Gaslighting

Who has experienced This? Can you please give your experience and how you recovered emotionally? My friend brought this to my attention that it sounds like my ex was doing this to me..I agree with her.

Gaslighting is a serious form of abusive bahavior. If you feel unsafe in this relationship you may want to have back up plans or an exit strategy. Having a professional therapist on your team can really help.

These articles may be of interest.
Signs of Gaslighting and the Cost

7 Ways to Extinguish Gaslighting

Gaslighting: What It Is and Why It's So Destructive | The Psychology of Self

Gaslighting: How Addicts Drive Loved Ones Over the Edge

We are no longer together..it should have ended a long time ago but I had issues staying away

11 Signs You're the Victim of Narcissistic Abuse

11 Mandatory Rules for Dealing With a Narcissist | Liberation after Narcissistic Abuse

These two links can be helpful so you might understand how it can affect "you" and ususally it's not just gaslighting, but a sorted package.

I was always told I was "too sensitive" when I would get upset at things my mother said or did. And in so many words, I was a "crazy, mixed-up teenager" when my mother found out I was talking to a teacher about my life. Therapy helped me get my life on track.

I was a victim of this from my step-father who was very abusive. But I haven't had any communication with him in years. I had to cut off all communication it was so bad. I am in individual and group therapy. I also have support from close friends.

Yes 100%...he’s definitely narcissistic. He goes to “therapy” not for that but because of his traumatic relationship with his ex..what a joke. Therapists can only go on with what they are telling them..he pays him so of course this therapist always takes his side like the women are the problem but it’s really him..

Wow this was him 110!! Especially trying to get a reaction and using your personal info against you!!

Thanks for sharing this

Thanks for sharing

my parents are both "gaslighters" they are awful with that. it made me always question reality.

Yes. All of my birth family used gaslighting with me. I still doubt what the truth really is.

My ex was really terrible for doing this. I had to start keeping a record of our texts and emails, because she would change the context of what was said, or deny that anything was said at all and accuse me of being delusional. Since I have a condition that can involve delusions, she played that angle to extremes at times, and was always trying to convince me that I was schizophrenic.

My parents used to gaslight me. My mother mostly, while my father had more of the flying monkey role. But I'm 34, and I still have a hard time trusting my own feelings and judgements. I can feel something, and simultaneously question myself if I'm _really_ feeling that, or if it's just an act. Even if no one knows about it, so there's no one to act _for_ but myself. I didn't realize that I was neglected as a child, and that my mother was verbally and emtionally abusive, until I was 32 or so. I always just thought that I was unreasonable, and a bit of a drama queen. That I was a difficult child and teenager. It's sort of a cliché that children will support their parents and believe that they themselves are the problem, but it's ironic, cause I thought I understood it. Then all of a sudden I figured out I had been doing that exact thing, not having any idea about it whatsoever. If I heard someone tell about experiencing the exact same things, it would be very obvious to me, but I just couldn't think that way about myself or my parents. I'm still figuring out new aspects of it.

My mother whose now in the early stages of dementia STILL gaslights me. It's terrible.

She turns on her AC inside her apt to the point of freezing and when i shut it off, she'll say "I never turned it on!" So it must be a ghost then, mom?

My dad abused me physically, emotionally and verbally my whole childhood. After he'd lock me in the basement or beat me he would say it's cause I was manipulative or because I'm a psycho. I haven't healed fully but being treated like nothing more than a pile of s*** on a sidewalk has prompted me to get to know myself and forge a loving relationship with myself. Most of my life I believed him and thought nothing more of myself than a piece of s*** on the sidewalk but over time, as I realised that my aunt also got abused and gaslit by my dad I realised that it wasn't me, it was him. And now I'm able to get to know myself and fall in love with myself. <3

My father and ex husband. (It is no wonder, I choose the man I did)

They have knocked me onto my knees...

Much love and respect to all

After having experienced this as an adult in a romantic relationship I realized that I had been conditioned to accept this kind of behavior from my childhood. My parents used to laugh at me when I was 10 years old and say that I "wanted to be a victim" after they had beaten me. That is just one example but I think the favourite context for people to gaslight is the context of abuse.

That adult relationship taught me a very painful lesson and now I run away from these people as fast as I can. It is now in the list of questions I ask myself if I start to get uncomfortable with what another person is doing, irl or online it's on the list to ask myself "are they gaslighting me"?

Yes, I can relate to that! Not only that you're wrong about how you feel, but that you're the one being manipulative and mean. My mother used that a lot on me, making me think that I was actually evil. She would tell me that anything I did that she for one reason or other didn't like, I did it to hurt her and be mean to her.

I am very sorry for anyone who has experienced this challenge. I have been stuck in a horrible situation with my older sister and her obsessive need to have all the control over both my parents. My sister CONSTANTLY gaslighted and it was horrible. This article definitely nails it, it was all about her need for control. She doesn't even care that she gaslights and lies either.

7 Ways to Extinguish Gaslighting

Just looking at this article once again reminds me of all the things she did and it was aways about her constant need for control.

Both my parents have just passed this year, a part of me feels relief because it was just so toxic right down to their last breaths.

Anytime I questioned her "story" she would literally blow up at me and hang up on me. The ONLY pov that mattered was hers, any question or different POV, she would blow up in anger. It's left me with some challenging triggers.