Gaslighting someone means manipulating them into doubting their own judgment and perception of reality. This is usually a form of emotional abuse in which the gaslighter denies, questions, or intentionally forgets or avoids important everyday things. Over time, the gaslighted person begins to doubt their own trustworthiness, perception, sanity, and emotions. If you want to know how to gaslight someone, use the gaslighting tactics listed in this article. They exert power and help influence the perceptions of family, friends, partners, and even colleagues. Let’s take a look at each. First, let’s learn what gaslighting is.
Also read: Self-Gaslighting: Strategies to End Your Own Psychological Sabotage
Gaslighting definition and examples
Wondering what gaslighting means? Gaslighting is a type of manipulative technique used by someone to question another person’s beliefs and perceptions. This helps the gaslighter deceive others and make the victim doubt what is real. This often happens to friends, romantic partners, and work colleagues. Gaslighting uses unfair tactics to control and take advantage of another person, undermining the victim’s self-confidence, disrupting their mental well-being, and making them unpredictable. This leaves the victim dependent on the person doing the gaslighting. Below are some common examples of gaslighting. These include shifting blame, denying the truth, disapproving, invalidating emotions, and forgetting.
Why do people actually gaslight?
The goal of gaslighting people is to make others feel innocent, cause confusion in their minds, weaken their resistance, and break their spirits. The process of gaslighting someone is not random. Still, it’s a tricky, constant pattern of behavior that makes you question the sanity of those around you and gradually diminish your identity and self-esteem. A gaslighter behaves the way he does for two reasons. It is because a person is trying to control a partner, colleague, friend, family member, or because their parents were also gaslighters and from there they learned this behavior to survive any relationship. These people learn from their parents that they should never make mistakes or be scapegoated. These false beliefs can lead us to ignore the logic and reason of others, to think that everyone is either all good or everyone is wrong, and even to have difficulty determining what is right and what is wrong. there is. As a result, gaslighters begin to act the same way towards others, as if everything they know is true.
Also read: Understanding the characteristics of female narcissists
How does gaslighting work?
You may be wondering what gaslighting means and how it works. Well, gaslighting someone means controlling another person. It works powerfully by destroying a person’s belief in themselves and increasing their trust and dependence on that particular person’s gaslighter. Gaslighting begins gradually when we talk about relationships. Manipulative gaslighters gain their partner’s trust by suggesting that their partner is forgetful, irresponsible, or mentally unstable. The more mistakes like this occur, the more influence and power the abusive gaslighter has over his or her partner. Over time, the person begins to doubt herself and eventually becomes highly dependent on the manipulated partner to recall her memories or make some decisions. Some people feel like they can’t leave the relationship. Eventually, they begin to trust their partner and decide that they are right. Learn the best examples and learn how to gaslight someone here!
Top 10 Gaslighting Examples You Can Consider to Gaslight Someone
1. Transferring responsibility
What are some examples of gaslighting that anyone can easily gaslight? Blame shifting is one of the most common examples of gaslighting. They can twist all arguments and blame themselves for something that happened. Regardless of how the person you’re gaslighting feels about your behavior, you’ll end up twisting the conversation into an explanation that the other person is solely responsible for that particular situation. For example, you can tell the person, “If they didn’t act differently, you wouldn’t treat them the way you do. You’re not right.” . or “You’re just trying to confuse me.” This makes the other person think they’re to blame or that it’s their fault for bad behavior.
Also read: What is an empath? 8 signs you might be one too
2. Fight against memory
What is an example of gaslighting that helps you act against someone’s memory? Now, rebuttal involves questioning someone else’s memory. If someone calls you or asks you about something you said or did, you can change the subject by asking a question instead of answering their problem. Examples of gaslighting you can include in your conversation include, “That can’t be true. You have a poor memory,” or “I never said that! It’s just you!” Or, “What you remember is completely different from what I said.” Over time, the other person begins to suspect that their memory is bad, and they begin to question their own sanity. Masu.
3. Compulsive lying
If you engage in gaslighting activities, you are a habitual pathological liar and tend to naturally know how to gaslight. narcissistic nature. This means we have no problem lying openly and shamefully about things big and small. Never change your story or surrender, even if someone calls you to explain your actions or provide evidence of your deception. You can use gaslighting phrases such as “You’re just making things up,” “You’re crazy,” and “That’s never going to happen.” Question their reality.
4. Use kind words
They may also say loving, kind words when others ask questions or approach them. Kind words can be used as a weapon to defuse unfair situations. You can gaslight someone by using statements like, “You know how much I value you,” or “I didn’t mean to hurt you on purpose.” Although these words are not real, they may please the person who loves you and wants to hear from you, especially if you keep repeating the same mistakes or actions. These loving words may be enough to persuade and get out of the problem. This allows you to run away from your responsibilities or the consequences of your evil deeds.
Also read: How to deal with a narcissist: Tips from a therapist
5. Denying or forgetting the incident
Denying or forgetting what happened is an example of gaslighting and can make the other person feel unimportant. You have to pretend you forgot what exactly happened, or what you promised or refused if it happened. This can be a tricky gaslighting tactic, since all you can do is prove to others whether you remember something. Common gaslighting phrases that can be used are, “You’re just making up another story to make me look bad,” and “I never said that or that to you!” “Etc. or “I don’t remember when I said I would help you.” These phrases make the other person feel guilty about voicing their concerns.
6. Withholding information
This example of gaslighting may be more common in the workplace, but it can also occur in relationships. On hold occurs when you don’t want to listen to anyone, or when you pretend you don’t understand what the other person is saying. Just like in the workplace, gasoline writers (supervisors and co-workers) may intentionally refuse to provide information, resulting in employees not putting in the effort. The reason may be that the employee is afraid to reveal this and it seems that more skills are needed. If you question your boss or even co-workers, you will be criticized or fired.
7. Override your emotions
At a basic level, invalidating someone’s feelings is also an example of gaslighting, especially in a relationship. By constantly denying your feelings and questioning your partner’s judgment, you can eventually make them accept your personality. To make your partner feel superior and inferior, you can use common examples of gaslighting phrases such as: “It’s not a big deal,” “Don’t get emotional about this,” or “You don’t really mean it.” ” These statements can help make your partner question their own truth and think that it’s not okay to be emotional.
8. Deflecting or blocking questions
You can deflect or block the question when your partner asks about your authenticity in the relationship, or change the subject in a conflict. This makes it difficult for others to converse with you and discuss important issues. Using these phrases can lead to things like “Is that another idea of your friend or family member?”, “What nonsense I read on social media again”, or “You should stay away from this online platform”. You can deflect or block the discussion. For a while. ” If you constantly try to start a discussion by going off topic, some people may end up abandoning the topic altogether.
9. Shameful personality
You can damage a person’s character by gossiping or spreading false rumors about them. Pretend to be concerned, even though you’re talking about the emotional instability behind the person. Unfortunately, while this tactic can be effective, most people need to learn the entire story before taking your side. Additionally, they may lie to others by giving them information that they think the same way about them. Even if you’ve never said anything terrible, you can do everything you can to make the other person believe you. This will cause the other person to question their own feelings and actions, giving you the opportunity to control them.
10. Neglecting needs
Ignoring someone’s needs is one of the most common examples of gaslighting in relationships. Consider ignoring your partner’s needs. Then your partner will feel unimportant. This way you can gain power over them. These are statements you can use: “Why are you so sensitive?”, “Why do you overreact?”, “You are so needy”, etc. or “Why do you always keep asking me certain things?” All of these statements end up making the other person feel like they’re overthinking and proving themselves wrong. . This causes them to wonder if they are expecting too much from their partner.
Also read: Psychopathy and sociopathy: Do you know the difference between the two?
summary
Gaslighting someone makes people question their sanity and perspective. This can happen in any relationship – colleagues, friends, family, life partners – but always with an imbalance of power between her two individuals. As a gaslighter, you may want to control your partner or someone else to make them feel heard and understood. On the other hand, people who have been gaslighted may feel misunderstood or confused and may question their own existence. They may become dependent on you and have difficulty recalling memories.