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Gaslighting confusion

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Faketan

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I have recovering from PTSD now and I am I such a better head state but I still can be triggered. I know my partner gaslights me but it still confuses me and I also wonder if I gaslight too. Yesterday we had a better arguement, I went to sleep and he stayed up, when he came to bed he shut the door 1/3 shut it further. I got questioned on it straight away where I replied it wasn't shit properly, this is when he told me to open it to where he has put it, I replied with telling him I struggle to sleep with light and iv not been sleep well, admitting I was speaking with an annoyed tone. He then demanded I opened it back up, which I did, I also carries on telling him how it really annoys me that we have to have the door open when I told him I'm struggling. He repeatedly told me this is how we always have the door but we don't, it can be like it sometimes but it's often shut. I was annoyed with him and I let him know this, I felt he was being controlling and ignoring my feelings, he says he feels I was ignoring his feelings. After this we went back and forth and then he let loose telling me how I am crazy and have no control over my emotions, talking about my past with ptsd to convince me my reaction was not valid, he repeatedly insulted me and told me I was irrelevant. My confusion is during this I was saying to him I am annoyed but I have reason to be and that now he was taking it too far. After things had gone slightly quieter I turned to him to try and work things out by making jokes and saying we don't have to fall out I was annoyed but It was only a moment and I can get out of it ,but he just wanted me to admit I was in the wrong and the gaslighting continued telling me the whole weekend had been ruined.
Am I gaslighting by telling him that just because i goy annoyed doesn't mean we have to right off the whole weekend and I think that's an overreaction, I also tell him we can just get past things without having to get into a fu blown arguement,.sometimes we can just been annoyed at each other.
Any support welcome
 
I want to make sure I’m understanding before I reply. You sleep better with the Bedroom door close and he likes it open a bit? Do you feel he has always gaslighted you?
 
It's definately a over reaction on his part to say that the whole weekend is ruined just because of one disagreement. It's also really childish on his part. It sounds like he has a really short temper and doesn't have the ability to have a discussion without being obnoxious. I am sorry that you have to put up with that. Is he ever violent?
 
Ga-slighting is really a very damaging way of relating not just talking. It has a real definition and also has a huge spectrum. Saying like what a beautiful day and the other person asking are you hungry? Is a form of gaslighting. Someone saying a joke that hurts and when you express hurt, the person laughing or smiling and saying ooh it was a joke is gaslighting. and many nuanced ways that can be even non-verbal and with looks or body movements. Honestly it is a way to drive a person crazy very easily and effectively.

I think you and your partner in this particular incident at least, have anger and emotional regulation not to mention communication problem...I would even say maybe there is some hostility that one of you or both of you are not admitting or not aware of.

It is like my husband and I have different feeling about our dog in bed. I want it and he does not. It is ongoing battle but when it happens, the dog is in the bed, my husband used to go berserk but at some point, well the dog aint going and he comes and goes so my husband got over himself but I also started to train (at my best ability) to have the dog sleep in his bed. so we both did half way to meet half way...we tried and trying...still unresolved!

In short, are there nights where you are feeling better and the door does not bother you that you can communicate directly like tonight I feel good so we can have the door open so when you need the door closed, it is not always surprise conversation before the bed. It may worth to have this preference conversation when not in bed, or angry or in a bad mood. Try having it while you are both in good mood and hope you find solution...but gas-lighting, you would know. It cuts deep! and maybe it is accumulated battle and you are summarizing it here...cannt tell.
 
Am I gaslighting by telling him that just because i goy annoyed doesn't mean we have to right off the whole weekend and I think that's an overreaction, I also tell him we can just get past things without having to get into a fu blown arguement,.sometimes we can just been annoyed at each other.
So... my mom had a small stroke a little over a year ago which has caused her to -fairly randomly- erase 20 years off my life. There are 4 generations currently living at my parents house, not all of her kids are at home, but most of us are, along with grandkids. So it makes sense that she periodically just goes back in her mind to the last time we were all of us at home. It would happen to most people, even without having a stroke, the stroke just accentuates a normal human thing of reverting to old scripts/schemas under certain conditions.

She’s not gaslighting me by trying to assert her point of view that I have “never” done XYZ, or that I have “always” done ABC... she’s simply wrong. Because those 20+ years I left home? Happened. As did a helluva lot of things during those 20 years.

THEN? There are also times where she’s perfectly cognisant of the intervening years, it’s simply that her perspective/opinion -of me, life, the universe, everything- is different than mine. It can be difficult for me to tell when she’s simply being an asshole (she’s a lovely person, truly, but lovely people also have asshole moments) ...vs... when it’s a side effect of her stroke that’s causing her to make incorrect assumptions (like I’m lying about having been to Montana... ever... when I’ve not only BEEN to Montana, I owned a freaking cabin there with a boyfriend.). Sure. When I was 16? I’d never been to Montana. I’m not 16. I also wasn’t close with my mom for about 7 years (17-23). I called her two or three times a year, but those weren’t hours long rambles about everything that I was doing. More “I’m alive” calls from pay phone banks at various places. She conveniently forgets that fact. Because it’s painful to her that we were estranged those years, because she “wants” to believe we’ve always been close, and a helluva lot of other reasons.

***
Why share this story about my mom? Because noooooone of it is gaslighting. But it falls along a fairly wide spectrum of disagreement. From a difference of opinion, to different perspective (we both remember the same even differently), to different actual memories (from the missing time side effect of her stroke).

She may periodically think I’m crazy... but she’s not perfectly well aware that I’m NOT crazy, and then goes on to try and convince me I am, by deceitful practice. Trying to convince me I’m wrong? Isn’t gaslighting me. It’s disagreeing/arguing with me. Just like my trying to convince her she’s wrong isn’t gaslighting her.

So just because you’re disagreeing/arguing with your boyfriend? Doesn’t mean that either of you is attempting to gaslight the other.

***

Another way to think of it? Snoring.

If your boyfriend swears up and down that he NEVER snores, so you make a recording of him snoring, to prove he does? That’s not gaslighting him. If you made a recording of someone else snoring, to convince him he does something he doesn’t do, by deceitful practice? THEN you’re running into gaslighting territory. But if you actually record him, and he says what he’s hearing is NOT snoring, it’s just deep breathing, and you argue that’s what snoring is!... That’s a difference of opinion/disagreement. Ditto if he doesn’t believe that’s him on the recording/doesn’t believe you.

Actual recording of him = not gaslighting
Difference of opinion about what constitutes snoring = not gaslighting
Disbelief that’s him on the tape = not gaslighting (even if he thinks it is)
Recording of someone else = gaslighting
 
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