Gaslighting - Dan Cassenti, Novelist

Concept: The term, gaslighting, comes from a play called “Gas Light” by Patrick Hamilton. In the story, a narcissistic husband learns of a widow’s murder in an upstairs apartment in their building, and the jewels she hid there go unfound. As he goes up each night to search the apartment and turns on the widow’s gas-powered lights, the lights in their apartment dim. The wife sees this and reports back to the husband, who insists they had not, making her appear crazy. Of all the narcissistic-abuse techniques, gaslighting is arguably the most famous. Gaslighting attempts to make victims question their minds and reality through deceitful words. There are four aspects of cognition that a narcissist may target with gaslighting: (1) Perception (e.g., “I don’t hear that sound.”); (2) Memory (e.g., “I never said that.”); (3) Emotional experience (e.g., “Whoa, you’re so angry. You need to calm down.”); and (4) Self-Conception (e.g., “You only did that because you’re so selfish”).

How this leads to greater control over a victim: An independent mind often leads to unpredictable actions. Knowing this, narcissists use gaslighting to position themselves as arbiters of how people feel and think. Achieving this removes the unpredictability of the victim and creates a dependent who looks to the narcissist to validate their cognitive experiences. The narcissist will use this dependency to gain greater control over the victim.

Examples:

After a wife has hidden away her prized possession, she tells her spouse, “In the confusion of that big dump run you made before we moved, you threw out my precious heirloom. How could you be so thoughtless?”
“You’re so paranoid! Of course, I said I loved her. We’re good friends. Look, no need to apologize to me. You can’t help who you are.”
“No, I didn’t hear it. There’s nothing wrong with your car,” said the husband, who put a croquet ball in his wife’s trunk and plans to take it out later.

Advice: When you know, think, remember, feel, or experience something, don’t let anyone else deny that reality. If they do, the odds with each passing instance increase that they are gaslighting you, and you should find a way to terminate that relationship. Gaslighting is so horrible to do to someone that there is nothing to conclude, but that person cannot love or care for others.

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