Back in 1944, a film called “Gaslight” was released (originally a play in 1938). In the film, a man manipulates his wife, convincing her she’s mentally unstable by dimming their gas-fuelled lighting and telling her she’s hallucinating.
As an empath I have experienced gaslighting for many years both personally and professionally. I would become so frustrated and stressed asking myself ‘WHY am I attracting these narcissist/energy vampire type people into my life?!’. Later I discovered that it was because I was a disempowered empath with many unhealed wounds.
Gaslighting is the way in which a person denies someone’s reality and emotions, making them question their sense of reality and sanity e.g. “I never said that. Why are you always making stuff up” and “You need to calm down. Why are you always so dramatic”. Now not all gaslighters are narcissists but the ability to administer gaslighting in a masterful fashion is just one of the methods the narcissist employs from his repertoire of manipulation techniques.
Some gaslighting techniques (and examples) are as follows:
Denial - The gaslighter pretends to forget conversations or events which triggers self-doubt and second-guessing. “I never said that. Why are you making stuff up?”
Countering – This is where the gaslighter tells you that you misremembered a situation. “That’s not how it happened. Something is wrong with your memory”.
Withholding - The gaslighter refuses to engage in a conversation or when you bring up a specific topic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop trying to confuse me”.
Diversion - The gaslighter will do whatever it takes to move the focus from them to you. They may point out your flaws and try to frame your past behaviour to make you look irrational or irresponsible (projection). “Why are you always complaining? I pay all the bills around here, can’t you just be grateful?”.
Trivialising – This is also known as minimising. The gaslighter minimises or denies your feelings by making you feel petty and insignificant. “It's not always about you. Why do you always have to be so selfish?”
They may also implement the Gaslighting By-Proxy technique where they employ enablers to do the ‘dirty work’ on their behalf. This strategy is quite common in a work environment or a family/friends setting.
In addition to that there is also Gaslighting By-Tribe which is similar to By-Proxy but is extended to organisations/groups that consist of a large network of people.
People who gaslight tend to focus their attention on disempowered empaths and/or highly sensitive types (HSPs) because it is easy to take their power away from them. There are two developmental stages for empaths/HSPs and that is ‘disempowerment’ and ‘empowerment’. Neglecting to address these unhealed wounds will leave you in the stage of ‘disempowerment’.
In my next blog, we will look at the Love Bombing technique.