Extremely Dangerous Psychological Manipulation - The Gaslighting
Hello everyone,
The new working season is here and we all get a chance to meet new people, find a new job, or simply form new relationships.
However we all need to be aware of people, who just love to mentally control us and toy with our emotions through a well established form of brainwashing called "The Gaslighting"
The gaslighting is a form of mental manipulation/brain control that I recently learned about and felt disgust, that a specific individual tried that on me.
Definition
Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that plants doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make vicitms question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the vicitm and delegitimize the victim's belief and or belief system.
There is the gaslighter(abuser) who exercise the gaslighting, and the gashlightee(victim) of this mental manipulation.
Gaslighting stages
Gaslighting is so destructive that multiple studies have been made for it, and it's huge impact upon the victims well being.
Chances are that people attempted to gaslight you in the past or even in the present!
Here are the main signs of the gaslight process :
1) Contant lies and exaggerations
The abuser will make the victim believe that something is wrong with them or that they said something that they didn't, all of this just to put the victim on the defensive side. Continuing the lies and exaggerations will make the victim believe the abuser eventually and thus making the victim more susceptible to the manipulation.
2) Retaliation If the abuser is questioned
If the victim dares to question the lies and exaggerations of the abuser, the abuser will typically increase their attacks in forms of more lies and exagggerations and not only that, but they will try to misdirect the blame. For example if the victims blame them on their obvious lies, the abuser will find a bigger lie to accuse the victim.
3) Desperation and giving in
Eventually the victim will start believing the abuser's lies because of this constant dominant and controlling behaviour from the abuser. They start to give up on their defensive stance and get tired of this situation.
The result is now a victim with tons of self-doubt, and a general constant bad mood.
Instead of questioning the huge lies and exaggerations that they hear from their abusers, they start questioning their reality, perception and thought processes.
4) Full control and dependancy
Just like the Stockholm syndrome, the victim now is dependant on it's abuser and does not question the abuser anymore.
The abuser, with the use of their manipulation at it's peak and will have full control of the victim, as the victim does not even dare to question them and is even very afraid or anxious to do so.
The abuser will make the victim feel great around them, but at the same time will let them know that if they are not around, the victim will either be useless or defensless. Thus the dependancy issue.
5) The "Good" side of the abuser
Typically at this stage the abuser will reward the victim, for something they did well. Or will do anything they can think of, to make the victim feel good momentarily. This will create a hope in the victim that the situation may become better in the future, between the victim and the abuser.
That is of course NOT the case, as the abuser is doing this to make the victim feel more comfortable, as their next gaslight will take place soon.
6) Final stage
After the previous stages have been achieved, the gaslighter will have their full control over their victims (individual victims, or group victims) and will exploit this mental control for whatever personal gain they can claim.
Personal experience
I will not go into great detail as it is not that important, but this summer I worked for 2 months as a marketing trainee for a multinational company.
I had this supervisor who did his best to gaslight me and he almost succeded.
I resisted his attempts many times, and close to the end of the second month, since I decided that I can no longer work with such a horrible person both inside and out, I exposed him in front of the whole marketing department.
I did not expose his gashlighting, because not many people are familiar with this mental manipulation, but the fact that he was not a good enough supervisor for me.
After he made me feel horrible for what I said to the team with his final gashlight attempt, he realised that he cannot control me the way he wants and decided to fire me (I couldn't be more happy to never see this 'person' ever again)...
Conclusion
Be extremely aware of the people you suspect that try to gaslight you and by any means never fall victim to them.
Gaslighting can be used even by people who you think are supposed to love you and care for you, so keep that in mind.