GASLIGHTING
(A MANIPULATION METHOD THAT CAUSES YOU TO DOUBT YOURSELF)
It is a term that we frequently encounter in male-female relations, describing the violence that one party exerts on the other. With gaslighting, the person makes him believe that he is weak, problematic, faulty and helpless with fraudulent attitudes and accusations, he manages it with this method, damages his self-confidence and makes him dependent on himself.
It often occurs in toxic relationships and the person questions himself internally.
It is a type of emotional abuse.
It is more common in romantic relationships. In some cases, the gaslighter also manipulates friends and family members. As a result, the person exposed to it experiences situations such as anxiety, depression, anger, and hopelessness.
The origin of the term is a 1938 play called Gas Light. The famous story of this term, which was later filmed, is as follows: There is a couple in the movie;
Jack and Bella.
Jack has dark plans for Bella. Every night, he turns the gas lamp in the house more and more dim than the previous day. And Bella doesn’t suspect this at first, she just says something like: Is the oil lamp not as bright as before?
Jack gets pissed off at him, “It seems like you” what are you talking about? Are you Mad? says. In fact, he deliberately distorts reality in order to disturb Bella’s psychology. Bella is almost certain that the light is dwindling a little more each day, but somehow believes that the light has not dimmed because of her husband’s reaction. She begins to doubt herself…
This is where the story of gaslighting comes from. The point of the event is basically this, making the other party self-doubt and making them dependent on themselves by disrupting their psychology.
There are three main methods underlying.
The first of these,
Expressing something verbally and telling this information over and over again, this time in different ways. Thus, it is aimed to confuse the perceptions of the other person.
The second method is physical;
Changing the places of the things that are constantly in the house and putting them back to where they should be after a while. Thus, the person who cannot see the item where it belongs at first, but finds it right there after a while, gets the reaction of ‘What are you talking about, it was always there’ when he mentions this situation to the other party. This causes him to doubt himself again over time.
The third method is;
It is about not consciously talking about the details of an event, then talking as if he had mentioned it before and confusing the other person by emphasizing that he has memory loss.
To give an example of other methods;
It is to talk to the other person in a harsh tone first and then deny it and say that he speaks in a very soft tone and that he misunderstands. In the continuation of this situation, the person is accused of understanding everything negatively, and over time, even when the other person speaks harshly, he begins to tell himself that he just misunderstood, and that it is a perfectly normal conversation.
Another method is to constantly make fun of the victim and then accuse him of being too touchy. As this behavior is repeated over and over, the victim begins to accept the humiliation, and when he feels bad, he begins to say, ‘He’s just joking, I shouldn’t take it seriously’.
The scary part of this method, which is usually used by narcissists and sociopaths, is that it is almost impossible to be noticed by the victim. One of the reasons is that we trust people we love and tend to believe their word. Worse still, many of us may have been subjected to such manipulation at one time or another without even realizing it; even on a small scale.
