And it’s not limited to romantic relationships. Manipulating your mental state to allow other people’s bad behavior to continue happening among friends and family. It may come from politicians or doctors who want you to believe that your pain is “all in your head” (people of color and women are most often affected by this “medical gaslighting”).
This can happen at work too, like a friend told me that their boss always promises that the latest project she’s working on will finally prove her worth to her superiors and prove that The plausibility of promotions/new roles/bonuses… Of course, that never happened, in fact the only thing stopping these things was her boss. Self-interest and control are not intimate partner desires.
But beware. Because the term gaslighting, as actress Rebecca Humphreys puts it, risks being “watered down.” Humphries, author of a genre-changing book Why Did You Stay? , recounts the impact of her ex being gaslighted, a The comedian was caught cheating on her with his Strictly Strict partner who recently visited the Australian bush. (She never named him so neither would I.)
She’s right. We often use “liar” instead of “lighter”. When our partners claim we didn’t tell them to take out the trash, we use it as a simple insult or a joke. At the risk of sounding humorless, it’s not all that funny when you consider the abuse it’s trying to describe.
We’re not talking straight up fibs here; it’s more devious and manipulative than that. By misusing gaslighting as a term, we undermine words that are intended to describe patterns of destructive behavior.
“Gaslighting isn’t lying, it’s more sinister,” Humphries told me. “You become so dependent on the gaslights that you start lighting the gaslights yourself before you believe the truth of the situation.” I’m sure they said they’d be coming tonight…but then again, my brain went crazy so I Might be wrong. “It really feels like you’re going crazy, ironically, of course, you’re the one with the truth.”
