Stop Normalizing Gaslighting

It’s good to mold your beliefs into something better, taking advice from an experienced person about anything helps you change your thought process, and you should take plenty of advice from people. Parents help their kids understand things that the kids misunderstand, which involves healthy advisory sessions and seldom involves scolding if their kids don’t obey. This process of molding the wrong belief into something better involves reinforcement and punishment psychology.

I think it's good to advise youngsters at early ages about right and wrong because they can’t predict future outcomes like adults, but the problem arises when people replace advising with gaslighting.

What is gaslighting? How does it work?

Gaslighting is when a person psychologically manipulates another person into questioning and doubting their own belief, reality, and thoughts. The term originated from a movie name Gas Light (1938), where a husband tries to manipulate his wife and make her believe she is not fine. He sows the seed of doubt into his wife's mind against her own perception. Here are some snippets of the movie's story to provide you the movie's synopsis.

• Husband misplaces objects and blamed them on his wife to persuade her she’s losing her cognizance and should be institutionalized.

• He tries to convince her that the gas lights' occasional dimming is part of her own false reality.

Psychological manipulations practiced by the gaslighters on victims can lead to severe conditions and destroy the victim's life. Many gaslighting cases were reported in 1969, which included a few cases where people were sent to a mental hospital through a forged conspiracy designed to make them look mentally ill. The manipulator would show false evidence of misplaced things that the victims could not remember and ultimately convince the victims to believe that they are mentally ill. A wonderful movie named “Shutter Island” helped me understand the concept of gaslighting.

Gaslighters try to argue to their victims that they are not “intelligent” enough and have a weak memory. That's why they couldn’t remember the things they did and cannot distinguish between false and true reality.

How are we normalizing gaslighting?

Gaslighting can be observed in homes, friends groups, and most critically in schools. Let’s start with the schools. I belong to India, so my observations are basically based on Indian schools, but I think the issues can be easily observed in any high school.

When students reach school classes, they start to think more sophisticatedly and question the concepts out of curiosity. Most primary school teachers try to explain to the children the proper reasoning behind the facts and basic concepts. Also, children are not often not inclined towards studies at an early age. However, when they reach secondary classes, they start to question the teachers' concepts. They try to think and form a different perspective.

Teachers must correct errors, teach children to process information, and draw conclusions with proper reasonings. They should correct errors but instead, I have seen teachers gaslighting students for various reasons. Let me state an example — There was a kid in my school who always questioned teachers about some physics concepts. Initially, teachers would engage with him properly, but when the physics became more sophisticated, teachers themselves would get confused in answering his questions. The reasoning they would give him was, “Don’t think too much! It’s written in the book. It must be correct.” Teachers didn’t like him arguing in the class and confusing them. So, they started making comments like “you have a faulty thought process,” and “you’re imagining things.”

These types of student-teacher interactions are prevalent in India’s competitive coaching classes. India is a highly competitive country, and when students scored low on exams, parents gaslight their kids. I have heard students saying, “I am dumb,” “I can think properly,” and “I should stop thinking and believe everything written in textbooks.”

This is the beginning of doubting one’s own perceptions. Ultimately, these students fail because competitive exams require analytical and reasoning thought processes that the student considers to be faulty now. He couldn't trust them, which reinforces their gaslighting thoughts.

In this scenario related to academics chores, neither teacher nor parents know that they are gaslighting a person. The gaslighting is somewhere hidden between anger and challenge intolerance. Cognitive dissonance also comes into play as many secondary school teachers in India don’t know the concepts behind the subject they are teaching. They develop solid beliefs and ignore everything that can challenge their beliefs. A healthy debate for a topic is always expected in any discussion instead of gaslighting comments. These incidents are usually ignored and have normalized over time to make a student “rational.”

In many of the houses, kids are gaslighted under the veil of discipline. Ariel S. Leve is an American author and journalist who suffered through intensive gaslighting by her family members. She had openly talked about her experience and how she dealt with gaslighting. She stated that comments like being idiot, stupid, and intellectually dumb can heavily influence a person’s thoughts. It makes people question their own thought process, and they can’t trust it anymore.

Many people experience mental breakdowns because they think they cannot achieve their goals due to their “faulty” thought process. The root cause behind this is gaslighting. People need to think twice before questioning someone’s sanity and stop normalizing gaslighting.

Primarily gaslighting is done under the name of — Discipline, Teachings, Rationality, and Challenge Intorelance, and the problem is people are accepting it. Victims need to stand against these prevalent and unacceptable practices inclined towards making a person crazy. But a gaslighted person can’t do this, so the people around him play a crucial role. Many victims don’t even realize they are being gaslighted. The trail of thoughts is supported by an argument like —

• Why would the other person lie?

• She is my mother, and she cares for me. Why would she lie to me? (The case of Ariel Leve)

Signs That You Are Being Gaslighted

• “I am dumb, and I can’t think properly because I have a poor thought process. That's why I couldn’t perform well in tests.”

• “Everything I think is wrong.”

• Relationships — Thinking that your partner was right about any topic even after finding solid evidence supporting your thought.

• Believing everything said to you and suppressing your thought over the view.

• Convincing yourself that the “gaslighter” is right and believing everything he says.

• Feeling that you are in denial of reality can make you crazy even when you are not.

How to Deal With Gaslighting?

Here are some of the ways how Ariel Leve and many other victims dealt with gaslighting —

Remaining defiant — Believing in your thought no matter whoever denies it and keep your belief concrete. Expressing your daily experience in a journal can really help you as it's the written proof of an event's happening.

Stop engaging with the gaslighters — Listen to the gaslighters and ignore. Be confident enough that you are right, verify your events with a third person, and develop healthy detachment.

Don’t give logic to the person — The gaslighter wants you to believe that you are mad. So, he will discard all your logic and reasonings. Keep them to yourself, and the most important thing for overcoming gaslighting is believing, which doesn’t need anyone’s approval.

Professional support — If you’re really on the verge of believing that maybe it's not gaslighting and you’re really losing your control over reality, straight away book an appointment with the therapist. Your psychological report will strongly help you overcome doubts and false perceptions if there are any. Gaslighting can isolate you, but you don’t need to handle it alone.

Apart from the victim's perspective, there is a gaslighter’s perspective. An intentional gaslighter can’t be confronted because he already knows about it, but some people don’t even realize they are gaslighting someone. They are not passing their gaslighting comments under anything, but they believe it's a part of it. People need to be aware of the difference. Even if you’re shouting at someone, it should involve proper facts and a logical explanation to make another person understand your perspective. Never question someone's sanity unless and until you have proper evidence supporting your argument. Even if you believe that someone is mentally ill, let the professionals handle the scenario and seek proper advice from them.

Try to understand your words' sensitivity and the impact they can create on someone, especially on vulnerable people before you realize it's too late. Keep these things in your mind and take proper steps if you’re being gaslighted. Always think sensibly and stand against gaslighters before you end up like Rachel from The Girl on the Train.

Footnotes - Article already published in BeingWell (Medium)