Transcription
Gaslighting doesn't mean somebody lied to you. It's much worse and more specific.
The term comes from the movie Gaslight. In the film, a husband, >> you're slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind. >> Why? Why? >> Because he's trying to find a bunch of hidden jewels that are in the house and he wants to steal them. So each night, he sneaks upstairs. When he turns on the gas light, it dims the lights downstairs just for a moment. But his wife notices this. She mentions it to her husband. She thinks this is weird, but he tells her she's imagining things. >> I hear noises or footsteps. I imagine things that have people over the house. >> And this is just one of the many things he does not only to convince her but to others around her that she's mentally ill. She can't trust her perception or reality and nobody else can trust her either. And she starts to lose her mind. >> I am mad. I'm always losing things and hiding things and I can never find them. I don't know where I put them. >>
If somebody lies to you, that's manipulation. But if somebody convinces you that you are deranged and what you saw and heard never happened, that's gaslighting. It's convincing somebody else that what they're experiencing isn't real. So, they stop trusting their own memory, perception, and sanity. And once somebody stops trusting their own reality, you can convince them to believe almost