Someone recently told me that they sometimes feel gaslighted around me because I effortlessly make them question their beliefs and feelings. Hearing that didn’t sit well with me, especially since I’ve been pondering the question in the title for quite some time.
I’ve always been quite critical of myself and don’t consider myself a very nice person. When I discover that someone doesn’t enjoy being around me, I don’t blame them one bit. It’s not like I’m intentionally mean or abusive; quite the opposite, actually. I have very strong morals. However, this includes things like not lying, which means I always speak the truth, even if not everyone likes hearing it. I don’t conform to many social norms expected of me.
Despite all of this, I have deep relationships with several people and especially the elderly and for example the parents of my past girlfriends have all liked me a lot. But I can’t help but wonder why they don’t see me as I see myself. I worry that I’m hiding the true me so well that people don’t actually like me, but rather the facade I unknowingly maintain. Then again, a true psychopath probably wouldn’t be second-guessing themselves in this manner.
What does it mean? It’s a relatively new term and I’ve seen it used to describe everything from accidental logical fallacies to being short-changed at the liquor store
I’m going to try to explain the origins from memory so someone who knows more will probably explain better.
It comes from an book or a movie, where a husband is planning something nefarious (don’t remember if it’s a murder or something) and he uses the attic of his house to do it. This is set back in the days when they used gas for lighting things and when he turns on the lighting in the attic, it causes the lights to change (probably get dimmer) in the rest of the house. His wife notices this and brings it up to him, since he obviously doesn’t want to reveal that he is the one causing it, he constantly convinces his wife that it’s all in her head and that she might be losing her mind.
From the wiki article describing the play/movie the phrase comes from:
“In the story, the husband secretly dims and brightens the indoor gas-powered lighting but insists his wife is imagining it, making her think she is going insane.”
Imo it’s when someone is deceived by a person who lies about the actual state of affairs/reality to make the other person question what they experienced as credible. I don’t think that’s the same as when someone helps question beliefs in general because skepticism is good to make sure we aren’t self deluding, but if that person is lying about reality to manipulate them it becomes bad/gaslighting.
Another example I think is from it’s always sunny in Philadelphia in the episode where Dennis and Mac go to live in the suburbs and Mac asks Dennis if he hears a beeping the audience can hear and Dennis says he can’t until he blows up saying of course he can when berating Mac. Dennis is angry at Mac and in retaliation he gaslights him about the annoying beeping sound to manipulate him into questioning if the beeping is real or an audio hallucination.
Edit: just realized it’s possible it’s always sunny was doing an homage to Gaslight in that episode as they’ve done similar things in the past with other older movies and TV shows
Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply to my hasty, poorly put together message. The point I was trying to make was that the original meaning has been lost when the word became popular. It is a somewhat obscure word with a loose definition based on an obscure reference and it describes something for which the language was more than ready to describe anyway. I think that instead of telling people to try and use the word correctly, one should tell then to not use it at all.
Gaslighting is the process of making someone question their own beliefs. It’s usually seen in the context of abusive relationships, but any person can gaslight any other person in whatever context (i.e., politics, etc).
No, that is exactly the over-broad, willy-nilly, tossed-around definition they were talking about. Gaslighting has a much more insidious context than simply making someone question themselves. It means doing it on purpose; intentionally lying to someone and trying to convince them that they’re crazy. Like if I said I was going to the grocery and then when I came back with nothing, I insisted I never said that. Or if i borrowed $50 and when it came time to pay you back, I try to tell you I only borrowed $25. It’s inherently deceptive and cruel.
It’s not really beliefs in the general sense, it’s making them question reality, their memory, their reasons for doing things.
Plus with the context of malicious intent and lying.
Getting a racist to question their racist beliefs isn’t gaslighting, but would fit the vague definition of getting someone to question their reality, their memory, and their reason for doing things when they have fallen into racist dogma.