Yes, gaslighting is real—a really manipulative tactic that’s a buffet of lying, denial, and misdirection to essentially warp reality. It’s also a real problem dealing with gaslighters. If you are not really on top of what gaslighters are doing, you may even start to question your own thoughts, feelings, reality, and even sanity. So, it’s really important to recognize what gaslighters do as soon as possible and then step on the gas to get away from them.
The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, where a husband manipulated the gas lights in his and his wife’s home so that they would flicker. But whenever the wife would ask about the flickering, he would deny that anything was happening. Over time, this, in combination with other deceptive tactics, helped convince his wife that she was going insane.
Society is certainly not light on such gaslighting. Plenty of people use similar deception to get what they want instead of more legitimate approaches—like, you know, earning things. Let’s go through an episode of gaslighting that I experienced and review the signs that soon prompted me to shine a light on what was happening.
Here’s the backstory. Soon after I had formed an initiative, a couple of other people wanted to join and co-lead it. In order to be inclusive, I readily accepted them as co-leaders. However, they then approached a funder without involving me and used the initiative as a selling point to secure funding. As I was not present in the discussions, they were able to decide what that funding would be used for, rather than allowing me to have an equal say. When I found out about this, I asked the two why I had been excluded and what decision had been made. What ensued basically matched the following 10 signs of gaslighting.
1. Gaslighters do not take accountability for what they did.
The issue could have been resolved quickly had they just owned up to what they did and then promised not to do it again. But instead, they did not take such accountability—which is one sign of gaslighting—even though emails had clearly shown their having discussions without me, which brought up a second sign…
2. Gaslighters deny facts and reality.
Yes, it is hard to deny email conversations because they are, after all, in emails. Yet, when I asked specifically about the emails and why I wasn’t on them, they offered no direct explanation. They used vague language in claiming that I was already aware of what was going on (when I really wasn’t), which is a second sign of gaslighting—denying facts and reality.
3. Gaslighters bury your comments, questions, and requests.
My question to them, “Why wasn’t I on those emails?” was pretty straightforward, calling for a straightforward answer like “Sorry, that was our mistake and won’t happen again.” What followed, though, was a third sign of gaslighting, an avalanche of multi-paragraph Odyssean answers that essentially buried my initial question. That forced me to repeat my succinct why-wasn’t-I-included question over and over again.
4. Gaslighters use misdirection by changing the subject.
I never got a clear response. Instead, I got something akin to the 1999 film Magnolia, involving the introduction of a number of disconnected storylines. That’s a fourth sign of gaslighting—using misdirection to change the central theme of what was originally being asked.
5. Gaslighters minimize your concerns and feelings.
And in the process, they were doing the fifth sign of gaslighting—minimizing your concerns and feelings instead of allowing you to be heard. Classic gaslighting responses to your concerns include statements like “You’re being too sensitive,” “You’re being too emotional,” “Don’t make it out to be more than it is,” or even “You’re crazy.”
Gaslighting Essential Reads
6. Gaslighters shift blame to you and play the victim.
This raises the sixth sign of gaslighting: the big switcheroo, where they twist arguments to somehow pose you as being responsible for their bad behavior and making themselves out to be the victims. The claim was that my questions were somehow delaying what our initiative is supposed to be doing—you know, the initiative that I had started—while they were refusing to give straightforward answers.
7. Gaslighters project their behaviors onto you.
One of them then looped in some select (but not all) members of the initiative and presented just their side of the story, arguing that they were being more inclusive by doing the looping. Yes, you’ve got that right: They were claiming to be more inclusive after I had raised concerns about their not being inclusive in the first place. But that’s a seventh tactic of gaslighting: projection, accusing you of doing the exact things they were guilty of, throwing you on the defensive.
8. Gaslighters try to isolate you.
In bringing in just their friends, rather than the more diverse span of members in the initiative, they were basically attempting an eighth sign of gaslighting: trying to isolate you in a one-versus-many manner. My response was to bring all the other members into the discussion.
9. Gaslighters try to discredit you.
All of the above brings up the ninth sign of gaslighting—attempts to discredit you. That can come via many ways, ranging from backroom conversations to the spreading of rumors.
10. Gaslighters try to make you walk on eggshells and second-guess yourself.
By then, the initiative that I had started to get everyone working together in a friendly, free-flowing collaborative manner had become just the opposite. I found myself having to think very carefully about each of my responses in a walking-on-eggshells type of way, which is the 10th sign of gaslighting. It was then that the gaslight “bulb” clearly went off in my head: Why deal with gaslighting when I could instead work with trusted collaborators in frank, open, problem-solving, let’s-help-each-other ways. That’s when I stepped on the gas and sped away from what I had started in the first place. In reality, I haven’t really regretted that decision since.
