I have been writing about  gaslighting on my blog, which is defined as the act of making another person doubt oneself even to the point of feeling very inadequate or even “crazy.”    

This article talks about the five things gaslighters do to make you feel anxiety or shame.

1. They deny they said something even if you have proof.  

You may start to doubt your own reality. You may feel mounting anxiety because it is hard to feel safe when you cannot even trust your own judgment or feelings.

2. They tell you who you are, what your “true” motivation is, and why you will ultimately fail.

They know more about you and your deep inner truth than you do. They speak for you and are pretty good at convincing you that they know what is really going on.  

The motivation they project onto you is not flattering. You may think you are saying and doing things for healthy reasons but according to the gaslighter, you are doing things for all the wrong reasons so that you better stop doing those things.  

Usually, the things that this person is asking you to stop doing are in reality very healthy for you including setting good boundaries or having experiences that enhance your life.

3. They find your vulnerabilities and use them to manipulate you.  

If you depend on them for financial support, they will threaten you they will withhold money if you do not stop doing whatever it is they do not want you to do.

 If they depend on you to help with the children, they will threaten you that they will stop helping with the children. And so on and so on.

4. They will shift and give you some positive reinforcement especially when they feel your healthy boundaries starting to come their way.  

This may be to confuse you, to knock you off your balance. They know you want to believe that things can improve and that all could be good again so they use it to pump you up and get you tender again.  This, of course, is just temporary because doing good things for manipulative reasons always ends up hurtful to the victim of gaslighting.

5. They wear you down over time.  

It’s the “frog in the frying pan” analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what’s happening to it.   The effective gaslighter sucks you in and doesn’t make his manipulation al that obvious too quickly.

This is why even very intelligent, worldly people can gradually get pulled down.  It once again comes down to the fact that most of us want to believe people are good and so that this can be used on behalf of the gaslighter to reel you in.

I want to be clear that we all are capable of manipulating and not being our best selves at times.  Many of us are immature at times.

This does not mean that gaslighting is involved.

Gaslighting is a very intentional way of a person to get control, avoid his or her own responsibility for change, and be hurtful to get what he or she wants.  This is a pattern. We, of course, need to discriminate between occasional regressions of immaturity and a pattern of gaslighting.

The gaslighter is not interested in growing up and not interested in being a vulnerable team player in relationships.  

The rest of us are hopefully striving to be that loving team player that sometimes falls short.  If any of this resonates with you, feel free to contact me so that I can help.