How to spot a Gaslighter?

Everybody has a problem with gaslighting, and anyone can join in on this common mental deception as a contributing party. It involves manipulating another person’s thoughts in order to gain control over them.

Gas-lighting is when someone tries to change your life. Narcissists are incapable of accepting accountability for their actions. Instead, they attack others as if they were a source of shame and claim that they are not capable of experiencing terrible feelings.

The facts of gaslighters’ victims are used against them. To gain the upper hand and exert control over how the victim perceives their environment, they modify events, memory, emotions, and even how their victims react to their reality. They take control of their victim’s life like a puppeteer, and the victim starts looking to the abuser for approval.

Because there are no overt signs of abuse, this type of emotional abuse is the most common. There is no physical violence or yelling like being beaten by your spouse. Instead, emotional breakdown and a loss of control are the signs of abuse, and the person who gaslighted you seizes control of your life and changes into it.

Although a relationship need not be romantic in order for this phenomenon to occur, relationships are where it most frequently occurs. Gaslighting is probably something that we have all experienced at some point, whether it was at work, among coworkers, at home with our siblings, or in our social circles with friends.

Most likely, you are unaware that you have been deceived. The risk is present right there. Since the abuser has taken control of even our ability to rebel, it is a sort of abuse that is challenging to acknowledge. In a word, gaslighting is dangerous.

Charm is one quality that con artists seem to possess in large quantities. They are usually decent people that exude a lot of charisma, which might make it challenging for you to detect their external appearance. However, there are a number of unique ways, and these include:

Withholding

Here, the deceiver pretends to not comprehend their victims in order to keep track of what they know or what is true. They might start a sentence with, “Are you attempting to confuse me by? ” or “Please don’t accompany this again. Have I not told you…?

It is a trick to confuse the victim by giving him or her the impression that they are mistaken or have misunderstood the circumstance.

Countering

The victim’s statements are depicted as incorrect since the victim is held accountable for their carelessness or miscommunication despite having exceptional memory.

Diverting

By altering the subject of the conversation, the deceiver in this case tries to divert the victim or get them to reflect on themselves. “I’m sure your insane sister told you to screen my calls,” as an example. Or you may say, “None of this is true; you’re making things up to upset me.

Downplaying Facts

If the victim is offended by something unpleasant or exhibits fear, and the deceiver teases the circumstance or downplays its gravity, the victim may react angrily and feel like a child. You may hear expressions such as, “You’re mad about that?”

Outright Denial

While convincing the victim that they have never made any promises and that the entire transaction took place in the victim’s head, the deceiver will not keep the promises that they have made. For instance, “I never suggested you wait until I was here to eat dinner!”

Pathologizing

Particularly vicious con artists can try and play specialist with your mental health and ‘diagnose’ you with instability in an effort to hide their behavior.

In an effort to disturb their victims, they may then assert that you are “unstable,”, “spacey,” or “vengeful.” They may even suggest that you consult a psychiatrist while pretending to be concerned for your well-being, which will persuade you that there is actually a problem with you.

Discrediting

In the name of helping you, a deceiver spreads false information about you among your circle of friends. They will give off the impression that they are worried about you and take advantage of that to persuade others that you are lying or behaving strangely.

They might also try to distance you from the individuals you usually rely on for support by saying that they believe you are crazy.

Put Blames on You

A con artist is constantly looking for a reason to put the victim on the hook for their inappropriate behavior. If you make an effort to talk to them about how they’ve harmed you, they can change the subject, which would make you think that you are to blame for their actions.

Shaming

Another tactic employed by deceivers to keep their victims quiet is to humiliate them by making them feel bad about having been taken advantage of. Then, when they say it’s all in your head, ask them to please apologize for revealing an unprofessional behavior that you pointed out.

If your husband has been unfaithful, he might respond, “I can’t trust you to think that I would devalue our relationship in that way! He can say, “If you think I did this, it shows you haven’t been faithful to me.

Goals of Gaslighting

In every situation and in all kinds of relationships, abusers use gaslighting to manipulate their victims. There are five main objectives of gaslighters:

Disable Discernment in the Victim

The victim of gaslighting has ambiguity and confusion. It could be challenging for the victim to distinguish between right and wrong, healthy and unhealthy, and their perspective from that of their abuser because they doubt their judgment and observations. Gaslighting can give victims the impression that they lack the ability to assess the situation’s truth.

Silence the Victim

Making someone doubt their credibility by gaslighting is a powerful way to get them to stop talking. By lying and damaging their victim’s reputation, abusers will reduce their victim’s voice’s impact and audience. They might persuade the victim that they are such a suspect witness that no one will trust them.

Establish a Sense of Entitlement Over the Victim

Abusers compel their victims into giving up control over their own reality and force them to adopt their point of view. Gaslighters use “alternative information” to replace their victim’s opinions with their own. Gaslighters ignore the opinions of their victims.

They prefer to feel confident, powerful, respected, at ease, and in charge. Because they believe they have the authority to change another person’s reality rather than challenging their own, abusers manipulate their victims.

Degrade and Chastise the Victim

By portraying the victim’s emotional response to abuse as childish or immature, gaslighters may demean and denigrate victims. Criticizing a victim for retaliating to a provocation implies the victim’s fault rather than abuser’s. Abusers may also minimize the accomplishments or successes of their victims in order to demean them.

The gaslighter may criticize the victim for feeling proud and imply that, if the victim worked hard enough, they would have evidence of their accomplishments that would be worthy of that pride.

Legitimize Their Treatment of the Victim

Gaslighting can be used to persuade the victim that the abuse being committed by the abuser is legitimate. They become increasingly dependent on and receptive to the gaslighter’s reality as their confidence in their own skills declines.

Additionally, victims are less inclined to oppose or challenge abusive behaviors when they think they deserve the treatment they get. Furthermore, the gaslighter may persuade himself that their harsh behavior is in the victim’s best interest and that their behavior is acceptable.