Bullying tries to change how others see you. Gaslighting tries to change how you see yourself. They are often entwined in abuse cultures. Bullying occurs when the perpetrator says: “she is deranged. She is crazy.” Gaslighting occurs when the perpetrator says: “you are deranged. You are crazy.”
Those who bully strive to make others reject you, think less of you, doubt you, even turn on you. Whereas those who gaslight strive to make you reject yourself, think less of yourself, doubt yourself, even turn on yourself. As noted, those who bully are often those who also gaslight. These behaviours have little to do with the target and a great deal to do with the perpetrator’s psychological agenda. That said, perpetrators are skilled at focusing attention on the target.
Language as a weapon
Notice that both abuses – bullying and gaslighting – depend on wielding language like a weapon. In Dr. Paul Babiak and Dr. Robert Hare’s research, they document the way in which psychopaths are experts in cognition and language. They discuss studies where mentally healthy brains are shown disturbing pictures of people being degraded, humiliated, demeaned. When healthy brains see these images, they activate in the emotional and empathic regions. Psychopathic brains, in contrast, do not. Instead, Babiak and Hare explain that the brain regions that activate in psychopathic brains are language and cognition.
Being able to manipulate others, including psychiatric experts, is what psychopaths do best. It is why they are able to lie so convincingly. They can con educated, intelligent people easily. It’s why they can take a once healthy, rational individual or whole collective and gaslight them until they doubt themselves and become more and more dependent on the psychopath.
Blind to betrayal
In Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s and Dr. Patricia Birrell’s work on the ways in which we can become “blind to betrayal,” they discuss historical world leaders who had this capacity to manipulate whole populations into blindly following them into egregious and heinous behaviours. The manipulation occurred first through their gift for speech-giving that was followed by the textbook behaviours of bullying — namely, fear, humiliation, and favouritism.
Those who gaslight are highly adept at making their targets “blind” to what’s happening. The targets are being betrayed, but they have no idea. They cannot see it. They think that the problem lies within. They are often told “you are the problem, you are too sensitive, you don’t remember properly, you are unstable or weak.” They come to believe the lies that they are “deranged.”
It does not occur to targets that the perpetrator is gaslighting, lying, and manipulating in order to make the targets doubt themselves and their understanding of reality. The psychopath’s skill at acquiring knowledge and processing experiences oftentimes gives them a competitive mental advantage. Psychopaths can channel a great deal of energy into cognition because, as noted in Babiak and Hare, and extensively reinforced by the research of Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, they are not hampered by emotion or empathy.
Targets of maltreatment look within to recover
The target’s brain reacts to abuse by feeling concern, self-reflects on where they have gone wrong, and might experience regret or guilt. These emotions or empathic explorations do not occur in the psychopath’s brain. The psychopath’s brain engages in cognition and language. Baron-Cohen describes their brains as having “empathy-erosion” that allows them to do “evil” without any qualms or feelings about it. While the target tosses and turns at night, the perpetrator sleeps peacefully.
Many individuals who engage in the self-help industry may well have been maltreated or abused. They want to recover, heal, and move on. They seek guidance to repair themselves, but that does not necessarily train them to better see through the illusions and manipulations of those who abuse. Where we can improve our chances in identifying and resisting the dangerous allure of psychopaths is in seeing more clearly their bullying and gaslighting for what they are. Instead of looking within for answers, we can look directly at the perpetrator.
Remove the blinders
As Freyd and Birrell demonstrate, we’re blind to betrayal as a survival mechanism. Looking at betrayal is incredibly risky. It can be easier to block it from our view. If you’re in a power imbalance, like a child dependent on a caregiver, a student on a teacher, an athlete on a coach, an employee on an employer, it can feel more dangerous and traumatizing to clearly see the betrayal you are enduring in an abusive relationship.
Gaslighting Essential Reads
To overcome blindness, start by disobeying the command on where to look or focus your attention. As discussed in The Bullied Brain, our brains have been wired to obey and the perpetrator capitalizes on this default reaction. Take off your rose-coloured glasses that tell you to believe blindly and start asking questions.
When the abusive perpetrator tells you not to look closely at what they are saying or doing, laser focus your attention on only them. Do not fall for distraction, deflection, red-herrings, or their pointing the finger to blame others. Pull out a magnifying glass and look only at what the perpetrator is anxiously covering up.
Finally, use your binoculars to consciously choose a dual assessment. If you are in a power imbalance, keep one eye on the perpetrator, but use the other eye to look for an escape. While training your vision on the perpetrator, ensure that you can see beyond them, into the distance.
Positive psychology expert, Shawn Achor speaks about the importance of the third path when you suffer setbacks and face risks. It is the way forward, but if you don’t believe in it or use binoculars to see it in the future or distance, you might miss it. In Walk Away to Win, Megan Carle says the bully will try to blow up bridges before you can cross into success. That’s exactly why you need to always keep your sights on the threatening present, but also look ahead to a hopefully safer and healthier future.
