Do people who gaslight ever stop?

[Treaty]

Gaslighting is everywhere. Invalidating another person's emotions and/or perspectives is another form...

As a person with possibly almost sort of avoidant personality I feel almost gas lite by that comment. I almost thought to defend myself but then I remembered that’s how it feels responding to gaslighting. Explaining defending explaining.

 

[Kay Mouse]

As a person with possibly almost sort of avoidant personality I feel almost gas lite by that comment. I...

I have experienced emotional avoidance issues myself, i.e. I would shame them and try and stamp them back down with addictions. A natural part of that can be reacting negatively to strong emotional reactions in others and/or denial of the legitimacy of others emotions. I also have a highly emotionally avoidant Father and Sister. Part of that is that they gaslight me as naturally as breathing, because I am now highly emotionally literate. They also self-censor, which literally every single human being on the planet has done at some point or another. The point is, when emotionally avoidant people gaslight, they do so unconsciously, i.e. there is no malicious intent behind it. With personality disorders, there is. Therein lies the difference. If I tell my Sister I feel it was wrong that I was beaten as a child because another child tricked me into doing something I had been forbidden from doing, the appropriate response is not to reply by saying that it is normal for children to bully other children. That is a problem; because it isn't 'normal' in the sense of being psychologically healthy. She is saying it in order to avoid the emotions associated with her having received beatings herself as a child, and also the fact that she was bullied as a child at school, i.e. she is pretending not to care, and pretending that she was not traumatized by those things. The avoidance itself is in fact a response to trauma.

 

[DharmaGirl]

But I think there is confusion between gaslighting, manipulation, and avoidance. Gaslighting is done with the express result of destroying a person on purpose. Manipulation can be so ingrained, that one doesn't realize they've done it, but the whole premise of gaslighting is to intentionally hurt someone else and make them believe they are crazy. It is not an unconscious function. Therapists will manipulate patients to get them to see another side of what they are doing, but that doesn't make it wrong, or gaslighting. There is a huge difference.

I find that when people water down, or change the meaning of a word, it becomes an epidemic. Case in point - psychopath. Many people use this as a euphemism for someone who is mean or a bully. Said person will not have been diagnosed, but will be labeled by peers, which, to me, is another form of bullying. In the medical field, Borderline Personality Disorder became a euphemism for "pain in the ass". I heard this from many Pdocs when I was a case manager. My T told me he didn't label people because of that, he only would diagnose for insurance purposes, since you lose the person when the person becomes a diagnosis.

 

[Kay Mouse]

But I think there is confusion between gaslighting, manipulation, and avoidance. Gaslighting is done...

Well, it's news to me that a person cannot accidentally gaslight someone and that it has to have intent behind it. If that truly is the case, then I am in the unenviable position of having more than one disordered individual in my immediate family. I challenge anyone here to tell me that children bullying other children is 'normal' in the sense of being psychologically healthy. This was what my Sister told me. It isn't true. It may be normal in the numerically average sense, that does not make it normal in terms of being 'natural'.

 

[Kay Mouse]

I think there probably has been some misunderstandings here as regards to what constitutes gaslighting. My definition of it is that it is an attempt on the part of one human being to undermine another human beings perception of reality by forcing them to question their own perception of reality, i.e. by insisting that what the person knows to be 'real' and 'true' isn't.

 

[mumstheword]

True gaslighting.is systematic. It's akin to emotional/mental/pychological torture. It's goal is to break your mind or at the very least to make you think your perception is so faulty that you can not trust it. You come away believing that you are insane.

Denial is very close. Denial is often the prerogative of weak-minded people who don't want to face things and so they pretend things are different than they are.
Long term denialists do induce a type of gaslighting effect. But it is not quite the same as a true gaslighter.

Gaslighters will be utterly invested in destroying your reputation too. Usually to cover their own crimes against you. And in an exploitative way.They will have everyone doubting your grip on reality.
My ex went as far as to scream at me for hours, right up into my face, that I was crazy, in front of our children.
That is very overt, often it is more subtle than that.
Another thing he would do when I tried to call him on his behaviour, was to deny it by saying "paranoid delusions."

Gaslighters don't just minimise to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions, they flat our deny that something ever happened.

They will treat you in a sick, pathological way; cruel and utterly lacking in empathy and then tell you that "no, it is you that has the problem".
Example: my ex told my kid"s doctor that I was a "psychopath". I know because she was so concerned she rang me up and told me.

This was one of the clues for me, because although I believed I must be "crazy", I knew that there was no way that I was a "psychopath". If anything, I'm overly empathetic, and manipulatable as a result (not so much anymore, I've had a lot of experience with manipulators now, I could practically write a book on their ploys). I left him not long after this happened.

Eventually I turned the tables on him by saying "ok, I'll get some help". I went out and sought counselling. He didn't want that. He just wanted full control of me and everything that was mine. And to get paid for it. He claimed a "carer" pension for me, yet treated me as a slave.

Deliberate sleep deprivation is another favourite of full-blown gaslighters, as is drugging. My ex did both.

For over 20 years. He kept me trapped because he told me, over and over again " if you leave, you won't get the children, because you are crazy." Of course I believed him, he was good at it.

A good gaslighter will actually achieve their aim and turn you into a complete nervous wreck who believes %100 that they must be insane.

 

[Kay Mouse]

True gaslighting.is systematic. It's akin to emotional/mental/pychological torture. It's goal is to...

I had thought it existed on a spectrum of sorts, but apparently I am wrong. I had formulated that perspective based on quite a few areas of research, but perhaps, as someone else stated, the definition has become more convoluted over time since it has entered the mainstream lexicon. Either way, I apologise for any offence I have caused to any emotionally avoidant individuals. I was not inferring that they are comparable to people with personality disorders because they aren't. Having said that, my point about my Father and Sister invalidating my emotions and perspectives stands. It crosses a personal boundary for me when someone trivilalises what is essentially child abuse.

 

[mumstheword]

I think, watching the movie that the term sprung from, is a good way to get clear on the phenomena that the term exists to explain. Have you seen it?

It's akin to checking the etymological root(s) that a word came from to understand the meaning in a distinct way.

I don't mean to invalidate you. I think there are many forms of subtle and malevolent manipulation that have gaslighting effects.
Denial is definitely one of them.
Invalidation is another.
Condoning or minimizing abuse is in itself abusive and will impact on your mental health, no doubts in my mind about that.

I've been known to call my mother's behaviour gaslighting but it wasn't as full blown as my ex's. More like narcissism, systematic denial, dishonesty, avoidance patterns and child abuse and neglect with some scapegoating and transference thrown in. It still messed me up big time though.

 

[Treaty]

True gaslighting.is systematic. It's akin to emotional/mental/pychological torture. It's goal is to...

I also got “get help”, “you really need help”. And then I said okay I am going to seek help. And then I got “no don’t go to a counselor”. “They will tell you to get me out of your life, I’m sure of it”

Ha. Interesting.