Gaslighting is what has become jokingly known in 2017 as the presentation of something an Abuser or Abuse Enabler calls alternative facts.
The term gaslighting is used in psychiatric and self-help social circles to describe when a person or peer group intentionally targets a victim for social abuse by lying to or about them and actively striving to deceive both the target and anyone willing to believe the propagandist spins and verbal distortions the Machiavellian strategist is choosing to claim at any random time or situational abuse allowing moment.
Everyday Feminism writes, “In short, gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.”
The word GASLIGHTING itself, as a pop-cultural reference, refers to an old black and white film about a man — a con man — tricking his Love Fraud victim into believing she is not mentally well by lying to her and doing sadistic things to make her think she is absolutely losing it.
By making a family member, child, or romantic interest look absolutely untrustworthy psychologically (both to the targeted victims as well as to deeply deceived others who are called to witness the victim appearing to be irrational, crazed, or in extreme emotional and psychological distress), the Abuser asserts their own social dominance.
Why?
Typically in order to set themselves in a position of authority or preeminent social status over others.
By making a target question their own sanity, the Abuser — especially when trusted by the abused — ends up with total psychological, physical, and emotional control over their victim(s).
Believe that a person who has been targeted for a smear campaign by a socially toxic and Machiavellian rival is whatever lie or story the Abuser made up?
Congratulations — you are a victim.
Believe a serial cheater is faithful? That you are insanely jealous, irrational, have low self-esteem, and that you — YOU — are the source of the problem?
Time to start reading about gaslighting as it relates to sexual abuse and love fraud tactics.
Has your house been robbed — by a family member who denies it?
That dog the Abuser hates magically disappears when the door to the house and the gate outside are mysteriously left open by that person called NOT ME?
Strange letters coming in the mail from collections agencies seeking repayment for credit card debt or loans and bills you do not remember having or taking out?
Wondering why your love interest and that one specific co-worker are so chummy — or why whenever your partner visits one particular geographic area they magically disappear off the radar for at least a few hours without being able to provide an honest or provable account of their whereabouts?
Ringer on the phone magically turned off when and if your lover with a wandering eye heads out of the house or off on that business trip?
Spending time with the boys or girls more and more frequently without bringing you along or including you by routine Skype or Facetime chats throughout the day, weekend, afternoon, or evening?
Do you know you heard or saw something — only to be told that you are imagining things — or worse… told to prove it once the material evidence has vanished?
If a person tells you that the Emperor is wearing the most beautiful clothes they have ever seen but you are standing right there observing the guy and he is nekid as a jaybird, that is your wake up call.
Have you ever walked onto a car lot and been aggressed by a creepy, smarmy, or socially disingenuous used car salesman — one willing to lie to make a buck or who knowingly misrepresents a product or service at the dealership?
You are officially their sales targeted victim.
Make no bones about it — Cluster B people are all the most skilled and expertly proficient at using the tactic.
They also tend to have the least amount of guilt or social phobia when telling a lie, and most (when and if they are being candid) will actually brag that they have some sort of supreme genetic or supernatural spiritual power for being able to get away with lying and actively abusing.
A favorite gaslighter quote is that they have the best luck — always being able to roll in shipoopie but never having any of it stick.
They can, metaphorically speaking, submerse themselves in the most crappy of personal environments or schemes and come up smelling like a rose, able to successfully avoid taking any personal responsibility for the damage they have done when literally lying to and about virtually everything and everyone.
People who have NPD, BPD, HPD, and ASPD and every comorbid combination or trinity of socially aggressive personality traits use gaslighting daily to win friends, to control the emotional and psychological psychology of their preferred scapegoats and abuse targets, and tend to get HOSTILE when and if they are not believed or are confronted about doing it.
However — each type of Cluster B person tends to gaslight for very different psychological and emotional reasons.
Therefore, it is crucial all prospective targets and already pervasively traumatized and confused (duped) victims learn how to spot the warning signs of any person prone to using lies and partial truth-telling to help them self-promote at the very real social, psychological, and arguably physical expense of another person.
Once you know the type variants, then and only then can a target figure out how to both avoid being victimized as well as how to use NLP reframing to undo any psychiatric harm listening to the words of a socially abusive, conscious-free, pathological liar with a streak of Sadism and a ruthless desire to savagely self-promote has done by physically do nothing more than lying to or about them both to their face.
Gaslighters are the most deplorable form of human society, most notably being the social saboteurs of fictional or historical fame.
Think about how Ursula deceived Prince Eric in the Disney movie ‘The Little Mermaid’ or how Jafar was manipulating and deceiving Princess Jasmine’s father, the Sultan, in order to understand the gist of a gaslighting person’s personality.
Was Uncle Scar in the Lion King being honest about how Mufasa died — or when discussing his intentions for taking over and ruling the animal kingdom once his targeted rivals were — in essence — robbed of their own right to life or personal power?
Perhaps, more importantly, how guilty do you think the character Scar was likely to feel about having killed the King, lied about it, and for psychologically striving to destroy Simba?
If your answer is anything other than something implying Scar delighted in harming his brother, stealing the throne, and trying to destroy the cub, then you either were not paying attention during the movie or you yourself are suffering from an extreme case of Cognitive Dissonance about the nature of Cluster B people and what truly pleases and excites them.
Dark Triad thinkers — meaning people who exhibit traits of two or more narcissistic and anti-social personality types coupled with a high level of Machiavellianism — tend to mess with the mind of their target, the spread the most socially toxic and abusive lies they can think to tell to others about their preferred scapegoats and targeted victims.
Some gaslighters are motivated by vanity, others by boredom. Others are motivated by greed or a desire to psychologically control and dominate emotionally sensitive but socially trusting and abjectly naive self-harm enabling victims.
Do a forensic psychology analysis of any peer group or person prone to actively promoting gaslighting or who are routinely guilty of manufacturing chaos for others by using tactics of deception.
The more you know about the suspected verbal and psychological abuser, the more likely they are to be able to out them in a socially effective manner for what they are — namely a scheming, socially malevolent, and civically dangerous, toxic person.
