I hate to say anything negative about such an otherwise well written article, but what you have written here has the potential to result in harm for your readers.
Psychological terms are not simply words, the meaning of which can change over time with popular (mis)use … like ‘gay’ or ‘sick’ for instance … but very specific and it does nobody any good for them to be misused.
More than enough harm is done by the popular misuse of terms such as ‘schizophrenic’, ‘psychopath’ and ‘psychotic’ … please do not add ‘gaslighting’ to the list
Gaslighting is not what you have described here, but a far more serious behaviour that puts the victim in the category of the extremely at risk.
It is a conscious, deliberate, long-term strategy of denying someone’s reality in order to gain complete control over their mind and is, if you will, the MK Ultra of abuse strategies: the victim is brainwashed into believing their sense of reality is completely unreliable; by the time the abuser is done, their victim could even be uncertain of whether they can trust the evidence of their own eyes, let alone rely upon their own memory, and be unable to state anything with certainty.
Gaslighting is not simply ‘negging’ … the result of which might be that you buy a $500 coat for yourself on sale. As a result of gaslighting, you will not seek to boost your self esteem by purchasing a $500 coat, but will give the gaslighter $500 to purchase a coat on your behalf and when they subsequently return with a coat of significantly less value, allow them to sow the seeds of doubt that you gave them any more than what they claim the item cost. Eventually, you will grant them power of attorney over your finances, because you cannot trust yourself with your own money. If you have children, you may be convinced that they are conspiring against you and cut them out of your life and inheritance, giving it all to the gaslighter instead. If you are religious, you may be convinced that the best thing you can do for them as a parent would be to ‘give them to God’ and kill them. You may be convinced you are a bad parent and kill yourself … or both you and your children, leaving their gaslighter to inherit everything without those pesky kids being future flies in their ointment (which is what they married you for in the first place). Your children may themselves be gaslighted and their testimony used to have you locked in a mental institution, leaving the gaslighter their legal guardian. The list goes on and is as long as suits the gaslighter. In short, whatever the gaslighter says is true is what you (and, by extension, others) will believe to be true and you will be at the mercy of an individual who can only best be described as evil.
If you are being gaslighted, you are not simply being ‘negged’, you are … one way and/or another … in severe danger, at the hands of someone whose plan is considerably more nefarious than to make you feel bad about yourself and boost their own ego and/or status in the eyes of themselves and others.
People should learn what the term really means not only for their own sakes, but for that of others — knowing the difference between a friend’s/family member’s partner ’just’ being a mean spirited jerk/bitch and their being a psychopath/sociopath, manipulating their mind, can save lives.
As I said at the start, I don’t wish to be negative about what you have written here, it’s just that it is too serious a matter for me to leave unaddressed: just as psychopaths are not ‘psychotic’, axe-wielding serial killers and schizophrenics do not suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder (‘Multiple Personality Disorder’, as it is frequently, erroneously known), so gaslighters are not in the business of ‘negging’ you in order to belittle you and boost their own ego … they are far more dangerous than that — please, do not mislead yourself or your readers about that by misusing the term (however innocently). A great deal of harm is done by people misunderstanding the meanings of psychological terms and the World would be a far better place, I think, if the discipline were taught as a compulsory science subject in schools ¹, from a very early age — it could quite literally save lives.
Wikipedia is frequently surprisingly accurate about a lot of the terms used in Psychology and I would recommend that people use it as the starting point of not only learning more about gaslighting specifically but, furthermore, about personality disorders and, in particular, the ‘Cluster B’ personality disorders² … which are characteristic of the kind of individual most likely to use the technique of gaslighting.
—
¹ Note that Psychology is not Psychiatry or Psychoanalysis/Counselling/Therapy, but the scientific study of brain and behaviour — all psychiatrists and psychoanalysts should have studied some Psychology, but not all psychologists care about your mental health.
² Be wary of the seemingly innocuous description of their being characteristic of someone who, “struggles to relate to others”, however. Whilst, strictly speaking, that is true, it is more than a little anodyne and it’s better to follow up the articles on the specific disorders (especially Antisocial personality Disorder ³); those with these disorders do not simply struggle to relate, they have no sense of others’ worth or value as human beings and no qualms or scruples vis a vis their own behaviour … experiencing no remorse for any negative outcome of their actions towards others — they use, abuse and sleep soundly afterwards … because you can’t be troubled by your own misdeeds if you have no conscience to begin with.
³ The correct term for those who are are popularly labelled ‘psychopathic’ and ‘sociopathic’ personality types.
