Spotlight on Gaslighting

You feel confused and crazy. You’re always apologizing, wondering if you are good enough, can’t understand why you feel so bad all the time, or know something is wrong but can’t put your finger on it. You thought one thing, they say another; you can’t figure out which is right.
~"How to Survive Gaslighting: When Manipulation Erases Your Reality" by Ariel Leve, The Guardian

I was the most selfish, self-centered child in the world. I never thought of anyone but myself. Those were the words my mother flung at me, often enough that I could recite them by heart. And often enough that they made their way into my heart and began to feel like truth. 
Once, at the age of 12 and coveting a pair of shiny black shoes like the popular girls wore, I went shopping with my best friend and her mother. My father had given me money to buy shoes. The ones I wanted were a bit more money. I called him and he gave me permission to get the ones I wanted. I returned home to a drunk mother who took one look at the shoes and began her mantra. "You are the most selfish, self-centered child in the world. You never think of anyone but yourself." I fought back, insisting that dad had said it was okay. She took the shoebox and hit me over the head with it. Those shoes that I had loved, that had felt like a key into a world of popular kids, became something else. Evidence of my shortcomings. An attempt to fit into a world that didn't want me. 
It didn't end there, of course. I would refer to an argument that had happened when my parents were drunk. "What are you talking about?" my mother would ask. "There was no argument." 
I would make mention of events that had taken place only to be told that I "had such an imagination." That I "loved to tell stories."
To complicate things, I did love to tell stories. I was a devoted reader and dreamed of being an author. Was I making things up? Did it happen like I remembered? Or was I a liar, so pathological that I couldn't discern between fact and fiction? 
I still struggle. Despite working as a journalist for three decades – including a stint as a fact-checker at a magazine where my job was to, literally, discern fact from fiction – I can easily mistrust myself. Not because I've often been wrong. But because my mother's gaslighting was so effective.
So effective that when I could see – it was obvious! – that my husband was hiding things, I still trusted his version of events over my own. 
It's crazy-making. And nobody felt crazier than I.
Or, perhaps, you.
"The term “gaslighting” refers to when someone manipulates you into questioning and second-guessing your reality," writes Ariel Leve in her story for The Guardian. Leve grew up with a narcissistic mother, classic training ground for gaslighting. 
It's a world where up is down, where black is white. You make a complaint, you're accused of being ungrateful. You ask for something, you're selfish. 
Lots of us subjected to gaslighting learn to become small, almost invisible. Easier to erase ourselves than draw attention.
Others fully absorb the message of our gaslighters. We are selfish. We are ungrateful. We aren't worthy of love. 
And still others, like me, cling like hell to our version of events. I suspect part of what saved me was that I kept a journal. And within those pages, lay the truth. Well, my truth based on objective facts. There had been a fight. These words had been spoken. These things had been thrown. Whatever my mother (or my father who mightn't have been a ringleader but was certainly complicit) said, I had documented what really happened. And I could reassure myself that I wasn't crazy. 
I survived though it took plenty of therapy to deprogram some of those internalized messages. And I still struggle. It has only been recently that I feel comfortable giving myself certain luxuries. I don't expect myself to "earn" nice things like I used to. It's okay to want things because I want them. It's okay to give myself what I need even before making sure that everyone else is taken care of. It's called self-care. And it don't come easy...
These days though, when my husband insists to our children that he wasn't late leaving to take them to school when to any one of us who can tell the time, he was, I tend to over-react. I've talked to my kids about refusing to accept another's version of events over their own but to rather look at objective facts. My husband's tendency to defend himself no matter what (thanks to his highly critical mother) met my tendency to question myself no matter what (thanks to my gaslighting mother) and created a marriage primed for conflict. But we've both worked hard to change those old scripts. I point out (sometimes rather loudly) when he's gaslighting. He points out (sometimes exasperatedly) when I'm over-reacting.
We're living in an upside-down world right now. Objective facts are called fake news or alternative facts. Truth is twisted more than ever, it seems.
But we can learn to trust ourselves and what's right in front of us. We can challenge those other versions of events, whether they're happening in our homes or on the front pages of newspapers.

"Alternative Facts": When We're Told We're Crazy for Seeing What's in Front of Us

As I write this, there's yet another political scandal, this time involving a nominee for a lifetime Supreme Court appointment.
The Internet is practically on fire with people on both sides but along with my outrage I'm struck by how familiar this all feels. Familiar too, I suspect, for you.
We live in a culture in which women's reality is constantly challenged. Not just women, of course. People who are poor. People who are ethnic minorities. People of color. But living in this culture, in which we are constantly questioning and being questioned about our objective reality is crazy-making.
And it grooms us, to some extent for what is pejoratively (and unironically) called "alternative facts":
"She's just a friend."
"We haven't even met in person."
"Why were you even looking at my phone?"
"What...are you following me now?"
"You're acting crazy."
"I can't talk to you when you're so hysterical."
Etcetera.
Etcetera.
We will find ourselves on the defensive. Forget that you've just presented credible evidence that he's cheating on you, YOU will be the one being challenged.
"Your phone was right there. The message flashed."
"I'm not hysterical. I'm just upset."
"I didn't follow you! I saw your car in a strange driveway."
Etcetera.
Etcetera.
Our culture grooms us for this from childhood. We're too sensitive (for pointing out that people say and do incredibly insensitive things.) We have such an imagination (when we point out something that people would prefer remained hidden).
We're hysterical.
We're crazy.
We're emotional.
We're hormonal.
We're jealous.
But the danger of our culture dismissing us grows more dangerous when we begin gaslighting ourselves. When we agree that we're not credible witnesses.
Consider the ways in which your reality has been challenged throughout your life. Those of us who grew up with addiction or neglect or abuse will have a long list of ways in which we denied reality to not rock the boat.
But even those of you in relatively healthy homes can likely recall incidents in which you were subtly or not-so-subtley told to keep quiet because you won't be believed. It's what our culture does to women. Be quiet about the teacher putting his hand on your knee. You don't want to be responsible for him losing his job, after all, he has a wife and kids. Don't make a fuss about the date who was convinced you wanted it. Instead, question your own conduct – after all, what were you wearing? Why out so late? And you were drinking?
My 15-year-old was waiting on a busy street Friday night to be picked up from a theatre program she's involved in. She mentioned yesterday that some guys were hollering at her from across the street. As she told me this, it was as though she was running it through some cultural brain filter in order to make sense of it. It seemed that she was talking less to me than herself. "I was wearing a long t-shirt over a pair of shorts," she mused, wondering aloud that cultural question: What did I do to invite this unwanted attention?
My heart sank. This is a girl who has been told her entire life that her story matters. That her truth matters. That she's believable.
And she's doubting herself.
For all of you out there being told that your suspicions are somehow "crazy", that what you know in your gut is happening isn't happening, that you're just "jealous", I'm with you.
You're not crazy. You're not a hysterical wife.
Far more likely, you are picking up a zillion tiny clues indicating that something's not right here. As best you can, be still. Pay attention to those clues. Collect evidence, if only to remind yourself that your reality is, in fact, reality.
And brace yourself for the gaslighting. For the pushback. For the minimizing.
There's an army of us behind you who believe every word you're saying. Because it's true.

When We Gaslight Ourselves

I was hiking through the snowy woods on Saturday when my friend told me that her husband had called her a "fucking idiot" the day before. Stunned, I listened as she told the story, which was basically about him asking her to do something, criticizing how she was doing it and then, when she asked why he asked for her help if he was only going to criticize her, he exploded.
I asked how she responded. "I don't any more. I'm used to it."
Did you catch that? This lovely kind capable woman was called a "fucking idiot" by her husband she's "used to it."
I asked her when that sort of behaviour was ever acceptable. Talking to a child? No, of course not. Talking to an employee? Nope. Talking to a neighbour? A friend? It's absolutely not okay (not even on Twitter!!) to call anyone a "fucking idiot" to their face. It's cruel. It's demeaning. It's dehumanizing.
But...she's used to it.
As anyone on this site (and off it) knows, I'm absolutely a cheerleader for women who want to rebuild their marriages after infidelity. I don't subscribe to "once a cheater, always a cheater". I don't believe that the only response to infidelity is to "lose a cheater, gain a life". In fact, I think our  culture's knee-jerk response to infidelity keeps a lot of women unnecessarily silent and feeling trapped. I think we would all benefit from a far more open discussion of infidelity, its ubiquity and the myriad responses to it – all worthy of respect.
However, I never advocate anyone staying in a relationship when there's any kind of abuse. (And yes, I know, some people insist that infidelity is abuse. I'm not one of them.) And though my friend's marriage isn't marked by infidelity, it is rife with verbal abuse.
And yet, she's "used to it."
Part of the problem with abuse, of course, is that is often happens slowly. By the time someone is screaming "fucking idiot" at us, we're silently agreeing. We've likely listened for months if not years as our faults were routinely catalogued: we screw up, we forget things, we get in the way. No matter that every single person on the planet is guilty of the same – we're human, after all – we're treated as annoyances. We're people to be endured, not enjoyed. To be barely tolerated, not valued.
And we begin to gaslight ourselves.
Gaslighting, of course, is when we begin to doubt our own perception. We see it play out almost daily with "Fake News" (things that are true being called untrue) has become the rallying cry of a the extreme members of an entire American political party. When we're told up is down and black is white, we begin to wonder if we're crazy. Many of us experience a level of gaslighting while our partners cheat. If we ask our partners, we're often told that we're imagining things, that we're acting jealous, that we're being insulting by even implying that they might cheat. (And, okay, here's where I would agree that infidelity can be abusive. Gaslighting is abuse.) We begin to wonder if WE are the crazy ones because what we think we see and what we're told we see are two very different things.
But when we begin to gaslight ourselves, to insist that what's happening isn't – can't be! –  happening, we're onto a level of self-harm.
And that scares me more.
Because it means we've normalized the lies. We've internalized them. We agree with them.
Which breaks my heart.
My friend is the farthest thing from a "fucking idiot." But she resists the idea that someone screaming that in her face is abuse. Her father had a "temper", which you can bet looked and sounded something like this. Her son's father threw her around. Her husband criticizes her so frequently that she's "used to it."
So I'm asking you: What behaviour are you tolerating that, if you were hiking through the snowy woods with a trusted friend, you'd be afraid to disclose? Maybe it's casual insults. It might be the occasional push. Do you get told you "can't take a joke", that you "don't have a sense of humour" when your husband "teases"? Does he threaten to leave or "give up" when you try to set boundaries? Does he accuse you of what you think he's doing? Does he use divorce as a trump card any time you demand accountability from him?
We can push back against gaslighting. We can take our perceptions and ask trusted friends, "what do you make of this?" We can talk to a therapist who can tell us, clearly, if what we're experiencing is abuse. We can try to imagine the advice we'd give a friend if she confided the same behaviour from her husband.
And we can begin to find the small still voice deep inside that has almost gone silent. We can begin to listen to it. The one that tells us we don't deserve any of this. The one that holds our own divine spark. That knows we're worthy of being loved. That one that would never ever call us a "fucking idiot". Because it's not true.

Seizing Power from the Gaslighters

After a weekend taking to the streets with so many incredible sister warriors who refuse to any longer tolerate a culture that asks us to sit down and be quiet, that tells us we have to endure disrespect of our bodies, that says we should be grateful for the strides women have made even if we're still not making the same money as a man for the same job (women of colour have an even larger wage gap), I'm more ready than ever to push back.
Let's start, shall we, with this notion of "alternative facts".
How many of us were treated to "alternative facts" in our marriage? Such as, "you're being ridiculous. We're just friends." Or "I was at the office. I can't believe you're giving me a hard time for putting a roof over our heads." Or "you're acting crazy. There's nothing going on." Check out our Stupid Shit Cheaters Say thread for plenty of "alternative facts".
But though we can sometimes laugh, let's not overlook how dangerous and destabilizing this behaviour this. Gaslighting is emotional abuse.
It creates an alternate reality in which one person is told that they can't trust their eyes, their ears or, especially, their intuition. It is crazy-making and I can remember wondering if I was, literally, losing my mind. Because what was coming out of my husband's mouth just didn't match up with what I was seeing play out in front of me.
The gaslighter knows we want to believe that we're wrong. We want reassurance that things aren't what they appear to me. We want to be told that, despite evidence or intuition to the contrary, everything is just fine and the person we trust most in the world is, in fact, worthy of that trust.
Some of us do sit down and be quiet. We endure the disrespect we get in our own homes and the larger world. We swallow our resentment and try to be grateful for the strides women have made.
But then we reach a tipping point and we just can't tolerate it any longer. Not in our homes. Not in our culture. Not in the world.
I'm having a visceral response to the public gaslighting we're seeing because it has triggered that same sense of helplessness and frustration, that fear that I'm the only sane one. Or am I the crazy one?
There are times, of course, when we're wrong. When the lunch with a co-worker really is innocent. When coming home late really is because of an accident that tied up traffic.
But there are times, oh don't we all know it too well, when we're right but being told we're wrong. When we're told that those texts don't mean anything when they clearly do. When we're chastised for being nosy even as we're turning up proof that he's lying. When we're told we're the crazy ones.
Challenge that with every ounce of strength you have. Challenge anyone who responds to your suspicion with empty platitudes or who turns it against you. Challenge anyone whose response to your genuine fear of betrayal is anything other than, what do you need from me to trust me? Let's work together to build trust of each other. 
And watch carefully what's playing out in front of your eyes on the public stage because it gives you a gaslighter's playbook. Watch provable facts become twisted. Watch as people who know better change the subject or turn the question back on the questioner. Watch as self-righteous indignation – "how can you even suggest such a thing" – is employed to imply that WE are the crazy ones for questioning any of this. Watch as "fake news" is used as a shield against any information that the gaslighter doesn't like.
Watch as "alternative facts", which are, of course, lies, are presented as simply a difference of opinion. Facts aren't opinion. They are facts.
And then refuse to tolerate it in your marriage.

Your Guide to the Classic Cheater...Caught

At first, my husband told me I was just wrong when I said I thought something was "going on" with him and his assistant. I kept pressing. Over the course of the next 12 hours, my husband's confession went from a one-night-stand four years ago to a long-term affair that BEGAN four years ago and had continued up until the moment I confronted him. Six months later, more truth emerged. She wasn't the only partner he'd had -- he was receiving treatment for sex addiction and his acting out had began before I met him...and continued until the day I confronted him about his assistant.
Unfortunately, my husband's trickle truth isn't unusual. Most men, when confronted with their wive's suspicions, don't immediately confess. Instead, depending on how much evidence of their transgression they're faced with, reveal as little as possible. In some cases, they've been caught in flagrante delicto...and still try and convince their wives that they're innocent. It's a sad fact that the information you receive upon first confronting your spouse or upon just discovering their betrayal is generally only a tiny piece of the truth. It's important to demand the whole truth and insist that what they tell you up front had better be the whole story. It's so much worse to keep on finding out more and more with time...it's becomes like a nightmare that won't end.
Many men frequently turn to blame-shifting when confronted. Suddenly you're defending yourself against allegations of everything from being a lousy housekeeper to a workaholic. No matter that you haven't picked up a vacuum since the Clinton administration or that he needs to schedule an appointment with your assistant to see you for dinner. Before you get sucked into the blame-shifting for his affair, remind yourself as often as necessary that you will take inventory of your own contribution to a marriage in trouble...but that the affair is entirely HIS choice.
Gaslighting is another classic response. You're crazy, he suggests. You've got such an imagination. He's just being a good guy, offering support to a work colleague whose husband is abusive. Or he's just been really, really busy with...well...stuff. Before you know it, you're agreeing with him and laughing at how ridiculous you've been. After all, he would never do that. He loves you too much. Right?? Uh...no. Gaslighters are masters at convincing you that your reality isn't...real. That their perception is reality and that yours is crazy. Your memory is faulty. You're over-reacting. You're just stressed out and imagining things. You're determined to ruin a good thing. Except that you're not. You're just in the presence of a gaslighter.
Of course, not all accused men are guilty. And yet...when I look back at how much behaviour I dismissed and how frequently I accepted his gaslighting as reality because I so badly wanted it to be. I silenced that little voice in my head that insisted that something just wasn't right. Ask yourself honestly whether you are over-reacting or being unnecessarily jealous...or whether that little voice is trying to get your attention. And listen to yourself...not all his gas-lighting.

Surviving to Thriving: How to Get from Here...to There

"Survival," my wise and wonderful friend Merri said, "is a good skill. But it's not a good life skill."
So often, she explained, we behave in ways that serve us well in a crisis...but do us a disservice once the crisis dies down. For example, surviving in the early days of discovering a spouse's betrayal can enable you to function in your job and ensure that your kids don't go hungry or get abandoned. It can prevent you from seeking continually seeking solace at the bottom of a wine bottle or bag of Oreos. But it's no way to live the rest of your life.
Betrayal, however, can be so devastating that it triggers a crisis response that doesn't go away with time – especially if a spouse continues with his gaslighting ("you're crazy", "you're just being jealous", "you're trying to control who I'm friends with" blah blah blah) or openly continues the affair.
When it goes on too long, our survival coping strategies – minimizing, denial, compartmentalization – start to feel normal to us. We stop noticing the knot in our stomach when our spouse comes home late without explanation. We ignore our feelings of powerlessness in favor of keeping the peace.
And it's not a bad thing...during a crisis. Sometimes it's all we can do to keep ourselves functioning until we can figure out a plan. Perhaps we need to go back to school to ensure we're employable if we decide to separate or divorce. Maybe we need to upgrade our skills. Put aside some money. Find somewhere else to live. See a lawyer and learn our rights. Get therapy for ourselves and insist that your spouse does too.
The key is recognizing that our crisis response only works in the short-term. Our goal in life shouldn't be to survive...but to thrive. And if you aren't thriving in your marriage then it's time to come up with a plan.
And that, wives of betrayal, is why an affair can sometimes be a good thing. It can force us to face the fact that, on some level, our marriages aren't working. Likely not just for one partner, but both.
Yes, an affair is an immature and wildly selfish response on our husband's part. Yes, it's brutally painful.
But if it means we take a hard look at our lives and spurs us to action, then perhaps it's a painful lesson. Survival is for reality show contestants. Thriving is for real life.