The term originated from a 1938 stage play, ‘Gas Light,’ and the film adaptations were public in 1940 and 1944. The story portrayed the husband trying to convince his wife and others that she is insane by changing things in their environment and insisting that she is delusional when she points out these changes.
Since the 1960s, ‘gaslighting’ has been adopted to describe tactics of manipulating gradually to undermine the person’s confidence in deciphering reality from appearance, rendering the individual pathologically dependent on the gaslighter.
Here, a victimizer makes the victim question their thinking, perception, and memory, thereby developing confusion, anxiety, depression, distorted body image, and self-esteem. So, the victim loses self-confidence and holds the victimizer’s opinions as valid. In this way, they are totally under the control of the victimizer.
A gaslighter will introduce a new reality to the other partner. That could include telling them that their gut feelings prove they are paranoid or teaching them to accept their hurtful behaviors or shortcomings for fear of being labeled insecure. Over and over, the forced reality gets reinforced. By this repetition, the gaslighter’s partner, who now needs validation from the gaslighter, accepts this new reality.
As a result, the victimizer thrives and controls the narrative making the victim think they are crazy, insecure, or overly sensitive. The toxicity of this reflects in one partner’s self-esteem getting diminished and sometimes, depression. They may believe that the gaslighter is doing them a favor by being in that relationship and tolerating them.
Manipulative parents may gaslight their children as well. These victimizers deflect any confrontation, molding the child to believe they are the one with the problem and their experiences happened because they are not gifted or pretty enough or because they are tough to love. Reality becomes rewritten so, these children grow up in pains and potentially destructive to other relationships in their life.
Have you ever been gaslighted? I’d love to read all about it in the comment section.
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Lanora Nazir
2 September 2023 — 3:16 PM
A fascinating discussion is worth comment. I do think that you ought to write more on this topic, it may not be a taboo matter but usually people dont talk about these topics. To the next! Many thanks!!
https://empress-escort.com/escort-girls-beer-sheva/ Micah Sepich