You Could Be a Victim of Gaslighting Abuse If You Can Relate to These 20 Signs

Gaslighting abuse is one of the sneakiest tools people with a manipulative personality use to make their victim feel crazy.

We often use terminology in our everyday language without knowing where it originated from.

For instance, ‘gaslighting’ is a psychological term that describes a form of mental abuse in which the perpetrator manipulates their victim into thinking they are going insane.

Gaslighting actually comes from a film in 1944 where a husband uses various different methods to convince his wife she is going mad.

The husband moves objects, makes noises in the house, steals things to make the wife doubt her own sanity. Every night when the husband is switching on lights in other parts of the house, but denying there is anyone else in the house, the wife sees her own bedroom gaslight dim.

It is only with the help of a stranger that she is convinced she is not going mad.

Gaslighting is now used when describing a person who is using manipulation techniques in order for another to think they are losing their sanity.

So how do you know if someone is gaslighting you?

Here are twenty signs of gaslighting abuse:

1. You think something is not quite right but you cannot put your finger on it.
2. You start to question your memory as you are losing objects and forgetting important dates.
3. You have no confidence in your memory anymore as it keeps letting you down.
4. You start to doubt your ability to make good decisions and choices.
5. You start becoming indecisive because you no longer trust your own judgement.
6. You start believing that you are being overly sensitive or that you are constantly over-reacting to situations
7. You feel tearful and confused a lot of the time.
8. You begin to tell little white lies to cover up what you believed you have done wrong.
9. Everyday events now fill you with fear and anxiety as you do not know what is going to happen next.
10. You start to think that you must be a bad person because everywhere you go horrible things happen that upset other people.
11. You find that you are starting to say sorry a lot for things that you haven’t done.
12. You don’t stand up for yourself anymore because you cannot bear to face the consequences of defending yourself.
13. You hide any emotions from your nearest and dearest because you do not have the confidence to open up anymore.
14. You start to feel isolated, not understood by your friends, a feeling of hopelessness sets in.
15. You begin to question your own sanity.
16. You think you must be high maintenance because your partner is always getting cross with your actions.
17. You feel as if you have nowhere to go to, no one to talk to and nothing to say even if you had these things.
18. The most ridiculous lies are levied at you and you do not even bother denying them anymore.
19. You no longer believe you are right about anything.
20. You blame yourself for everything, the relationship, the problems, and the situation. This is where the person who is gaslighting has won.

What to do if you are a victim of gaslighting abuse

A person who is gaslighting needs their ‘victim’ to be isolated, alone and without friends so that they can carry on their campaign without external interference.

Getting friends involved, getting another opinion, from any kind of source, is vital to break the bond a gaslighter has with their victim.

Gaslighting abuse tends to start off very slowly and it inveigles its way into a person’s psyche before they know it.

The person who is gaslighted typically feels embarrassed, they start to doubt themselves and their confidence begins to wane.

It is important that they do not slip deeper into this abyss before it is too late and the gaslighter has their claws into them.

To stop being gaslighted, a person should adopt high self-esteem and appear self-confident, as the gaslighter will not target them in the first place.

References:

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com
2. https://smartcouples.ifas.ufl.edu