What does Gaslighting do to a person?

I wrote a blog a while back about gaslighting, click here to learn more.

To define gaslighting, it's when someone psychologically manipulates you into questioning your reality and sanity. 

This type of mental abuse has severe and long term psychological effects on a person. 

If you've experienced gaslighting, then you've likely felt the following:

You question your memories

This can be done in all kinds of ways by the gaslighter. 

Here's a simple example of how this might play out: 

A wife throws her child's shirt in the dirty hamper to find it in the clean clothes drawer the next morning. She might think to herself, "hmm, I thought I put this in the dirty clothes last night." She will falsely assume she must've remembered inaccurately, not realizing the abusive spouse came and took the item out of the dirty clothes and placed it into the clean clothes drawer. 

This is a small example, but this is often how it starts, small and seemingly insignificant, ultimately building too much larger experiences. 

So much so that it can lead abuse victims to question their abusive memories entirely. 

You'll doubt your ability to make decisions 

Because you don't know if what you think, feel, and have experienced is real, you will look to other people to tell you what reality is. Therefore, you'll question your decisions and whether they are the right choices.

You become dependent on others

Because gaslighting, especially long-term and repetitive gaslighting, creates chronic insecurity in a person, it keeps the victim from believing in themselves and trusting their thoughts. Consequently, the victim will often have an unhealthy dependence on others for reassurance and decision making. 

The unfortunate thing is the victim will often go to the abuser for this reassurance. This allows the abuser to manipulate the victim further, leading to a more resounding lack of self-assurance. 

You feel like you're crazy 

Logic and your experience tell you one thing while the abuser tells you a completely different story. And trying to prove to someone that something happened that they deny entirely will make you feel like you're losing your mind. 

You assume you're the problem 

I can't count how many people I've talked to who come to counseling to change themselves, quickly to find out they are being abused. This isn't to say you don't have things to work on (i.e., codependency).

But because of the chronic insecurity created, it leads the victim to believe they are the problem in the relationship, rather than the issues being a two-way street. 

After all, if you could respond differently and understand your partner (or parent, boss, or whoever), there wouldn't be an issue (according to the gaslighter). 

Listen, if you're experiencing abuse, then you're not the problem! The abuse is the problem. 

I have never heard of someone experiencing gaslighting that isn't at a minimum in a toxic relationship. If you've experienced this, then it may be time to take a long, hard look at your relationship.

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