that are just you know, things that are bad
habits communication style, Right, I didn't mean to or I
didn't say that, or you're overreacting. Well there, it's all
about taking either the judgment out of it or replacing
(45:07):
the dead stop to the conversation with something that allows
the conversation to continue flowing forward. So in the case
of I didn't say that, well, the other person goes, well,
yes you did, well, no I didn't, well, yes you
did well, no I didn't, well yes you did. See
how the conversation can't go forward unless someone blinks. Think
(45:28):
about it as improv yes and right, it's hard to
see yes I said that when you didn't. But it's
you know I don't remember saying that, is fine, or
I didn't mean to say that, But okay, you know
(45:49):
clearly I came across too harshly, and I'm sorry for that.
That takes nothing from you. You're not admitting to something
you didn't do. There, You're just continuing the conversation to
flow forward. Even if you don't want to admit that
you actually said something wrong. It might be too sore
(46:11):
a point, all right, fine, but something as simple as
I don't remember saying that, I believe that's how it
came across. So what do we do about that. That's
a way to keep the conversation flowing right. Same thing
with your overreacting or you're too sensitive, You're this is
(46:35):
a sensitive subject for you. Is better than you're too sensitive.
You're reacting strongly to this. What's going on is better
than your overreacting. One is an observation, the other is
a dismissal, and the I didn't mean to Again, the
best way to show you didn't mean to is to
(46:58):
put the focus on the other person's feelings and show
that you care. Try to understand. You don't have to
agree that what you did naturally would create the result
it did in the other person, But showing compassion for
others helps you learn how to be compassionate with yourself,
(47:19):
going back to that principle of we're usually kinder and
gentler to other people than we are with ourselves. So
if we can be kind, lear and gentler while still
maintaining our boundaries with other people, we learn how to
talk to ourselves in a better way as well. So
it's a win win. All right, that's my time. I
(47:41):
have to win before I'm overtime. Do you have a
story think would be good for the show? Are you
interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Notthapyshow dot com
is my direct email. Not therapyshow dot com is the
website with the contact form. If it's too hard to remember,
Leanna at not Therapy Show, Not Therapy Show on social
media is a way to get in contact with me
(48:03):
as well. I hope you enjoyed this show on accidental gaslighting. Again,
it's tough to speak in generalities on this topic. Top
ten phrase listen twice before you talk once. Listening is
two thirds of communication. Talking is one third, So make
sure you are listening more than you speak. Other than that,
(48:25):
remember You're crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you.
See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot CA.
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