Transcription
Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that is common in toxic relationships. It is used to coerce you, to manipulate your reality, to make sure that you're controllable or complacent, so that your toxic partner can continue to extract what they want from you or from your relationship at your expense, without regard for how that may impact you.
And so you don't feel like you're getting the full truth when you're trying to resolve issues in your relationship. You may feel generally confused about the relationship. You may be wondering why you put up with as much as you've been putting up with in the relationship while you're still there.
So, if you have family members or friends or siblings or children challenging you and asking you why you're staying, and you yourself are wondering why you're putting up with what you're putting up with, there's a high chance that you have been gaslit. So, understanding gaslighting is going to help you to get clarity. It's going to empower you. It's going to help you to see with more accuracy what's been happening in the relationship. It's a key part to reclaiming your self-esteem and your self-worth, and also with dissecting yourself from the reflexive urge to try to fix, help, heal, or save your partner. If you feel guilty like you would be abandoning them if you were to leave the relationship, if you're uncertain about your level of personal responsibility in the things that have happened.
So, let's say your partner is somebody that has been lying to you, has had a secret life, there's been cheating, there has been emotional abuse, there has been hot and cold behaviors, all of that. It's important to understand gaslighting. So, we're going to go over the four common gaslighting techniques today, and we're going to jump right in right now.
So, I'm going to share my screen. So for most partners of narcissistic or highly manipulative people, the lying is as painful as the betrayals. And so I want to explain first, before we continue here, why I discern between narcissistic or highly manipulative people. This is partly because while the word narcissism is being used a lot, and there's a positive to that in that it can help people to have something that they can grasp, that can help them to start to understand what they've been experiencing in a relationship that's been toxic. For some, most of us who've never taken a class on healthy or unhealthy relationships, or abuse in relationships, or manipulation in relationships, the accessibility of the word narcissism, at least, gives a person something that they can grab hold of and to start to understand that even if their partner isn't necessarily a narcissist, that they can start to understand what's been happening in their relationships. You don't have to be a narcissist to be extremely destructive in a relationship. You don't have to be a narcissist for there to be enough of a reason for a relationship to end. You don't have to be a narcissist for there to be significant relational limitations that would make sense for the relationship to be over, or for there to be abuse there. So, I just want to make that clear.
Okay, let's jump in. Why can't they tell you the truth? Are they a narcissist? Are they someone buried in shame? Are they somebody that's just become highly manipulative because of their past life experiences?
So, something to understand here. Let's assume for a moment that this is a person that isn't a narcissist, a full-blown, you know, sociopathic, psychopathic narcissist. But there's somebody that's been having affairs, you know, or somebody that's had, you know, a sex addiction. That in and of itself is extremely traumatic and problematic. So, for them to be able to do those behaviors, for them to be able to do that, they have to first be able to lie to themselves about what they're actually doing. You know, they have to be able to rationalize what they're doing. And so before even lying to you, they have had to have created and insulated themselves in a system of lies.
So they lie to themselves about the nature of their behaviors. You know, that it's not so bad. It's not so bad that I do this. It's not so bad that I've committed to not drinking and now I'm drinking on a Friday night. You know, it's not so bad that I'm watching porn when I've agreed to my partner that I'm not going to do that anymore.
Number two, they lie to themselves about who is at fault in order to justify their behaviors. So, what this can look like is picking fights with you or focusing on a flaw in you in order to justify what they're doing and somehow focus in making it your fault. They have to be able to do that inside of their mind.
They lie to themselves about the severity of their behaviors. Porn, sexing, coffee, coffee dates isn't betrayal. So, meeting up with a coworker, having drinks, that's not really that big of a deal. Sexing isn't cheating. An emotional affair isn't cheating.
They lie to themselves by saying, "As long as they don't get caught, it's like it didn't happen." You know? So, my partner doesn't know that I'm doing this on the weekend or when I'm on a trip. So, it's almost like it didn't happen. Now, that definitely borders into some sociopathic type of thinking. And many of these behaviors are found in somebody that has like a severe pathology. You know, that somehow this is their right to do this.
Also, they can lie to themselves about not doing it again. This is the last time I'll do this. This is the last time I'll meet with this person. This is the last time that I'll commit to this type of behavior.
Now, there's an insulation of lies. And so when you are asking, you know, let's say you've said, "Let's go to therapy or let's try to figure this out." Their commitment, and this is where some of the confusion comes from, their commitment is not to heal for you, or to heal for the relationship. It's to get through all of this stuff in themselves, you know, to work through all of this on their own.
When you're dealing with somebody, let's say that you found out that they've had like a whole secret relationship on the side for the last 10 years, and that blows up out of the water, and you end it with them, and then they come back to you crying and saying, "Let's go to therapy. Let's work this out." There's a real slippery slope with that. Because the chances are likely, at least in the types of relationships I see and I deal with, that they're saying that because they're trying to get you back. You know, they want to get you back. And so maybe they'll be good for a little while, or they'll hide it better, but eventually, it goes back to the way that it was.
Gaslighting tactic number one is the outright lie. So that's just, you know, lying outright. It's almost the least harmful or painful of all the different types of lies that can happen. So, they tell you they were somewhere where they really weren't. They lie to you about who they're calling. They lie to you about their location. They lie to you about what they think or feel. They lie to you about what they said. They lie to you about what happened. It is a straight-up lie.
Okay. Okay. So now we come to the second one, which is reality manipulation. And this is a lot more damaging. So instead of straight-up lying to you, there is the distortion of your reality and your perception. So they attack your perception. So, let's say your partner is highly flirtatious, and you go out to a restaurant, and they start flirting with the server right in front of you, and you question them about that. And instead of owning it, they say that you're being extremely insecure, and that they're worried about how insecure you are.
Number three is scapegoating. Scapegoating is when a person focuses on your flaw in order to justify their hurtful behavior. And this one can be especially problematic for partners because of their willingness to consider themselves in the things that are happening that are challenging. You are probably a person who's willing to be self-reflective, to consider your part in things, and to try to communicate. And so you are apt to say, "Well, maybe I did do that, or maybe I could have done that better." And that is dangerous in these types of relationships because they capitalize on that and they extort that willingness for you to contemplate yourself. It gets you into a very dangerous position with these types of partners. And so they may focus on your flaw, your availability, your communication style, the way that you look, in order to justify their poor treatment of you.
So maybe I'm thinking of a client who shared a story where her partner actually left her at the airport. Didn't drive her home. And the reason he gave that did that to her is because she spoke about her deceased husband, just spoke highly of him at a party with her son. And so he responded to that by not driving her home, picking her up from the airport, and blamed the reason for him doing that was for that. And so it got into her head where she tried to understand how that could be so emotionally triggering for him. But he, that was something that he did regularly, was leave her places and leave in an emotional tantrum, essentially. And so instead of taking responsibility for that, for leaving, ditching somebody, he made it be her fault over something that is just absolutely ridiculous.
And the last is coercion. So there are different types of coercive behaviors, and we're going to explore each one of those now.
So the first one is charm offense. So this is when a partner does something that you want in order to distract you from what it is that they're doing. Maybe they come back from a trip and they give you a bracelet, a gift, even though they had spent the entire weekend with someone else. Or maybe you've been vying for time or closeness or intimacy with them, and they'll give it to you to distract you from a behavior that they are doing.
The second is pressure and manipulation. So, this includes emotional or psychological manipulation to justify their behaviors. For example, they'll pressure you to work late at night, even though there's been a history of cheating, and you're trying to reestablish trust with them. They will push you to make it okay that they continue to stay working late at night, or they'll pressure you to let that go so that they can maintain a relationship with somebody that you feel like they're attracted to, or there's something going on. And they tell you that you're silly or overreacting, even though they're having casual lunches with somebody of the opposite sex.
Number three is intimidation or violence. So they may go into rages when you bring something up, yell at you, intimidate you, frighten you, scare you, or use physical violence, physical abuse.
Now, what is the impact of gaslighting on you? How does this all affect you?
The first is disbelief. And so, disbelief can show up in a variety of ways. Many women that I work with talk about this. This is like maybe the first time that they went crazy on you, left you somewhere, or started accusing you of something, or started to intimidate you, and it seemed like it was so out of character that you couldn't believe it. You couldn't believe it. It was just so insane. And because of the insanity of it, you thought that there could be a way to rationally work it out. Like there has to be a way to work this out. This does not make sense. I can't believe it.
Disbelief can also show up as when you find evidence of the truth, you can't believe it. So, let's say you find condoms or something like that, and you yourself are refuting the evidence that is in front of you. In both of those cases, you're refuting evidence that is right there in front of your face. You're not believing it. It's overwhelming to believe it. It means that your reality is about to majorly change. And so reflexively, you don't believe it because you want to hang on to your former belief about who this person is.
The second stage is defense. So even though you don't want to believe it, it's like gnawing at you. And so you start questioning, "Well, how did the condom get there? Well, how did that get onto your computer?" And this is where a manipulative person, a narcissistic person, instead of owning up to it, will double down on their manipulations and do everything that they can to make it appear as though you're crazy, or that you're not seeing something accurately. Or they'll straight-up lie to you that their friend put it there, or they don't know why the girl texted them. They don't know who she is. They'll straight-up lie to you. They'll use other gaslighting tactics to double down instead of just becoming forthcoming and being honest with you about what just happened.
And this is where now depression starts to hit because you have not gotten the truth. You've not had an honest conversation with them. And that is so frustrating. It's like if you could at least just have an honest conversation, you could know what you're dealing with, and then you could move forward. But that has not happened. And so it causes you to feel exhausted, to give up on your efforts to even find the truth.
And the fourth phase is discarding reality. So this is where you essentially decide to discard reality. You know, where you are choosing to not look. You're going into betrayal blindness. You're putting up your blinders. They had a history of infidelity and cheating on you. You're going to now choose to believe the lie, essentially. But it doesn't work fully and completely. It always comes back around. Either more lies are unveiled, or your nervous system, emotional system is disregulated that you bring it up in the future. You can't fully put it to rest. There's a part of you that knows the truth.
So, of course, from here, the next question is, what to do about this? How do you heal from this?
There's a few things that need to happen. One is that you need to reorient yourself into the truth, into the true reality, and accept it. The second part of this is regulation of your nervous system. In my program, we use the commitment to no contact or low contact to help with giving separation so that you can start to see things clearly as they are, without the influence of someone trying to manipulate you, because you still are not immune to their manipulation. They know your hooks. They know how to get in. They know how they can take advantage of you. And if you haven't had that truthful conversation with them where all cards are laid on the table, you know, as I've heard many stories, women have gone to therapy for years only to find out that their entire therapeutic process was a lie.
And so distance, if that's something that you want to do to really heal yourself and release the impacts that this has had on you, to make the best decision for yourself and not continue in a relationship that's causing you harm, then you can reach out to me. I do have a program for women that I created, and there is the commitment to no contact though in my program. And so if you're still coming to that decision, then I may not be the best fit for you to get started on that. You can press the button below this video to apply for a call, and we can have that conversation.
If you're watching this on YouTube, then I do as a prerequisite ask that you watch my masterclass. And I know that you've spent a lot of time today watching this to watch another masterclass, but you can. It's just to make sure that we're on the same page and that you resonate with my approach to save you time, essentially. So I do request that you watch that free masterclass. If you can't watch it now, then you can still sign up, and the replay gets sent to you, and you can watch it then. And at the end of the masterclass, I talk about ways that we can work with each other.
So to close this up, to wrap this up now, the identification that that's what this is, what's been happening, is important. So to really sit down and think about your relationship and the ways that you have been gaslit in the relationship, and the effect that that's had on you in conjunction with being in the midst of a relationship betrayal. What are the forms of gaslighting that you've seen in your relationship? And if you want to take it a step further, you can ask yourself, where's or are your hooks to being gaslit? So for some women, guilt is an emotion that is really common that they're dealing with, or a sense of responsibility in their partner. And so their toxic partners know how to capitalize and exploit on that tendency of guilt in order to keep them in a relationship and make them feel bad about leaving.
To think about where are your hooks for manipulation? Where are you vulnerable to this type of behavior? What are the realities that you've not wanted to see in your relationship? What is it that you just start to ask yourself? What are the things that you've not wanted to accept about your relationship experience, about them, about who they really are?
Thank you so much for your time and your attention today. I hope that this helps you, and I will see you on the next.