You are crazy. He said it so many times I believed him. I had to. It was the only explanation that made sense. The alternative – that he was a charismatic psychopath hell-bent on destroying me – was too terrifying to be considered. And so I believed him when he told me that I was “making a big deal out of nothing” when I freaked out after finding him throwing mice at the side of a dumpster and then lighting them on fire. I believed him when he told me that he was only choking me to “help me” overcome my fears. But the worst one was when he showed up at my roommate’s wedding the day after he sexually assaulted me, acting as if nothing had happened. I finally approached him as he sat, nonchalantly eating cake, and choked out, “What happened last night… it can’t happen again.” And then he looked up at me and said, “Nothing happened last night. You’re worried about nothing.” When I contradicted him pointing out my torn clothing (holding the physical evidence in my hand had made me strangely brave), he shrugged and said he’d give me a few bucks to replace them, no big deal, and went back to eating cake.
The thing is, I wanted him to be right. I wanted it to be nothing, to be no big deal. In hindsight, it seems totally reasonable to be upset over someone abusing animals, choking me, and worse, but at that moment I would have preferred believing I was crazy to believing I was the victim of an assault. Because being assaulted requires action – at the very least dumping him – but being crazy requires nothing, nothing at all. Crazy is floating like a leaf over a waterfall, knowing that even if you go over you’ll be fine because you were too inconsequential to exist in the first place.
According to Harris O’Malley, a dating coach, on the Huffington Post, ” ‘Crazy’ may well be the most insidious one of the four [deadly words] because it encompasses so much. At its base, calling women “crazy” is a way of waving away any behavior that men might find undesirable while simultaneously absolving those same men from responsibility. Why did you break up with her? Well, she was crazy. Said something a woman might find offensive? Stop being so sensitive. The idea of the “crazy” woman is so vague and nebulous that it can apply to just about any scenario.”
O’Malley adds that calling someone crazy is tantamount to “gaslighting” them. Gaslighting, if you’ve never heard the term, comes from the iconic Ingrid Bergman movie Gaslight and is a form of emotional manipulation or abuse. It describes the process of giving false information with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and even sanity. “Gaslighting — minimizing their feelings, reframing them as being unreasonable — is classic abusive behavior. It’s telling someone that they don’t have a right to the way they feel because what they’re feeling is wrong. Their feelings or their concerns or behavior isn’t “rational.” Once you take away their right to their feelings, it’s that much easier to manipulate a person into the way you want them to behave.”
My ex was a master at gaslighting and his coup d’etat was during the court case five years later when he took the Alford Plea – a legal arrangement that allows the person to avoid pleading guilty by saying that they acknowledge the State has enough evidence to convict them but they don’t admit to actually committing the crime. It essentially allowed him to plead guilty – and get a plea bargain – without actually admitting guilt. This should have infuriated me but instead it made me feel guilty. Maybe he hadn’t really hurt me. (Even though the evidence showed otherwise.) I wondered if I had been wrong all those years. I agonized over that.
Since the court case, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to validate my experience through other peoples’. At first, that meant talking to the other victims that testified (and some that didn’t) against my ex. Hearing the similarities in our stories reassured me I wasn’t making it up. I also binge-watched shows like Law&Order: SVU, taking solace in other survivors “appropriate” reactions and vicariously being comforted by the wonderfully kind (albeit wonderfully fictional) detectives. I devoured rape memoirs like Alice Sebold’s Lucky always looking for my own experience in theirs.
But it was never enough.
And today, after realizing that I was yet again being gaslighted – this time by a new acquaintance, I finally understood why.
Hilde Linneman, a bioethicist, writes, “in gaslighting cases…ability to resist depends on her ability to trust her own judgements [sic].”
Never have I trusted my own instincts and judgments. I’ve always wanted other people to tell me how to feel.
And it’s not just me. O’Malley writes, ” The trend of labeling women “crazy” is part of the culture that socializes women to go along to get along. When women are told over and over again that they’re not allowed to feel the way they feel and that they’re being “unreasonable” or “oversensitive,” they’re conditioned to not trust their own emotions. Labeling women as “crazy” is a way of controlling them. It may not be something planned or pre-meditated, but the ease with which men call women “crazy” says a lot about them. Calling a woman “crazy” is quick and easy shut-down to any discussion. Once the “crazy” card has been pulled out, women are now put on the defensive: The onus is no longer on the man to address her concerns or her issue; it’s on her to justify her behavior, to prove that she is not, in fact, crazy or irrational. Men don’t even have to provide any sort of argument back — it’s a classic catch-22: ‘The fact that you don’t even see that you’re acting crazy is just proof that it’s crazy’.”
As far back as I can remember, I’ve taken my cues from others – always watching their eyes, their faces, their hands, the tightness in their jaws. Part of it is, I think, a result of being an HSP (highly sensitive person). My emotions are so big, so outsized, so… scary, that I’ve always felt they were inherently wrong. So I’d decide to feel the “right” way by copying what others were doing. If my parents weren’t afraid to leave me with a babysitter then I shouldn’t be afraid for them to leave. If my friends weren’t scared of the haunted house then I shouldn’t be scared (even though I was pants-peeing-ly terrified). If my boyfriend said I wasn’t hurt then I shouldn’t feel hurt. And if this new acquaintance told me that I was being a jerk for not doing what he wanted me to and paranoid for doubting his motives? If he says I’m crazy and irrational then…
FULL STOP. No. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. (I’m allowed to invoke Nirvana in arguments – I’m a 90’s child!) I have plenty of friends who are not at all susceptible to gaslighting and they have a really hard time understanding how I could have believed all that revisionist history in the first place. And I’ve always thought that it just wasn’t in my nature to trust myself but today, finally being able to put a name on that icky feeling of unease that permeated all my interactions with this particular person, was weirdly liberating. I realized that the first step to stopping the gaslighting is simply learning to recognize that feeling when it’s happening. It’s not a fatal flaw, it’s a learned skill. And I did that! Success! (Not sure if you’re being gaslighted? Here’s a great article with a self-quiz to help you sort it out.)
So today, to help me remember what I’m learning, I wrote out a list of basic human emotional rights. My anti-gaslighting manifesto, if you will:
– It doesn’t matter how anyone else would feel or how you think I should feel in a situation. The only thing that matters to me is how I feel in that situation.
– My feelings are my feelings and therefore can’t be “right” or “wrong” – they just are what they are.
– I don’t owe you an excuse, a reason, an explanation or a rationalization for my feelings or decisions. I’m allowed to not like something for no other reason than “I don’t like it.”
– I do not have to apologize for feeling a certain way. I do not have to apologize for saying “no.”
– My feelings do not “make” you feel any certain way. I don’t make you angry. You choose to be angry.
– Saying “I’m not comfortable with this” is not an opening for bargaining. It’s a simple statement of fact.
– My tears are not a sign of weakness or tools of manipulation. I don’t cry because I’m trying to get something out of you or make you feel bad. I cry because I’m sad or hurt. I’m allowed to cry.
– You do not get to call me crazy.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not trying to turn the tables and say that my feelings and decisions trump everyone else’s and that everyone has to tiptoe around my sensitivities. I think it would be easy to read this and say that I don’t care what anyone else thinks or what their experience is – which couldn’t be further from the truth. I care deeply about what other people feel and I love hearing about their experiences. I just think there is a way for people to own their own feelings without pathologically forcing me to agree with their version of events. Stating my feelings does not mean you have agree with me nor does it mean yours are “wrong” and mine are “right.” All it means is that you don’t get to control me. I’m not writing this to lash out at one particular person but rather because I have a life’s worth of history of believing other people’s feelings are more valid than my own – and it’s hurt me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’m posting this to remind myself that it’s okay to trust my gut – and to remind you that it’s okay to trust yours too!
Plus, in the end, I think gaslighting is a lazy emotional shortcut. I don’t think gaslighting serves either party – if their goal is to have a healthy, productive interaction.
Have you ever found yourself being gaslighted or do you see through it pretty easily? Anything you would add to my manifesto? Have you ever been called “crazy” and if so, how did you react?? I’d love any advice you have for me!!
Note: I realize that all the examples I’ve used have been men gaslighting women but this type of abuse can definitely work in both directions! I think men perhaps are socially conditioned to be more resistant to being gaslighted (at least it seems that way to me) because it’s not against their gender norms to be assertive, aggressive or blunt but all the same I have got a few e-mails from men over the years who’ve shown me that it’s possible for men to be gaslighted too. And perhaps in those cases it’s even more humiliating because they’re “supposed” to be immune to it.
How about you get let down or a promise is not delivered on, you confront the person in a respectful composed way but don’t get any direct answers and told you are argumentive and unreasonable just for wanting to discuss it, to the point you’re not sure what is real anymore. This has happened with a friend who owes me money. Every time it’s due there is some excuse or reason or the words spoken the previous week seem like shifting sands and get twisted.
At the risk of high jacking Charlotte’s thread…
I don’t know what truly counts as gas lighting or not, but what are your friend’s intentions? I have a friend who really hates confrontation, and approaches arguments and disagreements very differently than I do. Is that what your friend is doing-or is your friend trying to distract you and put you on the defensive so you’ll quit asking about the money?
I’ve known several guys over the years, who either dated me or one of my friends, who had a tendency to dismiss at least one ex as crazy. Actually had one female friend who did the same with her exes too. Only one really crossed the line into controlling and manipulative, and another came close. But for a lot of them, it was almost more laziness and selfishness. Rather than really looking at what went wrong in the relationship, and what role they might have played, they just dismiss the ex as “crazy.” And usually they would go on to do the same thing to the next person they dated, and the next. Not sure that counts as true gas lighting, when it’s more laziness, but it is a red flag to me now when I hear someone dismiss an ex as crazy that the person is probably immature and selfish, to be honest.
Amen to that, Redhead!
I love the post, especially this line:
– I don’t owe you an excuse, a reason, an explanation or a rationalization for my feelings or decisions. I’m allowed to not like something for no other reason than “I don’t like it.”
Three months ago or so I stopped being friends with someone because the relationship had more negatives than positives – at least for me. I can’t say it was an easy decision to make because I guess I felt I should offer explanations or rationalizations for my decision. I didn’t do that though – it wouldn’t have changed my decision in any way nor was I interested in starting a process where I would try to change to a person that could accommodate the relationship. Nor was I interested in trying to change the other person’s behavior.
As for gaslighting, I guess the biggest gaslighter in my life has been my father, who thinks he can read other people’s minds (knows their thoughts, emotions etc). He still seems to have genuine difficulty separating his own thoughts,experiences and emotions form other people’s even though he’s over 60 these days.
I think I’m pretty immune to being called crazy by someone who doesn’t know me well 🙂
Great post! Re: gender and gaslighting…I think it’s possible that men are gaslighted differently, in ways that play into gender stereotypes. It seems like “Be a man” or “man up” is how we dismiss a man’s emotional reaction to things.
“We”? I know I don’t try to do it.
“We” as in the Royal We, we as a culture.
Oh, good point!
I have mentioned in comments previously that I know Charlotte is not crazy.
I have been sad to think that you ever believed that of yourself Charlotte.
You have seen “crazy” up close and personal with your ex.
And the crazy you have seen in your ex looks nothing like you. And it is readily apparent to everyone that you are not just being dismissive in calling your ex crazy.
I have mentioned before that I have seen crazy up close and personal as well in my ex.
And it doesn’t look like you, Charlotte.
My ex took a butcher knife and went after her daughter is her kind of crazy.
I stopped her.
I also made excuses for her in that and for slapping, punching, kicking and swearing at me.
I wanted to be patient and loving and forgiving and nice.
I did not use “crazy” as a “quick and easy shut-down to any discussion.”
I love discussion! I am happy to discuss and hash out until the wee hours because I do not like yuck to be lingering. I always tried to address to address her concerns and her issues.
I didn’t give up on her, because I don’t believe in disposable people.I never “told” on her. because I didn’t want anybody else to think badly of her.
Sometimes men, by virtue of their sensitivity and caring, may be vulnerable to involvement with needy women. Once involved, they may behave somewhat passively as they continue to hope that all will work out.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
And we have a winner!
Welcome to my world.
Sadly, my children’s world does not now revolve around the parent with sensitivity and caring (me) . Instead, my children’s world revolves around the parent with the personality disorder (my ex), who is abusive.
And dangerous.
Research shows that when an abducting parent is paranoid, delusional or severely psychopathic, the dangers to the child are great. These children are at the greatest risk of physical harm or death. (Johnston, Sagatun-Edwards, Blomquist, and Girdner; Janet R. Johnston et al. “Early Indications of Risk Factors for Parental Abduction.” Juvenile Justice Bulletin, March 2001)
And the authorities refuse to act because my ex has painted me as the one who is irrational.
It is along standing tradition since the first white people arrived on this continent that the Indian is always wrong.
And men generally have not been favored in law.
There is a case, CRABTREE v. CRABTREE 26/06/1922 (and can be found on the Arkansas Judiciary Website) where the wife tried to slit her husbands throat, and almost cut off several of his fingers and then stabbed him in the back and was STILL awarded custody of the children.
Not only that, but there was a dissenting opinion in regards to granting the husband a divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Humphries J., dissented because “After a careful reading of the facts in this case, my conclusion is that the attack made upon the appellant by the appellee was due to temporary insanity.” The judge further states, “The undisputed evidence tended to show that the appellee was beside herself, when she so unexpectedly and viciously attacked her husband. She herself testified that she knew nothing of the occurrence until it was all over. The evidence is wanting to show intentional cruelty, so the decree of divorce should have been refused.”
In other words Mr. Crabtree was irrational for seeking divorce based on intentional cruelty.
So, yes, men do experience gaslighting as well.
This is why I have chosen to not have contact with a certain individual. We were always told what to think and feel and what our opinions *should* be. Its not healthy. Love you!
I love this post and probably the biggest life changer for me was realizing that my feelings are MY perception of the things happening around me and I don’t need someone to agree with them for them to be valid. In fact, the more I look for that agreement or validation, strangely, the less I feel validated and the more I stuff those feelings away. Very few things in this world are implicitly black or white and feelings are one area that is decidedly gray. The important thing, for me, is to have people close to me who are willing to hear about those feelings. Just hear them. No telling me whether they agree or not, whether it is right or wrong but just to hear them.
I think I’ve experienced this the most from other women. We are constantly in a competition to make our feelings and experiences more relevant and important than the other. Think baby shower labor stories, how no one else could ever be as tired or busy as we are, husband bashing. Maybe that’s not gaslighting in the way you mean it, but when women do that to each other they are saying that the others feelings are invalid and theirs are what true feelings are like. This right here is actually why I have a tough time making female friends.
I think I was prone to this at one point, I think every teenage girl struggled with it when wading in those dating waters for the first time. I think I’ve learned I be more resistant to it over the year.
Same here, the same reason why i don’t make female friends: it’s all about competition to them. That’s why I rarely have friends at all: they are too caught up in the world, if you know what I mean (NOT THE CHRISTIAN MINDSET), as in being the biggest and baddest in the world. Oooooo, and don’t get me started with labor stories! I have two theories (or three) for that: One, a pregnant woman is gaslighted by others and SO for how she’s truely feeling. Two, a narcissist pregnant woman uses “pregnancy hormones and aches and pains” to bash husband (heart-breaking for me and I feel for men going through that 🙁 ) and lash out at people to manipulate others into gettng what she wants and lashing out at people and SO at hospital while in labor on purpose (as opposed to the normal person in which the other person who won’t purposely listen to her needs), and narcissist pregnant woman puts on a show. Or possibly three: a pregnant woman wonders why she feels so “out” because her real feelings are coming to the surface, as opposed to before when she hid them so well. But after pregnancy, “everything goes back to normal.”
Oh my gosh . . . I couldn’t sleep until about 1am last night because I’d been obsessing over a very unhealthy friendship that had fallen apart years ago. I completely went to pieces (to the point of suicide attempt) when this person left my life, and I think the way my other “friends” treated me during the whole thing was just as traumatic as the loss itself. I had one girl laugh and whip out a camera to take pictures because she thought I “looked so cute” when I was a sobbing mess trying to wrestle a dinner knife out of my boyfriend’s hand so I could cut myself with it because I just couldn’t take it. When I tried to talk to another “friend” about my feelings she shocked me by saying, “You need to remember you’ve been on a lot of experimental medications.” It’s true, sort of. When I couldn’t afford my anti-depressants I’d done a couple clinical trials. But does that mean I no longer have valid feelings, ever?
My mother also kinda gaslighted me, to a lesser degree. She always used to complain about my dad not validating her feelings, and doing things like calling her irrational (even though I was a little kid and probably could do without hearing about their marriage problems, thank you very much!) but she did it to me. In fact, the fact that she clearly seemed to “know” when my dad was doing it to her meant i thought she wouldn’t do it to me, so she had to be right, right? It also didn’t help that throughout my whole childhood she constantly told me, “I’m always right.” Whenever I was upset about anything, especially if it was something SHE did, she would immediately say I have PMS, or that I’d eaten too much sugar. She was always going on about how sugar affected my mood so much, and I believed her for so long. Turns out, I crave sugar when I’m depressed. I don’t get depressed because I eat sugar. It does NOT make me depressed, or cranky, or even give me a sugar high or crash.
So, reader’s digest version: yes, I am totally susceptible to gaslighting and have experienced its horrible effects. I think I’m getting more sure of myself, and better at ignoring other people’s opinions of me. It’s good to hear you are too.
Wow. I had never thought PMS is a way to be gas lighted. Can we also gas light ourselves? I know I have told myself before that it must be PMS and that is why I’m down and irritable. Maybe I should just not use that as an excuse?!
Wow I didn’t mean to make anyone doubt themselves! My mom used to use PMS as an excuse to invalidate my feelings. If she upset me, I would be scornfully told, “Don’t talk to me again until you start your period.”
That being said, I do think women can use PMS as an excuse to not take responsibility for their actions, kinda like the way some people say things like, “I’m Irish (or Latino, or almost any other ethnicity). I have a short fuse; it’s just the way I am,” instead of admitting they have an anger problem. Not to suggest you do that! I don’t know you. A women I have a lot of respect for once told me, when I asked her how she was being so nice even though she’d just given up cigarettes, “Sometimes you just have to make up your mind not to be a b*tch.”
Thanks for this post.
I was for almost 7 year in such a relationship. Fortunately he was only a mindless, selfcentered asshole and not sadistic. At first I stayed because of the kids, at the end because I thought he was right with his realy bad opinion about me.
I was blamed for everithing and I believed it. At the end I was so insecure about myself.
Still sometimes I think that maybe all was my fault and he was ok. Especially because I don’t have a lot of memories about this time.
What is still remaining even after eight years, as soon as I realy like a man, I appologize all the time for everithing, even for apologizing and I never had a new relationship since then, I still fear, that im not worth enough for some one else.
Great post Charlotte. I struggle with trusting myself and I’m not sure whether this was a cause or a symptom of my ED’s but it applies to food, money, etc, including feelings. Learning to trust my feelings was something that therapy really helped me with.
I don’t think I’ve ever been truly gaslighted but I remember when my husband and I were first dating I told him, “I am allowed to feel this way. It’s not weird or wrong, it just is. Even if it doesn’t make any sense.” He never meant it in a mean or manipulative way but he’s an incredibly easy-going, carefree person who never worries or stresses about things he can’t immediately change and didn’t like seeing his girlfriend sad about things out of her control. I think he sometimes still struggles with wanting me to shake things off but he’s the most supportive person the vast majority of the time. But that’s why it’s so important to remember the things you’re talking about here. We all feel differently and they’re all equally valid.
I too was gaslighted by my mother. It took me years to see it for what it was. A tricky and insidious way to manipulate a person, while that person (the gaslighter) attempts to stay in a flattering light.
I now maintain a safe distance from my mother. It’s sad and hard. I have guilt to overcome because I’ve been programmed to believe moms and daughters should be friends. It’s not always possible.
Recommend reading: The Gaslight Effect by Dr. Robin Stern
Thank you for posting this Charlotte. I agree with your manifesto.
Wow, I’ve been really lucky to have never had this experience! Even the most rational people in the world can be brainwashed to question their own judgment and I’m sure I wouldn’t be immune either–just have never been in that position.
Glad you are not questioning your own judgment Charlotte!
Not even scammers?
When my parents divorced they both tried to manipulate their children the result of which is that my oldest brother has no relationship with my mother and my younger brothers have no relationship with my father. I am the go between person who has a relationship with both but it is arms length and I am still haunted at times by things that I was told.
Also, Charlotte, I give your “manifesto” TWO THUMBS WAY UP!”
I applaud you.
In fact I give you a standing ovation!
thank you,
I did not know of this and I will certainly keep it in mind so I can recognize it if I need to.
Statements 4 & 5 are spot on.
I’m stealing them…
I never thought of emotional gas-lighting before this…and realized I’ve pretty succeptable to it.
Sometimes just allowing myself the freedom to feel what I feel is very empowering in figuring out what I need to do next.
Great manifesto, Charlotte! I can relate to the feeling of looking to others to see how I should feel, and it has had a negative effect on my relationships all around. For me, I often felt void of feeling or didn’t really react to things, so I would look to those around me for direction, thus becoming kind of “wishy-washy” and prone to groupthink, definitely vulnerable to manipulation. I have realized in the last couple of years that because I am a strong introvert, I need time to myself to recognize what I am feeling and thinking – it’s not that I don’t react or feel, it just takes me a lot longer to process than some people. I’m trying to remember to ask for time to process when I need it, rather than asking others how I “should” feel.
Well said, and bravo!
This makes me SO angry, because it is so common! I believe a big part of the reason women are still fighting for equality is because we let ourselves be silenced this way. As soon as someone says “You’re a man hater!” we tend to shut up. Because we have been taught, almost since birth, NOT to argue, not to make waves, and not to be “unpleasant.” We all too often buy into the lie that an angry woman is a hysterical woman. That she is crazy, and must be avoided. And, at all costs, we must NEVER be “That Woman.”
I remember all too clearly the feelings of impotence and rage at being shut down that way. Of not being able to speak, because no one would listen. And the laughter at my expense. And all the times I was told “Geez, stop being so SENSITIVE!”
It is a horrible, awful thing to do to a person, male or female. And it is ABSOLUTELY a form of abuse. One of the worst forms of emotional abuse, IMHO.
Even being Swedish, as Ingrid Bergman, I have never heard the term “gaslighting”. But I have experienced it. A lot.
As with you, definitely in the case with my abusive ex-boyfriend. And with people around us, who could probably not stand having a bad conscience for not doing anything, while I was beaten up (when he was drunk, he was also an alcoholic).
And definitely with my, as abusive, father and unfortunately also with my mother. I think there must be some mechanism in place, where those who feel guilty easily get into some “co-gaslighting” to feel better about themselves. My mother does it. She blames me for being too sensitive, when I talk about how my father used to beat me up when I was a child.
I have bipolar and my partner and I have struggled to find the line between ‘gaslighting’ and him letting me know that my reaction to something might be indicating a manic or depressive episode. In the moment, all my reactions seem completely reasonable to me. But if I’m bursting into tears of stress over a changed bus timetable, I need to be brought back down to earth. Tricky line for him to walk, but we’re working on it together (I’m a lucky girl.)
Once again, you are in my head! I don’t want you there, it isn’t a very fun place to be a lot of the time. I have been gaslighted..as recently as 2 weeks ago. I have been telling myself that the next time that I am called “too sensitve” or “you should have responded THIS way”, that I WILL be saying that they can NOT tell me how I am supposed to feel. Thank you so much for putting a name to this because this has caused me to feel like I don’t know myself and AM too sensitive and crazy even if I haven’t been called crazy. This has given me strength to stand up for myself in a way that I haven’t in a long time! I think that one of the emotions that I am feeling right now could be relief.
Thank you for each alternate insightful website. In which different might I recieve in which style of information and facts designed in a real perfect signifies? I own a goal that we’re merely today working away at, i are actually in the peek away pertaining to this kind of information.
I love this article. Thank you. Just- thank you!
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I was gaslighted for 25 years by my abusive ex – didn’t always realize what was happening but knew something was wrong. He constantly called me paranoid, sensitive, crazy and asked me if I was hormonal! If we had a fight, he would say “are you done?” and then he would stonewall me – sometimes for days. When I would approach him to talk about the issue later, he would say “we don’t fight in the past” and there would be no more discussion. However, he was allowed to bring up everything I had ever done wrong (as decided by him) even if it was YEARS ago – not sure how that wasn’t the past but in his mind it wasn’t……frustrating doesn’t begin to cover that! He would make promises and then deny them…..or say I misunderstood – I began to question my ability to comprehend language! He would also tell me stories about how awful his childhood was, and then deny them if I asked about them later…..that was scary. I knew I wasn’t making these stories up but he would say I must have dreamed that or imagined it. He blamed me for everything he could think of – somehow everything that was wrong in his life related directly to me. It’s a hard life when the person you love and are trying to build a life with has decided to destroy you. The kicker was when I miscarried my 1st pregnancy – he told me that I must have had an abortion because it wasn’t his – he had no reason to think that and I went to the ER so there was medical proof. Then he beat me up on the day that child would have been born. He denies that to this day and tells people we broke up because I never wanted kids…..I left after he beat me up – he did his damage, left for a golf trip and I was gone when he returned home. He told people that he came home from a vacation and that I had cleaned out the house and left him! He is a master of this technique.
It’s going to be end of mine day, however before finish I am reading this enormous piece of
writing to increase my know-how.
Happened to me once, too. I didn’t even see it until I was discussing it with my current boyfriend and he mentioned gaslighting. After reading a lot about it it’s a subject which now fascinates me (I’ve even started writing a novel about it).
I barely remember my experiences with the gaslighter. I was 15 and it went on until I was 18. We were never actually together, which I had put down to never “being the right time”. Now I know very differently.
On the surface he was charasmatic, cool, clever, witty… all the normal sociopathic traits. I still don’t know anything concrete about his “true self” if it even exists. He was never physically or sexually abusive. I think the whole thing was a power trip, and I’m not the only one it happened to. Several of my friends were caught in his web too. The whole thing started to unravel when he tried to convince one of my closest friends to go home with him. He gave her his jumper to stay warm and was incredibly nice to her, despite usually being very abrasive towards her (as he was will all my close friends). He even told her that he secretly loved her and wanted to be with her, something he had told me many times and then lied about later. A few days later she tried to return his jumper and expected an apology for his, presumably, drunken advances. He flatly denied the entire thing and claimed she’d stolen his jumper because she’s “crazy”.
The were so many things that just didn’t make sense, and my teenage years were ruined because of it. I was in therapy for a long time and never even questioned that I wasn’t actually insane.
I’m 23 now, and he still tries to gaslight me. He “forgets” my boyfriend’s name and does all kinds of weird things. Now that I can see it, I laugh at his pathetic attempts to control me. I am entirely my own person now.
I only discovered that my wife, the every woman i love with my life was cheating on me with her boss. This broke my heart in pieces. I knew form the very beginning that her boss was going to bring about the end of my happiness there was something about him that gives him an upper hand when i came to women. He always got what he wanted from any beauty that capture his eye. What wowed me was that my wife, fell for him and decided to put at stake everything we have fought and worked for all those 14 years. I trusted her though i can’t say that our sex life was epic but i can say we were doing alright. I discovered messages in her computer about 8 months ago. I was mad and at the same time sad but i was going to find out how true they where before i ask her or rather before i was going confront her about what i know about sexual relationship with her boss. Unfortunately i was so unlucky and could not dig up any dirt. The affair was perfectly carried out and by all means no trail was left to trace. I could not pay for a private investigator so i decided to confront her myself and ask her about the messages on her computer and like instantly she came out clean but i wished i never asked her because it was like she needed me to see those messages in the first place. My discovery about her affair was like her ticket or rather her way of telling me she no longer was in love with me after 14 years of marriage. She basically left me for her boss. I wished i knew where we went wrong and got bad. Am just gonna go straight to the point because i was not just going let her go like that. She was the first and only girl i had sex with i was not a popular guy in high school she was all i had and loved i was not even in my dreams, let her go without a fight in what ever form. I found a powerful elixir maker called Metodo Acamu Online during a 4 months period she was living with her boss. He is a real and legit and all his techniques actually works just the way they ought to work. If not for Metodo Acamu i would probably be a wasted human by now. He helped me with a make the woman i promised my life time to on the day of our wedding come back to me. It might seem selfish of me to some of you but others who understand what i was in, can tell that just letting her do would be foolish because never again will i find someone like her. All Metodo Acamu asked from me was just materials and nothing else and it was for not reason compulsory for me to give him the money for the materials because, i had options he gave me to get the process done. I could get the materials myself and mail it to him via ups or come down to his holy ground or send down the cost of the materials to him which is less expensive that all other options. And i did just that and it worked will for me. He helped me prepare power elixir and via ups he sent me a package containing harmless materials and instructions on how i was going make the elixir active. I did all he asked me to do in the instructions and everything happened just how i wanted. I got my wife to love just the way i wanted and i loved her just how she wanted. I can literally say my life is perfect because all i need in my life was my family and i had it back with a stronger love bond. Metodo Acamu can be reached with his email address { metodoacamufrotressx at yahoo dot com } note: when contacting him use this email in its right format where all words and character are packed together and at and dot is used in the normal email way.
If i were to be asked if i would ever contact a MAGIC PRIEST Online during an interview of any sort, i would ask the interviewer if they were out of their mind Because things like that cost them there job. Not just because i thought of MAGIC spell as something fetish but also because most people see MAGIC spell as pure madness. At least that was my point of view about MAGIC spell until METODO ACAMU showed me what true MAGIC spell was. He helped me get back my husband that was involved with my best friend from even before we got married. My suspicion started on my husband 45th years old birthday i threw for him. I was working my ass out trying to making sure he has the best time of his life that day while himself and one of my best friend were all over each other. I did not notice anything because she was one of my best friend and we shared a lot together who would have ever thought that she would stab me at the back. But my other friend noticed what was going on. They observed that anytime he dropped his phone, she picks hers up and like they told me it went on for about 2 hours straight. They did not tell me until after the birthday bash. They told me all about what was going on i was totally shocked i could not believe that my best friend and my husband were involved with one another. I was going to jump into conclusion and ask them about it but no i decided find out more information to get my fact right. With the help of my friend who still had my best interest in heart they were able to steal her phone ie they back stabbing friend phone. And i got to know all i need to know. My husband and her have being see each other since even before we got married and my husband confirmed it was he was like she has always been the one he loved and wanted to spend his life with. I was so sick and sad, what was i going to tell our kid that mommy and daddy can not stay together anymore cos of the my friend they call Aunt ? i remember that i cried for days with the thought that i have been a fool for nine years not noticing anything like i was a fool in love with someone who never loved me. It was like my heart was failing. I was still in love with my husband even if he no longer wanted to be with me. I could not bear the pain of being without him and having to lie to my kids so i found a MAGIC PRIEST to help me. Though i was skeptical about it i just thought to myself what do i have to loss i mean with a MAGIC spell or not i have lost the one thing aside from my kids that made me whole and the probability that i was loss my kids to him when it came to custody battle was at the high so i just let myself do what my heart told me to do. I contacted METODO ACAMU after reading a comment on a blog about how he has helped a lot of men and women fix their problem. I explained to him my situation and he promised he was going to help kill my pain by bring the man i love back to me. He asked me to either get some materials he listed for me and send them to him via ups or i bring them to him in his temple or i can also send him the cost of the materials to get them for me. I sent the cost to him because it was the cheapest option of all. It took him about 6 day to prepare the spell and after which he send me a package containing something am not allowed to tell but i can promise it is totally harmless to even a fly along side instructions on how to make the MAGIC spell active. It took another 5 days for the Magic spell to became active and after that day it was almost like magic i can explain what happened but all i can say is that my husband came back to me asking me to take him back telling me how much he loves me and wanted to be with me. My life is back to how it ought to be with my husband and my kids by my side. METODO ACAMU helped me make this happen. Here is his contact for those who believe and want to contact him metodoacamufortressx @ yahoo. com us this email in the regular format for emails where letters and characters all packed together..
I have been gaslighted for 20 years for being gay had lots of gangsters following me ihave a mental illness because of this no one beleves me
Hi Charlotte, I know this thread is old,but hope it remains posted for many years.
I like your writing style and the aspects of Gaslighting you expressed are key.
True Gaslighting is that serious, and I know from experience that when it goes unchecked for years the Puppeteer can manipulate not only the Targets perspective, but the perspectives the people in the Targets life, leading to oppression and Isolation. Even Psychology Professionals seem to hesitate to explore/accept Gaslghting.
What I don’t understand is WHY won’t the gaslighting stop!!? People are under the spell of it. And why won’t these crooks be stopped? Everybody is letting them off the hook, at the expense of innocents lives’ personal lives shattered! Even some lives TAKEN. I’m beginning to think that their are some “hidden” psychopaths that’s helping other perpetrators to keep people from seeing the truth and keeping people from being free, while destroying others in the process. I don’t care if you say “it’s just how it is.” I just WANT IT TO STOP!