Gaslighting refers to a process in which one individual is trying to make another person question their own reality and making them feel crazy through psychological manipulation. I experienced gaslighting by my husband during our marriage. For example, after many years of strife in our marriage, he agreed to go to couples counseling with me. We attended several sessions together where he played the dutiful husband who was there to participate and hopefully make things better. It was bewildering to know what he was like behind closed doors and then watch his changed demeanor in counseling sessions. It caused me to question my reality. Maybe I was wrong, maybe he was there for me, willing to do anything to make our marriage work, and I made all these problems up, or, worse, maybe I was the problem in our relationship. I was the crazy hysterical spouse (I think as he wanted me to look), and he was there to help me, which made him look good. While I experienced this and other kinds of gaslighting from my husband (now ex-husband) who displayed psychopathic traits during our marriage, something that is perhaps as devastating is what I would call “inadvertent gaslighting.”
Inadvertent gaslighting is gaslighting carried out by people unknowingly and is unintended. Inadvertent gaslighting can have the same outcome as intentional gaslighting, in which the victim questions their perceptions of reality. I began to experience inadvertent gaslighting during my divorce when I confided in my family and friends about my situation and by some people that were assisting to extract me from the marriage. Some of what I shared with family, friends and attorneys was inadvertently minimized, denied, ignored, and I was even blamed for the situation I found myself in.
Inadvertent Gaslighting Examples
Minimizing
One friend minimized the severity of my situation, not being able to reconcile their perception of my ex with my descriptions of his behaviors behind closed doors, let alone my labeling him a psychopath. One day, during the divorce process, after explaining to this friend (who knew both of us well) what my ex had been doing to me for years and that I thought he had psychopathy, they said, “There must be something wrong with him, but he can’t be a psychopath!” I also had similar reactions from family members who knew him well. The pushback that I received from some family and friends was a bit surprising to me, and it made me wonder if my perceptions of my ex were skewed.
Denying
One friend denied that the personality disorder of psychopathy exists. After much confiding in this friend about my situation including that I thought that my ex-husband’s behaviors were consistent with descriptions of psychopathy, I was told that everyone is born knowing right from wrong and, if they don’t, they have a seared conscience due to sinning. This made me question if psychopathy is a real disorder.
Ignoring
I was often ignored by my attorneys when I talked about my ex-husband’s character and when I mentioned that he was lying about many things. It was hard to deal with as my attorneys were representing me and not my ex, but it seemed to me that they just didn’t care that my ex was lying, and this made me question whether I was remembering things as they really were.
Blaming
I was held at a distance by some people who had been friends to both of us. Several friends decided to continue being friends with my ex and they even became friends with his new girlfriend. My friends distancing themselves from me made me feel isolated and that I was the bad person in the relationship, and the relationship had ended because of me.
In addition to being blamed for the divorce by some friends, I was also blamed for the breakup of my marriage by one of my ex-husband’s family members. This in-law conveyed to my mother one day in a grocery store that I had treated my ex badly, and that now he is doing better, after getting away from me. This revelation coming from a particular in-law was a complete shock to me as we had gotten along well for many years, even taking each other’s side at times in family matters. I had much respect for this person, so what was said weighed heavily on my mind. Perhaps this person was right, and the breakup was all my fault and that I had mistreated my ex badly.
Self-induced gaslighting
The inadvertent gaslighting that I experienced from people around me had a cumulative effect on me. Feeling minimized, ignored, blamed, and exposed to denial about psychopathy made me question my own judgment. I began ruminating, questioning everything over and over to the point that I began to gaslight myself (self-induced gaslighting).
I would wake up every morning questioning my perceptions of reality. I felt like I was Bill Murray (Phil, a TV weatherman) in the movie Groundhog Day, who relived the same day (Groundhog Day) repeatedly until he changed who he was. Unlike Mr. Murray, I relived trying to shift my thoughts from the view that I was making things up to the realization that my ex had done these things and likely had psychopathy. One thought I would ruminate on was: if my ex can live with someone else, then why couldn’t he live with me? It must have been me. There must be something wrong with me. I must be making everything up. Surely my ex can’t have psychopathy if someone else can live with him. I realized at some point that this rumination was slowing my recovery and that I had to stop it.
Having no further contact with my ex-husband eliminated the intended gaslighting. That left me to figure out how to stop all the unintended gaslighting that caused me to question my reality and self-induced gaslighting that kept me in a self-destructive loop and slowed down my recovery.
Recovery
My road to recovery has been a long one and it began when I recognized near the end of our marriage my husband had some psychopathic traits after reading a book, The Sociopath Next door, by Dr. Martha Stout. Thus started my journey of educating myself on psychopathy and removing myself from the marriage. Shutting down the inadvertent and self-induced gaslighting has been an integral part of my recovery.
After recognizing that inadvertent and self-induced gaslighting were causing me much grief, I slowly began talking openly about my ex-husband only with people very close to me, people who knew my situation and knew about psychopathy, to try and eliminate the inadvertent gaslighting. And to others, I started talking about my ex-husband’s behaviors instead of labeling him so as not to distract people from what I was trying to convey. Also, during the divorce stage, I started gathering information to give to my attorneys to expose my ex-husband’s lies in court.
Stopping the inadvertent gaslighting proved to be an easier part of my recovery. Stopping the rumination and self-gaslighting was harder. At first it was hard to quell the persistent thoughts that caused me to gaslight myself as I worked to be mindful of what I was thinking about and then challenge them with reality when they gained a grip on my conscious thinking. Over time doing this became more automatic to me, more habitual over time. My mindful challenges went something like these:
Minimizing
Thought – Maybe some of my friends and family are right, and my ex doesn’t have psychopathy.
Reality – I had not previously told my friends and family he was abusing me, physically and emotionally, so how could I expect them now to see him differently after I exposed some of his lies and his abuses of me behind closed doors.
Reality – Psychopathy is misunderstood. I had no knowledge of what psychopathy was until I researched it, so I should not expect others to understand either.
Denying
Thought – Maybe there is no such thing as psychopathy.
Reality – While there is much to be explored about psychopathy, there are hundreds of people researching it and a lot of evidence about the behavior of people with psychopathy.
Ignoring
Thought – I must be mis-remembering the things my ex did (when I was telling my attorneys about his lies).
Reality – Attorneys can only go to court with evidence, not “he said, she said”.
Reality – Time is money so attorneys must quickly sift through what their clients tell them and sometimes do not realize how the pieces fit together.
Blaming
Thought – I was the bad person in our relationship.
Reality – My ex is charming, and he can lie with ease. He probably misrepresented the facts to his family and friends as I have seen him do in the past.
Reality – It is hard to change people’s first impressions of others, and my ex-husband was able to talk to some of our friends first.
Blaming
Thought – It was my fault that our marriage broke up.
Reality – My ex-husband’s family never got to hear my side of the story.
Reality – Family members often stick together.
Maintenance
I continue to have no contact with my ex-husband to keep him and his gaslighting at bay. Concerning inadvertent gaslighting, I rarely talk about my ex-husband and psychopathy in the same sentence anymore, but, if I do, and the person I am talking to makes me want to question my reality, I cut them slack knowing that most likely they had not intended to do that. As far as gaslighting myself, most of the things I used to think about that challenged my accurate perceptions of reality have faded, but, on that rare occasion when I do, I pull out my mental list (a bit like the list above) to combat the harmful thought. Shutting down the rumination that gripped me by challenging each harmful thought helped me to free up space in my mind that was better used for positive things, such as taking classes at a university. Also, I continue to read books and research studies to reinforce what I already know about psychopathy and to fill in the gaps.
Written by a Survivor
