Gas-lighting

[Sad and alone]

Never heard this term before I came here.

Think these are examples.

He says I say I hate him and don’t love him. I think I say I don’t like him. Maybe have said I hate him during an argument but not in the same way he says it. I say I do love him as we have been together so long underneath all the s**t I do care about him but have said I don’t feel in love with him.

I took some cash as payment for something and 99% sure I put it in (detail removed by moderator). At some stage he took all the money out of (detail removed by moderator) and put it elsewhere. When I said some of it was what I got for … he says that wasn’t there and only what he’d got for … was in it. He then reprimanded me and said I better not have lost it. I don’t have many places I hide money and I can’t find it.

When we went to (detail removed by moderator) he said that it was embarrassing as I’d told a story about something and found it funny and how everyone else prob thought it was immature. I said I didn’t think it was funny, or say it was, I was just retelling something that had happened.

There was an incident between us where I said I was going to do something with an implement. He said if I felt that here you go and pushed the implement towards me. Recently he told me that when I said what I felt like doing he’d taken this implement away.

I hosted an event and we were both speaking to someone. He said I said something and this person looked at him and rolled their eyes. For context we don’t know the person, and he was implying I had said something stupid, although he couldn’t tell me what. I do not believe someone we don’t know would do that, else to a normal partner that would seem pretty rude if they were doing it about their other half.

Anyway, I think this is what it is.

 

[Lisa]

Hello Sad and alone,

Thank you for sharing these examples of gaslighting with us. I can really hear your confusion when reading what you’ve written – this feeling of confusion and self doubt/self-questioning is so common when we are experiencing gaslighting and emotional manipulation, it sounds like a stressful experience.

From what you’ve described, it must feel like you can’t do anything right. Abusers will always find something to voice dissatisfaction or be critical of, it’s not you and you don’t deserve this treatment.

Take care and keep posting,
Lisa

[OctoberSunshine]

Hi Sadandalone,

Gaslighting can chip away at your confidence slowly and question your reality.

Sometimes abusers can switch the story. so say you said xyz was the story they will say zyx was the story and that your version doesn’t make any sense because ofcourse z happened before y only for x to come later. Even though you know it didn’t, and you are confident it didn’t their version of the story is purposely set up to make you the perpertrator or the key antagonist. So then all you’re trying to do is to get them to take some accountability for their behaviour only for you to end up apologising.

I hope this makes sense

OctoberSunshine

 

 

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