Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
I've read a lot recently to try to understand gaslighting, and found a lot of it sounded very familiar in my last relationship.... But I'm not quite sure. What are your experiences with being gaslighted? Here are a couple examples from my relationship that I can recall.... Either that, or I'm just crazy. x_x
1. He would often make promises to me, then when I brought them up later he would deny he ever said that. He also claimed that I made certain promises to him that I never remember making.
2. He's told me several times, "you know you have such a bad memory."
3. I am not particularly proud of this example because I know what I did on my part was wrong, but.... at the beginning of our relationship, he admited to cheating on me with his ex. I forgave him, but was suspicious. I noticed one night that he was on his phone the whole night, happened to glance over his shoulder, and could see he was talking to his ex.. about a day later, he's taking a shower and his phone is beside me... I see it light up with a text notification from his ex. Curiosity got the better of me and I snooped. I discovered messages where he was begging his ex to come back to him. Of course, upset, I confronted him with the evidence right in front of us and he somehow denies it.... or made up a BS story... of course, I forgive him. As time went on, he continued to deny it ever happened, or changed the story of what the messages said... the memory is a little foggy now, but I think that is his doing.
4. This one disturbs me the most. I really hope it was him messing with my head, otherwise, maybe I should be concerned. Often times I'd be laying down to sleep next to him at night at his house and I swore I could hear faint music or the tv from the other room... I'd ask him if he heard it and he'd always say no. He would use this later on in arguments to accuse me of being crazy and not knowing what I was talking about. But ever since I've moved out, I don't hear anything like that anymore.
I'm sure I could think of other instances, but these stand out the most... Are these examples of gaslighting? I felt like I was going crazy.
1. He would often make promises to me, then when I brought them up later he would deny he ever said that. He also claimed that I made certain promises to him that I never remember making.
2. He's told me several times, "you know you have such a bad memory."
3. I am not particularly proud of this example because I know what I did on my part was wrong, but.... at the beginning of our relationship, he admited to cheating on me with his ex. I forgave him, but was suspicious. I noticed one night that he was on his phone the whole night, happened to glance over his shoulder, and could see he was talking to his ex.. about a day later, he's taking a shower and his phone is beside me... I see it light up with a text notification from his ex. Curiosity got the better of me and I snooped. I discovered messages where he was begging his ex to come back to him. Of course, upset, I confronted him with the evidence right in front of us and he somehow denies it.... or made up a BS story... of course, I forgive him. As time went on, he continued to deny it ever happened, or changed the story of what the messages said... the memory is a little foggy now, but I think that is his doing.
4. This one disturbs me the most. I really hope it was him messing with my head, otherwise, maybe I should be concerned. Often times I'd be laying down to sleep next to him at night at his house and I swore I could hear faint music or the tv from the other room... I'd ask him if he heard it and he'd always say no. He would use this later on in arguments to accuse me of being crazy and not knowing what I was talking about. But ever since I've moved out, I don't hear anything like that anymore.
I'm sure I could think of other instances, but these stand out the most... Are these examples of gaslighting? I felt like I was going crazy.
My ex would do you number 1 and 2 all the time. If we got in an argument he'd deny he said something that he had just said 2 minuets before, and I'd actually stop the conversation and backtrack in my head to try and remember why I thought he'd said it and he didn't, if I was confusing a different conversation, or if I'd heard it wrong. Now, my memory for linguistics is excellent, I can usually remember conversations verbatim (some people think in numbers or pictures-I think in words). And he'd still deny he said it, and by then my focus would no longer be on whatever we were discussing, but instead on my confusion about what was said.
He rewrote history a lot, saying I pretended to be happy in our marriage (I was clearly miserable and tried to fix things for years-told him twice before I got out for good that I was leaving him), and yet somehow he had "no idea" I was unhappy because things were so wonderful.
He would make assumptions in his head about what I did, or my motivations for things and it didn't matter how much evidence there was that it was untrue, or how much I tried to explain myself-he help onto those crazy ideas and acting as if the story in his head he'd made up was true. It was almost like he thought he could convince me my own knowledge was wrong just by continuing to assert his was true and acting like it was true.
Trivializing was a tactic he used every day, my thoughts and feelings were never important or "correct" that was a daily occurrence. For example, complaints about our relationship were really about my problems sleeping (you don't sleep so you can't think straight), or my job was too stressful (which also worked well for making me feel incapable-I can't handle the stress of my job), stuff like that.
If I disagreed with something thought we should do, he'd go and do it anyway, and say "I thought we agreed on this?" when I found out.
These are just the things that stick out, when you're in a constant state of elevated stress and confusion I've found a lot of things start to get fuzzy. Sometimes I'll be doing or thinking about something unrelated and a memory will crop up and I'll that "Oh, yeah, that WAS effed up!
So, I got a hobby that I enjoyed, and did take up some time. Not only did he constantly have glazed eyes and pointedly ignored me when I tried to share anything I found interesting about it, he made fun of me about it constantly, because it wasn't a hobby he thought was "cool" or interesting. Apparently I should have ASKED him what list of approved hobbies I could choose from that he wouldn't find ridiculous??? He then actually got jealous about the time I spent on the hobby, even though the time I spent was not taking away from me dropping everything I was ever doing to attend to his needs. He said he wished I spent that much time with him, and was that interested in him, I was obsessed, blah, blah, blah. I remember thinking, you WANTED me to get this hobby, you thought it would fill some void in my life that made a an uninteresting loser, and now you are begrudging me this hobby and act like it's a stupid waste of time and that YOU are the one whose neglected. I was so confused!
Gaslighting.
YES.
Convincing the victim
that her reality is an
illusion, is the goal
of a gaslighter.
The fact that you felt
like you were "going
crazy" is one of the
signs that he was
gaslighting you and
that his gaslighting
tactics were effective.
You are not crazy.
You were gaslighted.
Mine will tell other people how he is so proud of the stuff I make, then complain to me about working on it. He tells me things like not spending time with him makes him sad, but when I offer to come downstairs to watch a movie, he insists we turn off the light, which means I can't crochet. I also sell my work, so he is basically interfering with my work when he does this. He has been better about it lately, but I have actually just gotten up and went back upstairs when he has done this, then he complained that I was putting my work first.
Once, my dad was doing his nice act and saying I had spent a lot of time on something, and I said, "Oh, last week you said I didn't do half as much work as anyone else." He stopped and said, "Did I?" That was priceless. I thought, "Why do you bother arguing with me if you can't even remember half the things you've said? You could have said ANYTHING and not remembered. You're the one with the abysmal memory."
But I'm sure he did remember, he was just caught unawares when I pulled him up on it. They have very good memories in fact. Especially for things that they can use against you later. And anyway, they lie all the time. Just because they look as if they really forgot/couldn't hear something, it doesn't mean that's what really happened.
Number 4 happened, but not in terms of sound. One of mine would insist that there were weird smells everywhere that only they could possibly 'detect' or be bothered by. I did feel like I was going crazy, but more than with the other two types, it was just really really annoying.
Number 3 happened as well. I got an, "I never said that" that, if worded correctly, should have been an, "I never TYPED that."
And of course, I had a copy of the message to prove that they had.
Youre crazy that never happened.
Are you sure? You tend to have a bad memory.
Its all in your head.
"You're blowing this out of proportion"
"I didn't say that. You're taking my words out of context."
"Uh? I don't know what you're talking about."
"I don't remember..."
"You're crazy/insane/overly emotional/hyper-sensitive."
I, too, started to investigate or "snoop" to find out what was going one. And whenever I did, he was on the alert and tried harder to hide evidence. He became a better liar.
SIGNS YOU ARE BEING GASLIGHTED:
You constantly second-guess yourself.
You ask yourself, Am I too sensitive? multiple times a day.
You often feel confused and even crazy.
Youre always apologizing to your partner.
You cant understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you arent happier.
You frequently make excuses for your partners behavior to friends and family.
You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you dont have to explain or make excuses.
You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.
You have trouble making simple decisions.
You have the sense that you used to be a very different person more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
You feel hopeless and joyless.
You feel as though you cant do anything right.
You wonder if you are a good enough partner.
my friend was very obsessed over someone and causing a lot of grief to me for several reasons. But then she would deny she was obsessed even though she did completely mental things and seemed to change personalities.
I feel that when someone gaslights you, it's like you take their blame. It's another way for the abuser to turn their shame around on you!
He would always claim I never invited him anywhere, and would "abandon" him. Funny, because when I would invite him out, he would sulk and barely communicate, or he would decline the invitation.
I felt nuts!