Gaslighting is a form of manipulation, designed to undermine your confidence and self-esteem. It can happen at the doctor’s office, at home, at work, or anywhere else. People who employ these techniques play on emotions like shame, fear and guilt, until you question everything about yourself.

  Psychologists use the term “gaslighting” to refer to a specific type of manipulation. “Gaslighting is a technique that undermines a person’s perception of reality. When someone is gaslighting you, you may second-guess yourself, your memories, and your perceptions. After communicating with the person gaslighting you, you may be left feeling dazed and wondering if there is something wrong with you.” Unlike a direct insult (which is still very hurtful), gaslighting sneaks in through the backdoor. It’s pure manipulation. It’s also emotional abuse.

Gaslighting Technique 1: Shaming

A primary tactic of gaslighting is to make you feel that your emotions and reactions are always somehow wrong. If you try to defend yourself, you are too sensitive and/or overdramatic. If you try to set boundaries, you are selfish and mean. If you don’t do what is asked of you quickly enough, you are lazy and incompetent. If you go out with other friends, you are too much of a people pleaser. If you don’t tough out a difficult situation, you’re weak.

Similarly, this is the doctor telling you that the medical treatment doesn’t work because you’re too emotional, or because you’re a ‘head case’. Medical gaslighting — “the repeated denial of someone’s reality in an attempt to invalidate or dismiss them” — is a form of emotional abuse. When a medical professional leads a person to question their sanity, they undermine the patient’s trust in their own body.

Women are often told their severe pain is just “normal period pain,” a weight problem, or something a Tylenol will fix. A study in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics “indicated that women… are significantly more likely than men to be ‘undertreated’ for pain by doctors.” Medical gaslighting occurs because pain is often dismissed as “all in your head” (being crazy) and caused solely by psychological problems, despite evidence to the contrary. However, it’s clear that stress and mental health challenges can exacerbate pain. This makes it all the more imperative to address sources of toxic energy in your life, like manipulative behavior by your doctors or loved ones.

Gaslighting criticisms are usually arbitrary, with one thing being fine one week and a crime the next. You have a constant feeling of walking on eggshells, which makes you more vulnerable, and easier to manipulate. As an example, when I was 16, my grandmother died. A few days later, I was having a crying spell, when a gaslight-er in my life said “Are you being melodramatic in order to get attention or something? It’s not like you were even close.” It’s wrong to tell someone their grief is ‘melodramamatic’, to respond with dismissal instead of comfort. But it is also an insidious way to make someone grieving doubt their own feelings, and wonder if they are being ‘over the top’ and attention-seeking. You may have experienced something similar if anyone has told you not to be upset after your diagnosis because your illness isn’t terminal, or other people have it worse.

In another situation, I asked the manipulat-er for privacy to have a conversation with a visiting friend, who was upset after a break-up. Unbeknown to me, this was interpreted as a personal rejection. Later, I found a typed story on my pillow about how I was the world’s meanest mean girl, conspiring with my heartbroken friend to exclude the manipulat-er! I wasn’t able to laugh it off completely, because of that insidious doubt that this person was right.

In this loony-tune land you begin to question your initial reactions (“of course I am not like that!). You get worn down until you wonder whether you really are all if these terrible things. Shame is a deep emotion that can be played on effectively.

Gaslighting Technique 2: Isolation and Rejection

Secondly, manipulat-ers seek to ‘isolate’ and ‘reject’ the targets of their activities. In a medical context, for example, I have had a doctor undermine all other medical advice I’d received up till that point: “You can’t trust what that guy says.” And if you assert that the previous treatments were helpful? “That was just in your head.” You start to doubt yourself, the medical team around you, and even what your body is telling you.

In a personal context, the gaslighter tries to intervene in other close relationships. When I was in a serious romantic relationship, this person insisted my new long-distance boyfriend- he didn’t really love me. When I planned to visit him, the gaslight-er insisted I shouldn’t go. In fact, they threatened, “if you do go, you will be flushing our relationship down the toilet forever.” Your closeness to others may be seen as a threat to them, or they may try to recruit allies to their “side” by intervening in your relationships with other family or friends.

Creating doubts about the care or love of everyone else in your life keeps you dependent on this one person. Threatening abandonment if you don’t comply keeps you in line. A doctor might threaten to cut you off from essential treatments if you don’t endorse their diagnosis or approach. A specialist once told me “It’s fine if you want to question me, I will still allow your treatment to continue- for now.”

In childhood, a parallel would be to threaten a child that, if they don’t behave, they will be left behind alone in the park, and then turn and walk away from them. Fear is a crucial part of the gaslighting trifecta. After all, evolutionarily, being abandoned by your clan was an existential threat, and that’s still how it feels today. You’ll do almost anything to prevent that outcome.

Gaslighting Technique 3: Guilt Trip

I had an excruciating nerve block procedure done last summer. At one point, I was in so much pain that I cried out and said “This is too much.” The doctor stopped and said, “I’m not even doing anything right now. What more do you want from me? I already got you everything you claimed you needed to be comfortable, the head rest, and the extra pillows.” Implication: you are being a difficult patient; your “needs” are over the top, I’ve already done so much for you, and to ask for more is just crazy. No compassion, no communication. (TW- threats of suicide in paragraph below).

Guilt in personal relationships can take many forms, from mild rebuke to intense criticism. It becomes abusive when it is used as a form of control. For example, “You didn’t load the dishwasher, so you must hate me’. Your initial reaction is to run towards this person to try and prove your loyalty and affection (“No, of course I love you! I’m so sorry, I’ll load the dishwasher right now!).

It can escalate to extreme forms of manipulation. Having a loved one call you to say “I’m just letting you know that I’m going to kill myself, not that you’ll care” is an emotional gut punch. When this happened to me, I was initially overwhelmed with panic for the safety of this individual (in fact it triggered my very first panic attack). This is an extreme example, but it highlights very clearly the art of the guilt trip.  This person had cast themselves as a victim (driven to suicide), and myself as the perpetrator ( a heartless ice queen), when actually it was the other way around. I realized years later that my love for this individual had been weaponized against me.

Over time, you take it into your soul that you are cold-hearted, and unloving, since this is apparently how you make your loved ones feel. And that’s what they want, because now you are hooked by your own guilt and desire to try to secure the relationship. 

Healing From Gaslighting

The rational tools of relationship problem solving – compromise, taking cooling off time outs, or agreeing to disagree, just don’t work in this environment. Everything becomes twisted. You start a conversation about how communication needs to change and end up reassuring the other person that you do love them and will try to visit more. Facts are cross-examined: “Get your story straight!” Efforts to clarify are diverted by provocative or hurtful comments to bait you off course. Up is down and left is right. Every encounter will be subject to revisionist history, and there will be no ‘agree to disagree’.

Ultimately, you have to give up on coming to a shared understanding. Often, trying to win the argument and prove your point is futile. You have to believe in yourself first and foremost. So what can do if you think you are being gaslighted?

When you start to feel confused, or uncertain, it’s likely the gaslighting is underway. This is a good time to change the subject, say no, or just go.

Be self-compassionate. Give yourself the love and security that you long for. In any situation, ask “what would I tell my best friend if they were in this position?” and then tell that to yourself. Practice loving kindness meditation.

You have the power to say you don’t want to continue a conversation, and get up to leave. You have the power to say no, to whatever is being asked of you.

It’s important to keep track of the patterns in these relationships. Keep a journal, voice notes, or tell a close friend. You may notice that gaslighting increases when you gain a little bit of independence or assert yourself. Since these episodes will be revised out of the official account kept by your gaslight-er, it’s very helpful to have your own record. This helps you stay firmly planted in reality and not get twisted around in future encounters.

Finally, talk to a therapist! It does wonders for your ability to see through manipulation and empower and protect yourself.

How To Respond To Gaslighting

When it comes to what you can say when you sense gaslighting, here are a few recommendations:

“I notice you don’t accept my viewpoint on this as being equally valid to yours. Please don’t dismiss my interpretation like that; I’m not imagining things.”

“You clearly feel strongly about this, as do I. My emotions are my emotions, and I don’t need to justify them.”

“I respect your right to have your own perspective. Please grant me the same. I think we need to agree to disagree on this.”

“We both deserve to be treated respectfully. Since that isn’t happening, I am going to take a break from this conversation.”

“I’m not going to respond to that.”

“Like I told you, I’m not going to discuss this topic again. I need to go.”

And then leave. Protect your heart. You deserve it.

A list of international emergency and suicide hotlines:https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines